We made it!

Cape Town, South Africa (29 February 2008).

We are both tired and hot at the moment so I won't write much. Just wanted to send out the news that we are (finally) here. We had a great time traveling along the Garden Route and in the wine region this past week, but we are ready to settle down for a bit. Mostly we are tired of making plans; what to do where to eat, etc. We are looking forward to a bit of home cooking.

Today marks 18 weeks since we left our flat in London, 10 weeks since we left Paris, and almost 7 weeks since we left San Francisco.

Our place is very nice and has a stunning view. We are on Clifton Beach, facing west so we get to see the sunset (and the Atlantic Ocean). I'll write more, and post some pictures of the flat, later on today. We already bought groceries and snacks but haven't made it to the beach yet; the water is quite cold so there isn't that incentive.

R

Ostriches

Outdtshoorn, South Africa (27 February 2008).

Tonight we are sleeping at an ostrich farm—which also happens to have a five star tented lodge. You see the “rooms” are tents. But this is not your usual camping experience. Our tent must measure 5m x 3m (25ft x 12ft) and has a double bed, a small desk, a wardrobe, a small refrigerator, tea station, spa, outside shower, flushing toilet, and a small deck. This is probably the swankiest tent we have stayed in—and we’ve staved in some nice places. But it is also the cheapest. I think it’s because the infrastructure here is much better than in Tanzania or Uganda. Moral of the story, if you want to live it up in the bush, come to SA, don’t go to EA.

We just got back from an ostrich tour, where we learn all kind of factoids about ostriches. Right now it is the mating season. So they will pair one male, which has black coat, and one female, which has a brown coat. The female will lay one “trial” egg first, which is small and not viable. After that she lays one egg every other day for a total of about 42. The eggs lay about 1.5kg (3lbs) and can go up to 2kg. The eggs are really strong and can hold more than 120kg when laid “flat” and over 250kg when laid “vertical”. Each egg can feed about 12 people; though they said the eggs are not very tasty. One can eat them, but nobody chooses to eat them on a daily basis.

Because it’s the mating season there are a bunch of little ostrich chicks running around. Debby was ready to buy a couple and take them home. She thinks they are really cute.

The ostriches are really dumb. Each one of their eyes weights 60gm but the brain is only 30gm! They peck at everything and will swallow almost anything. They swallow a couple dozen stones to help their digestion. The stones stay in their belly for a few weeks and then come out. So they are always swallowing a couple of stones.

They have three eyelids. One closes from above, and it helps shade it from the sun. One closes from the bottom and is used for sleep. The third closes from the side and is only to moisten the eye. Much like a crocodile, it can still see with this third eyelid closed. They have fours nostrils, two down below and two small ones above. It can close the large ones when there is too much dust.

The neck is very strong but really flexible. You can basically wrap it around your arm—though you will then have a very angry ostrich hanging from your arm! The neck is stretchy, so it can swallow large object. We were told they can swallow a 1 liter bottle of coke!

They are really strong and can weight up to 200kg (440lbs); which is why the eggs are so strong. Oh, I forgot. The eggs are so strong that the little chick can’t get out on it’s own. The father needs to peck at the egg and break it to let it out. They can run at up to 70km/h (I think). They claimed they are the second fastest animal on earth, after the cheetahs. Not bad for such a heavy animal!

we got to touch the birds, carry an egg, carry a little chick, and even to ride a bird! I rode the ostrich first and my ungraceful dismount almost scarred Debby from riding. But the guys at the farmed offered to help her and she braved it! It was fun if a bit painful. Of course the guys who work here can ride them like we ride a bicycle.

The farms got started in the 19th century. Back then they only harvested the feathers. Nowadays they are raised mainly for the meat. They kill young ostriches, about 14 months old, and get about 45kg-60kg of meat. The meat comes mainly from the back.

Though we had fun with the ostriches, Debby's favorite animal was a 2-month old springbok that was roaming around the farm. She was ready to take it home as a pet. I said sure, so long we buy a farm in South Africa :).

Mussels

Mossel Bay, South Africa (27 February 2008).

We spent last night at a Guest House called 3ColorsBlue. It is high on the hill and has a beautiful view of the bay. Mossel Bay is much larger and so less picturesque than other places we’ve been in. But I had heard of Mossel Bay somehow and wanted to visit.

