На Занзибаре | Zanzibar

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Пару часов на пароме из Дар-эс-Салама, и мы на Занзибаре. Найти дешевую гостиницу в Каменном Городе оказалось непросто. На Занзибаре, вообще часто перебои с электричеством, но как нас уже предупреждали многие путешественники, еще задолго до нашего прибытия свет вырубило на много месяцев. Все гостиницы и рестораны работают на генераторах, с соответствующей наценкой. В итоге мы нашли относительно дешевую комнату в самом сердце Каменного Города, без электричества/вентиляторов/кондиционеров, но зато с туалетом – когда становилось жарко, просто заскакивали в душ.

Мы провели несколько дней, исследуя узкие улочки и набережную Каменного Города. На фоне заходящего солнца и возвращающихся в порт парусных лодок, местная молодежь устраивала соревнования по акробатике и прыжкам в воду. С заходом солнца, зажигались яркие лампы уличных торговцев едой. Тут предлагались шашлыки, разнообразная рыба-гриль и прочие морепродукты, индийские лепешки, и “занзибарская пицца” (больше напоминающая омлет). Запить это всю вкуснятину можно соком из сахарного тростника с лимоном и имбирем. К сожаленью, все яства и цены, в большинстве, рассчитаны на туристов.

На Занзибаре есть несколько неплохих рифов недалеко от Стоунтауна, но одно из лучших для ныряния мест, это атолл Мнемба на северо-востоке. На самом атолле есть очень дорогая эксклюзивная гостиница, но совсем не обязательно там останавливаться, чтобы понырять или поплавать рядом с маской и трубкой: любая гостиница на севере или севере-востоке острова может организовать сюда поездку. Сeвер острова, в особенности Кендва, очень удобно расположен. Тут хорошие пляжи где можно купаться даже в отлив, в отличие от пляжей на восточной стороне острова. Плюс тут хорошие рифы прямо под боком, да и Мнемба не так далеко.

Мы обныряли почти весь Занзибар, кроме самого юга. Ну и напоследок, решили ознакомиться с местной фауной. Когда-то, Занзибар был покрыт лесами, сейчас лесов осталось совсем мало. Лучше всего сохранился Джозани, кусочек леса, где обитают красные колобусы. Колобусы, это вид обезьян с четырьмя пальцами на руках, большой палец атрофировался. Красные колобусы намного более редкие чем черные, а Занзибарский подвид (самый симпатичный ) вообще больше нигде не водится. Тем не менее, их тут очень легко увидеть. Мы провели несколько часов наблюдая за этими симпатичными созданиями прямо у конторы парка, после чего отправились в лес в поисках интересных насекомых и прочей живности.

Подводный Занзибар | Zanzibar Underwater
Надводный Занзибар | Zanzibar Topside

Only a couple hours by ferry, and we’re on famous Zanzibar. First challenge, finding a place to sleep in Stone Town. As countless backpackers we’ve met on the road had warned us, Zanzibar had no power. Temporary blackouts are a common occurrence here, but this outage has already lasted several months, and it was supposed to take some more time to fix the underwater cable connecting the island to the mainland. As a result, all the hotels and restaurants are running on generators, and the prices had gone up correspondingly. We stayed in a cheaper place with no generator (and therefore no fans or air-conditioning), but the owner has put us up in the really nice room with an en-suite bathroom. When the heat became unbearable, we would just pop into a shower for a minute or two.

We spent a couple of days exploring Stone Town’s narrow streets and waterfront. At sunset, local kids would compete against each other doing backflips on the beach or somersaulting off the dock. As the darkness would fall, the street food vendors would light their bright lamps and setup their tables. You could get anything here from octopus kebab to lobster to dozen other seafood items. Also on offer – Indian naan and Zanzibar pizza, which is basically an omelet. And to wash all of this goodness down – sugarcane juice with lemon and ginger. Of course, this whole feast is mostly for tourists, so the prices are a bit higher than one would expect to pay for street food, but the food tastes great all the same.

