One of the best kept secrets of Safari is Chale Island, 27 km from the coastal city of Mombasa, East Africa. Here visitors can cover themselves in natural volcanic mud at Sleepy Creek and look younger than they really are. Why spend money on cosmetics?
The first time I saw people taking mud baths was on one of Michael Palin’s television shows. Little did I know that the same town I’ve always vacationed in, in my own backyard, was a little haven for mud-bath-loving tourists. I went to this place for the first time while visiting the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute during one of my excursions.
The Institute was then working on a very special project studying rare mangrove species with a University in Italy. Due to my interest in traditional medicine, I moved away and went to visit a traditional healer and the elderly Digo, Mzee Abdallah Mnyenze, whom I had met through the Ethnoecological Society of Kenya. As an accomplished ethnobiologist, Mzee Mnyenze knows a thing or two that you can’t find in botany books. So whenever I have the opportunity to visit beautiful Mombasa, I visit it just to hear its wisdom under the coconut trees enjoying the sea breeze accented with the smell of the mighty Indian Ocean. I digress, back to the point.
The National Museums of Kenya are trying to conserve this sacred Mijikenda forest for its rare species of mangroves, birds and colobus monkeys, which are a great attraction for local and foreign visitors.
Experts say that the island’s natural vegetation is unique. Coastal Kayas, as they are called, are a mixture of marine and terrestrial ecology of very ancient mangrove species whose biological diversity has not been seen anywhere in the world.
In these forests there are numerous cultural sanctuaries. I say that are scattered throughout the island but whose secrets are only known by the few elderly people. I say, knowledge that has been transmitted from generation to generation.
Now there are tourist cabins near this beautiful grove. The visit to this area is rewarded with traditional dances and mud baths to tone the skin. It took a lot of persuasion to take my clothes off, but I’m glad I did. Do not undergo cosmetic surgery before visiting Chale Mud-bath. It is free and the cabins are very cheap but opulent. Why waste money on expensive cosmetics and intrusive surgeries? Dive into the mud!
