On our second day in Lamu we took a traditional dhow boat trip to neighbouring Manda island. As a tourist, you are offered boat trips approximately every 2 minutes as you walk along the Lamu foreshore so eventually we cracked. The boat operators were pretty desperate given the huge lack of tourists because of the impending election.

Despite lots of competition we ended up with a pretty lacklustre crew, I seem to have bad luck with boat trips! We were overcharged at the end of the trip and had to wait around at the start of the day for them to be ready, standard stuff. It was still a fun day though and it was pretty magical to be sailing between small Kenyan islands.

Waiting on the foreshore for our crew to (finally) be ready to go

Sarah and Andy on the dhow

Andy

It was pretty impressive watching the guys sail the dhow. Keeping it evenly weighted was quite the balancing act. LOL.

This guy keeping the weight even

We zigzagged along the water between the two islands, passing Shela beach along the way.

Shela

Shela

We reached Manda and headed for the sand to relax nearby empty mansions.

Andy and I

Some of the large homes seemed to have housekeepers, others appeared abandoned. It was kind of eerie. Or maybe I think it’s eerie now I know that in 2011 a French woman was abducted from Manda beach by Somali pirates…

We ate a lunch of fish and rice on the boat, which was surprisingly good.

Manda Island

Eventually the wind and sand’s exfoliating effect got a bit old, so we headed back to hang out at our amazing AirBnb.

Looking down into our private courtyard

Looking into the main courtyard

Chilling in the lounge room

Coconut by the pool

Another evening of cards and fresh seafood.

Shufflin’

I went for the lobsters and chapati, it was delicious.

The following morning I joined Sarah for sunrise on the balcony.

We are extremely close as sisters but haven’t lived in the same place for about a decade now, so time together is sacred and very special.

For our last morning we checked out the Lamu museum, which had a lot of information about Swahili architecture, furniture and crafts.

We had the museum to ourselves. The building itself had great views down onto the streets below.

The main square

We explored inside the old fort in the main square.

Always stay curious

The fort had even better views!

Donkeys ❤

Inside the market

We decided to take a motor boat to Shela for a swim and to have Peponi’s ice cream one more time.

The most amazing sand dunes sit so close to the water.

Andy walked up one and took this sneaky paparazzi photo:

The ice cream was as tantalisingly good as the day before:

After getting our fix we got a boat back to Lamu Old Town ahead of our boat to the airport and then flight to Nairobi. For what would be the first of many times on our trip, Sarah and I were dressed hilariously alike:

Proving geography has absolutely nothing on our sisterly closeness!