Wednesday, July 6th:

We rose early after another challenging night’s sleep between the street noise and early calls to prayer.  After packing up our bags we went to the rooftop cafe for breakfast.  Today is Eid, the last day of Ramadan and songs of prayer rang out from the many minarets in Stone Town creating an incredible sound.

We walked our bags to meet our driver and then drove to the airport. Along the way we saw many men and boys dressed in spotless white floor length tunics and kofia caps for the holiday.

We had two short flights on very small planes.  First from Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam, and then from Dar to Mafia island.  I sat in the front row on both flights just behind the pilot who appeared to be flying manually.

The van for our lodge, Chole Mijini, was awaiting us at the tiny Mafia airport.   We drove 15 minutes across Mafia island passing countryside with cows, coconut palms, mango trees and scattered buildings.  Then we were met by a boat and motored across a strait at low tide to the island of Chole. We waded in from the boat in thigh high water to arrive at Chole Mijini lodge.  

We were greeted by some local women and served coconut drinks decorated with flowers at the attractive little beach bar, the “Red Herring”.  They gave us an orientation about how the lodge works and the activities available.

Then we headed past some ruins from the German built structures dating from the German colonial era when Chole was a city in the 1800s.  We continued into the deeper forest where the lodge and treehouses are built on the mangrove shore under large baobab, flamboyant, and tamarind trees amid fragments of ruins.  Our tree house is the first with two stories surrounded by flamboyant trees between some ruins and the mangrove shore.  The lower deck has the big bed and a porch over the mangroves and the tiny upper story has two small beds.  There is no electricity, but four hand held solar lanterns were provided.  

There is a large outdoor shower and separate pit toilet latrine down the trail.  The treehouse includes a bucket for a night time piss when one is too scared or tired to venture out to the toilet!  To heat the shower water, we pour kerosene into a metal container full of wick and light it.  That is pushed under a metal canister built into the shower plumbing.  After three minutes or so there is a decent supply of hot water.

It was low tide and the girls scoured the mangrove beach finding pottery shards and glass beads from Chole’s history as an important port. Lunch was served in the open restaurant.  We were joined by our hosts Jean, Anne, their daughter Maya, by Livia an intern, and other guests Julien and Sarah.

Livia is 19 and born to Italian parents in Kenya.  She now goes to university in Brussels.  She is working on an experiment and proposal at Chole Mijini to speed the restoration of craters in the coral created by dynamite fishing in the 90s.  She has been sewing up lime, and coral rock in burlap bags to function as stable foundations for transplanted coral.

All afternoon we heard music from the adjacent village as they celebrated Eid. Jane came running when she encountered a large prehistoric looking monitor lizard on the path to our tree house.

The tide came up dramatically in the late afternoon and we had a swim off the stone dock surrounded by mangroves. Above the dock was a lone huge bat hanging upside down at the top of a tree.  It had an orange chest with black wings and Jane named it Teddy.

We went back to the Red Herring for a glass of wine at sundown.  

Locals began arriving at the shore dressed in their new clothes for Eid.  As we headed back to the lodge the boys had a dance party going along the shore as huge bats flew overhead.  Many of the boys enjoyed having me take their photos and showing them afterwards.

Dinner was set up in the ruins where two walls were atmospherically covered in strangler fig roots.

Thursday, July 7th:

It was a poor night’s sleep thanks to the tree mice (rats) running around the tree house.  The fresh morning and view from our treehouse porch across Chole Bay to Mafia island revived me.  We pulled up the basket of coffee, hot chocolate, and cookies by rope and pulley and enjoyed our drinks as palm swifts zoomed around in the early morning light.

We then made our way to the restaurant for our al fresco breakfast. Mid morning we embarked on a snorkel trip.  We waded out in the low tide to the dhow and then motored out to a string of coral rocky islands across Chole Bay.  The snorkeling was the best of the trip so far.  There were lots of fish and a diversity of healthy coral surrounding sharp tiny coral rock islets.  Once we were sated with snorkeling we sailed back.  The clear water beautiful shades of blue in the sunlight. On the walk back to our room, I saw two more monitor lizards that then sauntered into the brush filled ruins and out of sight.

After lunch at the restaurant we joined Livia, Julian and Sarah on a boat trip to Juani island, near our snorkeling spot, to see a green sea turtle nest hatching.  Several other boats of tourist from other lodges also arrived.  About thirty tourists and our guides then walked for half an hour across the uninhabited island on a single file foot path.  The trail was shady under low trees and treacherous with sharp coral rocks.  We passed several huge baobabs of enormous girth. Our path was crossed a couple of times by large glossy millipedes about a foot long.

