Let’s take a ferry cruise to Rusinga, Mfangano islands

Luanda K’Otieno in Uyoma, Rarieda is where the 90 km Kisumu-Luanda K’Otieno tarmacked road ends and Lake Victoria begins. The place is more like of trading centre, yet it’s the vital harbour that links commuters to Mbita Town across the lake.

The other way to reach Mbita would be to go all the way round through Kisumu-Ahero-Katito-Kendu-Bay-Homa Bay then on to Mbita. Long, ardours and tiring.

Mbita channel is an important economic passage for residents of the low laying locations within these two regions as well as the two major fishing islands of Rusinga and Mfangano.

But the ferry has also helped tourists crossing over from Kisumu to Mbita, Rusinga and to Ruma National Game Park in Lambwe Valley.

After an hour’s ride, it will dock in Mbita, which is linked to Rusinga Island by a 200 metre causeway. Before the causeway was built in the early 80’s, men and women died crossing it using boats, which would be blown into the middle of the lake by strong winds, that coursed through this treacherous pathway.

Rusinga Island – 16km from end to end and 5km at its widest, lying on the eastern part of the Winam Gulf is one of Kenya’s unexplored territories.

There is tons to do and see for the adventurous. First, it’s one the best localities in the world for fossils.

When Louis and Mary Leakey announced the Proconsul and another 18 million-year-old fossils they unearthed in 1948, they opened the island to curious explorers. The site remains preserved in the island.

Then there is the Tom Mboya Mausoleum – shaped, aptly like a bullet – built in honour of the late prominent politician who was felled by an assassin’s bullet outside a chemist in Nairobi in 1969. The mausoleum is now under the National Museums of Kenya.

While you are on the island, you might want to visit one of the half a dozen or so fishing villages of Rusinga Island. Fishing is big in Rusinga and sustenance is purely from the activities of the lake.

Visit Kolunga Fishing Village, one of the oldest and largest fishing villages.

Take a boat out, preferably at 6pm just as they prepare to go fishing and watch them ready their nets, light their pressure lambs and have their meal of beans and mandazis.

Or you could go early in the morning, at 6pm or 7pm, as they come back from a night’s work. They have tales, these fishermen. Tales of bravery, toil and sometimes, tales of death that lives in the lake.

Another ferry will take you to Mfangano Island, lying west of Rusinga and one of the numerous islands on this side of Lake Victoria. This is home to one of the largest populations of the Suba people.

The language has become rare, partly because of intermarriage between the dominant Luo and the Suba. There are more fishing villages here, but if you drift east you will dock at Takawiri, a “deserted” island that has a strip of white sandy beaches and palm trees.

This is the best place for beach picnics and skinny dipping - if you are into that kind of thing. You can also try your hand at fishing here.

Not too far from here is the Bird Island. If you are an enthusiastic bird watcher, you’ll love this island. It’s home to some 369 species of local and migratory birds; many not found anywhere else in Kenya.

Although the island is a protected area, and thus, no one is allowed on it, it’s one of the favourite spots for birdies.

The trip to Rusinga is not complete without a visit to the Ruma National Park situated on the floor of the Lambwe Valley.

The park covers 120 square kilometres and was established in 1966 to protect its indigenous population of rare roan antelopes, which exist nowhere else in Kenya.