Il Kenya offers a fabulous sea, of an intense blue that perfectly matches the white of the long beaches of delicate and dusty sand like talcum powder, and the more you move south and get closer to Tanzania and the more these beaches become wild and frequented by the locals. We arrive in Diani: pristine sea and beachfront resort is all there is for most Western tourists. And instead Diani offers much more!
In reality, what is defined as “nothing to see” is an opportunity that must act as a stimulus to discover the territory, the people, the traditions that are there within reach as soon as you pass the tourist promenade.
Get ready to walk to immerse yourself in the lush nature of the coastal region, take a matatu (a traditional minibus) towards Kwale, the first inhabited center a little structured inland south of Mombasa where you will ask for directions to SHIFOGA, reachable on foot. If, on the other hand, you don't dare to throw yourself headlong into local customs, book a taxi and let yourself be dropped off in front of the association's headquarters Shimba Hills Forest Guides Association (SHIFOGA in fact). There you will find guides who, among the various activities, can take you on a mini safari in the Shimba Hills National Reserve or to the Sanctuary of the Elephants. This is where you have to ask them to take you.
After about an hour and a half of walking (distances in Africa are measured as follows: travel time) during which you will get involved in the stories of your local guide, you will begin to store red earth images, mud huts and palm leaf roofs, children and women crushing corn in the farmyards, immense expanses of palm groves and meadows, you will feel less tourists and closer to the true African essence. It is this path that will make you ready to understand the majestic landscape that, beyond the last hill, will stand out in front of you: the Sanctuary of the Elephants, a immense green valley crossed by a river that creates a U-shaped bend worthy of the most famous documentary images. Among the vegetation you will catch groups of elephants (females and cubs) opposed to solitary elephants (males) and it will be nice to admire their behavior and slow movements.
Un place of reflection, silence, respect, infinite. A place where you can feel the breath of Africa and where it is not uncommon to meet people from Kwale who arrive on foot for a chat with friends or to find some peace and serenity to encourage decisions and choices.
You would stay there for hours, I assure you. Impossible to escape the sense of calm, tranquility and emptying of the mind.
This is the Africa that conquers, the one with which one does not come into contact by staying closed in the tourist village, here their HAKUNA MATATA finds meaning, here you will feel regenerated and ready for the walk back to Kwale and then back to the holiday on the coast, but with a much richer heart!
