Chris Coles

Lamu Chris Coles

In 1970, Lamu was a very sleepy very out-of-the way place. There was one hotel, called Peponi, very exclusive, very expensive, located a mile or two outside of the town, with only a few rooms for super wealthy Europeans like the Head of the Italian Fiat company who was a regular guest. The only way to get to Lamu was to take a local bus northeast along the Kenya coast north of Malindi and then a rudimentary passenger-only ferry boat to the island. In those days, all the boxes, cargo and stuff was moved either by donkeys or men with carts or by sailing dhows coming from Mombasa. There were no backpackers, no smartphones, no internet, no laptops. Once you were on Lamu, you were away from the world. Prior to becoming part of the British Empire, for over a thousand years Lamu had been an active trading port, connecting the East Africa coast as far south as Mozambique, Madagascar and Zanzibar to Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula. There were regular visits by large sailing dhows from Yemen and Oman, even visits by sailing ships from as far away as India and China. When the Portuguese first sailed around Africa in the early 1500's, they conquered Lamu to use as their own trading post which then became connected with a whole chain of Portuguese trading posts in Mozambique, Bahrain, Goa, Macau, Chittagong, Malacca, Timor and Nagasaki. Lamu is the oldest continuous city on the coast of East Africa, maybe even in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. Its traditions, buildings and boat-building/sailing skills go back hundreds of years. I was lucky to have spent some time there while some of the ancient version of Lamu was still intact.