The Guest House is really nice; and not very expensive. It is a three level house. The guest rooms are on the top floor—which is level with the road. The lower two levels are occupied, we think, by the family who owns the house. The rooms are very nicely decorated and most have a view of the bay.

Breakfast this morning was really good and was very nicely presented. To start with we got a cup of fruit, yogurt, and granola which was super tasty. Then we got scrabbled eggs, in a little bread “basket”, a sausage and bacon skewer, and some grilled veggies. Yummy! Debby also had some “corn cakes”. It’s a little round cake made of popcorn pressed together; sort of like rice cakes but made out of corn. She’s been eating them since we got to SA to complement her carbohydrate intake since she is trying to stay away from bread.

Yesterday we had lunch at a restaurant called Cafe Gannet. We found out too late they were hosting three large groups—one being the Department of Corrections!—and so service was mediocre. Debby ordered mussels and they didn’t do a very good job. That sort of turned us away from the local specialty. For dinner we had better luck. We tried a restaurant called Kingfisher. It has a nice view (it’s located right on the water) and the food was good. They even serve sushi! We thought it was funny the fish of the day was Alaskan Salmon! With so many local fish the specialty is a fish brought more than halfway around the world!

I woke up early and went for a run. There is a 13.5km (8 miles) trail between Mossel Bay and Dana Point that passes near here. It was probably the nicest run I’ve done in Africa. It’s kind of like running by Land’s End in San Francisco, but nicer. It is more remote and the coast is more rugged. The trail is about 80 meters (say 300 feet) above sea level and there is a sheer drop down to the water. I ran for about 20 minutes and then had to turn back (I’m not that fit at the moment).

R

Testing, testing

Now that we are in South Africa and there is GPRS/EDGE service we can read and sent email on the BlackBerry (some cities in East Africa have the technology but T-Mobile doesn't seem to have roaming deals so the BB never worked). We can now also do "mobile" post from the BB as well. This may result in more frequent but shorter updates-it's hard to type a lot on this little keyboard. It would be awesome to have a BB with a camera as then we could blog and post photos immediately. Unfortunately the BB doesn't do spell checking so expect lots of typos.

By the way, both of us are getting our mail on the BB. We don't always answer right away but we do read it diligently.

Today we spent the day in Mossel Bay. We took a boat ride to Seal Island, which, as the name suggests, is covered with seals (you can see them in the picture). It was a short ride but there were big swell. Amazingly I didn't get seasick.

Tomorrow we're going to Outdshoorn to visit the ostriches.

R

Back to civilization

Tsitsikamma National Park, South Africa (22 February 2008).

We’ve gone so far, just to make it home. The Garden Route here in South Africa looks so much like the California coast. Not identical; it is quite a bit hotter (near 30C today) and more humid, they drive on the left, and people speak with a “funny” accent. But the geography looks so similar sometimes that it almost feels like home. Plus is a highly visited route, and so “feels” like highway 1 sometimes. Like California, it is very beautiful.

It seems so long ago that we were roughing it the Serengeti; though it was just a few days ago. The 19th we drove back to Arusha—or Moshi, really, to be precise. We spent the night there, and the following day, bright and early, we flew to Dar Es Salaam. We got a great view of Mt. Kilimanjaro as we were leaving Moshi. Dar is not an attractive city, but we spent a good 24 hours there, taking care of stuff we had been unable to while traveling. Plus we did a bit of surfing to get caught up with what’s going on in the world (it seems so strange not to be following tech blogs every day!) We actually stayed in our suite most of the time. It was the first time we had air conditioning for a while. We did walk to the National Museum, which is a very low key affair. Though they have an interest display of early hominids that have been found in Tanzania.

From Dar we flew to Johannesburg (or Jo’burg as they say here) and from there to Port Elizabeth. The first flight was pretty uneventful, but our second flight was late, so we didn’t get in until close to 10:00pm. We picked up a rental car at the airport and drove to our hotel; we had made a reservation back in Kampala. When we got there we found out they didn’t have a room for us! There was some confusion between Gonzalez and Gomeai (or something like that) and because we got in late we ended up without a room. But the owner was very nice and helped us find a room in a different hotel and negotiated the same rate as what we had reserved! And the second hotel was only a short 2 minute drive away. By 11:30pm we were in bed and ready to sleep.

