Banana House & Wellness Centre Lamu

... some emergency US dollars. Dan please bring us some more I think you have better bring 400, as the cashpoints are often unfriendly. Anyway, when we arrived in the pouring rain, we found that Lamu has installed one cashpoint since the Lonely Planet 2006 edition was written and it was a friendly one. Our next new friend, Ali ...

Flew out of the Mara on the 31st and met up with my friend James in Nairobi and the New Kenya Lodge... a backpackers hostel. An interesting spot... right in the heart of the area in Nairobi that you don't want to be in after dark, but at $500 Kenyan Shillings per night the price was right! On our first night in Nairobi we ventured as far as right across the street from our hostel... had some extremely deep fried food for dinner (yuck) and then a couple of beers at the pub next door ...

Nach meinem Tauchkurs hatte ich eigentlich alles gesehen und getan, was ich in Kenia sehen und tun wollte. Ich war auf Rusinga, hab mir Kakamega angeschaut, die Thomson's Falls, Flamingos, hab meine Elt**n getroffen, bin auf Safari gegangen und habe schliesslich tauchen gel**nt. Ab** eins fehlte noch. D** Lonely Planet listet es als eines d** fuenf Highlights des Landes auf und beschreibt es als "so relaxed that it's almost falling ov**". Von denen, die da ...

The holiday season truly began with a pizza and drinks at a restaurant in Nairobi with some other VSOs. My friend Trixie had come over to stay for 2 nights with me in Kasarani in Nairobi, before we departed for Lamu together, which is an island just off the coast of Kenya. We left Kasarani on the morning of 20th December for our Christmas holiday. We had decided to catch a flight from Nairobi Wilson Airport to Lamu; we had decided to fly because the journey by road ...

... neighboring island in about 5 minutes, jumped off the boat and walked to the airport 'terminal' (another loosely used term - the terminal here consisted of a dirt path leading to a grass thatched covering over a bunch of chairs.) We arrived safely in Nairobi spent the evening relaxing, enjoying the 'high speed' access of a satellite (high-speed being another loosely used term) and reviewing some of the photos and stories from the preceeding days.

... avance de nourriture et je m'en vais pour les ruines Gede, au milieu de la forêt tropicale côtière kenyane. Gede fut une des premières villes arabes de la côte swahili, construites aux alentours du 13ème siècle est a montré à travers les découverte d'objets manufacturés qu'elle était fort prospère jusqu'au 17ème ou 18ème siècle où elle fut abandonnée. Sur le site, on peut se promener entre des douzaines de bâtiments au milieu de la forêt et de ses occupants. 31.03.08 ...

... boat. Shela beach was a necessary rest and a truly paradise type place to stay away from anything in the world... I jumped to the water like thousand times. And was never enough... Couple hours, and we headed back on foot to Lamu. Only now we started to realize the price of vanity. Even though we applied plenty of sunblock, jeeez, we got burned. Came back to the guesthouse all radiating warmth and red light...

... house. I later told him what to do if the man in the picture delivered the crabs, "tell him you are paying for it, so we can get a normal price". We had access to a kitchen, and splurged at the local supermarket on peanut butter, jam, processed cheese and other expensive imported goods. As a Muslim town, Lamu caters very poorly for drinkers, and there are only two plush establishments where one can sink a cold beer or three. Lamu, like most other ...

... in Garsen, I had sent an SMS to Sarah, the American girl whose number I got from the two other yanks in a Dar es Salaam internet café. She sent back messages in Swahili saying that she was working, but had arranged for Mohammed to pick us up from the ferry and take us to our accommodation! We were four hours late and trusty Mohammed was still waiting. I felt so special when I spotted the short innocent man giving me a look of "I know who you are and I'm here to ...

... most popular street food is beef shish kabobs.) The only dog I met in Lamu was the pet of one of my student housemates. I also found my old dhow captain, Hassan, and one of our crew, Ali. I spent some time hanging with Ali. He is now a captain of his own dhow. It is the begining of the long rains, but it hadn't rained much until the latter part of my time here. Then it rained all morning two days in a row. With the heavy rain came mayflies and giant frogs out of nowhere ...