Lamu Kenya: Best sights Lamu old town walking tour-Kenya coast

Lamu Kenya: Best sights Lamu old town walking tour-Kenya coast

Lamu town walking tour has several highlights including the Lamu 18th century old coral houses, the narrow streets of Lamu, cats of Lamu, carved wooden doors of Lamu, fort of Lamu, Old mosques of Lamu, German post office museum, Lamu’s Riyadha Mosque, markets of Lamu, port of Lamu, main street of Lamu, Shela Lamu, Manda Toto in Lamu, people of Lamu, Lamu culture, Lamu food, Lamu tribes, Lamu lifestyle, Lamu architecture, Lamu history & buildings

Lamu Kenya Walking Town Tour

The best, indeed the only, way to see Lamu is on foot. Few experiences compare with exploring the far back streets, where you can wander unnoticed amid wafts of cardamom and carbolic and watch the town’s agile cats scaling the vertical coral walls. This tour will take you past some of the more noteworthy buildings in under an hour, but don’t feel bound to follow it too rigidly. In fact, getting slightly lost is a vital part of the process, and I downright insist that you tackle as many detours and digressions as possible!

Most of Lamu’s buildings date back to the 18th century and are constructed out of local materials, with cut coral-rag blocks for the walls, wooden floors supported by mangrove poles and intricately carved shutters for windows. Lavish decorations were created using carved plaster, and carpenters were employed to produce ornately carved window and door frames as a sign of the financial status of the owners.

There are so many wonderful Swahili houses that it’s pointless for me to recommend specific examples-keep your eyes open wherever you go, and don’t forget to look up.

Starting from the main jetty, head north past the Lamu museum and along the waterfront until you reach the door carving workshops. In recent years, there has been a revival in wood carving and you can once again see traditional carved lintel and doors being made in workshops like these all over Lamu.

From here head onto Kenyatta Rd, passing an original Swahili well, and into the alleys towards the Swahili house museum. Once you’ve had your fill of domestic insights, take any route back towards the main street-if you can-if you can hit the road leading towards Matondoni, you’ll pass a particularly elaborate original carved door in the Arabic style.

Once you’ve hit the main square and the fort, take a right to see the crumbled remains of the 14th century Pwani mosque one of Lamu’s oldest buildings; an Arabic inscription is still visible on the wall. From here you can head round and browse the covered market, then negotiate your way towards the bright Saudi funded Riyadha Mosque, the centre of Lamu’s religious scene, founded by the great scholar Habib Swaleh in 1891.

From here you can take as long or as short a route as you like back to the water front, this end of town is a little shabbier, but it has just as much life as the northern part. Then stroll back up along the promenade, diverting for the German post office museum if you haven’t already seen it-the door is another amazing example of Swahili carving.

If you’re feeling the pace, take a rest and shoot the breeze on the baraza ya wazee (old men’s bench) outside the appealing stucco minarets of the Shiaithna-Asheri Mosque. Benches of this kind were a crucial feature of any Swahili home, providing an informal social setting for men to discuss the issues of the day, and this newly inaugurated seat is already well used by Lamu’s loquacious elders.

Carrying on up Harambee Ave will bring you back to the main jetty and the end of our tour. I suggest you celebrate a hard day’s walk with a large juice at one of the sea front restaurants!

About Author

Robert is an East African Kenya holiday travel reviewer. Degreed in tourism management he is also a director of Landmarksafaris.com. To reserve your Lamu experience see here
http://www.landmarksafaris.com/tours/beach.php/?refferer=1888articles

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