Safety and security are our top priority at every stage of the journey

The call to prayer came before dawn, and while normally this would not vex me—an inveterate early riser—the mosque was only two lanes away from my bedroom. In the sweltering heat before the Kusi monsoon rains arrived to cool the East African coast, I had just finally drifted off after a bout with insomnia. Deep in the night, a donkey had brayed forlornly in a nearby alley, contributing to my exhausted state. But when the loudspeaker crackled to life and the muezzin chanted his request to the faithful,

 I wearily pushed back my tangled sheets and mosquito netting, then climbed stone stairs to a rooftop balcony that caught the faint breeze stirring off Lamu Channel. A sleepless night was a small price to pay for the privilege of watching the equatorial sun rise, red as a torch, while elegantly thin Swahilis in long white robes hurried, their slippers slapping rhythmically on pounded-dirt paths, to attend to their first obligation of the day.

For more than a thousand years, East Africa was a strategic stop on shipping routes linking the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, and the Indian Subcontinent. Gold, ivory, slaves, and spices were exchanged in ports of call along a 300-mile stretch of what is now Kenya but which belonged at various times to Portugal, the Sultanate of Oman, and the British Empire.

 This complicated history resulted in a rich layering of cultures, cuisines, and languages: Portuguese sailors, Arab artisans, Gujarati merchants, and British colonials all gravitated here to trade and farm. In Arabic, sahil means coast. It's also the root word for Swahili, the coastal region's predominant social group (whose language is officially called Kiswahili). The isolated Lamu archipelago, 150 miles north of Mombasa, is one of the best-preserved Swahili settlements. It consists of four main islands—Lamu, Manda, Pate, and Kiwayu—with a total population of 70,000, many of whom make their living fishing along the protective reef and the mangrove forest that rims the back channels. for all these contact Activenture safaris.

At Activenture Safaris, safety and security are our top priority at every stage of the journey. Whether you are camping on safari or climbing Mt. Elgon, we anticipate your safety needs and carefully plan for contingencies. Here are just a few of the precautions that demonstrate our attention to safety:

 

By ann naiga.

About the Author

am a tour operator, working with Aactiventure safaris.