Exciting Travels

The past 2 days have been rather exciting because I did some overnight traveling. My friend Klara, her sister, and I wanted to travel to the northern tip of the island to a beach called Nungwi. I have decided that before my time here is over, I want to travel to the North, South and East points of the island because I am living in the West. So everything in our travel books said that Nungwi is considered to be the "party" spot on the island and a very big tourist area, so we were very anxious to see what it was like. But we had decided that this was going to be a very low budget trip because it was only going to be for one night.

Our means of getting there was the dalla dalla which is the local "buses." Basically is is a long pick up truck with a covered back and benches that line the inside. This is the only public mode of transportation on the island and it is also the cheapest. So we cramped in the dalla dalla with about 17 other people for the one hour long trip up to Nungwi. It was to say the least, uncomfortable because I got car sick and at one point I could not feel my feet. I have traveled many other times on a dalla dalla, but never for this long.

But we finally arrived in Nungwi and where we were dropped off was in the middle of the local village. So we asked an old man where the Jambo Brother's Inn was because our travel book recommended it for "budget" trips. The old man actually walked us to the Inn and it was a good thing because I don't think we would have ever found it on our own. When we arrived, we asked how much and if we could see the room before deciding to stay there. The man to us it would be $45 USD for 3 of us for one night, and the room, though basic was fairly nice. It had 3 large beds all fully equip with mosquito nets. But Klara wanted to look around at some other places to see if we could find something cheaper. Anna and I eagerly volunteered to stay with the "luggage" in the shade because both of us felt fine staying at Jambo Brother's. After about an hour of looking around, Klara returned to say that all the others were $50 a night and equally as "fancy" as the Jambo Brother's. So we paid and went to our room. Unfortunately, I had to be the one to discover that the toilet did not flush, but we decided to worry about it later and head out to the beach.

The water was crystal clear and the sand was the whitest I had seen in Zanzibar. But we were the only "tourists" around, so we were naturally a spectacle for all the locals. I would say about 10 different people (mainly men) came up to us while we were on the beach to talk to us and welcome us to Nungwi. This is very common everywhere in Zanzibar especially during the low tourist season, but I have to say that after 2 or three, it gets really annoying! At about 6:00pm, we decided to find a place to have dinner and one of our "friends" we met earlier suggested a couple of places on the beach for us to eat. So we walked along the beach and found a bunch of restaurants all in a row, but in the end we wound up eating at the Fat Fish Restaurant and Bar. It had a beautiful view of the ocean and we could watch the sunset.

After dinner we walked around a big and found a pretty popular bar right on the beach and we decided to have a few drinks. Then we ran into some guys we had met earlier that day who were locals. Klara and Anna had become closer friends with them than I did because I think I was sleeping when they met us on the beach earlier that day. But they told us about a local club they were going to that had really good music, and they invited us to join them. The first place we tried to go to was closed, so we walked quite a long way to get to this other club. Now since this is a pretty rural local area that is nestled on the beach, it was really really dark, but the sky was absolutely amazing. And when it was about the darkest part, my mom calls me to chat on the phone. It was very bad timing, but I told her where I was and kept the conversation short and sweet because I needed to pay attention to where I was walking.

So we finally arrived at the club and it was a really awesome place. It was basically a Reggae Club that had all locals there. However, no one seemed to care that we were there, so we found a seat and ordered some drinks. The dance floor was right under the open sky where you could see every star. It was really great too because everyone was so nice and they all loved to dance to the music. So after being there for about an hour, we decided to head back, but unfortunately, it seemed darker walking back. As I was getting my phone out to shed some light on the road, I tripped and fell, scraping my arms and knees. I said a few choice words but I was okay. I got up and brushed myself off, but from that point on, we walked slower.

The next day we headed out to the beach again, but only for a little while because we wanted to get back to town. After another, more comfortable ride on the dalla dalla, we were back in town and it actually felt really nice to be in a place that I was familiar with. My homestay family was eager to hear about my adventures in Nungwi, but for the remainder of the day, I relaxed at home, tired from the trip.

But I am sad to say that this may be my last blog for about a week. In a few days I will be traveling to the mainland with Klara and her sister. We will go to Dar es Salaam and then catch a bus that after 8 hours will take us up to Moshi. Moshi is at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, so I am very excited to see and experience that. Then I will continue to Arusha where I plan on going on a safari for a few days. After that I will head back to Dar es Salaam and return to Zanzibar where I can tell you all of my exciting travel news. But I hope everyone at home is still doing well especially with the whole "financial crisis" going on. It is all over the news here, but not really affecting anyone in Zanzibar.