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Lamu by Caroline Phillips

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africa

beach

caroline phillips

escape

kenya

lamu

We fly from Nairobi in a plane that is one up from that used by Le

Petit Prince, land at the one-strip airport with a thatched shed

waiting-room, then take a speedboat past timeless fishing villages

and mangrove swamps. Welcome to Lamu, a remote island off the

coast of Kenya. The downside is the journey. But the upside is that

there!s no jet-lag: it!s only three hours ahead of GMT. It!s also

where the hip crowd goes. Think Tracey Emin, Sting and make-up

artist to the stars, Mary Greenwell.

The lure of Lamu becomes immediately apparent if you stay in

Jahazi, a Swahili-style house on a deserted beach about 25

minutes by boat from mainland Kenya at the southernmost tip of

the island. You!re welcomed at the water!s edge by five staff –

includingyour own boat captain and private chef – all wearing

white shorts and Africa-sized smiles. With its private pool, fabulous

baraza (meeting area), five colonial Swahili-style bedrooms and

view of the Indian Ocean, many guests feel inclined simply to

remain supine. ("I hope for a massive storm so that we have to

stay longer,! scribbled Ewan McGregor in the visitors! book.)

Jahazi is one of only six Kizingoni Beach Houses built next to what

must be the longest stretch of deserted beach in the universe and

surrounded by sand dunes. A few steps away from the ocean, the

houses are built of coral block and plastered in the local limestone,

with palm-thatched roofs, terraces overlooking the ocean,

limestone floors tinted a soft ochre yellow and al fresco bathrooms

beneath starry African skies (think also Swahili carved wooden

door frames, colonial Swahili furniture and palm-leaf Ali Baba

lampshades).

See Also

July 19, 2010

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The Globalista Travel Journal » Blog Archive » Lamu by Car... http://blog.globalista.co.uk/2010/07/19/lamu-by-caroline-phillips/

1 of 5 7/21/10 2:37 PM

All you have to do here is move from one bed to another: from

opium beds with big bolsters and oversized raw silk cushions to

ones built on niru (plasterwork) bases, hammocks swinging in the

breeze, romantic mozzie-net-draped four-posters, traditional Lamu

day beds and kikoi-strewn beds swinging from coconut fibre ropes

and overlooking the gardens. You wake up to alarm calls from

tropical birds and to waves crashing on the white sand.

It!s compelling to spend days just flicking through magazines and

eating the day!s catch and coconut rice, served on the terrace

overlooking the ocean by the barefoot butler with the mega-watt

smile. But Leslie Duckworth, known locally as the Duchess of Fixit,

has other ideas for us. Probably the person who put Lamu so

fashionably on the map, the Duchess is one of that peculiarly

Kenyan breed of indefatigable entrepreneur. She knows le tout

Afrique, manages the Kizingoni Beach Houses and has decorated

them stylishly, writes books on African medicinal plants, buys and

sells houses, is involved in the Lamu women!s community

projects, has a shop in Nairobi…

She insists we stir ourselves and walk the few steps to the beach

as night falls and the sky fills with stars. There we find a table set,

Savoy-style, with a linen cloth and crockery, and at which we sit

alone on a beach under the endless African sky eating succulent

barbecued prawns and skewered crayfish followed by delicate

passion fruit sorbet served by our butler. (Nets laden with fish from

snapper to tuna are delivered daily to the beach.) Then Samburu

warriors appear suddenly wearing vivid fabrics and bead and

feather headdresses, and do frenetic and primitive tribal dances.

There!s no sense that they!ve done this a million times before for

tourists, because they haven!t.

The more energetic visitors can water-ski (a speedboat and

boatman come with the house), donut, snorkel and swim the

channel between the house and the mainland. ("Amazing,!

concluded Sienna Miller in the guest book. "Swam with dolphins

TWICE.!) Or you can get up at 6am and – accompanied by

Samburu to deter the occasional petty thief; there is virtually no

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In The Financial Times Lamu is "cool,authentic, yet not too scary! in Laid back onLamu; a place were Sophy Roberts !simplystopped counting ... [read more]

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2 of 5 7/21/10 2:37 PM

violent crime on the island – walk for around three hours in the

cool of the early morning. (The less fit can go by donkey or camel.)