We were a bit concerned about getting lost on our way to the hotel. But the gals at Avis were really helpful. They even gave us a nicer car than what we had reserved; we have a Mercedes A170. It’s a really nice car and we’ve enjoyed driving it so far.

Anyway, back to the story. We woke up early (SA is one hour behind East Africa), did our laundry, and had breakfast. By 10:00am we were ready to hit the road (we only had the room for one night). We decided to head West, toward Tsitsikamma National Park. Debby wanted to stop here for a night and spend some time exploring the park.

We found a really nice B&B that is close to the water, has really nice cottages and an excellent cook (we didn’t know that for sure when we took the room). The one drawback is the hotel is at the end of a long gravel road and our car is pretty low. So we have to drive really slowly. Our little A170 is certainly no match for a Land Cruiser! Our “chalet” (we are no longer in the bush so it’s not a bungalow but a chalet) faces the ocean, though we are quite a way away from the water—we can only see the ocean out in the distance. The B&B is surrounded by dairy and maize farms, so Debby feels right at home.

The B&B has lots ducks, geese, and peacocks. They used to have swans as well, but about 6 months ago an otter came up from the ocean and killed all the fowl. They ordered more, which haven’t arrived, and also put an electric fence around the pond. They don’t want any more otters ruining their investment!

After checking in at the B&B we drove over to the park to have lunch and for a bit of hiking. Lunch was really good. There is a restaurant at the park, and it is located right by the water. It has a beautiful view. And the food was good. We’ll call lunch a success. The hiking was not so successful. The trail we wanted to do was closed due to fire. And some of the trails close at 16:00. We eventually picked a trail that was open and seemed interesting. But it took us about 15 minutes to do one tenth of the loop. And since it was getting late we decided to abort the mission and come back to the B&B for dinner. Little did we know it was a good thing we save our energy for the after-dinner excitement.

After dinner we walked back to our cottage. Debby looking at the stars and I looking at the BlackBerry (which finally works here!) When we got to the cottage we discovered a big spider on the window sill. It wasn’t really that big, but it had big, think, hairy legs. It must have been 2.5 inches (including the legs). No doubt this is a common thing here “in the colonies”. I was just going to smack it with my shoe, but Debby had visions of it jumping on my and biting me (no doubt it’s a poisonous spider!) She wanted to get the B&B staff, but I refused to go get them. So off she trooped back to reception. Back she came with two ladies who work here; one armed with Raid, the other armed with a broom—the spider had run up onto the ceiling. At the count of three one lady sprays it with Raid, then the other one whacks it with the broom. Then all three (Debby and the two helpers) scream really loud and then start giggling uncontrollably. End of spider story.

South Africa is a different world compared to Tanzania and Uganda. Though we had so much fun the past 5 weeks, it is nice to be in a place that has sealed roads, lots of infrastructure, and is, basically, a first world country. Though there is a huge disparity of income. Everyone who works in the service industry is black, and all the tourists are white.

Food seems to be cheaper here than in East Africa—we paid about $10.00 US for lunch today. But that’s hardly surprising, given how “inefficient” the Ugandan and Tanzanian economies are. There dairy farms have to “ride” (yeah, on a bicycle) milk over to the nearest collection facility, from where a medium-sized truck picks it up and takes it to town. Each farmer carries 2 or 3 steel (aluminum?) containers with a couple of gallons of milk. Here Parmalat tanker trucks pick up the milk at the farm.

Tomorrow we are heading further West. This is a great place, but we’ve had our fill of gravel roads for a while.

R

Yes, please

I often don’t use please when asking a question. Instead I’ll say something like “Could I have a glass a water?” East Africans will often respond with “Yes, please.” Which I find quite interesting. It is like a gentle reminder to ask politely.

Here, like in much of the developed world, greetings and politeness are very important. Everyone who greets you sincerely asks how you are doing. In the morning they will ask if you slept well. And it is not just a casual greeting (like in the US), but they will politely listen to you if you have something to say. Debby doesn’t have much patience for it, but I enjoy it. Nobody has ever been rude or forceful. Even the touts are not very bad—certainly not by Thai or Vietnamese standards. There you can’t shake them loose. Here if you politely refuse whatever they are offering they stop bothering you.

