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Published: September 1st 2009
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Hey Guys,
So we've departed Malawi and have promised ourselves to come back since we both enjoyed it so much, the people as well as the lake. Our travel plans were going to be a full day overland trip from Malawi to Mbeya, Tanzania via any vehicle with wheels possible! Once in Mbeya we met up with Allan our friend from Malawi and got ourselves a second class cabin on the Tazara Train to Dar es Salaam. We ended up meeting up with Allan's friend Lonnie and she joined us in our cabin since we had extra space. We were pretty excited to be taking the train since we heard nothing but horror stories about the 24hour bus and sleeper trains with dinner carts are always fun! The train ride was great as we passed through countless villages along the way and we also went through the Selous Game Park where we saw tons of Springboks and Baboons, we missed the Giraffes (looking out the wrong side) but saw quite a lot of wildlife. Our cabin was pretty tight but we enjoyed ourselves, the second class cabin actually sleeps 6 people so we can't really complain with only being 4! All
in all the train took 24 hours and was way better than any bus ride could have been. We arrived in Dar es Salaam which is a big city on the coast and the gateway to Zanzibar Island which was our destination. The city with all the traffic, peoples and buildings was definitely a change from Malawi but we managed to catch a public bus straight to the ferry office with only minor difficulties and without being scammed which is apparently a real problem for many independent travelers there.
Once we crossed over to Zanzibar on the ferry we arrived in Stone Town, which is the old Capital of Zanzibar. Stone Town was built by the Arab community that still inhabits most of the island to this day and provided us with our first glimpse of what we might expect in the older cities of Egypt and Turkey. The streets are very narrow and are more sidewalks then streets. It is very easy to get lost walking around the maze style infrastructure. The Island's population is also predominantly Muslim so almost all the women wear Burkas and the men also wear traditional Muslim/Arabic clothing. Our first day there was
spent exploring Stone Town and checking out the local markets as well as the beach which offers some great views of beautiful blue waters and traditional Dhow fishing boats passing by the huge trans ocean freighters. We also got set up at Bhari Divers to complete one of their dive packages which would let us dive twice in Stone town and then twice up North. Our diving began early the next day as we set out for our first dive which was going to be a wreck dive. Once in the water we were absolutely blown away! The visibility was the best either of us had every experienced and the amount of living coral and dense schools of tropical fishes were awesome. The wreck we dove was great and the ship had a big open hull you could drop right into and see all the fish living in the boat. Our next dive was a super nice reef which again provided us with great visibility and lots of marine life both flora and fauna, really good.
After our diving ended we took off to catch a mini bus to take us to the Northen tip of the island
and the village of Nungwi. We ended arriving a little late but we managed to find our Hotel. We ended staying at Baraka Aquarium since it was recommended as a cheap place by our dive company and it turned out to be awesome since they had a natural aquarium there that was huge and full of Turtles and fish. We got to feed the turtles everyday we were there and since the water is so clear you can watch all the fish and turtles cruise around, makes me wonder why we spent so much money on diving since everything was right there 😊 Ummmm no diving is way better!
So Nungwi is a small fishing village and is home to some of the most beautiful white sand beaches and bright blue/Aqua green waters I've ever seen (so far). So needless to say we had to spend some time lounging in the sun enjoying them. Since we were in a fishing village we obviously had to enjoy some fish dinners. We ended up having fresh fish BBQ right on the beach and were promptly joined by some super friendly cats also. Tyne wasn't too impressed but I though they were
hilarious and shared some dinner with them so other travelers could enjoy these frisky little guys too.
We set out to dive Mnemba Atoll the next day which is a protected Marine Park. We were joined by Gerald who dove with us in Stone Town, he is completing a diving holiday before returning to Germany. He has been working in Africa for the last three years. So we are off to Mnemba and our first site is Aquarium and what a site it is! The visibility is even better than Stone Town ranging around 28m and the water is about 29 deg Cel. and the marine life is awesome! There was so much to see, I really had to watch my breathing to conserve air since I was really excited! Our next dive was just as good so we were both really happy. The highlight had to be a huge Octopus we saw which was pulsating and changing colours like crazy as we watched it crawl along the coral changing colours to match its surroundings. The diving turned out to be so good we decided to do two more dives, it really was that good.
After all that
diving we had to just do some relaxing on a beach, so we headed back to Stone Town and caught a Daladala (local transport in the back of a truck) to Paje another small village that is on the East Coast of the Island. Again the beaches and water are incredible, although in Paje the tide is out for most of the day which leaves the water close to 1/2km away and at 3pm when the tide comes in the beach completely disappears. We did luck out there though since Paje is mostly resorts which want to charge around $80 US a night, we met some nice Rastafarians who sent us to their friends place where we stayed in a private cabin complete with ensuite for only $25 US a night so we were pretty happy. Paje was pretty cool, but it is more like a resort and very expensive so I would recommend maybe going further up/down the coast.
After a few days of just chilling on the beach it was time to hit the road, we were headed back to Stone Town and to catch the night Ferry across to Dar es Salaam and then onward to
Moshi, a town at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro!
Enjoy the pics, we are still working out some major kinks with the old underwater camera so be patient, hopefully by the red sea we'll get it right!
Until the next one
Cheers,
Matt & Tyne
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david immanuel
non-member comment
hi
Nice one folks. Nice pix. I hope to visit Zanzibar someday. Enjoy.