As the sun moves up the sky, you stride through the sand eight

miles to Shela, the Notting Hill of Lamu, along a beach where sea

turtles lay eggs at full moon and thousands of teeny pink crabs

scuttle sideways into the water. We pass only a goat, a stray dog

and wandering cattle and, closer to civilisation, some donkeys with

straw panniers being filled with stones and a Moses-style figure

wading through the water, hauling a boat made from a hollowed

tree trunk and carrying a live goat and a cow.

Finally we arrive in Shela. This is where you can sit on cushions in

the famous Sixties Peponi Hotel to have a feast of fish in coconut

off big brass trays; eat on the terrace while gazing at the dhows

sailing past; or lounge at the bar – the centre of the world out here

and the only place in Shella serving alcohol – where rastas and

Euros in leopard-print bikinis share Tusker beers with royalty. I sit

on the terrace feeling mightily smug at having covered my eight

miles so fast. I drink steaming cups of coffee, eat fresh exotic fruits

and gaze longingly across the water at the Robinson Crusoe home

of the tribal-inspired jewellery designer, Carolyn Roumeguere

(Julian Sands, Nicole Kidman and Donna Karan are fans).

And then it!s off to look at Shela. It!s clean, gentrified and quaint. A

place less spoilt and cheaper than the Caribbean. A place where

women wear sequinned kaftans and cheery sarongs. There!s only

one bar and one restaurant; it!ll never be St Tropez, thankfully. But

it is the place to buy former dilapidated Swahili houses, most now

fashionably renovated. Go and see a few with Englishman Andrew

McGhie who started Lamu Island Property – the island!s first real

estate agency – and climb their stairs and look over makuti

thatched roofs at the biblical scene. A delightful and engaging

man, Andrew will spirit you into Arab houses built of coral and

limestone and Swahili houses with mangrove and coconut roofs.

"The island has changed more in the last five years than it has in

the last 100,! he says.

If you just want to rent a house for your holiday, try El Yafir, just

moments away from Peponi. It!s the stylish house of Mary

Greenwell,- who counts Gwyneth Paltrow, Keira Knightly and Kate

Moss among her clients. Mary bought a plot five years ago in

Shela. Inspired by the island!s Islamic traditions, she designed her

beautiful petit palais with the help of architect Claudio Modola. It

has niru floors, Swahili doors and furniture designed by Mary and

fashioned by traditional craftsmen in local woodwork shops where

artisans make intricate mahogany carved door-frames and

bed-heads.

A vast Rajasthani front door leads into a cool hall with a fountain

and font with bougainvillea petals floating in it. If there is such a

thing as romantic church style, then this is it, with its arches,

pillars, hanging glass lanterns and ecclesiastical-style windows.

There are an abundance of places in which to lie and daydream:

delightful alcoves containing day beds, four posters swathed in

muslin, Moorish-style sunken baths and a fairy-tale terrace with

urns of bougainvillea, cascading flowers and fringed with cream

curtains fluttering in the breeze. There seem also to be endless

smiling staff bringing endless plates of endless deliciousness, and

they all come with the house when you rent it.

If you!re lucky (and Lamu is that kind of place) Andrew or Mary

may introduce you to Eric and Christina Zeller – who live about ten

donkey paces away from El Yafir. If so, go and be nosey in their

home, Lulu Y Shella (Pearl of Shella), the spacious Fifties house

built by casting director Bonni Allen. Now lived in by Eric, an

interior and furniture designer and architect, and Christina, the

über-stylish accessories designer for Givenchy, their house with its

fusion of European and African idioms bears many of his deft

touches combined with her aesthetic stamp. Between them

they!ve come up with an eclectic mixture of cool features: from

Arabic words as murals on the white plaster walls ("we hoped it

was going to be a lovely poem,! laughs Christina, "but it turns out

it!s just the opening times of the local museum!), to a stunning

Eric-designed driftwood table that stretches almost to the

mainland.


