Beach Bums in Matemwe Zanzibar

After our Safari we decamped to the island of Zanzibar, to the town of Matemwe on the north-east side of the island. We ate, snorkelled, walked along the beach and generally lounged about for four days. Tomorrow (Thursday) we are moving to an Airbnb in Stone Town.

Here are some miscellaneous pictures.

We spent one night in Arusha after our Safari, before we hopped a flight to Zanzibar.

In Matemwe we went snorkeling a couple of times. You just hire a boat on the beach and they zip you out to the good corals.

Our beach is miles and miles long and full of locals selling various products and tours.  Hapana Asante!!!

Food food food!!!  (Chakula!)

On our last day we started to run out of Tanzanian Shillings so we walked about 90 minutes to the closest atm 😜

Safari Day 8 (and final day)

Today was our last day of Safari. We visited the Ngorogoro crater (actually caldera) in the morning, and then after lunch headed back to our hotel in Arusha.  (A crater is caused by a meteor strike, a caldera is caused when a mountain collapses. Ngorogoro crater (caldera) is 18km across and was caused by the collapse of a very large volcano!  Even larger than Kilimanjaro.)

It was an exciting day because as we were entering the crater we saw a rhino!  This is the last of the “big 5” that we hadn’t seen yet. (The “big 5” are named for the animals that are the hardest to hunt - elephant, lion, leopard, cape buffalo and rhino.). We also saw, in Ngorogoro within the next 90 minutes, lions, Cape buffalo and an elephant - 4 of the big 5!

In Ngorogoro we also saw pretty much everything else, including zebra, wildebeest, pink flamingoes, buzzards and hyena (munching on the body of a poor wildebeest), hippos and many more.  A good day to finish off our Tanzanian Safari!

(Photos are in reverse order again 😩)

Safari Day 7

Today we did our last game drive in the Serengeti and then drove back to Karatu (where we spent our first night).  Tomorrow we tour Ngorogoro Crater (actually caldera) and then return to Arusha.

Today we saw lots of hippos and giraffes, and our first (and second) “full mane” male lion.  Also endless wildebeest and zebras, and of course an elephant (we’ve seen elephants every single day).

(Once again the photos loaded backwards so read from the bottom up.)

Maasai village in the distance.

A couple of Maasaï kids drove their cattle through our rest stop, and begged our leftover cookies from lunch.

More and more giraffes.

More and more wildebeests.

A lunchtime visitor.

For most Safari days we took along a box lunch (prepared by whatever hotel or camp we were staying at).

A male lion by the road. He was with a female, and there was another male nearby.

A couple of female lions in a tree, “hunting”.

Thousands of hippos (and one of the few places you can exit the jeep).

Cape buffalo, a herd of about 70 in the distance.

Leaving camp.

All of the hotels and camps feature a buffet breakfast with a lot of variety.