We emerged from the bush on a small beach facing the Indian Ocean.  A guide from Sea Sense, the NGO guarding the sea turtle nests, began clearing sand away with a gloved hand.  The first turtles waddled out of the sand and down the sloping beach surrounded by cameras with well meaning tourists smoothing the sand in front of them and clearing seaweed aside until they hit the water and drifted out to sea.  The 62 sea turtle hatchlings took about a half hour to all make the journey.  After the last turtle was safely afloat we walked back across the island and enjoyed the dhow sail back to Chole Mijini.

At dusk we headed down to the Red Herring for glass of wine and watching the huge bats fly out across the bay and the sun set behind the palms of Mafia.  In the dark we made our way back to the restaurant.  The way was lit with infrequent dim solar lights.  In the restaurant, lit with kerosene lamps and our solar lanterns, we awaited dinner chatting with Anne, Julien and Sarah upstairs in the bar while the girls hung out with Jo and Livia downstairs.

Dinner was set under the Tamarind tree.  Is was a traditional meal of pilau, octopus, beans and chapati.  After dinner we headed back to our tree house sharing the path with many larger hermit crabs and skittishly jumping at rustling sounds from the mangrove roots. I enjoyed a good night’s sleep, rats be damned, thanks to Ambien, ear plugs and an eye mask.

Friday, July 8th:

After our coffee and hot chocolate in our treehouse and breakfast we enjoyed a lazy morning.  Jane reading, Ruby recording all the birds and sealife she has seen from the lodge’s identification books in her journal, and me catching up on my journal.

Mid morning we joined Julien and Sarah and boated out to a huge, dazzlingly white sandbank that is only revealed at low tide.  Chole Bay seems to practically empty at low tide. Our crew set up a shade structure on the sandbank and grilled fish steaks, we walked the length of the ever expanding sandbank examining shells.  Jane pointed out live cowries amid the receding waters.  Later a local mother and two daughters walked to the sandbar across the shallows from Mafia island. They spent hours gathering live cowries for their shells to sell to tourists.  Ruby put together a beautiful collection of shells, most to be left behind, but a few to be kept.  She found a large leopard cowry.

As the sandbank dried out, scores of crabs scuttled sideways back and forth.  Overhead clouds sent bands of shade rushing across the white sand and shallow aqua waters.  A handful of large kites hung around hoping for our fish scraps or hunting crabs. The wind blew relentlessly.

After our fish bbq picnic lunch we motored back to Chole Mijini. Julien and Sarah departed to their next destination leaving us the only guests.  

In the late afternoon we set off boating in the opposite direction of our previous voyages to visit the jellyfish of the blue lagoon.  We had a late start having to wait for high tide and the boatmen to find the needed gasoline.  We passed along the mangrove edge of Chole and then Juani island over shallow clear waters as the sun began to drop.  Beyond the mangroves towered coconut palms and large, mostly leafless baobabs. We passed small eroded coral rock islands shaped like triangles balanced on their tips.  Here and their outrigger dugout canoes were anchored, the only sign of the meager inhabitation.

We turned into a passage between mangroves spotting a few large heron and white egret among the network of roots.  We snaked between the mangroves until we were in sight of the breakers of the Indian Ocean and then pulled up on a sandy beach. A short walk in we found a large salt water pool in the craggy coral rock in the day’s last light.  Donning our snorkels and descending a ladder we had a swim in the warm clear waters and found the floor of the pool to be absolutely covered with upside down jellyfish pulsating.  The jellyfish are stingless and before long we found with a little disturbance we could get them to swim around a bit before settling back down to rest.

We boated home as the sun set approaching from the back way.  Having now circumnavigated Chole island we could appreciate how small it is.  Dinner was set up in the ruins again and we ate with Livia and Anne before going to bed.

Saturday, July 9th:

After breakfast Mohammed gave us a 90 minute tour of Chole.  The village homes are few and spread out separated by stands of banana, coconut, cassava, citrus trees and some garden beds of sweet potato.  Many homes have concrete walls while others are coral rock and concrete.   The lanes are generally tidy.  There are no cars or motorcycles, just a few bicycles.  The schools, the learning center, village offices, and hospital were substantially funded by Jean and Anne of Chole Mijini in an agreement that theirs be the only lodge on the island.  Currently that agreement is at risk as there is a falling out of some sort between the lodge and some of the villagers.  This was very distressing to Mohammed whose secondary education was only possible thanks to the funding coming from the lodge.

