I traveled with a couple of friends from Sirikwa Wildlife Trust to  the above islands on a mission to visit the tourist attractions far south of the Kenyan coastline. They are home to one of our marine parks, Kisite Mpunguti marine park which has dolphins.

The journey from Nairobi was quite long, about 12 hours by bus. We arrived in Shimoni at around 10:00am, got some breakfast the head out to sea (for about an hour’s long boat-ride) The best time to spot dolphins is in the morning; but as we were to find out, there’s a couple of factors to be considered, e.g the weather and the state of the sea. It was raining and the sea was a little rough, so we didn’t spot any. However, we snorkeled in Mpunguti island and got to see a variety of other marine wildlife.

 

One of the best parts of my trip was visiting Wasini Island for lunch after coming from the marine park. The table was very well laid and the food, mostly sea-food, delicious.

Another tourist attraction in Wasini is the Wasini coral garden which felt like a medieval ruin. It’s a massive garden with scattered dead coral, where the sea once was. The women in the local community run a board walk and use the 100/= (1USD) entrance fee to educate girls who have done well in their Primary school education.

Another exciting part of the trip for me was visiting the Shimoni Slave caves on day 2. Slave trade history has always been of interest to me so this visit was as refreshing as it was moving. We had a guide show us around.

The slaves were collected from villages around the coast and brought to this caves where they would be fed dates for about three weeks. They were thereafter transported by sea to Zanzibar where the Sultan of Zanzibar would trade them off.

We slept in Kenya Wildlife Service bandas in Shimoni.

The marine-park entry fee together with the boat ride and lunch costs KES 2500/=. Entry into the Slave caves was 100/=.

Note: All the above rates are for citizens.

Until next time,
Happy traveling!

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