A bit of Nungwi, Michamvi and Page
Part 1. Nungwi
Part 2. A bit of Nungwi, Page and Michamvi <------
Part 3. Stone Town and its beautiful islands
Part 4. Zanzibar costs and itinerary
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We didn't have much plans for the next day, so we decided to make a long trip along the beaches of the island. We were moving towards the island of Mnemba. The tide app showed that we are now at the peak of low tide and the water will begin to come soon. We were still not frightened, since in the twentieth of November in Nungwi there were not particularly strong fluctuations in the water. Although according to the stories on the Internet, you can completely fall into the trap. In the morning, clouds hung over Nungwi, but it turned out to be quite easy to get away from them, in the end we got to sunny beaches.
And it was fun as always. We moved further and further with stops for swimming and photo zones in the jungle thickets. The tide app has already strongly advised us to return. And it all seemed to us that we would now reach some logical place and we could move back. But since the island is about 100 km long, you can walk for a really long time.
We turned back, and the water keeps coming and coming, these are waves that come and do not really recede. Running birds fly away, crabs also hide somewhere in the rocks. And we go and go. Those places where we used to go already under water, we are getting closer and closer to the rocks. In the distance you can already see a wooden landmark house. There is no more land, my feet are already ankle-deep in water. Let's run! At the extreme, you will have to climb onto the lava banks and sit there for six hours until the next low tide. The house is getting closer, and the water is getting higher. Moreover, the waves strongly throw on the rocks.
At first, we even tried to shake out the sand from the corals, but now it’s not up to that at all. The water is already knee-deep, it is really difficult to go. But where is that staircase to the hotel opposite the house? Paradise abruptly turned into a horror. Some more. Stairs!! ! I see her, we throw all our strength, and we go up to the territory of the hotel, from which Nungwi begins. Phew, we did it. Another 10 minutes and there would be sadness sadness. The staff looked knowingly at us soaked to the waist. We have heard stories about how the enterprising local population at high tide, how the Mazai grandfathers collect tourists in boats and take them to their hotels for money. Although what tourist in their right mind at high tide will go to an area where there are no hotels is another matter. I had to enter the hotel along the coast, but now I had to climb over the side wall and jump down to the land in the settlement. Very wet and no less satisfied, we wandered to the hotel. This evening was the last in Nungwi. It was today that we watched the unforgettable massai show and sadly looked at the sea, tomorrow everything will be different.
It will be necessary to look again for where to eat, get used to new prices and other types, I wonder what they will be like?
By the way, do you know what unites all the beaches of the island? These are numbers in the sand. The local population speaks English quite well, but numbers are a big problem, they are extremely difficult for them. For example, the English word "thirty" means "thirty-three" or "thirty-six". The English "fifteen" is "Fifty" at best. Most often, the price will be drawn on the sand to avoid confusion. But oddities happen in the sand, too. For example, the number "+" means "Fifteen". As a result, when you go to the hotel in the evening, you study the bidding prices at the close of the day. And sometimes quite good prices come across, but it is not clear who and for what exactly offered this price. The main thing is not to tell the local that you want to go fishing. For some reason, they here believe that a Russian-speaking tourist is ready to pay for the cost of buying a new boat for fishing, and so that the tourist has no doubts, the final argument is the phrase that “you can take the caught fish with you to Russia! ”. Here we saw a local dragging a dolphin caught on a fishing trip. I have already imagined how I get on a plane with a big heavy tuna or a dolphin, and everyone looks knowingly, they know that I was fishing with the locals))))
Michamvi
We packed our large and even a whole suitcase and set off on a long journey. From sunny Nungwi to sunny Michamvi you need to drive through rainy Stone Town. I would even say not to go, but to sail on a minibus. At first, everything went as usual, but the closer to the capital, the stronger the downpour. Then the minibus began to flood from the ceiling. It was no longer possible to sit near the windows, there was a flood going on. I tried plugging the holes with my hand, but the conductor gestured that this would not help. Then the locals began to shoot on mobile phones the river, which obviously overflowed its banks. But somehow it was suspiciously located in the city. Apparently, during the sun, the river should not be here at all. I watched as some woman hung things on ropes, apparently for natural shower washing. Then the long traffic jam began. The puddles, fortunately, were still below our floor.
