After Gedi, WATAMU seems fairly superficial. It consists simply of a small agglomeration of hotels, a strip of beachfront private homes, a compact coconut village of hotelis and curio stands, and the beach . It tends to cater for package holidaymakers staying in the large hotels along it, but there's still plenty for the backpacker - beautiful beaches, a superb marine park and lively young nightlife. Watamu is well used to tourists: making friends is easy, and you can look around the village without being too badly pestered. As the beach is part of the marine park, KWS regulations have recently been enforced to clear beach boys and hawkers off the beach.

 

Although one or two of the hotels are very pleasant, the beach and the coral offshore are the main justification for visiting Watamu. Fortunately, they are justification enough. This is an exceptional shoreline, with three stunning bays - Watamu Bay, the Blue Lagoon and Turtle Bay - separated by raised coral cliffs and dotted with tiny, sculpted coral islets scuttled over by crabs. If you like beach walks, bring a pair of rubber or plastic-soled sandals - the coral rock is sharp. Out in the Watamu Marine National Park , the submerged crags of living coral gardens are - despite all the visits in glass-bottom boats - as vivid and magically perfect as they must have been for millennia. And, despite the high profile of tourism here, there's an easier-going atmosphere than at, say, Diani or Malindi, with fewer security problems than at Malindi and the coastline north and south of Mombasa. Watamu is a good place to go diving - or to learn the skill, with at least three diving schools offering one-off dives or approved courses at standard rates. It's worth knowing, however, that from June to October seaweed is often swept onto the beach and the sea can be murky, while in July it's often too rough to snorkel or dive anyway.

Among environmental initiatives, one that many hotels participate in, and individual tourists can contribute to, is Watamu Turtle Watch (PO Box 125 tel 0122/32118, fax 32280, wtwkenya@swiftmalindi.com), a project to protect the eggs of threatened marine turtles from poaching (in both senses) by paying local people to guard nests. The same group also pays fishermen to hand in turtles that have become ensnared in fishing nets for rerelease into the sea, and individuals can sponsor a nest for guarding or a turtle for release. Turtle Watch is informed when nests they are gaurding hatch, so if you contact them, you may be able to go and see the baby turtles scuttling down the sand from their nest into the sea.

Getting to Watamu is easy, with frequent matatus making the run from Malindi. Buses and matatus between Mombasa or Kilifi and Malindi will drop you at the Gedi junction, leaving you to walk, hitch, wait for a matatu, or take a taxi for the last 6km. The road from Gedi and the junction is dead straight. Just before Watamu, it passes the settlement of Timboni , with three speed humps; just down an alley to the left (east) of the road by the third hump, the Women's Health Centre sells excellent handmade neem soap, using coconut oil and extracts derived from the neem tree. Introduced into this part of Kenya from India, the neem has numerous medicinal properties and its leaves are used as a natural mosquito repellent.

Coming into Watamu itself, the road from Gedi passes the post office (Mon-Fri 8am-12.30pm & 2-5pm) before it hits the beach road, which matatus scud up and down all the time. Just north of the junction, behind the post office is a supermarket with, next door, a very pricey internet office. If you continue up the beach road a little way past the turning for the supermarket, a road off to the right takes you into Watamu village . Just under a kilometre beyond that, on the left, a superb little reptile park , Bio-Ken (daily 9am-noon & 2-5pm; Ksh300), breeds green and black mambas for anti-venom, and houses a large collection of snakes, plus a few tortoises and a token croc, and you'll be guided round by someone who actually knows a bit about the scaly slitherers.

A right turn at the beach road junction brings you to four main resort hotels - Blue Bay Village, Ocean Sports, Hemingways and Turtle Bay - twenty or thirty private homes and, at the end of the narrow bar along which the road runs, the marine park ticket office. And that's Watamu.