Thursday, June 30th:

We set the alarm to wake early and be ready for our journey on Mike’s boat, Sea Wolf, to Zanzibar.  It was a miserable 3 hour ride for me feeling sea sick and vomiting twice despite a thorough dosing of Dramamine.  Jane also got sick.  Joe and Ruby are immune and suffered only from boredom.  We did pass close to some picturesque large cargo dhows on our way and dolphins were spotted.

Finally we arrived, pulling up to the powdery white beach of the resort town of Kendwa, Zanzibar.  The water was crystal clear and beautiful.  The Kendwa Rocks resort was close to empty and a few Tanzanians roamed the beach pitching snorkeling tours, hotels, hair braiding and more.

Thankful to be on land we claimed some shaded couches edging the restaurant and settled in for some food and drinks for a couple of hours until our driver arrived to take us to Matemwe.  The Kendwa beach is stunning, but was very hot in the sun.  It is pure resort, with no village or homes of locals in sight, but apparently there is a village nearby somewhere.

Eventually we connected with our driver and enjoyed his air conditioned van from Kendwa to Matemwe, from the west coast on the Strait of Zanzibar, to the east coast on the Indian Ocean. Along the paved roads we saw that most buildings were concrete block with metal roofs unlike the thatch and wattle and daub structures of Ushongo and elsewhere.

We left the paved road to the narrow sand streets of Matemwe.  Amid the village, we arrived at the backdoor to Mohammed’s Beach Bungalows.  Inside we found four little cottages and a beach front restaurant. As soon as we left Mohammed’s fenced front, and stepped on the beach, we were surrounded by children.  A little overwhelmed we retreated.

Ruby, Joe and I went for a long walk down the beach while Jane stayed behind.  We headed south on the flat hard packed white beach enjoying the shells we found along the way.  A brisk wind blew in from the ocean.  The water, a coral lagoon, was very shallow with ribbons of sand and seagrass.  We headed away from the village along a series of tourist lodges, although there was hardly a tourist in sight.  Several young men ran to us, greeting us in English and pitching snorkel trips, restaurants, or handicrafts.  Ruby and I waded into the surprisingly cool water.  The beach goes on forever, but eventually we doubled back toward Mohammed’s.

In front of Mohammed’s, next to the village, three vigorous soccer matches were underway on the beach.  The young men play barefoot with great athleticism.

In the evening, we enjoyed the lodge’s good wifi and music and watched through the kitchen window as Mohammed and his family prepared the guests’ dinners.  The seafood meals were delicious, confirming that Mohammed’s reputation as the best chef in Matemwe is well deserved.

Friday, July 1st:

After breakfast we headed down the beach to meet our boat and driver for the snorkel trip to Mnemba Island. Almost immediately I stepped barefoot in poop.  Soon after Jane did as well.  After thorough foot washing and sand scrubbing we realize that sadly the beach is dotted with piles of poop and there are children squatting and pooping in plain sight.

We observed more pleasant village practices as we slowly motored on our boat along the coastline at low tide making our way to Mnemba Island for snorkeling. Many villagers waded in the shallows with sticks to hunt octopus. A few men had the advantage of masks.  We passed along the village and lodges until the white sand beach ended, superseded by jagged coral bluffs.  Finally there was a break in the reef with waves rolling in and we turned, heading to open water and the nearby Mnemba island.

Mnemba island is privately owned and has a super high end resort, but all are free to snorkel the surrounding reef. Our boat was the first to arrive.  The snorkeling was pretty good with lots of fish and diversity in the coral.  Although we saw some bleaching, the coral and anenomes looked pretty healthy.  The water was chilly and the girls were soon waiting in the boat.  When we had all snorkeled our fill and were ready to head home, it began to rain.  We sped through the rain, much faster on our return now that the tide was higher.

Back in Matemwe we saw boys tenderizing the caught octopus by beating the burlap sacks with wooden sticks. We had lunch and some down time at Mohammed’s.