Then our minibus changed its mind about going further, and we moved to a new one. The transplant was accompanied by the same warm tropical downpour. Then we finally arrived at the bus station and transferred to a minibus to Michamvi. At the bus stop, we bought local food, while I chewed a red-velvet nut with grief, Dasha warned me that there are bones that need to be spit out. But it was too late, my teeth still hurt for some time. The minibus stood at the station and was picking up people, after about five minutes a seller of nuts approached me and tried to explain something in the local language. We did not understand each other, but someone translated to us that the seller decided that we still owe him money. The poor thing could not shortchange me on the change, so I thought it would work a second time. Change in Stone Town must be considered very carefully. And I still don’t understand whether this is due to the fact that they want to fool or with the mathematics of the locals it’s really very tight here.
But to be honest, all the cases in which the locals were mistaken in their favor, and in the end there were quite a lot of them, did not affect the impression of the island at all. And the impressions here are the same: The island is the best! Another fun fact about money. If you start a conversation about money, this very often causes powerful laughter from the locals. If you ask the conductor about the payment, then the driver starts laughing first, and then the whole minibus starts laughing with infectious laughter. Or, for example, when checking into the Michamvi hotel, I said that I would pay 40 dollars in dollars, and the remaining one and a half shillings. The guy at the reception didn't even try to contain his laughter, he just couldn't calm down. Even when I was given change, I left, and he continued to sob with laughter. With Michamvi in this regard, it is generally an interesting point. It was the quietest and most peaceful place we have seen on this planet. There are a lot of hotels and almost all are closed. As far as we understood, as soon as someone books a room, the hotel opens. Hotels here in eco style. These are large green areas with many plants, hammocks and hanging sofas for relaxation.
The staff consisted of about nine rastafarians. When we went to them, they all seemed to be waiting for us. We settled on the second floor of a small house and immediately ordered lunch. While they were preparing dinner, we went to explore the embankment. Now an important point, in Michamvi the sea was the ugliest of all locations. I would not have determined by sea in my life that this is Zanzibar.
But for relaxation and solitude, this is the best place in the world. The entire embankment is one big lounge area. There are several bars and restaurants along the long promenade. All of them are also equipped with hammocks and just cozy sunbeds. You can eat at the table, and while waiting for food, wallow and relax. The restaurant plays relaxing music that is as pleasant as possible for the ears. I think this style is called trance. It worked like hypnosis for me. I literally couldn't hear it with my ears.
And you can hear it from a very long distance. We climbed into the water and immersed ourselves in the atmosphere of Michamvi until the water began to leave completely. When it became uncomfortable in shallow water, we went to the sounds of beautiful music. The patrons of the restaurant enjoyed the frozen time of Michamvi. Then the Maasai acrobats approached the restaurant and began to arrange an evening acrobatic show. I can’t believe that everything is happening in reality, it’s all some kind of endless and pleasant fairy tale that passes through us. It is worth noting that we didn’t even see some variants of tricks at world shows, the show ended with the most spectacular limbo. This is when the stick is placed at a height lower than the knee. I didn't know it was possible at all. The show was over, the sun was setting, and a big fire was being lit near the restaurant. We hurried to continue exploring new lands. Literally a five-minute walk away, a children's birthday was waiting for us. There is a large gazebo hung with shells, near the gazebo there is a beautiful arch.
And then the most terrible event happened, our shaggy friend also decided to jump into the river behind us. We almost lost our hearts. And the conductor got a nickname, now he is Triton Petrovich. Since we didn’t have enough adventures with mangroves, we decided to go through a small forest at night to get to the settlement where the locals live. The moon and a couple of flying fireflies illuminated the road for us. Why I love Zanzibar, here even at night among the locals you feel at home. We even went for a walk from Michamvi to a neighboring village. It was definitely the most beautiful starry sky with an unforgettable moon. How beautiful it was, I wanted to walk, walk and not return home. True, this whole cuteness-kindness extended only to local residents. Judging by the sounds on the nearby electric pole, someone is being eaten up and it looks like they even choked on someone. And so complete harmony. On the way back, we bought bananas, coconut, soursop and cookies for a late dinner.
