Blogs from Nungwi, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Africa

Lundi 26 octobre : c’est aujourd’hui qu’officiellement mes vacances commencent. Ça ne sera pas facile. Entre 6 :00 et 8 :00 du matin. C’est le chaos a l’aéroport de Bangui. J’ai fait mon test pour le virus chinois le vendredi matin, pour avoir le résultat le samedi matin, or le samedi matin ce n’était pas prêt. Je me pointe quand même le lundi matin à l’aéroport. Qu’est-ce que je peux faire ? Ils refusent que je fasse le check-in sans le certificat de l’Institut Pasteur. Par la grâce de Dieu et grâce au dispatch de la MINUSCA, je réussi à retourner au centre-ville à l’Institut Pasteur et à obtenir rapidement mon certificat. Je laisse mes valises dans le bureau de MOVCON a l’aéroport. L’aller-retour vers le centre-ville ça s’est bien passé, le gardien de sécurité ... read more

From Zanzibar city we bus it to the very north of the island to Nungwi. This is a good beach area and has several dive schools - I have arranged for us to do a couple of days diving with Spanish Dancers dive centre and we have a room only a hundred metres away so it’s all very convenient and a good place to relax for a few days. The diving is a little mixed. The first day we dive off the west coast near to Nungwi and though the fish life is good the visibility is only about 10m – so it’s a little disappointing. The 2nd day we go to Mnemba Atoll, on the east coast and a 40min speedboat ride away and have a superb couple of dives, excellent vis and great diversity ... read more

Our next stop was Zanzibar, the spice island. After clearing customs and immigration once again we started our visit with a tour of stone town. Stone town is laced with so much history - old forts, ancient buildings and even a slave market. I was surprised by how much history was remaining, especially compared to many other places we've been where the history is lost to modernization. Stone town is also a predominantly Muslim area, dating back to the days of trade with Arab traders. This means the city is bathed with the call to prayer, a sound I quite enjoy hearing. This does also mean that tourists should cover up out of respect, which some clearly had no consideration for! The tour ended with some shopping in the local craft shops, followed by sunset cocktails ... read more

THE ISLAND.Located in the east of Africa, is a semi autonomous part of Tanzania. The official language is Swahili and locals practice Islam. The flight from Dubai via flydubai is approximately 7 hours and 50 minutes with an hour lay over at Dar Es-Salaam, the capital city. Our round trip fare was 2,200 AED per person (including our additional check in luggage for the diving equipments and personal seating option), however during off season, the airfare is about 1,200 AED. From the airport, we were picked up by our hotel's service which costs $60 per car, one way. The drive to Nungwi, where our hotel, The Z Hotel is located, is at northern part of Zanzibar, which is approximately 1 hour 30 minutes drive. The ride was smooth and because its already late, there was no ... read more

Day 14 (Nov 13) Zanzibar l - We woke up for early breakfast. Turns out 3 girls from another group hiking the same route as us were also at the hotel. One girl apparently was having hallucinations up high and another had oxygen levels well below normal even at base camp. So I guess we fared pretty well. We reluctantly caught our 30 minute transfer very early around 8am for our 11:30 flight. And a good thing we did, as our flight got pushed up 1.5hrs w/o us being notified. We made it just in time to check in and board. We showed up early to Zanzibar, but thankfully a worker showed up within 20 minutes to order us a new driver so we didn't have to wait over an hour. Although I find out later ... read more