In a grouping of centrally located large trees hundreds of the large bats were roosting and making a racket.  

At one end of the island a boat yard slowly builds and repairs dhows with ancient techniques and hand tools under an enormous baobab.  

Here and there are deep wells to gather brackish water.  Fresh water is pumped in from Mafia and the spigots are surrounded with the buckets and canisters of villagers fetching their water.

Soon after our village tour we went out on a choppy bay to go snorkeling with Livia who had just returned from her Swahili lesson on Mafia. The water seemed too choppy and the conditions too windy for snorkeling, but we continued on our way regardless.  We arrived at another spot in the string of coral rock islets across the bay and the boat was anchored in relatively calm water.  We followed our guide snorkeling around the island at a good pace.  The water clarity was not great with the waves stirring up the coral sand and clouds coming in.  Still we saw colorful fish darting in and out of anemone, giant clams and a spectacular lion fish.  After snorkeling around the small island we returned to the boat.  Our ride back was cold and wet as water slopped over board in waves and and the boat tipped so much that water came over the edges.  The girls, Livia and I were on one side wrapped it wet towels cowering under a plastic tarp.  Joe was on the other side getting soaked and even resorting to wearing his mask to protect his eyes from the wave splashing into his face.  I did NOT get sea sick!

Cold and hungry we relished our hot lunch of traditional Tanzanian food: ugali, green banana, beans and coconut fish. I spent the afternoon writing in my journal on the fabulous porch built around a baobab over the mangrove of an adjacent treehouse writing this journal.

In the evening we joined Anne, Jo, Livia and three crew on a sunset sail of the larger dhow “Mama Chole” on her first sail of the season.  Soon we were rocking to and fro and soaked from waves coming over the sides.  The large blue sail caught the wind great and we were going at high speed.  The hull was taking on water and constant bailing was required to slow the inundation.  

For the first time we were in a sailing dhow that changed direction.  It was a tumultuous scene.  Ropes were untied snapping in the wind.  The sail billowed chaotically. The crew raced around and somehow Joe ended up holding the tiller.  The rope along the bottom of the sail was brought clear around the mast while the boat pitched.  Finally the sail was in its new position and we had turned 180 degrees and were headed back to Chole.  By the time we pulled into the small harbour in the mangroves the water was ankle deep in the hull despite heroic efforts by the bailers.  It was dusks and the giant bats streamed out over head alongside the crescent moon.

A delicious fish masala was served on the small dock in the mangrove harbour.  There was strong wind and brief showers in the night.

Sunday, July 10th:

We spent the day around the lodge.  The girls helped Livia with her coral restoration experiments, and played in the sand under the mangroves.  After lunch they went with Livia at low tide through the maze of coral rock and mangrove roots to see where Livia is staying, in the house of the lodge’s cook.  Joe and I updated our journals, read books and played some badminton.

At five we joined Anne, Jo and Livia on a boat ride to see the ruins of Kua on Juani island.  Kua was a Shirazi (Arabs from Oman) town in the 12th century. The ruins are completely overgrown and unattended.  We bushwhacked along narrow footpaths and saw many standing walls and some doors and windows.  The palace ruins included complete rooms and a second story.  Unfortunately someone has dug an enormous pit in the floor of the main room leaving a big pile of coral rock apparently looking for gold or treasure.

We looked for the mosques, but the sun was getting too low and the place was too overgrown.  We found the cemetery and to Anne’s dismay and anguish the head stone with arabic inscriptions was gone.  Tanzania does not have the resources to excavate and protect its historic sites, even significant ones like Kua.

We put the sails up for the ride back.  The sun had set. A large crescent moon and one planet hung above the sail and yardarm in the darkening sky.  The small coral rock islands were silhouetted against the orange dusk horizon and birds burst out from them when we passed close by.

Our dinner with Livia and Jo was set up in the ruins with the strangler fig tree roots.  After dinner and putting the girls to bed, Joe and I had to contend with the fearless “tree mouse” in our room.  It does have a shorter snout and plush coat, and the girls contend they are adorable.

Birds of Chole

Mangrove Kingfisher

Amethyst Sunbird