R

Unusual

So far we’ve had so so luck with our guides. We find it funny that many of them have biblical names. Like Godfrey, Moses, Balthazar, Abraham, Godson…. Which is interesting, because not all East Africans have biblical names. There are a lot of Williams’, Jeffreys’, and so on.

Perhaps we were unrealistic, but we assumed (see what happens when you make assumptions?) our guides would be more forthcoming with information. It seems to be a big deal for them to share with us what we are doing, where we are going, how long it will take. And when we ask they sometimes give us completely misleading information! Moses (our Ugandan guide) was very bad in this respect. One time he told us driving from A to B would take 3 or 4 hours; 5 maximum. It took us close to 8!

No doubt, since there are always two sides to a coin, the guide see us as annoying ungrateful, spoiled Americans who don’t tip enough and ask too many questions. Though this is likely also a caricature. My best guess is that they can’t imagine why we want to know so many things when we clearly forget a lot of what they tell us. And they might consider us asking questions as us questioning their ability. So though we try to reach across a high cultural, educational, and financial gap, we can’t see the world from the other’s perspective.

My advise to those interested in a safari, is to spend a lot of time planning it and learning about what you want to see, where, etc. Learn the habits of the animals, learn about the country, and anything else you want to know before you come. We didn’t have a lot of time to plan the trip, and so were delinquent in this respect. We would have gotten a lot more out of the trip by doing more research before heading out. And I’m mostly to blame for this. Debby spent a lot of the time in Paris researching.

R

Sleeping with lions

Flycatcher Camp, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania (18 January 2008).

We have now spent two full days in the camp. This is the most basic accommodation we have been in (I think). The camp is located near Lake Ndutu in the Ngorogoro Conservation Area. It is not a National Park, because the Masai are allowed to live and cattle herd here. But there are a lot of animals. Right now the wildebeest are here because it is the dry season and there is an ample supply of water. When the rainy season starts they will migrate north, to wards the Masai Mara region in northern Tanzania and Kenya. By the next rainy season they will be by the Grumeti river and eventually migrating back here to toward the end of the year.

The camp is certainly in the middle of all the action. Last night there were zebra and wildebeest about 40 yards away from our tents. And then last night we heard lions roaring (and it sounded really, really close). We found out this morning they roar to mark their territory (according to one of our guides, at least). And we also heard the characteristic “ooo-oop” of hyenas.

We find it interesting that the Masai like to live here, since there are so many dangerous animals. But apparently the Masai leave the animals alone and the animals leave them, and their cattle, alone. The Masai do not cultivate land, they live only from their cattle. And a man’s wealth is measured exclusively by how many heads of cattle he has. We were curious how do they build up their wealth. The answer we heard was that they have lots of girls, because they will receive a dowry when they get married. The Masai still hold on to most of their traditions and live the same life as their parents. Though slowly more and more are migrating to outside of this region, where they work as security guards. They like to make some money to come back and buy more cattle.

I was also very curious about the name of the carter, Ngorongoro. It apparently means “land made by fire” in Masai language. They call it so because the crater was formed by a huge volcanic explosion about a million years ago. Which made me only more curious. First I don’t understand how that much meaning can be conveyed in such a small, and repetitive name. Second, how did the Masai know the crater was formed by an eruption?

The camps here in the Ndutu area are not permanent. They are setup during this time of the year because so many people are here (we’ve been surprised at the scale of the tourist industry in Tanzania). When the rains start they tear it all down and move elsewhere. Also, every year the camp is set in a different location, depending on where the wildebeest are. Because the camps move they are very basic. Which is kind of cool because it really give you a sense of being out in the bush (just in case the lions roaring at night are not real enough!) What we find most annoying is that the toilet tank (yes, we have a flush toilet so we are not really roughing it) takes about 5-20 minutes to fill. It’s been an issue in the morning when we both need to use the facilities.

The guys here have been really nice about making “gluten-free” meals for Debby. Everywhere else we’ve had a hard time explaining that Debby needs to eat carbohydrates, just like everyone else, but that she cannot eat any wheat-based items. Most often we say she can’t eat bread. Sometimes the cooks will simply omit the bread-based items (like a sandwich) and not put any alternative! (can’t eat bread, right?) But here they always make her something special. Every day for breakfast they make her potatoes or rice (the rest of us have toast). I must say that even though the camp is very basic, the food has been good.

