Sunday, June 26th:

In the morning we packed up and after breakfast and goodbyes Simon drove us into Tanga.  There our next host, Mike, picked us up.  We stopped briefly to buy some fruit and then headed out of Tanga, south toward Pangani.  Shortly after leaving Tanga, the paved road ended and there is only a dirt road to Dar Es Salaam.  It had just been graded, but Mike told us that the road’s condition is often poor, especially after rains.

Mike grew up in Tanzania.  His father is Swiss and and came in 1971 as an engineer to work on the sisal machinery. As we drove down the dirt road we passed small roadside villages, empty bush, and enormous foreign owned sisal plantations.  We passed the town of Pangani and took a ferry across the Pangani river.  After the ferry, we turned off on a smaller rougher dirt road and passed the fishing village of Ushonga. Some of the buildings were minimal built entirely of thatch. Then we arrived at Mike’s Beach Cottages.  

It is the low season and we are the only guests.  Our cottage is just of the beach and has AC and hot showers.  We have three beds in the room, each under mosquito nets.  There was a brisk breeze, a little restaurant, loads of coconut palms and a long beach with murky choppy water.

We ordered lunch which took 1.5 hours to arrive.  In the meantime, Jane played in the waves, and Ruby and I played chess and explored the nearby beach.  After lunch we took a long walk to the far southern end of the beach to peak around the corner.  Along the way are some thatch roofed lodges with few guests beneath the coconut palms. The far end of the long beach, and the water there, is entirely covered in seagrass.  The girls frolicked in the modest waves up and down the beach as we went.

After hot showers we had a dinner.  Everyone was exhausted and we went right to bed afterwards.

Monday, June 27th:

We awoke to a sunny still morning with no wind.  The beach was strewn with seaweed. The girls were out playing in the water in no time.  They met a mom and girl their age named Oceane who were walking along the beach.  Jane and Ruby played chess while we awaited our breakfast.

I walked along the beach to the north.  Next door to us is another seemingly empty lodge, and beyond that the village of Ushongo. The fishermen were heading out in their small dhows that had no motors. The village beach had chickens and geese running around. The buildings along the shore were all thatch although I could see wattle and daub, brick and block buildings further in.  It felt awkward to walk past their village, but when I greeted a couple of women walking toward me on the beach they were friendly.  Throughout the day I saw villagers gathering wood and coconuts from the beach.   

After breakfast the girls were delighted when Oceane showed up with her dad to play.  The three girls played in the waves while we talked with Ludo, Oceane’s dad.  Lodo is Italian and along with his wife Ava from Belgium, and their other daughter Sky, they live in Vietnam.  They own a bar and dive shop and the mother Ava has a clothing design business.  Oceane attends the public Vietnamese elementary school and is Jane’s age, 9.

While we were chatting a feeble man with a cane and another man came slowly together walking down the beach from Ushongo village.  They proceeded to do a series of exercises and stretches, the one man helping the other.  Perhaps the man is a stroke survivor.

After a while Lodo and Ocean invited us to visit their spot on the beach and their FABULOUS house.  The huge and opulent house belongs to a friend of a friend.  Set back from the beach behind a grove of coconut palms, the home has two stories with deep porches on both floors.  It is decorated with fascinating local artwork and furnishings and has a staff of at least 5!  Ludo and Ava marveled at their good fortune.

The well appointed home included three boogie boards and the girls rode waves to no end. We continued our chatty visit with Ludo and Ava who have travelled the world and live a free and exotic life.

When their servants had their lunch ready, we headed to the neighboring, very nice Tides resort and ordered our lunch.  We spent over an hour waiting for the food in a breezy beach front porch.  We played Uno, reviewed photos, monkeyed with a cellular wifi dongle that we can’t get to work, and lurked around the reception area to pick up some wifi to check email and headlines.  Finally the food came and it was very good, but the most expensive meal of our trip to date.