The manager at the reception offered to help with opening the coconut. But we have a trick, we open coconuts only ourselves. I can already conduct entire trainings on how to open a coconut in the wild and not lose its milk. Here, probably, the main rule is not to show him your fear of an autopsy and not to look a coconut in the eye.
A new day has come, which means we will now have a hike, a long hike, one might even say a hike for the sun. The fact is that a terrible cloud was approaching us, and along the route we just had to go in the opposite direction. Oddly enough, we even managed to break away from the clouds. As the local told us, “It will rain, of course, but not here! ”. The end of November is considered the dry season here, and all the clouds eventually fall like a downpour on Stone Town, it’s like they don’t water the beaches here. Beach hikes are one of our favorite types of trekking as there are bound to be interesting things to happen along the way. For example, our first find was a huge bushy tree with dozens of nests of yellow birds.
Birds flew everywhere and chirped joyfully. In those moments when the tide was low by the sea, we walked along the seabed. True, they walked with caution, because they knew that the peak of the ebb was already behind and now the water would come. Dasha was the first to notice how the water quietly fills all the pits of the seabed on its way. We began to peer and found whole brooks being born. At high tide, the water level rises to three meters. It is unbelievable that this place could soon be deep under water, and everything starts so quietly and innocently.
After some time, we reached the line of hotels, here even in the distance you can see beautiful water, and an endless underwater pontoon leads to it. At first there was an unsuccessful trick, to get there with a camera. Then I went to the hotel grounds and left my things near one of the sunbeds by the pool. The availability of hotels for everyone is, of course, a wonderful bonus of the island. I went along the long pontoon to Dasha. Here even such a trip was interesting. While I was walking into the depths, a snake crawled along the corals in the opposite direction. And so in a businesslike way crawled somewhere. Then there were a lot of beautiful fish and finally I also swim in beautiful water.
Here we met our familiar tourists, whom we met a couple of days ago when they came to dine at our hotel. The island is small! While we were swimming, the water level rose so much that we could only dream of a pontoon, it was already somewhere at a depth. So, we urgently need to move to the shore. But then the real tuna show began! For some reason, they jumped a couple of meters above sea level, flew and went under water. Of course, I wanted to see a flying fish like in Sri Lanka, but the fish must at least flap their fins to fly, and not just fly through the air with a torpedo. It was very impressive and unexpected. And while the tuna was flying somehow so condescendingly looked at me. We just have a vacation, but he has important things to do! Of course, it’s good in heavenly water, but you need to look for that part of the pontoon where you can still reach out and move to the shore. While we were changing clothes, I realized that I had not left my things in the safest place, as a monkey was running on the roof of the hotel, but, fortunately, she did not manage to find our bag. Did you swim? You can move on. Our goal was The Rock restaurant, which is located on a rock above the water.
But as far as we know, the restaurant is expensive and not very tasty, sort of. Therefore, we chose a restaurant located opposite The Rock. Just while we were waiting for our next octopus, we could admire the gorgeous view. In this part of the island, restaurants with hammocks and swings are quite common. The only way to pass the time before lunch is this. Or just go to nirvana on one of the sunbeds. Zen here to catch, of course, as easy as shelling pears. And then we were served it, the most picturesque octopus.
It was harsh, but the aesthetic appearance of the food turned out to be more important than taste! Despite the fact that we were an unimaginable number of walking kilometers from our hotel, it took only 40 minutes to return, having walked back not along the beaches, but through local settlements and a little jungle. We will just arrive and there will be time to fully meet the sunset. We began to move towards the hotel, as a woman called out to us, “Would you like a massage? ”. Well, how did she know? Of course we want! True, we have no shillings left, but is it a problem when you need to change money. They will organize an exit exchange for you, even the exchange rate turned out to be quite normal for these places. After an hour-long full-body massage, we had very little time left before sunset. But we'll manage, where's the shortcut?
Oddly enough, but already under the orange sky, we again swam in the shallow water near our hotel. Here, apparently, as in Asia, everything always adds up, just Hakuna Matata!
