This week’s travel dream: Kenya’s coastal mosaic of culture

For centuries, the coast of what is now Kenya was a “strategic stop on shipping routes, linking the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, and the Indian subcontinent,” said Shane Mitchell in Travel + Leisure. Gold, ivory, slaves, and spices were exchanged in ports along the Indian Ocean. The four islands of Kenya’s Lamu Archipelago—Lamu, Manda, Pate, and Kiwayu—drew a steady flow of Arabs, Africans, Indians, and Europeans, resulting in a “rich cultural and culinary mix that remains as beguiling as ever.”

My first morning on Lamu, I was awakened before dawn by the Muslim call to prayer. Stepping onto my balcony, I saw the “equatorial sun rise, red as a torch, while elegantly thin Swahilis” in long white robes and kofia caps hurried to the nearby mosque. Later I ventured into Lamu Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “High-walled lanes overgrown with jasmine” concealed large whitewashed houses whose “carved mahogany doors” led to shady inner courtyards. Amid the “labyrinth of back streets,” girls in head scarves carried plastic jugs of water atop their heads, and a woman proffered live chickens in woven baskets. A genial gentleman named Islam served me the finest Arabica coffee in tiny porcelain cups. “It was like sipping rocket fuel spiced with ginger and cardamom.”

Three miles south of Old Town is Shela Village, which Swahilis have nicknamed “Little Europe.” Located near the island’s “blissfully remote” vanilla-sand beaches, the settlement attracts a regular European coterie that has been known to include Princess Caroline of Monaco. Bungalows and converted 18th-century villas speckle the shore. As I walked along, fishermen waded waist-deep with wide nets, while “dhows raised their triangular sails to skirt past the coral reef.” After a languorous swim, I walked up to the waterfront veranda bar at the Peponi Hotel. I ordered an Old Pal, a cocktail made with vodka, lime, and bitters; snacked on “delicate cucumber pickles” made in a nearby village; and listened to the lapping waves as the hours drifted by.

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