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Published: November 11th 2006
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Typical View
I can't emphasise how white the sand was and how turquoise the water was. From the frantic pace and noises of Dar es Salaam to Pongwe Beach Hotel, a place designed with an itinerary of relaxation in mind. James and I hopped on a ferry on Monday morning with this destination foremost in our minds.
Despite being a calm and sunny day, I spent most of the two hour trip over with my eyes closed, concentrating on ignoring the not so pleasant feeling of sea sickness. A great start. At the dock we weren't besieged by touts as we were expecting, but did, of course, receive the usual offer of a discount taxi ride. Instead, we got our passports stamped (even though we were still in Tanzania) and found a taxi driver whose car still had all four wheels and only one crack in the windscreen.
An hour later, we pulled up at the gates of the Pongwe Beach Hotel. After driving through twenty villages and past many semi-decent and some decrepit looking hotels, James and I were a bit nervous about what we would find. I think that we had been putting a lot of 'hope' in this place as being a place to stop our pace of arrive, sightsee and then
Nice spot to catch up on some reading
This seat was located right outside our room. move on. I was worried that it wouldn't be up to our expectations, despite the lovely pictures on the website (I mean, when does the internet lie?).
I'm happy to say that our expectations were surpassed. After being relieved of our luggage, we were taken through to the lounge/dining bungalow (open area with a thatched roof). Here we were served fresh pineapple juice and a staff member introduced us to the facilities of the hotel. After a five minute wait, we were taken to our bungalow. It was perfect. Our bungalow was the last one, and sat perched above the beach with a fantastic view over the ocean.
We quickly settled into hotel routine, by plonking ourselves on the wooden banana lounges on our balcony and opening our books. This activity formed a large part of our time at Pongwe.
Another great feature of Pongwe Beach Hotel was the food. There were set meal times (e.g. dinner between 7.30pm and 930pm). Breakfast and dinner were set menus, with lunch having a choice between two options. Lunch and dinner were always fantastic. For example, on the day we arrived we had a lunch of Thai noodle soup (starter),
Raking the Sand
Every morning, the staff of Pongwe Beach Hotel would rake the sand. Made sense to me at the time. King prawns (main) and fresh fruit (dessert). We had seafood for almost every lunch and dinner. Fresh seafood. Caught that day.
Of course, we did occasionally move of our lounges to see some of Zanzibar. One day we did a trip to Jozani Forest and a Spice Tour. Jozani Forest is an national park (the only one on Zanzibar island) famous for its population of the rare Red Colobus Monkey. Our guide, who was incredibly informative and chatty, gave us a tour of the forest and the mangroves before taking us to see the monkeys.
The monkeys were so cute (dead giveaway that Karen is writing this as James would never call them cute). And noisy. We basically walked into a grove of trees (jungle grove) and were surrounded by a family of about 20 monkeys of all ages. The younger monkeys were hilarous, jumping from tree to tree and generally making mischeif. Encouraged by our laughter, or maybe the shiny cameras, they came down from their branches and started playing on the ground in front of us. They were so animated and excited, running to and fro, jumping on each other. We had to move quickly do
dodge them or avoid being used as a tree branch. We took about 120 photos (which we later culled to about 50). We have posted only one here as we plan to subject you all to a monkey slide show when we get home.
Our visit to the Budu spice farm was interesting and educational. In a good way (i.e. not boring). You know Vix Vapour Rub? Did you know that Vix comes from the root of a cinnamon tree? We didn't either and were both over-excited to discover this piece of useless information. There were so many other interesting facts about spices, fruits and vegetables that I can't fit it in here but we will intersperse our monkey slide night with random facts about spices. I assume you will all come?
Our other trip was to Chumbe Island, an island set up as an eco-resort. It truly is environmentally friendly, with the bungalows all on solar power and rain water tanks. They were built out of local materials and recycled 'stuff'. We visited Chumbe partly to see the eco-friendly designs but also because we had been told (by a brochure) that the snorkelling is some of the
Snorkel Boat at Low Tide
The tidal changes here are massive with low tide leaving boat stranded and seaweed exposed. The seaweed is harvested by locals. best in the world. It did not live up to its claims. Yes, it was lovely and yes, there were some pretty fish but we saw similar reefs/sea-life in Western Australia and I think that the snorkelling on Lady Elliott Island (and probably other parts of the Great Barrier Reef) were better and more interesting. I'm sure I will now get hate mail from the Tanzanian Tourist Board. Oh, speaking of government, one other highlight of our day was seeing the President of Zanzibar drive by.
On our drive back to Pongwe, we passed many villages and stalls including woodworking shops. The woodworking on Zanzibar is incredible - doors are the most obvious example of this craft. So many of the doors we have seen have intricately carved designs on them. Our taxi driver stopped for us to look at the workshop, giving us an opportunity to see the men creating these masterpieces up close. One door takes a carpenter about three weeks to create. There were several examples for sale, just on the side of the road. The thought of purchasing one crossed my mind fleetingly, before the practicalities of transporting it set in.
We have spent
five days on Pongwe. We feel relaxed and all our washing is done (it is exciting for us, ok). But the seafood meals are not all over for us. We now head to Stone Town...
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John Watts
non-member comment
wowzers
wowzers, what a journey so far, ive just caught up reading all the entries, ive been reading about 1 or 2 a morning before work and wowzers! I am looking forward to this monkey slideshow! and spice info night. Im glad to hear you guys are having a great time and are safe and still have all your luggage. Looking forward to see what more is to come! God Bless.