Mida Creek is a must-see stop if you visit Mombasa, Kenya. After a day of church visits, we enjoyed a late afternoon stroll and picnic seafood dinner on a beautiful stretch of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast.
Mida Creek: Must-See In Kenya
I suspect when you think of Kenya, you usually think of safaris and game animals. After all, Masai Mara National Park and Amboseli National Park are two of the most famous reserves in the world and Kenya is often called the best place in the world to go for a safari. But on the Indian coast is a whole different Kenya, filled with unique culture and language and immense natural beauty.
Located 105 km north of Mombasa in a town called Watamu, we spent a few hours in Mida Creek. The journey took about three hours due to heavy traffic and poor roads. Part of a larger UNESCO biosphere reserve, Mida Creek includes:
- tidal mudflats
- coral reefs
- seagrass beds
- mangrove trees
One of the highlights was watching the birds. Mida Creek is home to 65 migratory bird species and if you close your eyes you can listen to a panoply of bird calls.
We had a guide who took us through a fairly long journey through mangrove trees to a little island where we had supper. It’s best to go during low tide, which allowed us to wade through the creek in our bare feet (you’ll want to remove your sandals). We took a boat back to the shoreline where we started.
If you have decent shoes you do not want to mess up, you can rent clogs from the beach (and even get your shoes shined while you are gone), but probably best if you just bring flip-flops along.
Don’t miss Mida Creek: it was unique and beautiful, particularly in the cooler later afternoon and twilight.
Afterwards, they recount their good fortune that they talked tourists into visiting a muddy sh*hole that wouldn’t warrant a second glance anywhere else in the world, and paying them money for it to boot.
You’re so smug about using the term “sh*hole” to describe anywhere outside of Florida when you’ve never visited any of these places. I don’t understand if this is just sport with you or if you are serious. If you are truly serious, why? Don’t you have any curiosity to look beyond the surface and understand that there are redeeming qualities in just about any place?
Pink flamingos! Love it. I understand the area is a bucket list destination for birding safari
Love the raised walkways – watch your step! What are they pointing to in one of the pictures – it looks like a bunch of shells/clams/snails?
The Lamu Power Project – What You Didn’t See
Matthew I am glad you got to see this part of Kenya that’s off the beaten path. I have been to Kenya at least 1/2 dozen times since 2015 and have fallen in love with the people and the wildlife. It truly is a complicated country that is trying to figure out how to keep what’s left of nature alongside 53 million people and the effects of climate change as seen through worsening droughts and floods .
One of the interesting sights you missed and didn’t know about is related to foreign investment usually coming from China. Kenya has a big appetite for development projects, and China’s been happy to lend money, do the work, and maybe line a few pockets along the way while not asking questions about annoying topics such as environmental concerns. Examples include shoddy highway projects already falling apart and the standard-gauge railway project that sliced through Nairobi National Park rather than inconvenience some well-connected property owners.
This part of the Kenya coastline was caught in middle of this issue…..in a different reality, you could have feasted your eyes on an absolutely enormous coal-fired power plant, built right inside the sensitive mangrove swamps, and fueled by freighters of imported coal. This project was so controversial and so outwardly bad for the environment that it was repealed. It was planned to be in Lamu, just a little bit north of where you were. I
https://www.gem.wiki/Lamu_Power_Project
Fascinating. I’ll be returning later this year and if time permits, will look for it. I appreciate your comment, Greg.
Matthew this project was abandoned over the environmental outcry so don’t look to closely for it ! But maybe the locals can point out where the proposed location was to be.
I was looking forward to pics from Watamu snake farm.
Not from me! I’m afraid of snakes!
You colonizers are at it again , this is the beginning of divide and concur you people get to go to any melanated country in the world and do what you do best to the original peoples’ and claim that you are going to civilize them and provide work for them while making a fortune off of them and when you’re sitting at your kitchen counter with your friends and your family you refer to them as savages. I wonder who are the savages ? How do you sleep at night ? Oh ,I for you have no soul .
I love to see crazy information bias like this. How does one read this article & get that? Absolutely a psychiatrists dream to study.