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From the Skeleton Coast, we drive inland. We visit a petrified forest.

Nearby is the UNESCO-listed site of the Twyfelfontein cave engravings.

Our guide, Harold, is very knowledgeable and well-spoken. He says ‘Indeed!’ a lot.

This is a puff adder sleeping between some boulders. They’re extremely poisonous.

The next day, we visit another cultural relic, the cave paintings in the Brandberg mountains.

We have to hike a few kilometres in the company of a guide to get here.

Among the figures on display are the ‘White Lady‘ who it turns out is actually a man. Possibly.

We end up overnighting in the mining town of Uis, a rough-and-ready place with a tin mine on the outskirts.

After a lightning detour to Windhoek for an obligatory vehicle inspection, it’s back up north.

Near Outjo, we stay at the luxurious Sophienhof Lodge. (Just camping, of course.) There is a wild female ostrich that casually walks around the grounds.

We plan to spend Christmas in Etosha National Park. When we first arrive in the district, we stay at the Etosha Trading Post. It’s close to the Etosha’s main gate leading to Okaukuejo, the park HQ. In the park itself, we also stay in Namutoni (with its cool German fort), Halali, and Olifantsrus (about which see below.)

On our first day in the park, we are lucky to see some lions. This big male is guarding an eviscerated zebra carcass.

At Maria’s insistence, I’m inserting a photo of the eviscerated zebra carcass.

Some lionesses are nearby.

You can see how close we are.

One benefit of the recent rainstorm – the roads in the park are full of puddles that are fun to drive through in a high 4X4 vehicle.

We are really lucky to have a close encounter with a rhinoceros.

It really feels like being up close and personal with a dinosaur.

I ask Maria to take a lot of photos – these creatures could become extinct in our (dwindling) lifetime.

We always get a kick out of seeing elephants.

We see lots of other wildlife in the park – zebras, giraffes, many kinds of antelope, a hyena – but it’s more of a thrill to see them in the flesh rather than in repeated photos. So we limit ourselves to a few good examples.

For some reason, the local moths go berserk over wine. We have to put some in a plate to keep them from harassing us.

There are giant termite mounds everywhere. Often they envelope a tree tunk.

Our last campsite in Etosha is Olifantsrus. It has a wonderfully designed waterhole observing platform.

It’s the most austere of the Etosha accommodation options. Remote. 10 Campsites only. No shop, no curio stalls. We love it.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Olifantsrus – which means ”elephant’s rest'” in Afrikaans – is ironically named. This was the site of an outdoor elephant abattoir between 1983 and 1985.

Over 500 elephants were butchered here. It reminds me of abandoned whaling stations. There is the same haunting sense of vast amounts of blood being spilled for dubious human purposes.

It has an excellent information centre describing the reasons and method for this considerable culling. In short, it was believed the number of elephants in the park at that time was unsustainable.

I was hoping to find the entire text online somewhere, but no such luck. One excerpt:

‘Taking the life of an animal, let alone entire herds of a species regarded as highly intelligent, is a decision made only after careful analysis and circumspection.’

According to this info, three conditions were strictly adhered to:

1. Entire elephant herds (family units) had to be dispatched rapidly, in order that there be as little disturbance and trauma as possible for surrounding elephants.
2. Optimum utilization of all elephant body parts was essential.
3. As much scientific data as possible must be obtained from the culled elephants.

We have had a few minor setbacks recently. But let’s proceed.

First, happy holidays to everyone at home! We think about you all the time.

We spend Christmas in Etosha National Park. The first few days, we stay at a campground a few kilometres from the park gate. While there, we are lashed by a sudden cyclonic storm that brought down waves of driving rain and gale-force winds.

Certainly not what we’re used to recently. Among the casualties: our poor tent now looks like it’s been through the wars, being patched up with duct tape. Also, all of the cables for our electronics were left out and thoroughly waterlogged. Some are damaged beyond repair, like the (one-of-a-kind) charging cable for our laptop. Hence the delay in blog-posting. See you in another life, charging cable.

