Monkeys, ruins and more animals

The writer poses with a monkey that came by the Gedi Ruins. Courtesy photo

What you need to know:

  • ATTRACTION. The Gedi ruins are the remains of a Swahili town, of shelter skeletons of broken stones and concrete that used to house the palace of the sultans, the leaders of the historical town in Malindi, writes EDGAR R. BATTE

All it needed was a few nuts. The monkey then jumped up onto the car bonnet and found its way to my shoulder, and sat. It nibbled as I served it more nuts.
From inside our tour van, a friend started peeling a banana, immediately attracting its attention to the car, and thereon it jumped with agility from my shoulder into the car. Within a split second, more monkeys were swarming to get a share of the snacks.

Where we were
The midmorning sun seeping through the tree and shrubbery thickets of Gedi National Monument shone on our faces and that of the playful jungle residents, with its golden caress, prompting photographers to get to work. The Gedi ruins are the remains of a Swahili town, of shelter skeletons of broken stones and concrete that used to house the palace of the sultans, the leaders of the historical town in Malindi.
The walls and the story it shares stretches to the 15th century, at the height of its glory, now partly nestled in 45 acres of primeval forest. The town was home to the Swahili people while the inner walls were inhabited by the wealthy.
The evidence for this still lives in dingy porcelain, marble and architectural finesse, which despite the years, still tickles the mind on how luxurious the princess, princesses and other rich must have been.

Coral tomb
The one-hour tour will lead you to coral tomb beautifully engraved in Arabic script, with a date with the year 1399. A few metres away is the Great Mosque, which has a 50-metres deep hole close by. It is referred to as the ‘Well of the Great Mosque’ which Muslim believers used for ablutions.
All this is memorabilia now, thanks to disruption of the Indian Ocean trade system and subsequently the invasion of warring pastoral communities especially the Galla people which pushed out locals to seek refuge in other parts of the coastal neighbourhood.
Then there is theory by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) that Gedi’s eventual abandonment to nature is believed to also be due to an invasion by the Wazimba raid along the East African coast in 1589 and removal of the Sheikh of Malindi and the Portuguese to Mombasa in 1593.
But the residents did not lose all. Tourists are only told about gold, porcelain and other precious stones. None of it is there to see. The abandonment has seen nature take its place.
There are some old trees with outgrown buttress roots, some too old to bear leaves. The green is not lost. The ruins are located in the midst of a surrounding forest.
According to Unesco, the shallow coral rag soil has grown a lowland semi-deciduous forest, maintained by a rainfall of around 1,100 millimetres per year.

Historical facts
Gedi historic town is a gazetted National Monument since 1927; it is managed by the National Museums of Kenya. This was the first site to be excavated in East Africa and has remained the most intact of the preserved Swahili historic towns. It has been published extensively compared to other sites.

what else to do
Besides the Gedi Ruins, there is more to see at the national monument. You can take a nature walk through the forest where you are almost sure to see the rare golden-ramped elephants, monkeys, 40 species of plants, bird species, the Gedi Snake Rescue Centre where guides will be available to walk with you and educate you about nature.

Titbits about Gedi Ruins

Turtle bay
Turtle Bay Resort is one of the choices for a place to stay while in Malindi. It looks right into the beach, offering you a relaxing view of the Indian Ocean which is lined with palm trees. It is located 25 km from Malindi Airport and 110 km from Mombasa Airport. Free private parking is possible on site and an airport transfer is available upon request

The palace
The palace, with its striking entrance porch, sunken courts and honeycomb of little rooms, is the most impressive single building. The concentration of houses outside its east wall is where most of Gedi’s interesting finds were made and they are named accordingly: house of the scissors, house of the ivory box, house of the dhow (with a picture of a dhow on the wall).

The great mosque
Gedi’s Great Mosque, one of seven on the site, was its Friday mosque, the mosque of the whole town. Compared with other ruined mosques on the coast, this one is very large and had a minbar, or pulpit, of three stone steps, rather than the usual wooden construction. Perhaps the people who worshipped here were both men and women – and their form of Islam, comes from the carving of a broad-bladed spearhead above the arch of the mosque.