Once you visit Malindi, taking a quick detour to the Mambrui dunes is practically non-negotiable. Racing across the wind-swept hills on a quad bike will have you feeling like a full-blown Dubai habibi. But as beautiful as the dunes are, nothing quite prepares you for a Marafa sunset.
Marafa, better known as Hell’s Kitchen or Nyari (“The place that broke by itself” in Giriama), is a dramatic sandstone canyon system in Kilifi County.
If you have been there, you’ve probably heard the local legend spun by local guides about how the place came to be. Something about a wealthy, extravagant family that once lived on this land.
They were so outrageously rich that they bathed in cow’s milk while their neighbours went hungry. The heavens, thoroughly unamused by this ostentatious flex, opened up the earth and swallowed the family whole, leaving behind a jagged, sunken abyss.
The local folklore even explains the canyon’s triple-hued soils: the white sandstone represents the wasted milk; the deep crimson stands for the blood shed during the disaster; and the yellow layers signify the divine fire.
It is a good story. In fact, it is exactly the kind of story you want to hear while standing in a giant geological depression about to embark on what would feel like the longest walk of your life. Besides, we didn’t travel all this way to be bored by logic; we came for the trek down into the abyss.
If nobody ever tells you, let me be the one to warn you: Marafa is dusty. Very dusty. It starts with high energy and grand ambitions, but for us, the challenge had already begun hours earlier at Mambrui, where our skin had taken a generous beating from sand and sea breeze. Marafa was simply the icing on the cake.
Marafa is located roughly 40 kilometres from Malindi town, in Magarini Sub-County, Kilifi County. We opted to hire a tuk-tuk for our entire trip. Our journey took about an hour by tuk-tuk, although the exact timing will depend on traffic and just how enthusiastically your tuk-tuk driver interprets the concept of speed.
The journey itself is part of the experience. As you drive deeper into the rural expanse of Kilifi County, the scenery shifts into lush acacia thickets and Giriama homesteads. Yet one thing that remains universally constant across Kenya is the line of iron-sheet shack shops strung along every market like Kenya’s unofficial national architecture.
Once you arrive at Marafa, you won’t need a signpost. The intense heat and swirling dust welcome you with open arms like a long-lost lover, making you immediately miss the fleeting breeze you took for granted inside the open-sided tuk-tuk.
At the entrance, you’ll pay a small access fee, which includes a local guide to walk you through the canyon, double as your personal photographer and share the local secrets, like which sandstone walls you can etch your name into as a keepsake or where to find the unique rock formations that resemble wild animals.
If you live for hiking, this trek down the jagged gullies is an absolute dream. But if you hate hiking as much as I do, every single step down those slopes will feel heavier than the last. You will spend a considerable portion of the trek cursing yourself for succumbing to pressure, wishing you had stayed back at the hotel poolside reading a good book.
Yet, all great struggles come with a happy ending. After a sweaty trek through the red earth and an uncomfortably large collection of unassorted, dust-covered photos, you finally claw your way back up to the canyon’s ridge. Your guide helps organise a comfortable viewing spot right at the rim, just in time for the main event.
The view from the top is nothing short of breathtaking. All the regret, fatigue and sticky beat wash away in an instant. For a glorious moment, you completely forget how filthy and parched you are and you even forgive yourself for refusing to buy that overpriced bottle of water at the gate.
Sitting on the edge, sipping an ice-cold beer that suddenly feels worth every ounce of effort, you watch the sun dip below the horizon. As the day light fades, the sandstone cliffs catch the golden light, glowing in brilliant shades of amber, orange and deep red. You finally understand what it means to be fully attuned to nature.
To top off the evening’s entertainment, a troop of resident baboons usually puts on a full acrobatic display along the ridges, performing chaotic stunts right in front of the sunset in search of food scraps. Judging by how well-fed they look, their hustle pays off every single time.
By the time you leave, you will probably be carrying a layer of Marafa’s red dust on your shoes, clothes and possibly parts of your soul. But you will also leave with a better appreciation of why this place has captured the imagination of generations of locals and visitors alike.
Photos: Lolita Bunde, Standard