Baobabs

This baobab stood - probably still stands, for they live for hundreds of years - on Mombasa island near the entrance to Kilindini harbour. It's one of several in a group and it has been suggested that they were planted deliberately. The story dates back to the days when Mvita, as Mombasa was then called, was part of the Portuguese empire, and tells that, if a soldier died out there, far from home, a pod of baobab seeds was planted with him; so each of these baobabs is a living tombstone.

The boat in the channel is the old Likoni car ferry which joined Mombasa to the road south to Tanga.

Baobabs are ugly trees, grey, grossly swollen, largely leafless and, usually, flowerless - but they have their own story, one of those wonderful old African folk tales which was probably told round the fire for generation after generation. Apparently, the baobab used to be a beautiful tree, with rich, green foliage and delicate white sweet-smelling flowers. It was the envy of all other trees and, as so often happens, as a result became exceedingly vain. So one day God, annoyed at the baobab's vanity, picked it up, turned it upside down, and rammed it back into the earth.  Which is why the baobab's branches look like roots.

This picture was taken in Tanzania, at Saadani.