Founded in the late 13th or early 14th century, the ruined Swahili town of Gedi is located about 4km north of Watamu. Meaning ‘precious’ in the language of the local Galla people, it is thought to have flourished in the mid-15th century. Obviously a prosperous town at that time, it hosted sultan’s palaces, sunken gardens, a fabulous selection of grand merchant’s houses, a large Friday mosque and some exquisite examples of Islamic pillar tombs.

Shimoni means ‘place of the hole’ a reference to the 5 km of silted-up caves, which are thought to have been used for storing slaves prior to shipment to Zanzibar. Tours of the caves demonstrate the metal rings in the rocks to which the slaves are thought to have been shackled and the now silted-up passage, which once led to the slave ships.