OK, back to the animal stuff. We all follow the wildebeest because they are the basic staple of all the carnivores, or so we are told. Apparently they are an easy kill and so the big cats, hyenas, and other predators follow them around. And the tourists follow the predators in the hope of watching “a kill”. Though we haven’t seen any being lunch yet. We’ve seen a couple of losers in the game of life (always after the fact, not the actual chase) but not one has been a wildebeest.

Yesterday as we were getting started we ran across a zebra that had blood running down its hind legs. Our guide first said it had probably been attacked by lions. It turned out to be she was giving birth! Though we don’t know whether the baby zebra was alive or not. There was quite a bit of blood and the stomach was pretty still. We followed mama zebra for a while because we wanted to see the birth. But gave up after about 1/2 and hour. She had been still for a long time and eventually started walking away from us, so we decided to let her have some privacy.

This afternoon we ran across a 4x4 stuck in the mud. Our guide, who seems to enjoy playing a ranger, immediately went over to help. And he wasn’t the only one. At one point there must have been 10 cars (and 10 guides) helping! It was quite funny because not far way was a lion sitting in the sun. Initially all the cars were looking at the lion. But soon she all the audience and they all came over to our show. Even the lion was looking over at us!

While this was going on, all the clients (i.e. those of us footing the bill!) were just shooting the breeze. We met a couple from Santa Clara. They were telling us how they saw a cheetah stalk and kill a gazelle. Which Debby was really jealous about, because she would like to see carnivores hunt (we’ve seen lots of animals, but not actual kills). We did see a dead hyena that was still quite “fresh” and a lion with bloody paws (and they were about 40 years from each other). The lion had apparently had enough and left he carcass to the vultures—which, let me tell you, are some really ugly nasty birds. We now understand why they are always cast as evil characters. Really Dick Cheney like.

R

On safari in Tanzania

Lake Manyara, Tanzania (15 February 2008).

On Monday we flew from Zanzibar to Arusha and got picked up by our safari company, Green Footprints. The guide was a bit late and there was some confusion because there was a different guide who was picking up a Mr. & Mrs. Gonzalez. We had to call the main gal at GF to sort out the confusion. It was getting late so we felt a bit bad about rousing her out of bed.

The next day our guide picked up up and took us to the Green Footprints for a short briefing. We met Laura (she’s Dutch) but is temporarily the director. She is actually traveling across Africa overland with her boyfriend. Anyway, she told us about our itinerary, what we would do, stuff about malaria, yada, yada, yada. Then we left for our first adventure; canoing on small Lake Momella in Arusha National Park.

The canoe trip was quite fun, though a bit slow (for my taste and I was doing all the paddling). But we saw lots of birds, learned about the acacia trees, and got up close and personal with the hippos. Not that close, since they are quite dangerous actually. Debby and I confused the rocks with the hippos initially, but eventually we figured out which was which. We supposedly took a game drive in the park, but that was really the drive back to Arusha. Our digs in Arusha were really nice (forgot to mention that detail). We had a really swanky tent with a view of Mt. Meru. Though we never saw it because it’s always cloudy.

The next day we drove over to Lake Manyara National Park—a couple of hours NW of Arusha. We ate lunch in the park and saw (and heard) elephants. Debby was the first to spot the elephants—which made her really proud (she does have really good eyesight). That night we slept at Plantation Lodge, an upscale lodge in the middle of a plantation. I loved it. It had a colonial look & feel and was in the middle of really green farmland. Plus I got to go for a run with our guide. He looks pretty fit, but he’s more of a weight-lifter.

Yesterday we did a short bike ride. Which sounded like it would be great but a bit of a fiasco. We got the place and found out the bikes were in really bad shape. I spent some time trying to educate the “local activity guide”, i.e. the guy in charge of the bikes, how to fix them up. But it seemed to get him (and Debby) all flustered. Plus it was getting late—and hence hot—so we just kind of left in a hurry. Not 10 minutes later the rear tube on my bike exploded. I swapped wheels with one of the guides and we continued. After the swap my rear wheel was running (on the brakes) but everyone was flustered and so I just kept riding.

