by Joanne Glynn
We’re slowly making our way to the resort town of Malindi on the east coast so we leave Porini and move on to Tsavo West National Park, further east and nudging the border with Tanzania. It too has good views of Kilimanjaro and is reputed to have prolific birdlife, but we’ve heard that game is sometimes hard to find in its vast acreage. The road in to Finch Hattons, our home for the next three days, deteriorates the closer we get and just a few kilometres out the track disappears under lakes of recent rain. The Troopy forges through and doesn’t miss a beat, although my heart does once or twice. We finally arrive at the lodge’s gate to hear the news that all day other four-wheel drivers have had to be pulled out of the mud. What a trusty warrior the Troopy is, and what exemplary driving on Neil’s part.
There are hippos in the waterhole below our platformed tent at Finch Hattons. Most nights at sundown a mother pushes her baby under the platform to protect him from harm while she goes inland to graze. You can see him in the beam of the askari’s torch, bewildered by the light but only slightly alarmed by the intrusion into his special place. He has scratches on his face and an open wound in his side so his mother is wise to shield him from attack by an aggressive male, or perhaps a hungry croc. During the night we can hear him grazing and more than once we wake when he knocks against our floor as he moves about.
After two game drives we discover that game in the park is, as predicted, thin on the ground and we take to sitting on our deck watching the goings-on in the waterhole below. One day when the hippos are being particularly photogenic I suggest to Neil that he goes over to the other side of the waterhole to take a photo looking back at the hippos, with me posing on the deck of our tent in the background.
Off he goes, then soon appears on the opposite bank. But in the time it has taken him to get over there a big croc has decided on a sun-baking session and has beached itself at the water’s edge, out of sight to Neil. I wave and point; Neil waves back and moves towards where I’m indicating. The more I gesticulate, the further down the bank he goes, following what he thinks are my instructions. Only when he realises that I am looking more fraught than fashion model does he stop and cautiously look over the bank. My hero, he takes the photo anyway although the hippos aren’t there anymore, having been scared away by the ruckus on the deck.
The road that we were recommended to take to Malindi is supposed to be good, a highway in fact, but it’s busy and a long way round so we decide to take a shortcut through Tsavo East National Park. This goes well, but once we exit the park on the other side the road deteriorates to such an extent that progress is in fits and starts, over dips so deep that we don’t see an excursion of small children crossing in the pit of one until we drive into it, and the motorbike in front of us disappears completely from view before zooming up and out the far side. Although the drive is slow and a little nerve-wracking for Neil, it’s never tedious and we put this down to the fact that we’ve grown to be so relaxed, so free of outside concerns that we can find pleasure in the smallest things, and continually discovering what’s just over the hill or behind that bush has become a sort of addiction. By now we have total faith in the Troopy and have no fear of breaking down or not getting through. Months ago we lost the feeling of having to get to a place by a certain time; we know we are self-sufficient and we’ve accepted the quirks of the satellite phone and GPS. We carry plenty of fuel, food and water, Neil can change a tyre in 30 minutes and a bed is a ladder away. We also know that we have enough money to get us out of anything and enough time to stay wherever our hearts desire. We can afford to live for the moment and have learnt to savour every one of them.
David has rented a house for us at Malindi to be used as a base and to garage the Troopy while we spend five days on the island of Lamu. The cottage is just like a comfy beach getaway anywhere in the world, but here we have the added benefit of staff to cook for us, to turn the fans on and close the windows when the heat descends, and to sweep the yard of leaves and to guard us from intruders. It’s a novelty for us and I’m all at sea when it comes to telling Shadrack what we’d like to eat and when we’d like a cup of tea. Neil is more used to this and chats away, interspersing food preferences and timeframes with queries about Shadrack’s life and family. Before long Shadrack has confided that his family is coming from their village to stay with him in his quarters for a few days of school holidays, without the knowledge of the owners — would we mind? One afternoon we return from an outing and as we drive through the gates there’s Shadrack lying in the grass in the shade of a mango tree, wife leaning against his bent knees, two little ones sitting on his chest while another two hunt for beetles in the grass. As we roll past they all wave and laugh and Neil calls to Shadrack to stay there, we’ll get our own tea. With just enough money for the fares to get here, their days are spent down on the beach or in the cool of the garden, and one day we come home to find little wet footprints leading from our pool to Shadrack’s rooms in the garden.