Page
In the morning after breakfast, we immediately went to Pages. It was a short drive, about 30 minutes. Among our locations, Page looked the most progressive, there was even a supermarket here, though with high prices, so we had to forget about the supermarket. The road to our hotel was through the local slums through puddles and mounds. I could not even believe that in such a not very beautiful place there would be an adequate hotel. Our hotel is surrounded by a fence, which says that paradise begins inside. But, unfortunately, paradise in their understanding turned out to be rather conditional. But by and large, for 15 dollars a day with air conditioning, and by the sea, this is the best we could hope for. It just doesn't look like heaven at all, but the hotel is normal. In the best traditions of the island, the reception was on the third floor. When we got up, from the beauty of the sea we saw, the comparison of paradise and the hotel faded into the background.
We no longer needed anything, except how to quickly run to the sea. The manager said she would check our room and disappeared somewhere. We could not wait for it and ran as soon as possible to plunge into this beauty. One of the unspoken rules of exotic islands is “The more stars in your hotel, the more tons of algae will be on your beach. ” Fortunately, our hotel was like UIA until the full return of debts to customers. We had here not only the Maldivian sea, but also the cleanest sand and the absence of hedgehogs. Swim to your heart's content! Just about to take a photo, a cloud immediately found itself in the sun and did not want to fly away. Okay, let's wait in the water, we're not in a hurry, we still have a lot of days. After 15 minutes, the sun was released, and the beauty has multiplied several times. We were already afraid that the sea would be as simple everywhere as in Michamvi, but here it is 30 minutes away! It's a pity the sea cannot be kissed for its beauty. But as a sign of gratitude to the Zanzibar Sea, we tried to catch as much garbage as possible that came across.
It's worth saying that garbage in the water is a very rare occurrence here, which further raises the level of resorts. In fact, for $15 a day plus moving plus a couple of dollars for transfers, you have as beautiful beaches as you can imagine sitting in a gloomy November city at home. Perhaps when the kiting season starts in December, it will not be so comfortable here, but now it is beyond praise. We swam as far as possible and went to settle in our “paradise”. Our room was ready, but there were two problems - the air conditioner was off and the girl at the reception was so shattered that she was electrocuted while she was turning off the air conditioner. But since the booking was through booking, we didn’t worry too much, since in any case we will get all the declared amenities for the indicated price. The girl didn't think so at first. At first she tried to prove that the cost of $30.60 for two nights stands for $30 for one night and $30 for the second, so that together it turned out to be $60, then she tried to explain something that we had to pay her for air conditioning more. And I got some kind of not frightened, usually when you suggest the hotel to call in support of booking, the hotel does everything possible so that this does not happen. This one stood her ground, but then said that the owner of the hotel would come in the evening, who would certainly decide.
In the evening it was also quite funny, the owner came and tried to beg me to pay even more money for the hotel, since he, the poor unfortunate person, has to pay $ 9 to the state, he wanted to continue to tell something else about the unprofitability of his business, but my suggestion to call booking right now and ask how much we still have to pay has dramatically changed the whole picture - the air conditioner immediately turned on, and the amount to be paid turned out to be exactly the one that was stated in the booking. But something else began to tell that he has a boss who does not listen to him... But judging by the story with the next hotel, this mysterious boss does not listen to anyone at all. My advice to wild travelers: book accommodation in Zanzibar only through services that guarantee check-in. In our experience, such a story has already occurred more than once, and when something goes wrong during check-in, it only causes a smile and adds adventure to our trip, but why hotels make life so difficult for themselves is not clear, especially a complaint about their service in support of the hotel costs much more than the same $30 they wanted more.
But let's get back from the hotel paradise to the beach one. We still have half a day ahead of us, which means we can arrange another trekking along the beach line with a mandatory meal in a themed beach restaurant. We kept the route in Cuza Cave. To do this, we had to go deep into the middle of the island. Maps me showed us the secret paths we can take. At first, he took us right through the territory of a luxury hotel. So much algae on the beaches of these luxury hotels. . . Then after the hotel we went through the bushes.
