Discovering island Unguja - 16.sept

Zanzibar is known for all the beautiful beaches hence the plan for the was to check out those miraculous beaches and go snorkeling at the reef.

Our hostel arranged shared transport for us to take us up north to a village called Nungwi. Shared transport means just a minibus picking up tourists around the town to provide a means of cheap transportation as an alternative to the local bus called 'daladala'. Local bus means heavily crowded small vehicle that is in awful condition and where one can not even dream of breathing. I must admit that most of the vehicles here are in a horrible condition. I keep wondering how they still move :)

Anyways, to get to Nungwi we drove for about 1.5 hours, the road took us through local villages and fields. Roads have been rather good here so far, mostly nicely paved and this one happened to be even nice and wide. Traffic is hectic as usual, everybody drives way too fast and makes dangerous passes whenever possible. Our bus was no exception.

Our plan was to arrive at the village and then see what can be done during the day. Wanted to go snorkeling and walk around on the beach, have lunch and just take it easy for a day. On our arrival we were quite quickly arranged on a tour for the day to Mnemba island and atoll for a snorkeling trip. The way our pickup by the boat was arranged was more than bizarre - the boat was about 50m from the shoreline and we had to literally swim to it and climb on the board. We tried to walk to it, but ended up getting in up to our shoulders once the waves hit. Still don't understand how the guides got our bags on the board all dry :D Seemed to me that all the other 20 people on the boat had started a bit earlier from the other side of the northern tip and our pickup on this lonely beach was arranged on the fly. But we made it on the boat alive and well only a tiny bit more wet than originally anticipated :)

Snorkeling trip was planned for the most part of the day, including lunch and arriving back at the village around 4 when our pickup would take us back to Stone Town. Boat ride was absolutely wonderful. On one side there was bright blue-green sea and on the other side tall palm trees and white sand. We went along the coast for about 1.5 hours arriving close to Mnemba island where whe had 2 hours for snorkeling. Whoosh to the water we went with our masks, snorkels and fins on. Unfortunately it was cloudy at that time which made our swim rather chilly. I'm guessing the water was about 19 degrees, which all in all would not be a problem when swimming, but while snorkeling you are mostly floating on top of the water doing nothing besides staring to the sea floor. It was max 30 minutes in the water for me, climbed out all blue from head to toe. Reefs - weeeellll, I've seen so much better :) After Great Barrier Reef there will never be anything like it ever again. But I guessed that and did not let that disturb me.

Had wonderful lunch on a white sanded beach, fish offered was absolutely delicious. I even went back for second round :) Had about an hour to relax, look around and go for a swim. By this time the sun came out as well which made the air quite hot immediately. Back to the boat for another 1.5 hours on this beautiful sea. The boat ride was truly lovely.

Once back at the village managed to take a quick shower before getting into the car to head back to Stone Town. Car ride back went smoothly. We had private transport this time for some reason so we quickly tried to find out if there is anything worthwhile visiting on the way - there surely was, the overly touristic spice tour area :) Of course they charged us extra for this small detour and everybody introduced to us expected generous tips (hence the overly touristic). But we did get to see all sorts of plants like pepper tree, cinnamon tree, muscat tree, lemon grass plant, clove tree, ginger and many other. The whole area was set up just to show samples of the plants - historically Zanzibar is known for the trade of spices, even now had quite remarkable spice market, but in reality plantations are located on Pemba island a bit up north or even in Arusha area inland.

Another nice dinner in town, drinks on the beach and yet another day has planned. Getting back from the town we used the local bike-taxi :) It was a much better alternative than walking the dark and empty streets.