Hemingway, hippies and the nobility.

In Lamu, the dreamy archipelago, Kenya's coast, the clocks tick a touch slower. Arab sailors and British colonialists have on the African islands left their mark. A mixture, which fascinated many prominent visitors.

 

"Lamu" wrote Ernest Hemingway, "must not be wasted. To do the island with calm and patience to." The American writer was not the first to the Lamu enchanted. The archipelago, located north of Kenya can merge worlds - Africa and Arabia to India - and a trip easily leads to recurrence. First came probably already in the 9th Century Arab navigators on the islands, their descendants, the Swahili, Lamu with their languages and art. Later followed by Portuguese, Turks, Oman and the British.

According to Hemingway, the hippies in Lamu town and the nearby fishing village of Shela, with its turquoise ocean and miles of untouched sandy beach did wonderfully live. The mangoes grow even today in the mouth, the lobster will be with your hand and catch a full moon on the beach barbecue. The restless Princess Soraya was born in the seventies as one of the first passengers of the nobility, many others followed her advice and the Hemingways since the early nineties.

Already at the arrival on the island of Manda is a what the locals' Küstitis "include: leisure, vulgo also called laziness. Pole pole, only the peace, these words already learned at the airport, only three of the corrugated iron huts there. With dust-covered suitcase are Eselkarren a Dhau loaded. Even Vasco da Gama was looking at this type of boat off the coast of Kenya for a sea route to India.

"A man without a donkey is an ass"

Mohammed, the master, is on course Lamu town, the capital of the archipelago, which the Unesco's World has been collected. Between palms and mangrove stand on flat roofs. The Mole is busy: The men stroll in Khanzu, the Arab gown, or shirt and Kikoi, the Kenyan cloth around the hips is slung. Women move into their Buibuis the meantime, the long, black robes, and keep the youngest and most beautiful among them always in their midst.

Find cars with a few exceptions in the narrow medieval streets of the city space, and so true Swahili is an old wisdom: "A man without a donkey is an ass." The animals are everywhere: 3000 donkey to their hard work on the island work, as they can find happiness with her grace in a bread-ass sanatorium at the Corniche, the coastal road. Until then, however, cats chasing them from the walls of coral stone high jump over the open sewers and break through door of a Swahili house, where they met with Hello and food waste will be welcomed.

Rich ornamental carvings on the high doors are the only reference to the wealth of the owners of the houses. And ancient carvings are also the pride of the museum at the pier, whose magnificent collection of the times Lamus remembers, ivory and slave trade made the city rich. Even Germany had in the 19th Century outpost on Lamu. Europe's appetite for luxury with leopard skins, tortoise shell, ostrich feathers, honey, beeswax, rhinoceros horns and ebony-fed. The Imperial German Postal Agency at the Kenyatta Road, near the abandoned fort, is now a museum.

"Peaceful and safe is it here"

On the Corniche honks then one of the few cars Lamus: Iko WAPI Love, where is the love that is written on the tricycle. In Kenya, each minibus a name. Only last year Barack Obama has the rank of Princess Diana as the most popular Godfather expired. The car belongs to the King Fahd Hospital, the Saudi Arabian vain equip.

Lamu is Muslim: "I must be the opposite side concede - peacefully and safely, it is here," says a missionary, on the islands of the holiday. He works in Eldoret, which has only one year, a center of violence in northern Kenya was. "How could all this happen," says Mohammed just before the Dhau course on the village of Shela holds. "If the tourists do not come, to whom shall we sell our fish?"

Shela Previously lived only by the fishing and the sale of coconut, ginger, chilli, lime and coriander on the market in the capital - just to what the delicious Swahili cuisine mind. Pole Pole, however. On Lamu is only available to order before. Between ordering and eating flies slightly more than an hour. "Where is the crab in Ingwersoße?" "I'm working on it, madam."

But the traveler will continue on the time-forgotten island: Like Caroline and Ernst August of Hanover, which the Swahili "Beach House" on the beach at Shela rent. Ernst August, nine years ago Lamu in the headlines: The "whipping Prince," wrote the German newspaper, was again added.

The "Prince" but acted entirely Lamu from the soul: A German hotelier beschallte Shela from his disco from only 800 meters away from Manda Island. Sun missed the Prince of Hanover, the man at least two slaps in the face - the procedures are up to today. "Hopefully he comes back soon, the 'Prince,'" laughs the Beach Boys of Shela. "Because if we ourselves up, we go to jail."

The German followed by English princes William and Harry, the model Jerry Hall, the French couturier Emanuel Ungaro and Italian author Kuki Gallmann. Sometimes the travelers to stay for ever, attracted by the wonderful climate, the friendliness of the people and the Swahili-white houses, with their airy galleries and quaint courtyards. As these previously looked displays the Swahili House Museum in Lamu town, with a room for the birth and death. In a so-called echo-room were hidden behind high walls, open-seated Swahili women with unseen visitors entertained.

No fish? Hakuna Matata

"We were poor, so poor. You would not believe it," says Mr. Adil, whose business in the new residents of Shela buy everything. Only alcohol is hardly available to be on Lamu. This is disturbing but not Sofia Coppola nor the writer Jeffrey Eugenides. They go to the bar of the hotel Peponi ".

They also feel British private school, such as the legendary big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, and her friends are in clear räkeln Sarongs. You drink the Kenyan Tusk beer or the "Ol 'Pal' cocktail of the house of Bourbon, vermouth and Campari. The sun bathes everything in a golden bath, and the "Küstitis" has another day to pass, just like that. Tomorrow has to be. Morning.

"Do we want to fish in the lagoon?" Suggests Mohammed before. The Dhau on the waves of the reef to sail requires skill and experience. The lines will be ejected. Mohammed begins as a fish only. Hakuna Matata. Do not worry. From the shadow of the bank, he pulls a bowl full of fish on the market until anden. His wife has baked chapatis and fresh chopped vegetables. "Lunch in an hour, ok?" It blows the coals in his Chico, the little coal on board the Dhau, just beginning. Pole pole.

The tide can be made from the finest sand islands appear. The sea is turquoise with puddles. The morning is almost gone. The soul is the devil on Lamu not fall prey. Because only the haste comes from him, but the rest comes from Allah. This too is a Swahili-wisdom.