Feeling hungry before dinner, Ruby and I ventured into the village in search of fruit and snacks.  Our presence garnered a lot of attention, as we made our way to three meager dukas (shops) passing coral rag and thatch homes and a big central well with brackish water.  We devoured the fruit we bought back at Mohammed’s.

In the evening we went our for a beach walk.  The top of the beach had a sand cliff about 8 feet high from the beach to the bushes and coconut palms above.  Some boys were using the cliff wall to perform parcore style backflips putting on a great show.

Saturday, July 2nd:

The call to prayer was loud in our room at 4:20 AM, but the singer did a nice job of it.  I got back to sleep untill the many crows and roosters started their racket.  We had a long slow morning at Mohammed’s.  The front yard is a good vantage to observe the villagers’ morning routine.  In the early hours some boys are pooping in plain site on the beach (yuck!).  As the tide went out women and girls covered in flowing dresses and headscarves wade out into the shallows in ever increasing numbers armed with sticks and burlap bags to hunt octopus.  Young men bicycle up and down the beach and a donkey drawn cart delivers scuba air tanks to a boat.  Later in the morning young children play in the sand, the boys begin the soccer games again, the females continue the hunt for octopus, and goats wander the beach.

Mid morning a driver took us about 1.5 hours south along the east coast to the Jozani National Park.  We passed villages, walled resorts, scrub land, corn fields, baobabs and casuarina pine farms.  We stopped by a fruit stand andpicked up 15 red bananas, 6 oranges and a large mango for $2.50. Toward the end of the drive we passed an area of green rice fields dotted with huge mango trees and palmira palms. Farmers were harveting and threshing the rice by hand.

At Jozani, we joined three other travellers from Slovakia and a tour guide.  Almost immediately we found a troop of red colobus monkeys along the roadside.  There were a couple baby monkeys hanging on to their mommies. The red colobus monkey is endangered, but seems to be thriving in the fragment of forest protected at Jovani.  We finally dragged ourselves away from the monkeys and walked through the mahogany forest.  We saw a small poisonous green mamba snake!  The mahogany trees were planted in the 1800s but are no longer harvested.   The second part of the tour was a boardwalk through adjacent mangrove forests.

It was already mid afternoon after our tour when we headed to a fancy resort in Pongwe on the way back for food and swimming. The Pongwe Beach Hotel is super nice with a beautiful private beach and zero edge pool.  The tide was high and there was no seaweed.  We enjoyed a late lunch, drinks, swimming and playing in the sand.  We finally left in the early evening and headed back to Matemwe for another good meal and early bedtime.

Sunday, July 3rd:

After a lazy morning at Mohammed’s we went for a beach walk.  The tide was very low and the shallow coral lagoon full of octopus hunters and shell collecters.  Along the walk we met a large group of young girls coming in from shell collecting and they surrounded us, chattering questions in broken english and touching Ruby and Jane’s hair.  It was friendly for a while, but upon our second meeting with them, on the way back, the hair touching evolved to yanking and they had to be scolded away.  We returned from our walk as the tide came in and the sun broke through.  All the wading octups hunters came in and the fishing dhows went out.  

In the afternoon we took a second snorkel trip to Mnemba island.  We enjoyed a sunny boat ride to the reef alongside the island where the water was gorgeous shades of light blue and aqua.  Unfortunately the water there was too choppy in the windy afternoon to snorkel.  Then we headed back to the coral next to the island where we had snorkeled before.  The current was stronger so the boat dropped us at one spot and picked us up down current.  We did see more parrot fish, but in general the visibility was not as good as in the morning and after an hour we were ready to return. It was high tide and windy for our ride back.  Large waves rocked the boat side to side as we navigated the narrows between the reef and the rocky shore.

We enjoyed a last dinner at Mohammed’s and packed up for an early mornng departure.