Day 85 – 86: Stone Town to Nungwi

Caro got up first again and made a lovely breakfast. Scramble eggs with tomato, carrot and green pepper on a bun. She also talked to our room neighbours, Petr and Kristýna, from the Czech Republic. Turns out they also want to go to Nungwi today and spoke to the the same Taxi driver. They, however, also wanted to do a spice tour.

We packed up and by 10:00 the Taxi was in front of the flat. We had to renegotiate the deal as the they wanted more for 4 people and for the spice detour. We settled on 75 000 shillings for everyone together.

The Taxi driver stopped at the spice farm of his choice. We were greeted by an enthusiastic guide who knew some Afrikaans words and sayings like: “Moerse lekker”, makes you wonder who the previous tourists from South Africa were.

The tour included smelling, tasting and looking at various different spice and fruit plants. Some of the spice plants included: vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, coffee, ginger, pepper, turmeric and lemon grass. The interesting fruits were: durian, jack fruit, star fruit, custard apple, bread fruit, hairy litchis and small mangoes in giant trees. Someone then demonstrated how they climb a palm tree, after which we could drink the water from a coconut and eat the inside. While we did the tour some guys made a range of ‘accessories’ from palm and banana leaves and decorated us with it. A necklace, ring, bracelet, handbag and crown for the girls and a hat and tie for the guys.

After the tour they gave us fruit to taste: bitter orange, sweet orange (both with green skins), mandarin, grapefruit (very sweet), pineapple, banana and watermelon.

All of this is done just for tips as there is no entry fee or official price. They also sell spice, but at four times the Darajani market price. We tipped the guide and the palm tree climber. Hopefully they share it with everyone else.

The taxi driver then took us to Nungwi. Since we didn’t have accommodation booked yet he said he will show us a few places. He took us close to the beach to a place that wanted $40 per room even though we said our budget was $25. Basically just next to the first option was Jambo Brothers who had rooms including breakfast for exactly $25.

After a small lunch consisting of the last bread rolls, processed cheese and the date jelly, we went for a swim in the turquoise waters.

We felt the same stinging sensation in this water as at prison island. One waiter we asked called it the mosquitos of the ocean, but couldn’t explain what it was.

We went for a walk up and down the beach past all the other beach fronting guests houses, hotels and resorts. We were stopped a few times by different people all selling the same snorkeling tour. “We start at 09:00 go to Mnemba Island, snorkel, go to a beach for a BBQ and then we’re back at 16:00.” Everyone starts with $25 as the normal price and then quotes $20 as the off-season price. If you start walking away they offer $15 per person. We wanted to snorkel, but we’re initially planning on doing it from Matemwe. Also we weren’t sure about the weather.

We had dinner with the Czechs at the Saturn Restaurant in front of our cottage. The prices looked cheap, but the portions were much smaller than previous places we ate.

We sat and talked at the restaurant until almost 22:00. In the room we googled some random things on our phones. Hugo read some of another overlander’s blog, http://www.tuckstruck.net, besides travelling through Europe, Africa and South America they also did a trip to Antarctica. We didn’t know that you can just book a normal tourist cruise to Antarctica for a ‘mere’ $10k to $20k. Hugo already put it on his to-do list, but Caro didn’t share the enthusiasm.

Day 86

Caro was very disgusted at the way everything smelled in the room and couldn’t stand the cushion so only slept on her fleece. Hugo didn’t mind, but since his head smelled like the cushion he got the same treatment.

We only got up at 09:00 and only because we didn’t want to miss breakfast. It had started to rain again during the night and was still raining. Breakfast is served in the Saturn Restaurant. When we got there a table was set with four cups each with a tea bag, only one teaspoon and a flask of hot water. We had to ask for sugar and they didn’t know what milk was and also didn’t have any white substances. The ‘fruit platter’ was literally a quarter of an orange and a small green banana that was inedible. For the eggs we could choose between plain omelette, Spanish omelette, fried, boiled or scrambled. For each of these options only one egg is used and it is served with dry bread, nothing else. Hugo went to fetch the butter we bought in Stone Town to put on the bread.

After breakfast the rain stopped for a bit and we could see spots of blue sky. We got the camera and went for a walk with the Czechs to Kendwa Beach, 3km from Nungwi. Halfway there it started drizzling and then pouring. We were in front of a resort and they wouldn’t even let us hide under an umbrella. At their ‘adventure’ centre the guard let us stand under a roof for a while. We decided to go back as we forgot our rain coats and high tide was coming, the Czechs went further with their ponchos.

On the way back the ocean was already starting to touch the rock ‘cliffs’, but we made it back to the room just semi-wet. We set-up a table inside the room and did some studying and working. We took an afternoon nap and then continued again. The whole time the rain alternated between torrential and mild (I’m running out of ways to describe rain).

Around 17:00 we started looking for food. The Czechs said they found a cheap place for lunch, inside a bakery. We went to the bakery and saw they only had 3 items on the menu, all for 6000 TZS. We ordered one chicken noodle stir fry. The portion was huge and we were more than full, but we were a bit worried that our tummies won’t be too happy with the chicken.

At 19:00, after strolling passed some of the other restaurants to see how busy they are, we met the Czechs at another restaurant for cocktails. They also invite a Slovakian couple whom they met earlier today, who assured us that we are safe as they have eaten in the bakery for 3 days. It was happy hour so we had two pina coladas for 10 000 TZS. The six of us played cards until the staff started to pack up everything around us. We taught them the neighbour card game and then they taught us a card game similar to Uno.