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Africa » Tanzania » Zanzibar » Nungwi
August 29th 2013
Published: September 25th 2013
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My arrival in Nungwei coincided with an enormous Full Moon Party. Due to misplaced nostalgia for my Thailand beach backpacker days, I decided to check it out. Mistake. The music ranged from terrible to appalling. The crowd was a weird mix of backpackers, locals and NGO types who reckoned they were too cool to be there but still came anyway. It was all confined to one resort, forcing you to buy a pre-paid plastic card to get drinks... or smuggle in your own booze. This is how I discovered Konyagi. Konyagi is like the bastard child of Gin and Vodka. You can buy it in SACHETS. I love Konyagi, but Konyagi does not love me. That night I made friends with various interesting characters, including some implausibly beautiful French Canadian girls, my ex-housemate’s little sister, and an expat hotel owner who was basically a South African version of Boris Johnson. Overall it was fun, but I will never, ever go there again. Ever.

Nungwei looks very different to Paje. The beach is broken up into separate coves, divided at high tide by little outcrops of rock. Hotels and bars are built right up on the sand instead of being set back behind a fringe of palm trees. I almost like it better in terms of the natural shape of the beach, because it’s not such a vast unbroken expanse as Paje, but it’s a whole other level of touristy. The hassle you get in Nungwei is relentless. Especially being a solo female traveller. Never really threatening, just wearying. I happily walked home at night along the beach in Paje, but I instinctively knew I wouldn’t do the same in Nungwey.

There is little buffer between the tourists and the locals here. Serious poverty sits right behind five star resorts. If you wander off the beach you’ll find yourself in a shanty town within 10 seconds. This feels extra peculiar given that Zanzibari society is deeply conservative Islamic. Women gather shells on the beach in full hijab, watched by backpackers in bikinis. Given the clash of cultures and the proximity of what is basically a sizeable slum, I’m astonished there isn’t more trouble here. I think it’s a credit to the tolerance of the local population that they haven’t simply strangled the lot of us, to be honest.

Zanzibar makes a huge amount of money from tourism, yet has worse health outcomes that mainland Tanzania. I question how much the industry is benefiting the locals. The Zanzibari bartenders, divemasters and tourguides I spoke to were all thankful for it, but outside of the people directly employed, the sheer amount of cash splashed around here doesn’t seem to be touching the stark poverty. Almost everything on the beach is foreign owned and ex-pat managed, from the huge resorts down to the beach bars and backpacker hostels. In midrange or upmarket places, everything is priced in Euros and USD. I wonder how much money even touches the ground here. I wonder how much the government taxes foreign resorts, and what they do with the cash. People are getting rich from these beautiful beaches, but they’re not African.

I stayed in Jambo Brothers because it's locally owned, a rarity which I had to specifically search for. Cheap by Zanzibar standards, nice staff, good rooms for the price, great location.

The little rasta beach bar right next to the Hilton Hotel was my favourite spot, in part because of the hilarious juxtaposition. It seems only half built, there was hardly every anyone there and they never had any of the ingredients to make the things I tried to order, but it was a lovely spot and the guys who work there are completely sound, give you absolutely no hassle whatsoever. They also do a really nice fish curry but don’t order if you’re in a rush, it took them two and a half hours to make mine. Another time they couldn’t be bothered to cook so just brought me inside to share the fried fish and ugale they were having for dinner.

So I came to Nungwei because I wanted to dive the Mnemba marine park. I had dived for the first time in 5 years on Paje, was quickly reminded of how much I love it and simultaneously annoyed with myself for leaving it so long. I’m a cautious diver. My Dad was a diving instructor (my Dad was my Mum’s diving instructor, that’s how they met), so because of this I am hyper-aware of all the many ways in which it is possible to break yourself whilst diving. I did quick refresher before my first dive in years. I thought I’d forgotten everything and wouldn’t have a clue, but it came back effortlessly.

There’s something very medical about diving. Tubing and pressurised gasses. Parameters to monitor. Set up your equipment in order, neatly. Check it. Check it again.

It’s also one of the geekiest, least sexy hobbies imaginable. Everyone looks ridiculous at all times. There’ an awful lot of spitting involved. It’s impossible to look good whilst attempting to get in to or remove a slightly too tight wetsuit.

Diving at Mnemba was gorgeous. The current was really strong, so we just drifted… it felt like hovering in one spot watching the ocean being displayed to us on a conveyer belt. Unfortunately I was diving with a very large group of mostly total fuckwits. I’m not claiming to be a brilliant diver (in fact, I suck) but I feel like if you’re completely unable to prevent yourself from crashing into the coral or headbutting me in the bum, then you shouldn’t be diving. How can you run out of air after 30 minutes? What are you doing with it all? We spotted a couple of amazing, enormous sea turtles, quietly basking on the sea floor, and for some reason everyone aside from me decided it would be a totally acceptable course of action to hang
StarfishStarfishStarfish

I found this at low tide and spent 10 minutes trying to gently poke it with a stick into a bigger pool so it wouldn't dry out, while the locals looked at me like I was insane.
on to the reef and then start POKING THEM. Even the divemaster.

I tried to sign “stop molesting the turtles you bunch of absolute bastards”, but I don’t think they quite understood what I was getting at.

It’s also worth noting that diving from Nungwei involved a speedboat ride. Diving Mnemba from Matemwe is easier. On the ride home, just through luck we met a pod of dolphins and got to swim with them, which was an unexpected bonus because I’d decided to give the organised dolphin bothering trips a miss after hearing rumours of very unfavourable dolphin to tourist ratios (apparently there are dozens of boats stalking the poor buggers).

So after my week long holiday in Zanzibar, I headed to the airport to fly to Arusha then on to Moshi and the real reason I’m in Africa. On Monday I start my Tropical Medicine course. My level of excitement and anticipation about this is pretty sky high. I’ve been planning this for a couple of years, which is probably longer than I’ve ever successfully planned for anything. As usual I’m cutting it fine and arriving with about 12 hours to spare.


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