Zanzibar also has a couple of good reefs only a stone throw away from Stone Town, but the best place to dive is the tiny Mnemba atoll on the north-east of the island. There’s a super exclusive resort (diving included) on the atoll itself, but you don’t have to say there to dive or snorkel there. Pretty much any hotel on the north and north-east of the island can organize a boat trip. Actually, it seems that northern beaches, especially Kendwa, are the best to stay at. The beach itself is nice, and you can even swim in low tide unlike most other beaches we’ve seen on Zanzibar and around Mombasa, Kenya. There some decent reefs to snorkel right off the beach, or you could take a boat trip to further away reefs and Mnemba is not too far.

After a few days of diving around Zanzibar, we decided to check out some fauna above water, and visit Jozani – remnants of the forest that once covered the whole island. What makes Jozani interesting, is that it’s the easiest place to see red colobuses. Colobuses are very pretty monkeys with only four fingers on their hands, no thumbs. Red colobuses are much rarer than the black variety, and the ones on Zanzibar are an endemic subspecies. We spent a few hours right next to the park office observing the cute antics of these agile creatures, before heading deeper into the forest in search of bugs and elephant shrews.

Tags: island, people, underwater, view
Posted in Places»Africa»tanzania | No Comments »

Caulker’s Bonnets (and more)

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Hats! Huge, wide-brimmed, enormous floppy hats! A quick zoom down to the South of Belize, a fake, mind numbing, “indigenous” story about the moon and the sun who ends up killing his adoptive mother… and we were… Wait. Where was I? Oh, yeah – Stingrays! Gracefully floating through Caye Caulker’s waters these fish reserved to the shallows, allowing sunrays run radiant streaks across their silver-gray skins, adorning them in electrifying costumes.

Due to Caye Caulker’s steep prices, we only dove twice. The underwater wildlife was not nearly as abundant as in Honduras, but the visibility was so amazing I was nearly forgetting we were underwater. We were taken to a site called “Raggedy Ann”. When I heard the name I couldn’t imagine how the red-haired doll would translate to coral studded scenery, but when we descended it all made complete sense: the seemingly endless dreads of the reef, shaggy with colorful coral and aquatic flora, stretched beneath us in ridges and folds, very much resembling tatters. I swung and swooped from crevice to crevice, probably really annoying the dive-master, first for pointing out more interesting things than he did, and second, having him chase and grab me by the fins as I setoff after a turtle of fish far in the background. I must give my respect to the man. He must have gotten slapped around pretty badly before managing to grab on to my flipper, but never said a word about it.

( Snorkeling I couldn’t understand why most people kept staying in the boat… )

Tags: underwater
Posted in Places»Central America»Belize | No Comments »

In Limbo

Sunday, October 29th, 2006

Scary to think so, but today it is exactly one year from the day the first snow came to Boston, and we set out to circle the world. For those of you who know our route so far, also know that we’ve failed in our plan to finish the trip in a year and now are barely on our second continent. I thought about summarizing the past year by posting its highlights, but soon realized it was impossible – way too long of a list. Instead, I suggest you take a look at this page. It has thumbnails from every place that we’ve been to and to me it’s like an hors devoirs platter. SmugMug changes them every time you load the page and, even though I can recognize the link by its name, I still wait for the random choice of “hors devoirs” to load.

Our route in South America – coming to your screens straight from my 11 year old sister’s bedroom wall.

