These Swahili ruins, just north of Mtwapa Creek, have as much archaeological grandeur as the more famous Gede ruins. Jumba la Mtwana means ‘Big House of Slaves’ and locals believe the town was an important slave port in the 14th or 15th century. There's a small museum on Swahili culture and an excellent restaurant by the sea, and the custodian gives excellent tours for a small gratuity. The ruins are down a 3km access road, 2km north of Mtwapa Creek bridge.
The remains of buildings, with their exposed foundations for mangrove beam poles, ablution tanks, the heft of the resident baobabs and the twisting arms of 600-year-old trees – leftover from what may have been a nearby kaya (sacred grove) – are quite magical. In the dying evening light, your imagination will be able to run riot with thoughts of lost treasures, ghosts, pirates and abandoned cities.
Slaves may or may not have been traded here, but turtle shell, rhino horn and ambergris (sperm-whale intestinal secretions, used for perfume) all were. In return, Jumba received goods such as Chinese dishes, the fragments of which can be seen in the floors of some buildings today. While here, keep your eyes peeled for the upper-wall holes that mark where mangrove support beams were affixed, the many cisterns that point to the Swahilis' keenness on hygiene, the House of Many Doors, which is believed to have been a guesthouse, and dried-out, 40m-deep wells. You’d be remiss to miss the Mosque by the Sea, which overlooks a crystal-sharp vista of the Indian Ocean.
Notice the Arabic inscription on the stela adjacent to the nearby graveyard: ‘Every Soul Shall Taste Death’. Underneath is a small hole representing the opening all humans must pass through on the way to paradise.