Zanzibar news

Jambo rafiki, habari?

I'm still fine and still in Zanzibar. It's hot hot hot and sometimes I wished a had a bit of the spring chill from Switzerland here. But this wish doesn't last long as I prefere the heat :-)

The last week or was it the week before? I was travelling the island. I went to Paje and Matemwe by local transport which was a great adventure and I'm going to do it again next week for sure. The eastcoast is verrrrry quiet and therefore very relaxing. Most locals speak Italian as the Italians rule the eastcoast. I stuck to English though and confused some of the locals with it.

Paje is more like Nungwi and I imagine it very crowed during high season. As it is low season at the moment I enjoyed a quiet stay in Paje. The beach is beautiful and I enjoyed long walks along the beach. The low tide on the eastcoast really is low tide and therefore you're not able to swim while low tide. I stayed at Kinazi Upepo which is a small hotel and perfect for single travellers. Although they don't seem to be used to single travellers as I had to repeat that I wanted a single room 4 to 5 times and then finally got my single room.

After spending one night in Paje I decided to move on to Matemwe which brought me back to Zanzibar town first as I there is not direct connection from Paje to Matemwe. Town was hot and crowed so I was looking for the quickets way to the Dala Dala station for Dala Dalas to the north-east. Once safe in the Dala Dala I enjoyed an 1 1/2 hour ride to Matemwe where I walked to the village to get to my accommadation for the night. I stayed at Sele's which is a cute little guesthouse in the middle of all these big resorts in Matemwe. It is located at beach and has its own little beach area. At Sele's the same problem as in Paje occured they couldn't understand why I wanted a single room. And they didn't really speak English so they wanted to charge me with $ 60.00 for a single room. I told them: Hapana, hapana and instited to talk to someone fluent in English. They ended up in calling Sele and he understood what I wanted after I told him 3 times.

I got my room and made my way to the beach. As it was soooo relaxing and as there was no disturbance by beach boys or massage ladies I decided to stay for 2 nights and enjoyed them very much.

After two nights I had enough of the silence and went back to Nungwi. I made my way back to the Dala Dala station in Matemwe where I had to wait for an hour. Unfortunatelly, the sky decided it was time for rain during me waiting there and when the Dala Dala finally arrived I was soaked and so were my clothes. Anyway,the ride back was as much fun as it was before and when I finally arrived back in Nungwi my clothes were dry and dirty ;-).

Back in Nungwi, back to beach life routine. Reading and hanging around in the morning, beach time in the afternoon and drinks at Cholo's at night. It is good to have people around again. But anyway, my next travel is planned already and will take me to the south-east of Zanzibar.

I'll keep you updated in the meantime take care and stay tuned