Chumbe Island and last night in Zanzibar

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Yesterday was a fabulous day! We woke up early and headed off to Chumbe Island at 8am. We caught our boat and headed out to the island. It was amazing. Chumbe Island isn't too far off the Island of Zanzibar and is the location of Chumbe National Marine Park. There's a beautiful coral reef off the shores of Chumbe. When we got there we were all astounded again by the beauty here. The ocean had some amazing colors. Nobody lives on the island (there's just a small tourist resort). We had about 2 hours worth of lecture about the island and the conservation effort and the importance of eco-tourism. It was pretty interested, but not what we all wanted to do with a lot of sun and a white beach near by. After the lecture we had lunch... rice and beans again..... can't eat that much longer... anyway... After lunch we headed out to go snorkeling! It was sooooooo much better than Malindi. The reef had a plethora of color and types of coral not to mention different kinds of sea life. There were lots of jelly fish (most of them were the not stingy kinds, but we just had to watch out for em), lots of different kinds of fish (don't know many names except baracuda, parrot fish, sword fish and many many more). I got to float through a school of fish. There were also giant clams (although I didn't get to see one) and sting rays. I also saw some sea slugs and lots and lots of sea anenome. It's amazing to see all of that withougt a pain of glass between you and the fish and to know that someone didn't put the fish in there for you to look at them. =)

We snorkeled for a couple hours and then headed back to the island. We got to lie around for a bit. Some of us went on a tour of the Chumbe forest. The island is made up of dead coral so there's no fresh water on the island and very little dirt, so the plant life is quite special and different. There's one cactus tree (don't remember the name of it) that the guy showed us. He warned us to stay away from it. The sap of the plant is white and looks like milk. It's very very poisonous though. He said just a drop of the sap in your eye is enough to make you go blind. He also said that some fishers used to fish using the sap but that was soon outlawed cause people eating the fish they caught would die from the poison. Scary!!! And, those plants were all over the island! After the tour our guide went back in the forrest to find a coconut crab. It's the largest land crab. He found one and boy was it huge!!! One of it's pinchers was probably about the size of my hand (if not a little bigger)! It was insane. The crab can also climb trees. If there's no food to be found on the ground they'll climb a coconut tree and crack one open and eat it. Can't wait to show you pictures of it!

After the tour we had to head back to Zanzibar so as not to miss our tide. That night we had our good-bye dinner at African House. It was our last group dinner until after ISP =( It was a wonderful dinner! We had so much fun. Katina and a few other people wrote a bunch of quotes people have said through out the trip on strips of paper. Went passed a cup around with them and read off the quote and had to guess who had said it. It was hilarious! It brought back so many good and usually funny memories! After that we did our gift exchange. Before we gave our gift we said a little something about the person we got. Everyone had such nice things to say. Some people had written funny poems or songs... the greatest was Leigh's rap for Cheka. hahaha... got it on camera. =) Then we had dinner... the food was good. After dinner Katina read off the "the most likely to...." list. hahaha... that was pretty funny to. The list was decided upon by the group (pretty much). I was "the most likely to make German chocolate cake and mexican food in a desert" lol... which is almost what I'll be doing for Cheka's 21st b-day tomorrow. I'm making her a b-day dinner consisting of barbeque chicken, mashed potatoes, garlic bread and some kind of veggie and a chocolate b-day cake =) Should be a fun night. It was a wonderful way to spend our last night as a group for a while. I'm gonna miss seeing everyone for the next month, but I'm also excited about my ISP.

Now I'm back in Mombasa, in the scorching heat.... yuck! It's nice to be back with my host family though. =) I missed them. I have to go get ready for a wedding now though. Time to get on with my research. darn, I mean who wants to go to a wedding anyways, dance and admire dresses... 😉 life is tough sometimes... hehe... Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Easter! Until next time... kwaheri!

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Photos

Our guide holding a coconut crab
The coconut crab is the largest land crab.

Sunset from Africa House