Nungwi
ZANZIBAR
An Overdue Honeymoon
By LYNDI
Monday, March 28, 2011
I hate to be a braggart, but Aaron and I are really smart. Anyone that can come up with the idea to honeymoon in Zanzibar is clever, and then add to it the island’s most beautiful hotel at the best beach for the time of year we were there, and it’s downright brilliance.
Okay, okay, a lot of it was luck. To be honest, we had no idea where to even start with finding a hotel on Zanzibar. As you’ve probably read, Aaron and I are super cheapskates and have been staying at dumpy hotels with fans that barely rotate (not that it matters when the power goes out every night anyway) and roaches to keep us company when the lights go out. But when it came to our honeymoon, we were ready for a bit of luxury.
We did all the travel websites like TripAdvisor and found that Zanzibar has no less than 1 million hotels, so narrowing it down was a mission. Aaron found that the hotel LangiLangi Beach Bungalows on the north side of the island had the best rating on TripAdvisor, but when we looked at their website, laughed at ourselves for even thinking we could afford it. However, one quick email to the manager and a low season discount later and we were booked for 5 nights.
We left Dar es Salaam on the cheap slow ferry ($20 – whereas a “fast ferry” would take you one hour less and cost $15 more. A no-brainer.) and were greeted by the Fake Captain in the VIP section. He started by talking to us about his boat, the ferry schedule, his English wife and his two houses, and then when the boat started to pull away from the dock promptly laid out on a couch and fell asleep. At some point he woke up and walked around a little – I’m assuming to steer the ship? – and then came back and slept til we pulled into Zanzibar. But not before asking Aaron first for his sunglasses and then for 2,000 Tanzanian shillings because he forgot his wallet. Ummm… if you’re gonna try to act as a Captain to get some money off tourists, you gotta sell it a little better.
From the boat dock it was a stressful walk to the dalla-dallas that take us to the north of the island. Stressful because in what would be a 5 minute walk about 20 guys tried to walk us there (in order to get a tip) and 20 taxi drivers tried to tell us it would take 4 hours to get there by public transport. We ignored them all (though one tout followed us to the dalla-dalla stand and then demanded a tip. When we refused telling him we didn’t ask for nor need his help, he put a voodoo curse on our bus) and then sighed in relief as we finally pulled out of the capital of Stone Town and headed to Honeymoon Bliss.
A little over an hour later we were in Nungwi Beach and exploring our own private honeymoon beach bungalow. Now I have to put this in perspective – the really exciting things for us were that the shower had hot water, pressure, and a shower curtain (you usually just get the entire bathroom soaked because the shower head is right over the toilet), we could unpack our bags as we were staying for nearly a week, and there was air conditioning!!! Add to it a garden-view from our private front porch, a refrigerator to keep our drinks cool, and a BYO restaurant overlooking the Indian Ocean and we were in heaven.
The next five days were spent exactly how a honeymoon should be spent – relaxing in the sun, swimming in the warm ocean and gorging ourselves on delicious seafood every night.
One day we signed up for a $20 snorkel excursion with Captain Hussein to the prized Mnemba Atoll. It’s a protected reef and island so tropical fish and coral abound. The Captain (a real one this time) took us out to the Atoll on his little wooden dhow, we snorkeled around the island for about an hour (you can’t step on the island or it will cost you a couple hundred) and enjoyed a seafood barbecue afterwards. The only downside was the little pieces of jellyfish in the water – they stung a bit but didn’t stop us from exploring. However, they did stop a few of the other snorkelers, so we hopped back on board and went to a different site – which was fine with us as we got to see entirely new things on the other side.
Another day we headed out for a two-tank dive at some local dive sites. I haven’t dived in awhile, so it took me an extra long time to equalize my ears as I submerged underwater, which means I used up extra air and had to surface early! But still got to see the coral upclose and personal, about 3 octopi (octopuses? octomoms?) and a bazillion fish. After an hour surface time, we headed back down at a different site and I was able to dive the whole time with the big boys!
Because we’re in the very beginning of the rainy season, we did see rain nearly every day, though the sky would turn black and then pour for about half an hour, then clear up and be absolutely beautiful. We missed the rain storms two days in a row by doing boat excursions that took us to a different side of the island, but just used the rain storms on the other days as an excuse to rest on our front porch and get out of the sun.
And a definite highlight of LangiLangi was the food. Either Aaron or I ordered the shrimp coconut curry every night – perfectly cooked shrimp spiced with local flavors and cooked in coconut milk. We even stopped asking the staff for a menu.
Altogether, it was everything you would dream a honeymoon would be. After over a month of tough travel, we felt relaxed and rejuvenated and ready for what the next four months would have in store. Though a second honeymoon is already in the works.