We are now in Israel, where we are stuck in limbo – by far not done with our trip, but are yet to start its next leg. Between my painting and Shurik’s Hebrew lessons, we managed to squeeze in an adventure or two.
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Tags: extreme, underwater
Posted in Places»Middle East»Israel | No Comments »

Big Island, small problem

Saturday, June 24th, 2006

So we are walking on the main street of this little town on an island called Ilha Grande. We are tired and sweaty, but we finally know where we going to sleep tonight and that the place has a hot shower, so you could say we are sort of happy. A man approaches us with fliers in hand. “No,” I say smiling, “we have a place to stay, thank you.” “Oh, no,” the man replies, “I just wanted to tell you about this party we are having at our hostel tonight. The entrance is free and the drinks are cheap.” “Fine. What’s the name and the time?” While I write down his information, Shurik peeks from behind my shoulder and casually comments, “Oh, that’s in the hostel the Welsh couple from the Pantanal told us not to stay in.” “That is so rude!” the hostel guy acted insulted, but it just sounded like he was joking. “It’s probably my competition badmouthing me. My hostel has a 97% rating on the internet” whatever that means. We really didn’t want to get into this, so we agreed we’ll come to the party and went each to its own way.

That evening we kept our promise. Together with an Irish couple we met on the boat to the island, we came through the gate only to have the guy from this morning wag his finger at Shurik, “Oh no! Not this one! He’s not coming in!”

- What? But you invited us!
- I’m UNinviting HIM! He was rude to me!
- You must have misunderstood. Can I explain myself…
- DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT?

Tags: climbing, underwater
Posted in Places»South America»Brazil | No Comments »

When Does a Fish Need an Umbrella

Saturday, June 10th, 2006

Bonito (”Pretty”), was on our way from the Pantanal back to Campo Grande. We weren’t planning to go, but it came with such glowing recommendations from everybody we met in the Pantanal, we could not resist. Snorkeling with hundreds of fresh water fish, underwater springs, and a huge, leafy crater where macaws come to spend the night. Come on! What could be better?

Hm, well… Better weather, for one! It was unfortunate, but the only day we spent in Bonito was a wet one. At first, it actually wasn’t raining, but it might have as well, since we spent the first part of the day drifting in “shorty” wetsuits down Rio Prata floating over underwater springs bubbling up in fountains of sand and surrounded by hundreds of fish that made me want to have an underwater housing for my camera. Another guy from our group actually had one, but he wasn’t very good in taking pictures with it.

Tags: underwater
Posted in Places»South America»Brazil, wildlife | No Comments »

Diving Galapagos

Sunday, November 27th, 2005

Congratulate us! We are officially certified. After our trip through the Galapagos Islands on the “Sulidae” it seemed sort of a shame that we didn’t see much of the deep sea life that the scuba divers did. When snorkeling, we saw many fish and Sea Lions of course, but we had a craving for something more spectacular like Hammerheads and Giant Manta Rays. But why waste time just diving? Let’s get certified, we said. However, a week before, when we just found our boat, we went to what is universally regarded as the best dive shop in Galapagos, Scuba Iguana, to try on some gear. There, I got completely exhausted trying on 7(!) different 7mm wetsuits, but they were so inflexible that none of them even the XL would go further then my knee. So we went to the 2nd place recommended in our guidebook — Sub Aqua. There, the first wetsuit I tried fit like a glove. Our Advanced Open Water course cost $325 (with bargaining). We had a great guide – Gerard from South Africa and went to some cool dive sites like north Seymore and Gordon Rocks. Seeing White Tip Sharks, Galapagos Sharks, Hammer Heads, Eagle Rays, Marble Rays, Scorpion Fish, and a huge array of other smaller fish was just half the fun. I did get sick (sea sick) right after our very last dive, but by the time we were on dry land again I was ready to go eat dinner.

Sorry, no pictures this time. Friendly Sub Aqua owner Fernando rented us his personal underwater digital camera, but the battery was faulty and died 10 minutes into the dive.

Tags: underwater
Posted in Places»South America»Ecuador, wildlife | No Comments »

DIVING ROCKS!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005

Diving rocks! Good night…

I you are wondering what the previous line supposed to mean, I can tell you that it describes my Monday in a nutshell. This is exactly how I felt after the first day of my crash course for my Diving License. Shurik already has his diving certificate and, like with every other thing be it ballroom or skiing, I need to catch up and fast!
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Tags: pretrip, underwater
Posted in Places»North America»USA | No Comments »