Malindi itself is different to all expectations. I was anticipating a cosmopolitan, glamorous place something like Tangiers, while Neil thought we’d find beautiful sandy beaches and good restaurants. We should have learnt by now that no place in Africa is totally exotic nor wholly idyllic. What we find is a large, closed community of resident Italians, dirty beaches with flat surf, and many young Maasai men hawking their wares and their bodies. We are excited to find a cluster of salumeria and panetteria, but that elusive great seafood restaurant on the beach is nowhere to be found.
From Malindi we fly to Lamu, having left the Troopy under the watchful eye of Shadrack. Here too David has rented us a house, and it comes with a housekeeper and a cook, so ‘self-catering’ takes on a whole new meaning. The house is in the little village of Shela Beach, about 3 kilometres from Lamu Town, and suits us well. It’s very hot here, and the air is heavy with humidity and frangipani. Lamu Town is a World Heritage Site and the whole island is Swahili, very much like Zanzibar used to be, with narrow lanes, Arabic architecture and women in black. There are no vehicles on the island so donkeys are used for everything — apparently there are over 4000 here — and they appear to be treated well enough. We have a mosque next door and are woken at 5 a.m. by the morning call to prayers through a loudspeaker, and there’s a stable below where donkeys bray to each other throughout the night. One night dogs and chickens join in as well. During the day our neighbours play some sort of frantic Arab music and the din from generators used by private homes during power failures is all around, but somehow it’s still peaceful.
The main topic of conversation among locals is the blackouts, the frequency and length, and the inconvenience suffered. On the edge of Lamu Town we pass the source of the island’s electricity, a mini power plant with a bank of four generators attended by many personnel. But at any given time three of the generators seem to be broken, in need of maintenance or new parts, and the fourth is left to run on a meagre supply of diesel because most of the supply is sold by staff on the black market as soon as it’s delivered.
How many times have we witnessed the Africans’ love of rhythm and dancing? It must sit in their souls and come as naturally as breathing. Walking through the narrow back streets of Lamu Town we hear drumming not too far off and getting closer. Around the corner come two young girls, happy and laughing, beating a basic rhythm on drums almost as big as themselves. A little fellow of three or four has attached himself to them and he follows on behind, hips grooving and plump little legs making the moves. A conga line of one.
At The Boma restaurant in Vic Falls we’d watched as a family completely forgot themselves and took over the celebrations of the table next to them. The group of business colleagues on that table had asked the band to play ‘Happy Birthday’ and before the third line was sung the family was up, dancing and swinging, singing happy birthday to themselves, congratulating each other as well as the true birthday boy on the next table and enjoying the occasion so unselfconsciously that the whole restaurant followed suit, shouting requ
ests to the band, while the business group tried valiantly to sing louder than the family and dance more wildly.
On the waterfront below our house is a hotel called Peponi’s and its public bar is where everyone who lives in Shela congregates for sundowners. Believing ourselves to be eligible we ingratiate ourselves into this group, even though we can only speak one language and the conversations jump from Italian to French to Swahili. The regulars seem to be an eccentric lot. One glamorous and slightly grand British lady tells us she is a doctor and responsible for health matters in the village. She is due in Malindi shortly to perform an intricate operation on a sick child. We’re later told that this is all in her head, she’s just an expat running out of money. We share a table with the grand-daughter of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s founding father, and an Irish writer — a drunk — whose name I should remember but whose books neither Neil nor I have read. Princess Caroline of Monaco has a wonderful house around the corner and there’s a beautiful French lady in a wheelchair who stays at a reserved distance from the clique. Made a paraplegic after a bad road accident in Paris twenty years ago, she has a contingent of young men to help her around and is rumoured to have a Maasai lover.
