Blogs from Nungwi, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Africa - page 3

Total Distance Travelled Today: 147 km (including ferry, transfer to the hotel on Zanzibar) Elapsed Travel Time: 7 hours 3 mins (total) Lodging for the Night: Amaan Bungalows (hotel!) This morning was a sleep-in day, well relatively speaking. We were supposed to leave at 7 (much later than the past few days), so we had planned to get up at 5:45 (we're usually the first awake but the last ready. It takes us a long time to get ready, pack our stuff up and take down the tent, and Elysia is pretty slow in the morning especially since she likes to shower). Unfortunately we were woken up numerous times prior to 5:45- there were at least two call to prayers from the mosque that seems to be right behind our campsite (we heard them chanting and ... read more

Even though my Swahili is atrocious Tanzania has taught me the words: Karibu and asanti, welcome and it's my pleasure, respectively. These people have class and style! The Maasai of this region are even taller, darker and more handsome...I didn't think it possible! My love affair with Tanzania began at the border, what a beaming smiling immigration officer...Karibu Tanzania seestah! My people my people! The entire country industrious and producing it would seem...little roadside cafés, Colorful art and signage everywhere, the women like brilliant butterflies. The artistic flair of the people evident everywhere I look...the dark red mud huts built just so... The thatch perfect in thickness, texture and design. The way a scarf billows in the wind, the tone on tone or gentle ombré of everyday items...this country is rich beyond compare! The people it's ... read more

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 ... read more

Today Chris and I went in search of the internet café, this resulted in quite a long walk exploring the area but no internet was found. We ended up using the internet café next to the resort which was REALLY slow and we didn’t’ get to do much apart from reading some emails. We also spent time on the beach, read some, relaxed a bit and ate lunch. For dinner, we decided to splash out and head to one of the nicer restaurants that we had seen. Dinner came to less than £20 but for us that was a treat. We both had the fisherman’s baskets which was lobster, prawns, fish and calamari – very nice! We then went and sat around the campfire with some of the group before heading to bed.... read more

This morning we did a history tour of Stone Town, learning about the slave trade in particular. Lots of men were taken from Zanzibar as slaves to middle eastern countries. We seen the dungeons where they were kept for up to three days without food or water, just to test the strength of the man. The dungeons were not big at all, yet they would cram 70 men into one and 50 into the other. We also learnt about Dr Livingstone who is credited with helping to finally abolish the slave trade, there had been people before who had tried to achieve this but it was his negotiations with scholars at Oxford and Cambridge that ruled that the slave trade must be stopped. After our history tour, it was time to head north towards Nungwi which ... read more