Paradise in Paje

  Paje, Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania
Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Paja Beach - not bad ...

After spending a couple of days back in Stone Town, where we visited Prison Island, we decided to have a look at the east coast of Zanzibar. Bente had recommended a place called Paradise Beach Bungalows in Paje, which was owned by a Japanese woman. Again we used our favourite means of transportation - the daladala.

Paje beach is a long beautiful beach with fine white sand and turquoise waters. Paje is supposed to have a bit of a party atmosphere (according to the books) although less than Nungwi, but probably due to the Ramadan there wasn't many people around. This suited us quite well as it was great to just relax on the beach and read a book. We naturally spent time swimming and walking along the beach. At Paja there is a Danish "Adventure" school, where mostly Danish, but also other Scandinavians, spend 4 months doing local projects, some diving, safari, etc. We saw a few of the students on the beach and spoke to one of the teachers. Christian's cousin Thomas went to this school a couple of years ago.

Mizu, Christian, and Mugi

We also met some great Japanese guys, with whom Christian played a bit of football and beach volley with. They only had 1 week of vacation (many Japanese companies only give employees 1 week of vacation), but had to travel 28 hours to get here and they had to squeeze in a 2-day safari on the mainland as well. We thought vacation was meant to make you relax, but guess not.....

Cecilie loves sushi

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 morning. 6.15am next morning Bente picked us up and drove us to the ferry. We were sad to leave as we have had a fantastic 2 weeks in Zanzibar - but we are getting used to sad farewells, because this must mean that we are only having good experiences. Bente and Maida are so lovely and friendly and made our stay really easy.

Christian reading the book "The State of Africa"

Back in Dar we took a taxi to a Tinga Tinga market in the Blue Oyster Bay area. Here the Tinga Tinga paintings are of a lot better quality than in Arusha and Zanzibar. You see the painters in action and you can speak to them about their paintings. It is also a co-operative, which means they share some of income each painting brings. We bought two paintings from them, which we think were very nice - let see if we still think the same when we get them home on the wall.

We then went to the airport to go to Jo'burg, where we will be working in the Lion Park for the next 2 weeks. No Internet there...