3 of 5 7/21/10 2:37 PM

If you fancy travelling further back in time, jump in a boat and

bounce over the waves a few minutes to Lamu town, a place so

remote it has been spared modernisation and civilisation as we

know it. Lamu is Kenya!s oldest town, a bustling port and Unesco

World Heritage site with 72,000 inhabitants, 25,000 donkeys and

one donkey sanctuary (opened by two Englishwomen, natch.) It

has just one car (which belongs to the District Commissioner), one

road (too narrow to turn; if the DC forgets something he has to

reverse home), and 28 mosques for its mostly Muslim population.

Here you find women in traditional black bui buis and men in white

kanzu robes wandering along tiny, winding alleyways, some only

three feet wide. And there!s a throbbing market whose vendors,

seated on the ground, sell sweet potatoes and papayas outside

the 19th-century fort – once a prison and now housing a cyber

cafe.

Originally a 14th-century Swahili sea trader settlement trading

ivory, leopard skins, rhino horn and, later, slaves, it has an alluring

mixture of Arab, Portuguese, Turkish, Omani and British influences

from its erstwhile settlers: the Turks with their glassware and the

Omanis with their art and arches. From the 9th century dhows

have arrived in Lamu on the Kaskazi wind from the east with

perfume, sugar and silk. Lamu is redolent of that history and going

into the charming port-side museum is little different from standing

in the street.

There!s fine Swahili architecture (including 16th-century houses)

and many 19th-century mansions – high, austere, windowless

homes hiding airy courtyards pungent with jasmine and delightful,

hidden cool spaces with carved doors, intricate coral work,

plasterwork niches and, possibly even antique hardwood furniture

inlaid with bone. You can see all this and more with Andrew

McGhie, if you!re looking to buy. (It!ll cost a snip of what anything


4 of 5 7/21/10 2:37 PM

as beautiful would cost nearer home; contact him on +254 (0)720

859 599, www.lamuislandproperty.com).

Lamu is known for attracting the "gyp set!: artists, eccentrics,

escapists, dreamers, weirdos and romantics (once it was the

African version of Kathmandu, a paradise for backpackers in

search of alternative realities). It!s far from Kenya!s mainland

political instability and election violence. There are no perilous

roads, no traffic jams, no television and, thankfully, a lousy internet

signal. Just dhow racing, henna painting competitions, donkey

racing and er, competitions for who has the most healthy donkey

(the prize for a robust donkey? A mobile phone).

It!s a place where time is measured in sunsets and you feel free

and supremely relaxed; where you!re in touch with the vast African

sky, nature and the rhythms of life. Where there are dhows in full

sail and donkeys laden with panniers of coral rock. Where there

are exotic days filled with lime sodas, sea breezes and

ever-smiling people.

As long as you remember to keep slapping on the factor Ten

Zillion suncream (it!s two degrees south of the Equator) and

popping the horrid anti-malarial pills, if you must (although, being

an island, there are virtually no cases of the disease,) there!s no

downside. We bounce back along the waves to our Kizingoni

Beach House, a smile on my face, another in my heart. Yes, it

certainly out-paradises the competition.

Kizingoni Beach Houses from £1,965 per person based on four

couples sharing a house for seven nights on a fully inclusive basis,

including flights and transfers and airport taxes. For more

information or to book, call Scott Dunn on 020 8682 5070;

www.scottdunn.com. E-mail [email protected] or

[email protected].

Virgin Atlantic flies Heathrow to Nairobi daily. Fares from £379.

Book on: 08448 747 747; www.virginatlantic.com.

To hire Mary Greenwell!s house, contact Babu British: 00 254

7358 02340; [email protected]. High season prices:

December, January, August – $400 for the master bedroom, and

$50 for each extra person using the other two bedrooms per night.

February and March: $300 for the master bedroom, and $50 for

each extra person. Rest of year: $250 for master bedroom and

$50 for each extra person. Price includes transfers, private chef

and house boys. Food and beverages extra. Menus can be

discussed on a daily basis with the chef.

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5 of 5 7/21/10 2:37 PM

L amu b y Car oline P h illip s - Kizingoni Beach - · PDF fileL amu b y Car oline P h illip s...

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