Kwaheri Kenya!
First of all sorry for the 2 weeks of no news - island life is great for many different things (mainly relaxing), but one thing it is not good for is internets! Especially Zanzibar, which has had no electricity for over 2 months now!
So where am I now??? In Dar Es Salaam, just got back from Zanzibar this morning!
Lamu was fantastic.. really the best place I've been so far by a long way! Zanzibar was more beautiful in the classic sense.. but Lamu had more style and was less commercialized (at least where we stayed).
For the first few days in Lamu we did get hawked a couple of times a day by captains offering dhow trips.. but it's such a small town, that they all recognized us after the 3rd day! The predominance of Islam on the island does however mean that there are only about 2 places (in the Lamu town itself) to get a drink, one is called roof top bar, the other is at the police canteen!
On our 1st day we went there for a beer there and ended up eating, then playing volleyball against the local team/ police force... they were good! Very random.. but fun!
One of the days (we stayed for many!!) we gave in and went on a half day's dhow trip. It was amazing! I don't use the word awesome much.. it's too American.. but that's what this was!!
We set off at around 0800.. well tried to - the wind was "finished". "Oh great" I thought, this is going along the same lines as my last sailing experience! But the water was so inviting we didn't get impatient, we just jumped in alongside the slow moving vessel and splashed around for a bit.
Before we knew it the wind had picked up and we flopped back in the boat and cruised on. When we arrived at an arbitrary point in the middle of the ocean they called "deep sea" we dropped in a couple of lines with some squid as bait, and some rusty iron nails as sinkers.
Pretty much as soon as you felt the nail hit the bottom, it was time to reel it in again - with a fish on the hook of course! It was crazy! Within half an hour we'd filled a bucket full of fish of all different species!
I snagged the catch of the day:
When the bucket was full and all the hooks had been stolen by giant fish, we head back in the direction we came.
We stopped at the reef opposite Shella beach for some snorkeling. It being my first time I was quite terrified of all the poisonous fish, eels, sharks, sting rays etc. It was fantastic though! really amazing stuff. The others who had done this stuff before thought it was pretty rubbish - afterward we found out that the el ninio thing a couple of years earlier had devastated the coral, and it hadn't returned to it's former glory yet.
It was still the highlight of my trip up to that point!
The next day I went to see a family friend who lives on Shella beach - it was really interesting to hear some of the stories of what it's like to actually live there all year round. She also strongly recommended that I go down to Zanzibar to catch the end of a massive music festival going on there.
Predictably it took me the whole of the next day to decide whether to rush down or not.
Either way the next day Pavel, Eva and I got the bus down to Mombasa - Wes was going to fly. In Mombasa I still hadn't decided, right up until I was in the booking office for the bus to Dar... The seats on the bus looked comfy - that sealed the deal as far as I was concerned - Zanzibar it is!
It was a loooong journey, but no problems at the boarder or anything (although I did forget 100 USD in my passport as I handed it over to the immigration officer - really looked like a bribe attempt :S ).
At the boarder I was chatting to a businessman - Franko, who was going to visit his wife and businesses in Dar. He offered to show me to a good cheap place when we got there.
So where am I now??? In Dar Es Salaam, just got back from Zanzibar this morning!
Lamu was fantastic.. really the best place I've been so far by a long way! Zanzibar was more beautiful in the classic sense.. but Lamu had more style and was less commercialized (at least where we stayed).
For the first few days in Lamu we did get hawked a couple of times a day by captains offering dhow trips.. but it's such a small town, that they all recognized us after the 3rd day! The predominance of Islam on the island does however mean that there are only about 2 places (in the Lamu town itself) to get a drink, one is called roof top bar, the other is at the police canteen!
On our 1st day we went there for a beer there and ended up eating, then playing volleyball against the local team/ police force... they were good! Very random.. but fun!
One of the days (we stayed for many!!) we gave in and went on a half day's dhow trip. It was amazing! I don't use the word awesome much.. it's too American.. but that's what this was!!
We set off at around 0800.. well tried to - the wind was "finished". "Oh great" I thought, this is going along the same lines as my last sailing experience! But the water was so inviting we didn't get impatient, we just jumped in alongside the slow moving vessel and splashed around for a bit.
Before we knew it the wind had picked up and we flopped back in the boat and cruised on. When we arrived at an arbitrary point in the middle of the ocean they called "deep sea" we dropped in a couple of lines with some squid as bait, and some rusty iron nails as sinkers.
Pretty much as soon as you felt the nail hit the bottom, it was time to reel it in again - with a fish on the hook of course! It was crazy! Within half an hour we'd filled a bucket full of fish of all different species!
When the bucket was full and all the hooks had been stolen by giant fish, we head back in the direction we came.
We stopped at the reef opposite Shella beach for some snorkeling. It being my first time I was quite terrified of all the poisonous fish, eels, sharks, sting rays etc. It was fantastic though! really amazing stuff. The others who had done this stuff before thought it was pretty rubbish - afterward we found out that the el ninio thing a couple of years earlier had devastated the coral, and it hadn't returned to it's former glory yet.
It was still the highlight of my trip up to that point!
The next day I went to see a family friend who lives on Shella beach - it was really interesting to hear some of the stories of what it's like to actually live there all year round. She also strongly recommended that I go down to Zanzibar to catch the end of a massive music festival going on there.
Predictably it took me the whole of the next day to decide whether to rush down or not.
It was a loooong journey, but no problems at the boarder or anything (although I did forget 100 USD in my passport as I handed it over to the immigration officer - really looked like a bribe attempt :S ).
At the boarder I was chatting to a businessman - Franko, who was going to visit his wife and businesses in Dar. He offered to show me to a good cheap place when we got there.
More pics at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=375181&id=731815045&l=75ac88aa7d
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