Mombasa
Mombasa Sulphur-rich mud-bath Pulls tourists
One of the the best kept Safari secret is Chale Island, 27km off the coastal town of Mombasa. Here visitors can cover themselves in natural volcanic mud at Sleepy Creek and look younger than they actually are. Why waste money on cosmetics?
The first time I saw people taking mud-baths was on one of the celebrated Michael Palin’s television programmes. Little did I know that the very village where I have always gone for holidays in my own back yard was a little haven for mud-bath loving tourists. I first went to this location while visiting Kenya Marines and Fisheries Research Institute during one of my field trips.
The Institute was working on a very special project on rare species of Mangroves with a University in Italy. Because of my interest in traditional medicine, I wandered off and went visiting a traditional healer and Digo elder-Mzee Abdallah Mnyenze, whom I had met through the Kenya Society of Ethnoecology. As an accomplished Ethnobiologist, Mzee Mnyenze knows one or two things that you can not find in Botany books. So whenever I can an opportunity I listen to his wisdom under the coconut trees. I am digressing,back to the point, the Society was, then working with the National Museums to conserve this Mijikenda sacred forest for its rare species of mangroves, birds and the colobus monkeys, which are a great attraction to foreign and local visitors.
Experts say that the natural vegetation on the island is very unique. The coastal Kayas-as they are called are a mixture of marine and terrestrial ecology of very old mangrove species whose biological diversity has not been seen anywhere in the world.
In this forests are numerous Digo cultural shrines that are scattered all over the island but whose secrets are only known to the few Digo elders, knowledge that has been handed down from generation to generation.
Now there are touristic Cottages near this beautiful grove. A visit to this area is rewarded with traditional dances and the skin toning mud-bath.Do not go for cosmetic surgery before you visit Chale Mud-bath.
