Peponi

2°17’41.4"S 40°54’57.6"E

100% (5 reviews)

Peponi: gallery

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Peponi: picture gallery

Peponi is in the heart of Shela village, but is only a short dhow ride from Lamu town.

The hotel's heart is its terrace bar (room guests on this side, casual visitors on the other) …

…from where the comings and goings in the Lamu Channel can be watched.

It can be hard to drag yourself away from this spot.

Behind the terrace, bar and dining room, there's a cool courtyard…

…which makes a perfect spot to chill, or catch up with home.

The hotel has grown a lot since the original house was bought by the present owners in the late 60s…

…though traces of its early history are still scattered around the grounds.

The rooms, scattered through the gardens, now stretch for quite a distance along the seafront.

8 standard rooms are located in the "Palm Garden" just north of the main hotel terrace.

These are simple, but comfortably furnished…

Flasks of "Peponi water" (their own filtered supply) are always available.

Further standard rooms are located on the south side of the hotel (this is #14)…

The superior rooms are on the southern side of the hotel, and include these seafront rooms (#25-23)…

…though most superior rooms occupy more elevated positions (these are #20 and #19).

Room #17, with a private terrace outside the bedroom, is always popular…

The bathrooms in the superior rooms all vary, but they are better than those in standard rooms.

Everywhere there are little touches, like footbaths outside rooms for washing the sand off…

…and bathrobes. This is the perhaps the best superior room, known as "Top Room"…

…because of its location on top of the restaurant and above the hotel's central courtyard.

Top Room has a very large private terrace and sundeck…

The terrace and sun deck are directly accessed from the main room…

…and you walk along a short passage to reach the bright, en suite bathroom.

The hot showers at Peponi are all solar powered…

Peponi's suites (this is #28) are good step up…

The furnishings are a mix of contemporary…

…and all the suites have plenty of space for relaxing and entertaining.

…but there's a huge variety of other activities, most of them water-borne.

A trip into town is easy to organise from the hotel, with a guide or on your own.

If Lamu town seems a bit far, the little alleys of Shela village…

…start from a door at the back of the hotel. This is Shela's ATM (not always operational).

When you step onto Peponi's beach, you have 12km of seashore to yourself…

…with just the odd distraction, like this villa in the style of an Omani fort.

Peponi's sunrises can be spectacular. With views like this, why would you want to be anywhere else?

This annotated sketch shows the layout of Peponi's rooms south of the restaurant.

This shows the rooms around the central areas.

And this shows the location of the standard rooms on the "town" side of the hotel to the north.

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