In Lamu Town we meet some more odd birds. There’s the Australian–Englishman we have coffee with every morning who is always on the verge of leaving, but who in the meantime cadges beds from sympathetic expats. Then there’s the Swahili guide who keeps popping up all over the place and hectoring Neil after we refused his offer to show us around town. But when it’s time for us to leave, he’s there at the jetty to wave us farewell and to wish us salama sana, ‘much peace’.
Towards the end of our stay on Lamu I finally have a meal that’s good enough to write home about when our major–domo, Kombe, serves chilli crab. His meals have always been good, prepared with care and a subtle touch, but this night is different. The stars have come out and angels sit on his shoulder. It’s a feast, a feeding frenzy, with blood-red sauce on our hands and broken shell and body parts discarded over starched white linen. I haven’t enjoyed a meal this much since the time in 2002 when I left a trattoria in Milan to a standing ovation. That night, at a table by the kitchen door, I had rabbit stew with polenta and it was so good, so perfectly cooked and so subtly flavoured, that I couldn’t stop eating. I didn’t want it to ever end. The waiter brought me a second helping, then a little more, and when Neil and I finally got up to leave the kitchen staff came out and farewelled me like the celebrity I’d proved myself to be. Bravo signora! Arrivederci! Buone notte e bravo signora!
On our last evening in Lamu we sit on the public terrace of Peponi’s, looking out over the dhows in the channel. The bar is surprisingly deserted and the waiters bring us our usual without being asked. The light is mirror-sharp and the air is still. The water is so clear that the boats’ rudders are visible and they make barely a wake as they slide past.
On the boat that takes us to the airport we fall into conversation with a young couple returning to Tanzania after a week’s R&R on the island. They’ve loved it here and I have too, so I’m confused and disappointed when Neil says that he’s glad to be leaving. He explains that he found the heat and humidity debilitating and the noise, closeness of the houses and narrowness of the laneways claustrophobic. I’d never suspected that he wasn’t totally comfortable here or any less enthusiastic than me, as I’d come to believe that we were now so finely attuned that my likes were his likes, and his mine. I didn’t even think to ask if he was loving the place as much as I was, and he’d been far too good-hearted to tell me.
From now on we’re going to be anti beachside cottages that come with staff. Initially Malindi was fine and Lamu was paradise, but down the coast at the town of Watamu we find ourselves in a neglected, musty cottage that neither of us likes. It’s an old lady’s holiday home, with an ageing houseman who can’t cook and a proprietary Burmese cat that swipes at my ankles when I walk past. Spiders nest in the sagging shelves where sun-bleached books gather dust, and hornets drone around faded curtains. There’s an open verandah across the front of the house, but no fly-screens and no through-breezes to ease the stifling air. One room has been locked off — Neil thinks to hide a skeleton, but more likely just the detritus of an old lady’s life.
On our first night Neil spends a long time rigging up power boards with extension leads so that our internal bedroom is surrounded by oscillating fans. He puts mosquito coils under my bed and pegs the mozzie net in place after it billows all over the room with the force of the fans. Before he climbs under the net he Dooms the moths, cockroaches and strange scaraby things that creep around the floor. After 30 years of marriage he is still my protector, my knight in shining armour.
WHiTE FLOWERiNG BAOBABS
The drive down the coast is long, with the border crossing back into Tanzania tiresome and slow. The weather is very steamy and the road gets progressively worse the further south we travel. In the absence of liquorice allsorts and wine gums we’ve taken to eating Cadbury Eclairs while on the road. These we buy in 1-kilogram bags and a handful each makes a good lunch. From time to time we pass roadside signs for shops and institutions with names to rival the best Uganda had to offer. We’ve seen the Mamma Mercy’s Home of Little Childrens and then, showing more confusion than originality, Them Bulls Pork Butchery.
