December 22 Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar, Tanzania

view for morning coffee

Basically the same as the last couple of days, but this morning a lone cow walked down the beach!
Lots of people around selling boat and snorkeling trips, and a few guys selling some trinkets but generally pretty laid back!




December 20 & 21 Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar, Tanzania

view at happy hour

Wake up, have coffee for a couple of hours, breakfast, go for walk along beach, lunch, swim, go for walk, swim, sit, walk swim, sit, walk swim, eat, drink! Sorry not very exciting!


December 19 Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar, Tanzania

We used the same taxi driver to get us to the beach area. It takes about 1 hour to drive but we stopped for a tour of a Spice Farm. Very interesting to see lemon grass, cardamon, pepper (black, white, red, and green all come from same seed, just picked at different times), nutmeg (big fruit with seed that is the nutmeg), huge old mango trees, cloves (from large tree), lipstick plant (used as lipstick but

also other cosmetics), custard apple (green with spikes and soft white flesh and big black seeds), ginger, turmeric, starfruit, vanilla, cinnamon and jack fruit (a smelly one that is not nice).

Arrived at beach, very nice and actually have a view of water from patio!
The sand is a fine white powder in most places but there are shells and coral as well.
The water is amazing! Warm! The weather 32 high, maybe 27/28 low! Perfect!


December 18 Zanzibar Tanzania

We hired a taxi to take us to the Jozani Forest reserve. This is about a 30 minute drive out of the city. Although mostly a built up area, once we hit the forest you could not see a thing from the road... all trees and bush.
This is a National park set up to preserve the habitat for the Red Colobus monkey. Interesting is that these guys do not have a thumb on their hands, only 4 fingers.

ladder in trees is monkey bridge

A short walk into the forest and there were several.... all sleeping, some with arms and legs draped over a branch. How they don't fall out I will never know! Apparently they eat when cool in morning and evening and sleep the rest of the day. They only eat leaves and unripe fruit. They have eaten so many leaves from trees that they have killed the tree!

Then into the mangroves, an easy walk along a boardwalk. Amazing place and the trees are really something. They drop seed pods into the mud and grow!

A short walk in the forest followed. Dry at the moment as the dry season, but some of the area does flood. Saw a tiny frog or toad, smaller than my finger nail! Also millipede, squirrels. All great.


December 17 Zanzibar Tanzania

Caught the bus into Stone Town and then a short walk to beach...actually didn't get lost too bad! Found a boat almost right away and at a cheaper price quoted the other day. We are heading to Prison Island, about 25 minute ride. This island was set up as a prison but never used as such, only used as a guaranteed during the British rule, early 1800s. First stop was to see the tortoises. They have about 150 in a very large enclosure..they are every where! The oldest is 192 years old and the youngest a few days.

These were given to Zanzibar by Seychelles in 1919 and the population has grown since then. They will even eat out of your hand allow signs everywhere say do not sit on tortoises! You actually have to walk around them as they are sitting on path. The old ones are huge! They did have a couple Tanzanian tortoises as well.

Then back in boat for very short ride to coral reef. This is actually just off the beach of Prison Island. The water is so warm, great for snorkeling although the water was a bit rough today.