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Beneath The Surface: An Alternative Diani
“You sit here Papa”, someone said on one of our first nights in Kenya, “Mama you sit this side with the lovely view”. It’s become a theme – for those who don’t call us by name we are universally addressed as Mama and Papa, which is apparently the normal moniker for an adult couple in Swahili English. They are genuinely surprised to learn that in our world you only use such names for your parents. If there is a single word which we hear more than “Papa”, “pole pole” or “hakuna matata” when we get into conversation here, it’s “corruption”. Mistrust is rife. La Gusta is an excellent beach bar…
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Diani Time: Mishaps & Monkey Business
Sometimes you know you’ve just had a stroke of luck. Our apartment in Diani is small but has a lovely outdoor space, in fact the “outdoor lounge” is as big as the interior. Today is boat trip day, Amos the boat trip man (who by the way calls himself Amos The Great) is picking us up at 7:30 so we’re awake early and just getting our stuff together. I’m at one end of the apartment with my back to the door, Michaela is tidying up the bed when I turn around to talk to her and come face to face with, right behind me in the doorway and about to…
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From The Plains To The Sea: Arrival In Diani & Reflections On Safari
We’ve been in Stanley’s company for over a week, our different lives thousands of miles apart thrown together by circumstance, and saying goodbye at Voi train station feels disproportionately poignant. “You going home today after your long week, Stanley?” “Oh no, don’t remind me of that” he says, “it means that I won’t ever see you again”. For a brief moment he actually appears to be welling up. It must be dust in his eye, surely. Stanley has been a good guy. He talks to the animals out of the minibus window, tells us what he thinks the animals are thinking, and, when he spots a dead bird seemingly killed…
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Michaela’s Favourite Photographs: #2 The Seaweed Farmer
Paje, Zanzibar, 2013. Between the coast and the reef, in the gentle milky waters of the Indian Ocean, ladies farm seaweed, sitting in the water for hours on end before trudging, like this lady, back to shore with their haul. Michaela perfectly captured the loneliness of their working day with this beautiful shot.
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Travel Stories: The Nungwi Sunset
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yet at the time it seemed entirely logical that if we were heading out on to the Indian Ocean to see the renowned magnificent Nungwi sunset, then it would be time for dinner by the time we came back to shore. So it made perfect sense to change out of beachwear and into something more appropriate before we made our way to the boat – got to be the correct decision, right? Wrong. “We’re here for the sunset cruise”, I called to the pre-occupied boat guys, trying to elicit some kind of response. A couple of them looked up so we gravitated towards them. “Where…
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Beautiful Places #5: Zanzibar
Without doubt Zanzibar is one of those evocative place names full of romance, the very mention of which creates images of an exotic island, paradise beaches and the dreamy blue of the Indian Ocean. The reality doesn’t disappoint: Zanzibar is indeed an idyllic destination. We split our time on the island between the capital Stone Town and Nungwi on the north coast, and the two places proved to be very different experiences. Stone Town, aka Zanzibar Town, is a bustling town in an unmistakably colonial style with grand old buildings and ornate gardens standing shoulder to shoulder with cramped townships. If you want anything in Stone Town, from excursions to…
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Photographic Memories #13
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With lockdown incomplete and travel still on hold for a while, we currently have no new adventures to blog; we do though have many such memories… Photo #13 Dar Es Salaam Sometimes, in the midst of a culture very different from home, something catches your eye and for the next few moments you can’t tear yourself away. This photograph was taken during one such moment. Dar Es Salaam is a bustling, colourful city, no longer the official capital of Tanzania since the creation of Dodoma but still the country’s beating heart for…
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Photographic Memories #6
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With no current prospect of travel even domestically let alone worldwide, we will have no new adventures to blog, but we do have many such memories….. Photo #6: Seaweed Farming On rare occasions you look at a photograph you’ve just taken and immediately know it’s special. This photograph is one such, capturing the unique pale blue of the Indian Ocean and the vastness of the tidal reach, as well as the hard and lonely days of the workers. This is Paje on the east coast of Zanzibar, where seaweed cultivation is one…
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The Next Chapter
So here we are just a couple of days from realising our travel dreams, and setting off on the first of our major adventures post retirement. In the “about” sections of the blog you will find some history of our travels, and some clues as to why this is our dream. We got together as a couple in 2011 and since then wanderlust has simply taken over. Before we met we had both travelled to a degree, and have now each visited 40 countries of the World. And, in those 9 years together, we have visited 33 already, a number to be increased somewhat this year. This is a summary…
