Kiwayu, Lamu, in ‘G Magazine’ article: “Billionaires and Backpackers”
29 Jan 10
This is an extract from an article written by Chris Bagley from the Condenash Paris Offices, following his visit to Kiwayu in August of 2009:
‘… Even those who come to Lamu for its raucous holiday scene tend to slip away at some point, heading off to one of several pricey hideaways that evoke Gillian’s Island, albeit with better food. British artist Tracey Emin favours Kiwayu Safari Village , which is reached either by plane or by an alarmingly bumpy, 40-mile speedboat ride through the mangrove channels … The lodge’s 18 open-air, thatch-roofed bandas overlook a pristine beach that’s part of a marine reserve, with a game reserve right next to it, so it’s here that you’ll likely have that requisite East Africa experience: a wildlife encounter inside your hotel room. No sooner had the steward dropped off my suitcase than a monkey hopped through the window to inspect it.
Kiwayu’s co-owner Simone Pelizzoli is a native Kenyan whose father bought the land in the Seventies, when elephants still hung out on the beach. Today tourism in Kenya is slowly picking up again after the violence in the wake of the countries 2007 presidential election … Pelizzoli prefers to focus on the upside. At least the unrest serves as a deterrent to new Club Meds and, paradoxically, protects the things that lured travellers here in the first place. Pelizzoli makes this observation after returning from a late-afternoon walk on a deserted beach with her husband and their two-year-old daughter, who spend an hour and a half bouncing on dried seaweed and running after crabs.
“Often”, she says, “when there’s a bit of trouble somewhere, the beauty remains, doesn’t it?” ‘
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