More on Tanzania: Beach Bum Edition
Posted By Sika on July 23, 2008
If you’re starting to get the feeling that this vacation was all about tasting stuff, you’re wrong. It was also all about smelling stuff. And touching stuff. And looking at stuff. Zanzibar fully engages all the senses, which is probably why the holiday felt so much longer (in a good way) than it was.
Then to the beach! Kendwa is billed as the alternative to Nungwi Beach, an area at the north of the island that has been a destination for tourists for so long that the crime rates have gone up. Kendwa is south of Nungwi, on the west coast (I have this theory that the northwest part of any country is always the best–Canada has the northwest honorarily in the southwest–and I’m not really interested in hearing any exceptions to the rule), and is, as is wont to happen to the “cool new place,” starting to become that overdeveloped place all the tourists go. But it is still gorgeous. The sand is so white and the sea is so turquoise (I’d like to give the Indian Ocean to Mirella as a souvenir) and the dhows are so exotic looking. The sand had the consistency of slightly dampened confectioners sugar, and was both lovely to walk through and easy to clean up. I don’t usually do well with laying out on the beach all day, reading and doing nothing, but here it was perfect.
We all got henna tattoos. I have a patch of dark brown hair on my arm which is the only current reminder of mine. Sarah, Denise, and Carol went snorkeling, but I had spent the night before laid out with what I suspect was a combination of heatstroke and a migraine,* and Sarah was worried was malaria or meningitis. I wasn’t feeling up to snorkeling and so walked on the beach with David who was boycotting snorkeling on account of his aversion to water. That was good, too, although I do wish I had seen the fish, which Sarah described as being just like in Finding Nemo. I wondered if the fishing nets were made out of mosquito nets, like they often are in Malawi.
We walked to where the beach ended in the south and then stopped on the way back to build a sand castle. It was incredibly life-like: not at all wonky and all the buildings looked just like real buildings. Oh, and it was super easy to build a drawbridge (with portcullis, ’cause otherwise what’s the point?) out of sand and I didn’t give up at all. Nope, not me.
*I tried to eat that night, I really did. I had been making oral rehydration solution out of sprite and salt from the salt shaker, which is far less vomit-inducing than actual sachets of ORS. I forgot to tighten the salt shaker before going to salt my food. Somehow my already dubious appetite couldn’t make it through the quarter cup of salt I dumped on my food.
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