We rode downhill and through a banana plantation. We stopped at a local pub, and they showed us how they make banana beer. After my third flat for the day the local guide just gave up and made us walk. Fortunately we were close to where the truck was going to pick us up. We then went to lunch, which was at the home of a family in the region. They gave us a really tasty lunch. Here in Tanzania the basic staple is something called ugali, which is made with semolina.

We had the afternoon off and in the evening we had a tasty “bush” dinner—we ate a fancy elegant dinner in the park. After dinner we had a night game drive. We rode around the park in an open air vehicle. The best part was seeing hippos out of the water (hippos spent all day under water to protect their skin and come out to feed at night). They are really heavy but walk like they are they are on tip-toes. It was really funny to see them walking around. We also saw a female lion looking for dinner.

Today we woke up at 4:30am to drive to Ngorongoro crater. The safari company crewed-up and placed us in a lodge that is far away from the crater so we had to leave the lodge at 5:00am to get to the gate of the park by 6:00am, when it opens. The visit was really amazing. The crater is oval-shaped (measuring about 18km by 25km along the axes) and holds an incredible amount of wildlife—kind of like diving in a fish bowl with lots of fish. We saw rhino’s, cheetahs, lions, zebras, buffalo, flamingos, elan, wildebeest, Thompson gazelles, topi, and tons more (too many to write them all here).

Tomorrow we drive to the famous plains of Serengeti.

R

Picture perfect (but not paradise)

Stone Town, Zanzibar (10 February 2008).

Today is our last night in Zanzibar. After 5 nights at Karamba we moved to a Paradise Beach Bungalows, which is located in Paje Beach—on the east coast of Zanzibar. We picked PBB because it is owned and operated by a Japanese lady who cooks really tasty Japanese food. Unfortunately she was home due to a family emergency and none of the other cooks know how to make Japanese food. In general, the locals were not doing a very good job of keeping up the place. It seemed kind of run down, dirty, and unkempt. So we cut our stay short, and moved to Stone Town. We wanted to get away from PBB, but we also wanted to be closer to a larger town, with more facilities, restaurants, and so on. Plus this way we are a short ride away from the airport.

PBB ended up being a bit too rustic for us. We managed to survive, but Debby had a hard time sleeping because the fan in the room didn’t work very well. Plus the first night she got a lot of small bites on her feet—we think it was ants, but we are not sure. Plus the beach wasn’t very good for swimming. For one, they have blue bottle jellyfish (not sure if this is really a jellyfish or not). But also during low tide the ocean moves way out (we think it’s about a mile, but it’s hard to judge the distance without some points of reference) and during high tide the surf is quite strong. During low tide it’s easy enough to walk to other resorts on the beach, but during high tide one can’t walk on the beach. So we had to adjust our schedule to the tides.

The second day at PBB we rented a motorcycle (Honda 250cc) since we were a bit bored, and rode around the island. I wanted to see some of the norther beaches, especially Matemwe. But we didn’t get there because there was construction on the road and made the road very dusty (it is a gravel road). So we turned back around and rode around the southern part of the island. There are frequent police roadblocks all over the island. They made us buy a “permit” at the first one, but after that we never got stopped again.

We found that outside of Stone Town most of the resorts are really isolated. Which is great if you just want peace and quite and don’t mind eating all your meals at the resort, like we did at Karamba. But it doesn’t work so well if you want to get out. We met a British couple at PBB who was also frustrated by this. They went out to dinner one night and on the way back a “taxi” wanted to charge them $10.00 (USD) to drive them about a mile!

Being in Stone Town is a bit more fun. In the afternoon we went out for a walk in downtown, found an Internet cafe, and had a tasty dessert. We couldn’t have done so anywhere else on the island. On the other hand, there are a lot more touts here in Stone Town. There were none by Karamba, some in Paje, and a lot here.

We had read a lot about touts and about being careful while walking on the beach. Though our experiences with zanzibari have been quite different. One day I went to a small shop in Paje to look for a new sim card (we could not recharge our old Ugandan Celtel card). They didn’t have any at the shop I went, but they instructed a small kid (about 6 or 7 I guess) who was at the store to walk me to the other store in teh village where they sold them. He walked me all the way there, waited until teh store opened, explained what I wanted, and then walked me back to the first store.

