After breakfast we finish up our packing (so hot, so HOT!!) and jump on the intertube to check out the places in the north. I bail to find an ATM, get TOTALLY lost, get back to the hotel about 40 minutes later, head back to the room, shower and cool down under the aircon and grab Annelie to show me where the damned ATM was (she has a much keener sense of direction than I do).
Stand in a long queue to eventually be able to draw money in 100 000 TSH sessions (100K TSH is not worth much... so this takes a long time to get to 400K). While we were waiting in the queue Annelie plays taxi drivers off each other until we get the best deal to head north, $25 down from 80. Good girl.
Back to the hotel and say our goodbyes. M&M are heading south to Coral rock while we aim for a few places in the north. The Jah-Mobile arrives at 09:30, a very chilled and laid back, soft spoken Zanzibarian-Rastafarian loads our bags. We head out of Stone Town and make our way north for about an hour and a half. Gangsta rap plays on the stereo, he hands me a cd pouch to change the music, I decline and turn it up. In the Jah-Mobile, with the tinted windows and Rasta stickers the music has a calming effect on us. I do feel an urge for a drive by shooting from time to time, but I override the sensation. Irey.
He gets pulled over at every police check (well, duh) and they smack talk that Swahili before letting us move along. What’s up with the po-po, yo?? Can’t keep a good brother locked down, you know wha’ i’m sayin? No doubt.
Flaming Tree lodge is first on the list but it’s a dud. Chollo (our Rasta brother from another mother) suggest we skip Nungwi all together and head to Kendwa, which has larger beaches. So we aim for the middle of several sites, called Kendwa Rocks. We arrive there just before 12 and check out a room. The staff is either very busy, or very rude. So it’s hard to get a straight answer but we eventually get shown a room, one of only three available. Huge beach, HUGE! Stretches for miles in each direction, bungalows ringing a large cordoned off section of sand with the bar and dive centre about 50 meters away on the beach proper. So you can pretty much walk along the beach to the other resorts. I stall our aloof an rather rude host while Annelie runs to the other places to see what they have to offer. At $85 per night, this place is quite overpriced for what you get. But you can’t beat it with location and the bar and beach area is full of people, so there’s lots of life here.
Annelie eventually comes back panting saying between breaths we should take the room. Every other place is fully booked or won’t allow walk-in bookings. Yikes! So we just manage to secure the overpriced bungalow as 2 more parties walk in and ask about it. The reception area is a mess of bags and travellers, including our own bags and bodies. A porter carries our concrete slab to the room and we strip down into our swim gear post haste. Can you believe we haven’t been in this glorious water yet?? We immediately rectify the situation. Bath water, is all I can say. Clear, clean, warm bath water. Back at the restaurant we order cocktails and pizza, play checkers (I lose) and kick back in some of the numerous hammocks and sun beds. There is a ship, or rather half a ship beached on the sand, called the “Jafrezy Queen”, which also happens to be the name of the bar/restaurant here.
We take a long stroll up and down the beach to the other resorts. There is a massive one on the end of the stretch to the right, but it looks very exclusive and has a HUGE restaurant built right onto the water, perched on wooden stilts. It forms part of an even bigger hotel and pool area starting from the beach and climbing about 3 layers into the hillside. Security informs us that we need to be fully clothed to even go to reception. Not today, bub. Head back to the Kendwa rocks and chill.
There is a party tonight, with acrobatics and fire dancers. After another intense session of doing absolutely fokall we shower and head down to the bar. Here we meet two Brits from close to Manchester and chat away, order more drinks and so on. As luck would have it, another guy sits next to us and ask us in Afrikaans “so where are we from?”. Long story short, but he flew in to meet up with his cousin who is here for one day. He’s cousin is travelling down from London, also by 4x4! So we meet the cousin and it turns out that this is the party another friend of mine in London told me about! It also turns out that we know the same friend from SA Promo, and that he does the video for some of their gigs, while I have done some photography. Small damn world, what are the chances of us two sitting right next to each other, on a little island the size of a relative dot on the globe, on a Saturday night at 21:40, a clear sky evening of the 1st of August 2009? And his name is Gerhardus. Blows my mind.
We chat about his experiences so far, travelling through Egypt (or, as he put it, the Ass end of the world. I’d have to say I think Dar Es Salaam is the Ass end of the world...), I share a few cool camp sites they should check out since they’ll be heading through Malawi and Zambia. Sadly, he has to go just before 22:00 because they’re leaving early tomorrow. I hope he keeps in touch, Annelie gave him a business card. If not, no worries, I’ll no doubt run into him in London :)
Weird man, weird.
The acrobats were surprisingly good! I grabbed my camera and did what I do best: photographing live shows. They did dome CRAZY shit man! Africans main pride and joy is their physical strength and acumen, and these boys where clearly quite strong and flexible. After the show, one of the guys an albino named Tashatel asks to see me after the show. Later at the bar we exchange details and I offer to send them the banging pics I took of their antics. They call themselves “Kirimanjaro Acrobats”. Very cool, they certainly got the party started as by this point the music was jumping and everybody got down. The whole bar and beach area adjacent to it was filled up. Met these stupid drunk Irish lads and spoke of river rafting the Nile and shared war stories. Good times. Chat more with the brits from Manchester and we had a really good time. Our mission was to find a little life and excitement and we where most successful in this regard.
We eventually track back to our little bungalow by the sea just before 04:00 and pass out. Tomorrow we look forward to doing a whole lotta nothin’.
Island style, baby.
Highlights: Jamming
Grooving
Finding a little slice of heaven. Although the staff is unhelpful and the service terrible.
[G & A], out
Kuwepo saba ninjas ndani hii picha = there are 7 ninjas in this picture
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