Confession of a person who always professed that she doesn’t like beaches, hates islands, is desperately bored with beach-holiday, and thinks that sea stinks (which it does): this time not only I
wanted to spend several days on a beach on an island – I actually
enjoyed it! I had thought Zanzibar was bound to disappoint me, especially after seeing the absolutely amazing marine park off the east coast of Borneo when I was in Malaysia. Maybe having low expectations was a good starting point – not only I enjoyed it… I’m almost ashamed to say that
I didn’t want to leave!!! Clearly, heavy workload in a remote place works wonders.
From
Stone Town we headed to south-east coast, with no particular plan other than enjoying the beach for a few days. Friends told us that in Bwejuu there is a nice low-key family-run low-environmental-impact-oriented place hidden
away right on the beach - so eco-friendly that they choose not to have electricity. After 5 months in Karamoja without electricity and hot water I was a bit apprehensive about that, so we decided we’d try it for one day and then see if we move on.
We ended up staying three days, and if we had more time, we would have stayed more. Friends, if you go to Zanzibar (and you don’t need poolside cocktails and waiters, but want an intimate small friendly un-crowded relax), go to
Robinson’s Place. It’s truly amazing.
Yes, there's no electricity – but likelihood is that you won’t need it. More than anything else, it feels like staying with friends. The place is hidden away in a large grown garden, with only four houses, each of them very different in style and “personality” – including a tree house!
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| I normally don't take (or publish) photos of place I stay at, but this, this is the most amazing shared bathroom I've seen in my life. |
And very importantly - scattered all over the garden are countless hammocks, beds and couches, destined to only one purpose: relaxing!
It was the perfect place for our plan: to do nothing. But I don’t know how we managed NOT to have time for doing nothing!! There were always lots of better alternatives - watching the (early) sunrise, cycling on the beach during the low tide (great!), walking (or running for some) on the beach during any tide, eating...
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| I managed to get up to see the sunrise. Once. |
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| The beach runner |
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| One of the simple joys of life: breakfast :-) |
... and the best of all, taking a
dhow, a traditional local boat, through the almost fake-looking turquoise waters, to go snorkeling, or just to sail around (if you are hating me right now, note that looking back at the photos I'm also feeling envious of myself).
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| Mahmoud, the dhow master |
The only reason we didn’t stay at Robinson’s the whole time was because we wanted to see other places, and so after a few days in Bwejuu we (a bit reluctantly) decided to move further down the southeast coast - to Jambiani, which was supposed to be (even) nicer. And true enough, the beaches were cleaner (I heard of a well-functioning community initiative tackling the problem of rubbish in Jambiani, which was certainly not happening in Bwejuu), and if possible, yet more impressive.
Upon other friends’ recommendation, there we landed in the
Red Monkey (which was also lovely, in a different style – with electricity, internet and cocktails... though I admit I'm more on the no-electricity side). As its name suggests, red tail monkeys wonder freely around, something that after my
daunting baboon experience earlier this year I did not particularly appreciate – but I suppose that not-traumatized people do.
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| You open the door of your room, and this is what you see... |
We had all the good intentions of venturing deeper into the island, visiting a forest reserve and moving around. But sincerely, we enjoyed so much the coast, the sea, the snorkeling, the white sand and the boats that we gave up all pretensions for travel, and for the first time ever spent a total of 6 days on the beach (eeeeek)!!!
So yes, Zanzibar was short but great. In fact - maybe I’m becoming a boring settled person, but when it comes to turquoise sea, white sand and very few people, I might start reconsidering my relationship towards beach holiday… (but shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that’s a secret).
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