Robinson Island – Hell’s Kitchen Marafa
Different experiences, enclosed in a single day.
Departure from your beach resort or home in watamu at 08:00 towards Malindi town, we will travel along the road that leads to Lamu, up to the mouth of the Sabaki river.
Here we will stop to watch the hippos and flocks of pink flamingos. If the road is good, we can go to the famous Che Shale (Golden Beach), where the specks of pyrite mixed with sand make it golden.
We then continue the journey, passing right through the largest salt pans in Kenya, with natural pools colored in various colors, from white to pink, where flamingos and herons rest in their typical position on a single leg.
We leave our car, to get on a pirogue, where Caronte, will ferry us, singing, through a lagoon surrounded by mangroves and palm groves, to arrive at the island of Robinson.
Here, in a charming restaurant, made entirely with mangrove roots, makuti roof, and … white sand floor, a fish lunch will be served (oysters au gratin, shells, crabs, prawns, rice, baked fish, fruit and tea) on a table adorned with frangipani flowers and colorful bougainvillea.
After lunch, once rested on comfortable sofas, we will resume the road to head towards: HELL’S KITCHEN – MARAFA (THE KITCHENS OF THE DEVIL) We cross extensive pineapple plantations, villages and acacia woods to get to Hell’s Kitchen.
Nothing similar is found in all of Africa. It is a large canyon, formed in the Pliocene period, surrounded by very high vertical walls with reddish spiers and stone pillars that reach even 30 meters in height.
Originally Hell’s Kitchen, which is commonly called Nyari by the locals, (the place that breaks itself) was a place of sandstone rock. It was mainly the erosion of rain and wind that transformed it into the surreal canyon over the millennia: a miracle of unique nature, even according to several of the most authoritative geologists on the planet.
The best time to visit is towards sunset, when the setting sun merges with the red of the earth and creates a surreal atmosphere. In the light of the setting sun the rocks take on different colors ranging from white, to pink, to orange to red. After walking through the “valleys” of the canyon, we take the road back to your Hotel or home/Villas in Malindi or Watamu.