Neil and the Troopy have forged a bond made in heaven. After initially sharing the driving equally, we reached a happy compromise way back in Zambia: Neil drives and I navigate. I drive too fast for Neil and when I’m behind the wheel he’s constantly checking the speedo and telling me the speed at which I should overtake. He’s so nervous that he forgets to look at the map, and when he does he’s forgotten the name of our destination. On the other hand, I’m an excellent navigator and only when the sea is to the west of me do I get confused. As we progressed northward and the state of the roads deteriorated I was intimidated by their condition and would tackle them at speed, whereas Neil learnt early on to read their trickery and deceptions and how to coax the Troopy through them.
Roughly 80 kilometres down the coast from the Kenyan border we find Capricorn Beach Cottages reclining on a stretch of quiet, palm-fringed beach between the towns of Tongoni and Pangani. We fall in love with the place as soon as we drive in. Sitting on a grassy slope beneath flowering baobabs and strangely scented frangipani, the little estate of just three cottages and a residence is the extended home of the owners. Apart from a wave and a jambo in greeting, everyone keeps to themselves. Ladies deliver freshly baked baguettes and homemade yoghurt in the mornings and saunter across to clean the cottage later in the day, but otherwise we’re left in peace. This is more like self-catering as we know it. There is a small, low-key lodge to the north, and a fishing village on the southern side. In the evening, the fishermen go out to sea in boats crammed with crew, maybe a dozen in one vessel, and when it gets dark their lanterns settle on the horizon like fairy lights on a Christmas verandah. Then just on dawn a flotilla of small dhows heads out to the day’s fishing, their sails elegant and angled into the wind. Men with dilly-bags wade out through the low tide to hunt for octopus, while on the beach, garden boys with slow, distracted strokes rake up seaweed brought in by the tide during the night.
Without the restrictions imposed by set mealtimes and socialising it’s easy to fall into the rhythms of the sea. At low tide we gravitate to the beach, the only place where there’s a wisp of a breeze to relieve the heat and humidity. It’s also the best time to look for shells and to watch the daily life of the villagers, who use the exposed beach as a walkway and the outgoing sandy water to scour their pots and pans. As the tide comes in a cooling breeze comes too so we lounge about on our terrace, reading and writing and talking about nothing much. Shooting the breeze. The freedom is wonderful without houseboys and neighbours to consider. We get dressed when we feel like it, take cold showers whenever we get too hot and sometimes I only get around to combing my hair in the afternoon. The only sour note comes at breakfast one mornin
g when we have to acknowledge that the jar of Vegemite is finally running out. Like life here, I’d hoped it would never end.
Despite this comfortable beach-combing existence I determine that we should go on a little outing, so one day we set off in the Troopy to explore Pangani town and Ushongo, a beach resort 20 kilometres or so further down the coast. There’s a ferry crossing to negotiate at Pangani and this turns out to be the funniest car ferry I’ve ever been on.
With a maximum vehicular capacity of two, it’s compact and a jaunty red and it looks seaworthy enough. We follow a pick-up down the alarmingly steep concrete ramp but, just as we’re about to embark, the ferry drifts out so that its boarding ramp is hovering 15 to 20 centimetres above the shore. Hakuna matata, no problem: two men jump up and down on it until it’s low enough for us to mount. We quickly do so and it’s just as well because the ferry has now drifted to an angle at odds with the shore and it’s only some fancy driving on Neil’s part that gets us safely on board without one or more wheels dropping off the edge. We nestle in behind the pick-up; a few pedestrians come aboard then we’re off — straight into a 180-degree turn, so that the ferry crosses the river backwards. At the other side we have to egress in reverse, off and up another steep concrete ramp that is accommodatingly wide. Our return crossing is more exciting still, as we do a 180-degree turn on the entry side of the river and then again on the opposite side, so this time we can drive off pointing in the right direction having enjoyed a panoramic 360-degree view of the entire river in the meantime.