After lunch the play continued with Oceane, and the chatting among the grown ups.

 Meanwhile three young sisters from the village dressed in rags gathered by us neglecting their wood gathering duties.  The contrast with our three girls carefree, playing in the waves was stark.  The girls were friendly and we took turns drawing pictures in the sand.  Ava brought them some plastic beach toys which they enjoyed quite a bit. Later, while I was on my own writing, Joe reports the two older sisters had a vicious sword battle with swimming noodles until one of the noodles was broken to pieces.

Then our two families headed together to the fishing village on a mission to buy fish.  It felt awkward at first as Ava is shameless with her camera, and the girls were chasing the village ducks.  My Swahili greetings came in handy to create a friendly vibe and we somehow communicated that we should await the dhow that was sailing in at that moment.  It took a while for the fisherman to arrive, get the sail down, and paddle in.  When he did he had a burlap bag with several small fish and one larger fish.  A bright young man with good English explained how that fish was not only good to eat, but the skin is dried and used to clean the dhows.  

We followed the man with the bag of fish deeper into the village to a place with a scale and Ludo bought three fish, 1 kilo for $3.50.  Next door in a thatch hut ten men were crowded around a TV watching a soccer match.  Outside on a large chalk board neatly written was the schedule of upcoming soccer matches.

We returned to Mike’s restaurant for more chatting and playing until dinner time.

After dinner Joe and the girls were straight to bed and I am going to now that I have caught up on my journal.

Tuesday, June 28th:

Soon after breakfast the girls ran off to boogie board with Oceane.  We spent the morning hanging out on the beach in front of our friends’ place, “The Eckel House”.  Lodo, Ava and Sky were gone all morning on a walk to the fishing village and beyond to a dive shop.

The girls love the water, but it is quite turbid, gritty and full of seaweed and not very appealing to me.  Apparently this is typical after the rainy season and th wateris clearer in November and December. The long crescent palm lined breezy beach is beautiful, but marred by the plastic water bottles and styrofoam that lace the seaweed and coconut debris flotsum.

At midday we parted and enjoyed a lobster lunch at our place.  We all spent some down time reading in shade after lunch until Oceane came over to fetch the girls for more play.  It was a lazy beach day for the adults, but the girls played hard in the waves including a couple wipe outs. As was the pattern, the morning was sunny and still, and the afternoon became breezier.  In the morning the girls drifted one way down the beach, and in the afternoon the other.  Their swimming was interspersed with digging in the sand, castle building and seaweed fights.

In the evening we cleaned up at our place and joined our friends for dinner at the Eckel House. Our fish dinner was served on the upstairs porch as bats flew in and out freely.  As it grew dark, the grounds were patrolled by a Maasai warrior in traditional shuka and beads.  The house is a marvel with much of the distressed wooden timbers from ancient dhows.  After dinner we enjoyed good, but ill advised, french pressed coffee which would keep me up half the night.  We left the girls to sleep over and headed down the moonless dark beach under oodles of stars and the Milky Way back to our place at  Mike’s.

We finished the night with a night cap at Mike’s.  Unfortunately, between the late coffee and the rustle of rats in the room, it was a poor night’s sleep.

Wednesday, June 29th:

After an early breakfast, we returned to the Eckel House to find our girls and the family eating a pancake breakfast at a large table out in the yard. Soon after Lodo and Ava took off as arranged on a dhow trip with a local fisherman. They had arranged a babysitter for young Sky and we looked after Oceane during another boogie boarding beach day.

We whiled away our morning, the only folks on the beach.  The girls played some indoors on the upstairs porch of the Eckel house. Upon their return, Ludo and Ava invited us to share their lunch.  After lunch we got the kids ice cream at Mike’s.  Later in the afternoon we went to the Tides resort for a glass of wine while the kids played in the pool. The evening with our new friends ended back at Mike’s with drinks and snacks before dinner.