My Kenya

Kenya in general

After 15 days we find ourselves again on that road that connects Mombasa to Watamu and we stop again at that beautiful shopping centre to, as Steven politely puts it, wash our hands. Same place, same companions but a thousand more emotions, experiences, friendships and memories inside us. Kenya is truly a beautiful country, inhabited by simple people, poor but smiling. Very different from us, not only in skin colour or in the stress they show they don't know, but in a way of thinking completely different from ours. Perhaps it is precisely this way of thinking that has not developed their country much and will not take them very far, but it certainly makes them live with a smile on their faces, without too many worries except that of making it to evening with a full stomach.

Yes, because in Kenya you live day by day without ever planning the future, without ever investing in tomorrow, and precisely because of this mentality Kenyans are happy to let foreigners build hotels, villages, shops and bars, especially Italians in the area between Malindi and Watamu, because for them these are jobs; they can't understand that they are only collecting the crumbs of the tourism of their wonderful country, leaving the biggest slice to others. This mentality is hard to understand without a few examples.

If 1 kg of tomatoes costs 1 euro, 100 kg should cost less than 100 euros, right? No, they cost more because loading 100 kg onto a van is hard work!!! If I buy 1 metre of fabric for 1 euro and the next time I take the whole 50-metre bolt I should spend less than 50 euros, no, you spend 55 euros because now I have to go and buy another bolt to sell!!! If you meet a peasant woman coming down from the countryside to go and sell her basket of vegetables, which she carries with extreme elegance on her head, at the Malindi market and you offer to buy it all, she won't sell it to you because otherwise what would she go to the market for if she has nothing left to sell!!! Of course these Kenyans are strange but they are too kind, friendly and hospitable not to become attached to them. But let's get back to Kenya. Surely the two major areas of tourist interest are the coast and the savannah.

The coastal area I visited is the one between Watamu and Malindi, the undisputed kingdom of Italians, since in Malindi alone there are as many as 5000 Italian residents who manage most of the hotels and bars. Malindi is a fairly large town and is full of discos, bars, hotels, villages and little souvenir shops; it is very calm, everything happens pole pole and there are no dangers in visiting it, not even at night. Its beaches are very beautiful but often full of seaweed, a very frequent phenomenon in these parts. Watamu, on the other hand, is just a small village about ten km away with a few bars and about ten hotels. A characteristic of this part of Africa are the tides, which rise and fall in 6-hour cycles creating scenes of absolute beauty, tides that are regulated by the moon.

On the most favourable days you can reach the coral reef on foot, about 1 km from the beach, and during this walk you can have incredible encounters, such as starfish of various types and colours, sea urchins, shells, molluscs, octopuses, lobsters, puffer fish, soles and various fish with the most absurd names, like the cowfish. During low tide, islets of candid white sand also form, the most famous is Sardegna2, where it is not difficult to forget you are in Africa and think you are on a Maldivian atoll. I must say that Kenya is the kingdom of colours, from the turquoise and blue of the fantastic sea and the white of the sand, it's a moment before you find yourself on a completely red dirt road and then in the green or yellow of the more or less dry savannah up to the orange of the fantastic sunsets.

The opportunities for photographic safaris are many, there are numerous reserves and parks, among the most famous are Tsavo, Amboseli (at the foot of Kilimanjaro) and the Masai Mara. Finding yourself in the infinite savannah surrounded by animals in their natural habitat is a beautiful emotion: zebras, antelopes, gazelles and kongoni by the hundreds, elephants, giraffes, ostriches and warthogs by the dozens, but the best is finding yourself in front of, just a few metres from the jeep, a pair of lions that after eating a kongoni decide to have a nice quickie!!! We wouldn't want to be too indiscreet, but it's an unrepeatable occasion and we film the scene. Then we return to our tented camp, Lualenyi, where now in the dark we admire the sky packed with stars, fascinated by the sight of the Milky Way.

A memory that will remain imprinted only in my mind, along with all the others that have also remained imprinted on the numerous photographic films.

Safari in the Lualenyi Reserve

Two days and one night in the private reserve of Lualenyi, bordering on one side with Tsavo West and on the other with Tanzania, roughly as big as Amboseli. We reach it after 5 hours of driving, of which almost 2 hours on a splendid red dirt track surrounded by villages and untouched nature. We decide to do our safari here because they explain to us that in a private reserve we can follow any route with our jeep to look for the animals and get as close as possible, whereas in the parks you absolutely cannot leave the tracks.

Other privileges are the possibility of staying in the savannah even after sunset, being the only visitors (fewer disturbers = more animals), having a jeep instead of a minibus, lunching in the savannah and, cherry on top, the possibility of climbing Lion Rock, a promontory from which you dominate the savannah 360° and which inspired the Walt Disney film "The Lion King". Now all we need are the animals!!! We arrive at the camp at 11:30, settle in and go to lunch where Gianni, the owner, naturally Italian, illustrates the programme for us, then a rest and departure at 16:30. Of course, because until that time there's not even a shadow of an animal, it's too hot.