The path got narrower and narrower, at some point we realized that this was not a hike, but a fight against impassable "hashas". It was just like in the Onuka song - Khashi, it seems that the singer was also in Zanzibar. Then it was time to admit defeat in this battle and return to the main road. As for evil, I also entered into thorns on the way back. Phew, got out on the track. Maps mi, this is a fiasco, why are you with us like this? Fortunately, there was a bench for a break near the highway, though we had to push the local monitor lizard, apparently also tired of these bushes. While we were resting, the monitor lizard was sitting nearby.
Okay, attempt number two, let's go the official less attractive route. The cave was similar to the Dominican one from Beyahibe, but more official, so there are often people here and the ticket costs 20.000 TZS ($10). There is an underground lake in the cave where you can swim. We liked it, because part of the time we were generally on our own, and then more people began to come, but given the high cost of entry and the opportunity to meet a crowd of people, we will not recommend the cave.
After the cave, we also had a master class from the locals to play the tom-tom there. By the way, we played here a local famous song that sounded live more than once in different parts of the island. Sometimes the children sang it, sometimes the Maasai, sometimes one of the locals sang it. And in general, during the trip, you begin to learn words in local Swahili and feel it. For example, “Karibusana” sounds infinitely beautiful to me, which means “Welcome”. The locals here really promote their language and are happy to share it and, whenever possible, throw new words into our vocabulary. So, my "rafiks", let's continue this unforgettable journey with us.
We were in a hurry to the beach to meet another sunset. But there was good and bad news. We managed to get to the beach, but a beautiful sunset is on the other side of the island. So here it is, so we will now be two days without sunsets. But while swimming in the evening water, I was lucky to try an interesting attraction. Not far from us, local teenagers decided to go sailing. When they sailed past us, I decided to play catching, grabbed the wooden side, the first attempt failed, because I did not calculate the strength. The guys deliberately entered the second circle and shouted to me to try to catch on again. The second time was successful, at full speed across the water surface I swam 100 meters with them, then I still had to unhook so that it was not far to return to Dasha.
We spent the evening in a very cozy restaurant Luciana, it immediately became our permanent restaurant, now we ate only here. How can we try the whole range in a couple of days? And during dinner, all the Russian-speaking people here exchanged the latest news from the island. When we finished the meal, I realized that there was no local cash left. A local guy was sitting next to us, who happily agreed to take me to the exchange office. The road turned out to be considerable, the exchange office turned out to be closed, and the girl in the store offered an unfavorable exchange rate. The man said that he would solve everything now and led me even further.
We passed the entire settlement and came to the outskirts. There were five more men sitting on the benches, and one was lying lazily. We sat down with them, they all chatted about something. I was worried that Dasha in the restaurant was clearly worried about where I had disappeared. Five minutes later, one of the men got up and went somewhere far away for money. Then he came with a bundle of money and really changed money at a very favorable rate. The guy who led me said that now we will go along the local paths and pretty quickly find ourselves in a restaurant, we went through the local slums, and in some places we squeezed in completely dark. In any other country, I would have thought that they want to rob me, especially since he knows that I am now with money. But in Zanzibar, even such thoughts did not come to mind, they are all just sweethearts here.
After a delicious and very hearty dinner, according to the schedule, a walk under the stars by the sea. Hey stop, where is the sea? So that's what a real low tide is when the sea goes below the horizon. It looks like an oil painting - the sand is wet, glitters from the moonlight and goes to infinity. And from infinity there is a noise, such noise as from a train that flies somewhere over the ocean. Very bewitching, more beautiful than the night landscape has never been. And when it seemed that it could not be more beautiful in the settlement, the lights turned off and it became very mysterious. True, not for long, a minute later the restaurants turned on, which had generators at the ready, and another five minutes later the light returned. Exclamations of joy rushed through the restaurants.
About the noise coming from the horizon, I decided to check with the local Masai just in case.
Do you hear that noise too? The guy nodded.
Do you hear this noise every evening? The guy nodded again
Now I'm calm that it's not an approaching tsunami. We can walk further.
Low tide at Page
One of the cool features of Page at the end of November was that there is a night low tide and a morning one. From the very morning the sea was still somewhere beyond the horizon, and there was still a lot of time before high tide. We started our real water safari to where this magical and alluring noise comes from. To hike at low tide, you must definitely take sunglasses, smear yourself with cream, be sure to wear corals and, of course, carefully double-check the time of high tide in the application.