We’ve tried to login a couple of time but have been unsuccessful. Both at the hotel and at the Internet cafe the connection was so slow we gave up trying. We’ll try again tomorrow. Apparently some of the underground cables got cut by a boat and they are repairing it.

R

Too much paradise

Karamba Resort, Zanzibar (Tanzania). We are on the western shore of the south part of the zanzibar island. Karamba is a small resort that opened in July 2007. It is owned and operated by Gemma (Spanish) and her husband Paul (Ugandan). She runs the place and he is the cook, yoga instructor, shopper, and general errand boy. It's a small resort, there are only 14 bungalows, and most of the people here are Italian. Today arrived a French couple, but before that we were the only non-Italians. We are also the only ones under 40. The one (big) downside is there is no pool and there aren't many beach chairs. And what they have isn't very comfortable!

There is a small beach between the resort and a village right next door. The beach gets used by both villagers and tourists without a problem (we've read of confrontations between the two in the more touristy areas). Other than the small beach the coast is rocky, with the water about 15 feet below the top of the rocks--which is where the resort is.

Because this is the more remote part of the island and there aren't many tourists (Karamba is one of the few resorts around here) there is a lot of wildlife--different from what we saw in Uganda. Sunday we were sitting under a tree (I think it's what we call an almendro in Ixtapa) when I felt something moving on my right shoulder/arm. I turn around and saw a light green tail on my arm and got up and turned around to see what it was. Debby felt me move and jumped up. It was just a garden snake (Ricardo thinks) that had climbed down from the tree (it didn't offer us any apples). As soon as we got up and started making a ruckus the snake slithered off to the plants. I don't know who was more scared, the snake or us. After the snake incident Debby said this place was very nice but was perhaps too much paradise for her taste.

There are jellyfish in the water, but they don't seem to burn (or sting, use whatever verb you prefer). The Italians showed us you can pick them up (round-side down) and thrown them. The jellyfish here don't have long tails and don't burn. Apparently in other parts of the island they have long blue tails and they burn. So we are lucky. There are also lots of starfish, crabs, urchins, sea snakes (which we haven't seen) and shell crabs (don't know their name, really, it looks like a snail but has a crab inside), lizards, bees, wasps, beetles, lots of other smallish creatures, and three cats. One of the cats is very friendly and spent yesterday with us. Not many birds though, which we find surprising.

The most interesting animal we've seen so far are some amphibian fish. They are small fish-looking things (they seem to have gills) but can breath out of the water for long periods of time. They live on the rocks by the water with the crabs and seem to eat algae that is caught in the small holes in the rocks. You can see them nibbling all the time. These little fish are incredibly fast. When they get scarred they will move from one place to the next almost faster than the eye can see--it helps that they are very well camouflaged.

The beach is very flat and the tide causes the water to move out about 100 yards. Right now low tide is in at night and early morning, and high tide is in the afternoon. To swim in the morning one has to walk 100 yards to get to the water, while in the afternoon one can swim right there, though the water is shallow. In the morning we walked out along what in the afternoon is the ocean floor and saw a lot of the marine life that survives in the small tidal pools left by the receding ocean, which, by the way, is the Indian Ocean.

Tomorrow morning we'll go out on a boat to swim with dolphins and then come back and do a bit of snorkeling near here (still on the boat, but near the resort).

R

Debby adds:

The food is quite nice, with my favorite dish being chocolate fondue with fruit for dessert. Yum! Oh, and sometimes for dinner, when you first sit down, they offer you freshly made popcorn. Perhaps a strange item for a tropical resort, but we really liked it. The menu has a lot of seafood and fish. I particularly like the curry calamari. I tried the lobster from Zanzibar, but it tastes pretty different than Maine lobster--not so good to me. Mangoes are in season here. Going south from Stonetown, the road was lined in parts with mango trees. Just like the lobster, the mangoes taste a bit different. What has been a tasty surprise is the papaya.

Paul is starting to offer yoga classes in the late afternoons. The first day we arrived we saw all the Italian ladies diligently trying to follow along. By the third day we were there, the Italians had boycotted doing anymore yoga. :)