We set off confident and armed with cameras and video cameras and the emotions follow one another, in a few minutes we see dozens of giraffes, zebras, antelopes, warthogs, gazelles, ostriches, kongoni, we are charged by a herd of elephants busy defending their calves and then suddenly under a tree 2 lions, male and female. Cambi, our tracker, has the eyes of a lynx and spots the animals hundreds of metres away, giving directions to the jeep driver. After admiring the stupendous sunset we return to the camp where we have an aperitif around the fire admiring the Milky Way and sharing our emotions. Abundant and very good dinner and straight to bed in the tent, so to speak, there's a bathroom, a shower and two beds!!! Wake-up at 5:30, breakfast and back into the savannah, where we relive all the emotions of the previous day enriched by new ones.

We see the lions feasting on an antelope and then, after some cuddling, mating twice. We drive the jeep up onto Lion Rock dominating the savannah 360°, we get a flat tyre and get down to change it surrounded by zebras and antelopes, we have lunch in the savannah as if it were a picnic in the park (so cool) and on the way back to camp we are forced to flee again, charged once more by the elephants. The return to the coast is pleasant and we spend it admiring the landscape, the nature, the villages and the columns of people with buckets on their heads going back and forth between the water wells and their huts, constantly greeted by the children who wave their arms and shout Jambo at us.

Jacaranda Beach Resort

A floral oasis of bougainvillea surrounded by vegetation, this is our resort. Beautiful, right on the sea, 57 rooms, a garden full of bougainvillea and with 2 baobabs, pool, restaurant and bar directly on the beach and with a makuti roof. The cuisine is fabulous, mostly based on fish caught right in front of us, octopus, crabs, occasionally lobster and then tuna and sea bream from the Malindi fish market. The staff almost embarrass us with their kindness, which we are certainly not used to in Italy and in other holiday places. With Kitty and Gilbert, you don't even have time to ask for a sunbed before they've already prepared it for you, complete with mattress and beach towel. If the tide comes in they move it for you, if the wind picks up they put it by the pool, if you tell them you're thirsty they turn up with a coconut cut open and a straw stuck in it.

Asante sana Kitty!!! At the restaurant Harrison, Alì and Willy compete in kindness and the cook, when it's ready, yes, because everything is prepared on the spot, beats the drum to call us and wishes us Chakula Cema!!! Max introduces himself as the head entertainer and when we point out that he is the "only" entertainer he certainly doesn't lose his smile and never stops livening up our days and telling us about his Kenya. The village belongs to two Italians, Carmine and Oreste, they tell us their story, their idea of moving there about 1 year ago, and they help us get to know Kenya and understand Kenyans. Carmine took us with him to the fish and fruit and vegetable market in Malindi to do some shopping and it was a beautiful experience.

Everyone in the village knows us and calls us by name, helped also by the fact that there are only about twenty of us, October is low season, Abari gani? Mzuri sana, na wewe? mzuri sana, karibu. It's fun trying to learn Swahili, their language, and everyone makes an effort to teach you a few words if you show interest. I also learned a lot of swear words, but as they say Hakuna matata. The sea is simply fabulous, it has incredible colours, drawn by the different depths, and right in front of the Jacaranda at low tide an islet of the whitest sand emerges 50 metres from the shore where it's a blast to swim and sunbathe. About 1 km away there is Sardegna2, another very famous islet and a destination for excursions by tourists from Malindi, who can only dream of these wonders in front of their villages.

The beaches are often "dirtied" by seaweed, but our stretch of coast must be particularly protected by the coral reef because in two weeks only on a couple of occasions, following some bad weather, did they appear, though only briefly because the Jacaranda staff promptly cleaned up. About 1 km to the left there is the famous and beautiful, as well as unapproachable, villa of Briatore, while to the right there are some little villas of Italians, including Vecchioni's, where he composed his latest album "Rotary club of Malindi". On the beach there aren't too many beachboys, so it's pleasant to stroll in the company of the children, who here in Kenya are very numerous and present everywhere. Always Mbolochignoni eh??? Another event at the Jacaranda is the Kenya-Italy beach volleyball match and you should see how they laugh when we tell them VI FACCIAMO NERI.

Well, they call us Mzungo!!! The rooms are nice and spacious, all with a veranda and a wooden bed with mosquito net, almost useless this time of year because we really saw very few mosquitoes. In the evening they offer us shows with acrobats, Gospel choirs, dances of the Masai or the Giriama, the main tribe of the coast, and then off to the bars of Watamu and Malindi. Our favourite is LENAS, a kind of disco/pub frequented almost entirely by locals and really very nice. We go there 3 times also because it's certainly not an exorbitant expense, entry is free and a beer or a Smirnoff Ice (Vodka and lemon) costs 75 shillings, that is 80 euro cents.

We do several excursions during our stay, including a visit to the ruins of Gede, an old mysterious city, the Marine Park including a lunch based on lobster, Malindi with a visit to the wood factory and lots of shopping, 2 days of Safari, a visit to Watamu and a tour in the Bush just outside the village to get to know our "neighbours", their huts, their habits and to distribute to the children some toys, clothes and school materials that we had brought from Italy. I learned another word Mpenzi, that is Darling.