You have to be careful with the tide here, otherwise this safari may be the last one. For an additional reference point, we took local residents who harvested sea crops. If they are still in the water, then we are definitely doing everything right.
At first it was very easy to walk, the water was knee-deep at most, and there were almost no hedgehogs, sometimes you can even pamper your feet without slippers. After we passed the underwater gardens of the locals, hedgehogs began to appear, which grew into real labyrinths. And the most important question, do our corals protect against hedgehogs? You won't know until you accidentally step on a hedgehog.
We had to walk at a distance from each other so that the water in front of you was as clear and clean as possible. The further we advanced, the more precisely we had to think through each step in order to avoid the mistake of our friend. In addition to hedgehogs, sea exotics began to come across more and more often from beautiful fish to giant starfish and completely strange sea creatures. At times, fluffy and soft corals delighted us with beauty.
As a result, we came to a spit that separated the raging sea and the low tide zone. Rather, we swam out onto the spit, since the water in front of the spit itself was above the waist. So that's where that train noise came from) Now there are little things left, to go back through all these hedgehog groves. This time we were smarter and walked in the direction where there were local or rare tourists, because it means there is definitely a passage there. Luckily, none of us stepped on the hedgehog, however, the corals came across so sharp that it hurt through the thick rubber of the corals. The whole trip took us two and a half hours. From the very morning we were killed in the trash by physical fatigue, since walking knee-deep / waist-deep in water is a rather tiring task.
We collapsed on our bed and it seemed that now we would fall asleep and sleep until the next morning. But there is no time to rest, now we will lie down, have lunch and continue the route. The fact is that we planned the morning hike for a maximum of 15 minutes))) I would describe the beauty of this safari as follows: “I didn’t hike at low tide - I wasn’t in Zanzibar! ” It was really beautiful and infinitely exotic. And some guys even bought a freshly caught octopus from a local and brought it to a restaurant to be cooked, which is a common practice here.
Jozani Forest
It took about 30 minutes to get to the forest by minibus. Then there are two ways, go to the office with tickets, you will be assigned a guide for money who will take you everywhere and show you everything or go along the paths like a savage. Naturally, we chose the option where there should be more adventures. Here is the real jungle, like in films, where the characters are trying to survive at all costs. Very dense vegetation, giant trees, a lot of living creatures, monkeys of different breeds jump over the trees with curiosity.
Sometimes there are forks, but the decision where to go is quite easy to make, for example, someone hooted menacingly on the left, which means we are on the right. I even expressed the opinion that one cannot get lost in this forest at all. But that was about five minutes before we got lost. There are the following problems in this forest: GPS does not catch here, there are no paths on the maps, and after rains, some of the routes turn into mini-swamps. Walking along the paths, we had already crossed the swampy area several times and did not want to go back into the mud. As a result, we went deeper and deeper in the hope that this forest would end before it got dark.
In any case, it's more interesting than if we walked along the main paths with some guy. Meanwhile, the jungle was constantly changing its picture, which did not cease to please us. From time to time came across deep traces of other equally lucky travelers. But for some reason, these tracks were always in the opposite direction. Either we were moving towards the entrance to the park, or someone despaired and went back.
The final dirt was knee-deep, but we didn't care anymore, we were bending our line like all-terrain vehicles. What happiness it was when we met a guide with tourists on one of the paths, now we are definitely not far from the exit from the park. When we finally got out, we were so dirty that we washed our feet in a clay puddle, otherwise they would not have let us into the minibus))) That's what I understand the jungle! I advise everyone to try! At the exit from the forest, we found a small market, where the saleswoman treated us to a red banana. I just wanted to try it for a long time, but we definitely didn’t need a bunch of red ones with us.
There is also a free mangrove forest near the Jozani forest, we did not visit it because we did not quite understand where it is, but I think our followers should not miss it, the entrance to it was across the road from the official entrance to the forest. It turned out to be problematic to catch the return minibus here, as there was a police post and checked that there were no standing passengers in the minibuses. We moved about 500 meters from the post, and there we were called by a local who caught himself a taxi. So we got back quite comfortably.
