Only in Kenya (Day 3)
We got up early and trundled down to breakfast before heading out in a van north away from the city toward the Gede ruins. On the way we stopped at a little place called Vapingo where Hassan's parents are planning to build a retirement home. While his father looked at building plans and dealt with other business in the office, Hassan and I walked long the stretch of pristine beach. It is bordered on both sides by cliffs into the ocean, which essentially makes it a private beach for the residents of the Vapingo community. You cannot actually own the beaches in Kenya, but if the stretch of beach is inacessible except by walking through your property it achieves the same effect. I'm glad that you cann't own the beaches and that they are therefore available to local people for fishing or just relaxing even in the areas where tourist hotels have gone up. At the same time, it was nice to walk along the beach without a crowd of people trying to sell us bracelets, or failing that, drugs. Since the Vapingo community is still mostly in the planning stages, the little stretch of beach was completely empty. I found an intact sea urchin shell, and then promptly stepped on it when I got back in the van (oops).
When Hassan's dad had finished his business we got back in the car to drive up to Gede, an old Swahili town that was abandoned sometime in the fourteenth century. Archeologists aren't really sure why the town was abandoned, although conflict with the newly arrived Portuguese and the proxmity of the wells to the toliets are both strong contenders. We had an eccentric tour guide whose explanations of things were, in the words of Hassan's father, "full of masala." "Masala" literally translates as "spice," and while I suspect that Hassan's dad meant it as "full of shit," I like the idea that she spiced up the narrative a bit. Phillip referred to ruins in general as "a series of small walls" which is in fact generally all that remains. Without an entertaining tour guide to bring the history to life, it can be difficult to be enraptured by piles of rubble. While we had to take things she said with a certain grain of salt--I'm pretty sure bats did not carry american sequoia seeds from California to Kenya--most of the historical information she gave us seemed generally plausible. And if she happened to name the monkey's who hung out at the ruins or give us her personal opinion of the Sultan ("According to me, the Sultan was a crafty guy") all the better.
In the middle of the ruins, an NGO benefitting local schools built an observation platform at the top of an 800 year old Baobab tree. For 200 shillings (a little less than $4) you can climp up a rickety staircase built around the trunk of the tree and look out accross the ruins. The stairs are almost ladder steep, and don't look particularly sturdy, but the view is worth it!
Me standing on the beach at Vapingo:
Cows crossing the road in front of our van:
A fig tree growing around the Gede Ruins:
Me on the Baobab platform:
The Gede Ruins, as seen from the Baobab tree:
Hassan and I climbing down the ladder stairs:
Saddam the Monkey, who lives at Gede:
When Hassan's dad had finished his business we got back in the car to drive up to Gede, an old Swahili town that was abandoned sometime in the fourteenth century. Archeologists aren't really sure why the town was abandoned, although conflict with the newly arrived Portuguese and the proxmity of the wells to the toliets are both strong contenders. We had an eccentric tour guide whose explanations of things were, in the words of Hassan's father, "full of masala." "Masala" literally translates as "spice," and while I suspect that Hassan's dad meant it as "full of shit," I like the idea that she spiced up the narrative a bit. Phillip referred to ruins in general as "a series of small walls" which is in fact generally all that remains. Without an entertaining tour guide to bring the history to life, it can be difficult to be enraptured by piles of rubble. While we had to take things she said with a certain grain of salt--I'm pretty sure bats did not carry american sequoia seeds from California to Kenya--most of the historical information she gave us seemed generally plausible. And if she happened to name the monkey's who hung out at the ruins or give us her personal opinion of the Sultan ("According to me, the Sultan was a crafty guy") all the better.
In the middle of the ruins, an NGO benefitting local schools built an observation platform at the top of an 800 year old Baobab tree. For 200 shillings (a little less than $4) you can climp up a rickety staircase built around the trunk of the tree and look out accross the ruins. The stairs are almost ladder steep, and don't look particularly sturdy, but the view is worth it!
Me standing on the beach at Vapingo:
Cows crossing the road in front of our van:
A fig tree growing around the Gede Ruins:
Me on the Baobab platform:
The Gede Ruins, as seen from the Baobab tree:
Hassan and I climbing down the ladder stairs:
Saddam the Monkey, who lives at Gede: