After three flights overnight from Cape Town, we finally arrived to Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. The Englishman, aka J, is still shifting gears from hectic work life into traveling mode and wanted some r & r on the beach. Who am I to argue with that?
With our heavy backpacks, we left the airport and searched out a ‘dala dala’ to take us to the other side of the island to our guesthouse. Dala dala is the local form of public transportation. It’s a large open-air truck with seating in the bed and a roof above for shade and transporting goods. It’s a cheap mode of transport in comparison to a taxi and most importantly proves to be entertaining.
J is a guide book sort of fellow, which is where he learned about the local dala dala’s. I’m not a guide book sort of girl but I must say it does come in handy, especially in a place like this, to read up on the local transportation, reference maps, find out where to stay, eat, etc. J, you and your guidebooks are coming in handy after all, I guess I’ll keep you around. LOL
We arrived in the town of Bwejuu to an adorable little guesthouse, Robinson’s Place, with thatched roof open-air bungalows on the east coast of Zanzibar. Our room perched high in the treetops with views to the Indian Ocean by day and spectacular stargazing by night.
We spent our days in the hammock watching the local women harvest mussels and octopus from the seabed when the tide was out, or exploring the island, taking long walks down the beach, sneaking in a latte every now and then if we passed a fancy resort. Because we’re worth it. We’d visit the local beachfront restaurants at night testing out the local beers, Kilimanjaro and Safari. My favorite was Kilimanjaro, J’s was Safari – these are not things to argue over. Except that Kilimanjaro is far superior.
I’m having a challenging time keeping the mosquito’s away. Unfortunately they’ve always loved me and being here in Africa seems to be no exception. I hope I can manage to avoid malaria and dengue fever, both prevalent here in East Africa. I’ve been carrying around the anti malaria medication since I left the states back in March, but so far hadn’t taken it. I wasn’t too concerned about it when I was in India since I was in the north and it was winter, and I took a chance in Indonesia in June, but I can’t risk it here in Africa… I just can’t. So, down the hatch we go with the strong antibiotics every day while in Africa and 4 weeks after leaving… Yikes! My body is not used to this antibiotic abuse. I also had to get some additional vaccinations specific for Africa, before leaving the UK, so I am now vaccinated for Yellow Fever, meningitis and diphtheria. Do they really want to know about your vaccinations, Eryn? Yes, of course they do!
After a week on the beach, we took the dala dala back to Stone Town to spend several nights in the city. This girl’s gotta post to her blog! Her peeps are waiting! Internet will be sporadic at best moving forward, so posts may be less frequent. Stay tuned to find out what we’re up to as we float along with the Zanzibar breezes…
Check out this cool restaurant we found, The Rock. When the tide is out, you can walk to it, when the tide is in, you take a boat. Spectacular!
The Critical Path 