Thursday, November 28th – Sunday, December 1st, 2024
World Tour Days 26 – 29
As has become typical for our Africa adventure, our journey down to Zanzibar started with lots of driving. Surprise surprise. We headed back to Arusha, Tanzania at 8am and stopped at several places along the way, including a market full of local art and Lake Mamyara. There were people on the overland truck who had not been to a Maasai village yet so we stopped there for them to check it out.
Nick got to watch the Maasai people help deliver a breach baby cow. Nick and a few others watched the cow take its first steps, too. Several people from our group played a local on a make shift checkers board; the local won each time. This amused the locals and they gathered to watch, one even sat in a tree who watched from above.
Later that night I had a horrible allergic reaction for the first time ever: huge hives all over my body and numb mouth and throat. Luckily Chloe and Alex, some friends who were on the tour with us, had medicine for it that worked quickly. We have no idea what set off the allergy attack. In total the first day was around 6 hours of driving.
As we continued to make our way to the coast we had a 12 hour driving day. It was a clear day so we were able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro from two different places. This was exciting since it was the short rainy season, meaning it was often cloudy blocking mountain views. On the drive we saw palm trees, mountains, and a gorgeous sunrise. There were women carrying giant containers and baskets of various items on their heads going from village to village. Many small fruit stands also lined the streets. It was mango season in Tanzania so we could find mangos peeled and cut for $0.04 USD. This evening was spent camping on the sea in Bagamoyo, an old slave port with a fishing market.
After those two large driving days we finally made it to the port with a 3 hour drive to Dar es Salaam. The ferry port was a scene of total chaos. The terminal was hot, crowded, and people push through everywhere. The ferry to Zanzibar took about 2 hours (give or take) and going through customs was a total shit show. We had to scan our insurance, get our customs form scanned, and our passports stamped. No lines in sight, just push forward and then run out bags through the scanner. We arrived to our resort on the beach that evening, in Marumbi.
The overland tour only had one full day for us on the beach side of Zanzibar. We took advantage of the limited time and headed out to the south end of the island early in the morning. The south is where most of the snorkeling and scuba diving activities are. The morning started with a visit to a cenote where they rehabilitate injured sea turtles to be released back into the ocean. Some people said it was a great conservation effort and others said this establishment just kidnapped healthy turtles and never released them back to the ocean. We hope it is the former. At the very least, the environment was natural, it was fed by ocean water, they ate their normal food and were cleaned regularly. Nick and I swam with the turtles and fed them seaweed; it was so fun since I love sea turtles.
None of the dive shops answered any of my emails to try and make a booking ahead of time so after our swimming with the sea turtles we started calling dive shops in the area to see if any of them would take us our for an afternoon boat. We found one, the Pole Pole Dive Center. They picked us up and we got to do two dive sites on the south coast. The scuba diving was incredible. The corals were bright colors, many of which we had not seen before. We both saw fish we hadn’t seen before and ones we had with unique color patterns. Black clown fish, cool starfish, sea snakes, eels with neat patterns, and more. The dragon face pipefish was a fish we saw for the first time and was a highlight. It has the face of a seahorse, a long skinny body, and a tiny fish tail at the end. They were very cute.
I ended the day with a quick swim in the gorgeous pool, a mango milkshake and a nice dinner at the asian restaurant. We loved our two nights at the resort and wished we had more time for scuba diving.