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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 13

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 13

Author: Kingsley Holgate
Date: 2017-07-14

If one thinks of all the things that could have gone wrong, but here we are in steamy sweaty hot humid Mombassa. The Horn of Africa is behind us, the new mayor of Mombassa endorses the Scroll of Peace and Goodwill in support of malaria prevention and we spend the next few days distributing life saving mosquito nets to orphanages around the city. It's the height of the rainy season and malaria is rife.

"Remember keep on the left hand side of the road," says Ross over the radio as we pull off. After all the months of driving on the 'wrong' side of the road it's become a habit that we now need to change. It's all about remaining true to the outside edge of Africa, our convoy of Land Rovers, overloaded with bales of mosquito nets, pin pricks of red tail lights in the pouring monsoon rain, as we backtrack to the Lamu Archipelago against the Somali border.

Travelling with us is an armed camouflage-clad askari. Even the local busses travel with armed military police on the road North from Malindi now made more dangerous by the present situation in war torn Somalia. In the old town of Lamu donkeys have right of way. There's only one vehicle and it's the District Commissioner's Land Rover.

This historic place with its narrow passageways and coral rag buildings remains the finest example of Swahili culture and architecture on the East African coast. "Aaaah, habari Captain," shouts an old crew member from a voyage of a few years ago when we'd sailed an old 35 ton Arab dhow up the coast from Northern Mozambique to the Somali border and then back again, sailing on the Kaskazi trade wind to Ilha de Mozambique.

For us it's like coming home as past and present journeys merge into one. We stand at the Friday Mosque in Shela looking North towards Somalia and the Horn of Africa. The memories of the journey flood back, the coast of Sudan, the heat of the Danakil of Eritrea, Lac Asal in Djibouti - the lowest place on the African continent. We're just South of the equator and the Southern Cross hangs over the Indian Ocean. On the opposite side of the continent is the Congo, Gabon and the Gulf of Guinea - so many memories. Will keep you posted.