Paradise Beach Bungalows Paje

... tour. We ate lunch at his "brother's" restaurant because he wanted us to taste the spices we would see on the farm. Then we drove off up the mountain into the jungle. We stopped for this red prickly looking fruit, that when you peel off the outside looks and tastes like a grape. They are called litchis and they are amazing. Then we drove onto a plantation with a small dirt hut. The boy that lived there came out and the five of us set out into the ...

... the airport along the tarmac. It was drizzling slightly and somewhat humid. The airport there is like one long strip mall. Every shop sells the same sort of stuff - Kenyan coffee & tea, beaded necklaces, tribal masks, wooden figurines, Tusker Beer t-shirts and semi-precious stones such as tanzanite. Mary was feeling poorly due to lack of sleep, but surprisingly, I felt pretty jazzed. I purchased some coffee & tea and we sat down in a nice ...

... not..... Since the place was owned by a Japanese woman sushi was on the menu. This was a natural choice for Cecilie since she loves Sushi, but fortunately they also had "normal" food for Christian. :) We returned back to Stone Town the day before we had to leave. Here we managed to do some blog updates and some late souvenir shopping. We had a really nice lunch and later a great dinner before heading back to the huts to pack our backpacks for the next ...

... stunning view with the rim of the caldera covered by forests and littered with leopards and monkeys which overlooks the vast plains below... just imagine Serengeti surrounded by a big circular mountain range that's 20km in diameter and you get the picture. Exceptionally unique looking and beautiful. I also got to see Flamingo's in the lake that is on the floor of the crater, rounding out my "strange African animal" checklist. The ...

... last longer. I did have a young local guy ask if he could sit next to me. I really didn't want him to as I thought he was going to try to sell me stuff. He sat with me for about 30 minutes and for the whole time I was waiting for his sales pitch to begin. It never came. He was actually just a nice guy whio wanted to chat with me. It was refreshing. After dinner, I was still a bit hungry so I stopped by this local grocery store ...

... and stuff, but I just really felt like enjoying the beach sands and reading a few books I'd picked up in Geneva. I did meet a few people here and there, including a very friendly couple (not THAT friendly, come on people) who took me out to dinner (pity for someone travelling on their own which I was only too happy to exploit). He was from Zambia and moving to Poland to be with his Polish girlfriend (or wife, wasn't sure). We ended up sitting at a resto at ...

... of the beach. So we handed it to them, thinking it would help. It did, of course, and they soon had all the restaurant lights blazing, but 'Swahili Sparks' had disappeared - with our torch! We enjoyed a lovely meal and still no sign of the electricians, despite being told by one of the waiters they would be back soon. Probably gone off to do a few more jobs now they had some decent light! We paid the bill and had to really insist they ...

So, every one started congregating on Rhett's house in Johannesburg in the few days leading up to the trip. Myself and my Cousin (Ryan), being from Queenstown, decided to go up early to get some partying in. We headed to Manhattan's on the friday night, where we met up with Marc, Rory, Celest, Jess, Valdette, John and Kath. It was a pretty big night, and we were grateful for the Toot and Scoot guy (who looked like he was on some sort of hard-core drugs) who ...

Marcia (a fascinating sixty something year old lady I met here on the island - I'll write more about her another time) and I visited the Jozani Forrest yesterday. Nice forest, but the monkeys are the draw card. The Columbus monkeys were very friendly, very playful. They were playing like children, swinging and pouncing on each other and falling out of the trees and rolling in the ...