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. :)