The Kenyan Coast - Watamu

After the tour I decided that the last week or so of my trip needed to be a relaxing one and so I headed to a village called Watamu on the Kenyan coast.

When the tide was out you could walk over to little islands normally surrounded by the sea. Caution was needed whilst walking though, as there were numerous rock pools full of all sorts of fish and thousands of spiky sea urchins.

Being a place where it was hard to escape from chatty local men and not somewhere I felt particularly comfortable lying in my bikini, the guy running my guesthouse kindly showed my the empty pool at his friends guesthouse which I was allowed to use whenever I wanted. In between heavy rain showers I spent some time enjoying the hot sunshine here.

I spent a day doing a couple of dives, where again there were lots of fish and coral and it was really pretty. After the last dive we came out of the sea and onto the boat in the middle of a huge rain storm. By the time we'd got back to shore I was cold, but jumping into the sea to get off the boat was amazing as it felt as warm as a hot bath.

Another day I went to the house of the family of the guy who ran the guesthouse. They cooked me delicious food and wanted me to eat far more than I could manage. They also invited me to go back before I left Watamu so they could give me a cake they would make for my family. This was despite me laughing at an inappropriate time - the mother couldn't speak any English and spoke to me a lot in Swahili. I was laughing as I couldn't understand what she was saying no matter how hard I tried. It turned out though that she was explaining that as a Muslim she couldn't leave the house for three months because her husband had recently died.

The guesthouse was in a maze of houses and the first few times I left and tried to get back I got completely lost and had to ask someone to show me the way. It is fortunate people here are so friendly and happy to help. I'm not sure why I found it all so confusing as in similar situations in Stone Town on Zanzibar I had done so well.

Two lovely additions to the guesthouse were the neighbours cats who came to visit each day and very much liked being made a fuss of. There were also two other guests staying at the same time as me, who strangely enough were from the little town where my parents live in England.

It was just the sort of week I was hoping for!