Anyway, going back a few weeks: we drive up the coast on our way to Skeleton Coast National Park. We go seventy kilometres out of our way to camp in a wilderness campsite run by the Namibian Save the Rhino Trust.

The last few kilometres run along a narrow trail of sharp rocks.

There are no fences.

We take the unusual step of sleeping in the back of the truck. It’s not very comfortable.

On the road to this place, we see a lot of Welwitschia plants. These bizarre plants can be over a thousand years old. They really look prehistoric.

They are also the national plant of Namibia. If you look at the Namibian coat of arms in the previous entry, you’ll see a stylized Weltwitschia plant under the shield.

So after backtracking another seventy kilometres to the main road – ‘main road’ being still a generous description – we get a flat tire, no doubt from the sharp rocks of the Save-the-Rhino camp. The tire is ripped to shreds. We can’t figure out how to get the spare out from under the vehicle. Fortunately for us, a South African family pulls over and swiftly changes the tire. The spare is also flattish. Of course, this family has an industrial-strength air compressor. Once again, we are saved by the kindness of strangers.

So we wind up returning to Swakopmund to buy a new tire and get the spare repaired. (It turned out to have a nail in it.) This is not so bad, we get to see the dog Mischa again!

So, we set out again for the Skeleton Coast National Park. Skeletons of ships, that is.

According to Shipwreck World:

‘MFV Zeila (L758) was a South African wetfish trawler that was sold as scrap metal to an Indian company by Hangana Fishing of Walvis Bay and got stranded 20km North from Wlotzbaken, Namibia on the 26th August 2008 when it came loose from its towing line while on its way to Bombay, India shortly after it left Walvis Bay.’

We pass Cape Cross, home of the Cape Cross seal colony. There can be up to a hundred thousand seals here.

Because it’s breeding season, there are thousands of cute-as-a-button seal pups around. Unfortunately, there are also hundreds of dead seal pups as well, in varying states of decomposition. We find this so sad that we only stay for a few minutes. See you in another life, seal pups.

Cape Cross is so named because Diogo Cão, a Portuguese explorer, set up some crosses here in the 1480s.

One of Namibia’s resources is salt. Lots of salt.

Here’s another wreck that’s accessible from the road.

We come across the remains of an old oil rig from the 60s.

Any other contretemps? We had to make a considerable detour to Windhoek to fulfil the requirements of our vehicle rental that it be checked every 10,000 KMs.

All in all, nothing too serious. It’s almost New Year’s Eve – we’ll fill in more intervening activities soon.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Like everyone else, we’ve been getting ready for Christmas Day.

Maria likes the South African method of BBQ-ing, using a combination of charcoal and small bits of exotic African wood. So for Christmas, I thoughtfully gift her a bundle of artisanally-gathered (by me) Mopane twigs.

In return, Maria’s present to me is a brand-new Hewlett-Packard laptop. It’s the thought that counts, right?

Actually, we need it to replace our fancy travelin’-and-blog-writin’ MS Surface laptop, which without a working charging cable – see entry above – is just an expensive doorstop. We have had to replace the oddball MS Surface charging cable 3 times since we’ve had the thing, at a cumulative cost of, well, a new laptop. Curse you, Microsoft.

As mentioned in the last entry, seeing that whale breaching was a real treat.

Note the small BBQ to the right. Almost every night, we dine on rib-eyes, T-bones, and fillet steaks, superbly grilled by Maria. Beef is a bargain in this part of the world.

So is wine. We’ve been enjoying fine South African wines for half the price we pay in Canada. In fact, prices are very reasonable here (considering the standard of living) compared to east Africa, where prices are appalling (considering the standard of living).

Besides whales, the local waters hold other strange apparitions. We think this is a diamond-mining ship. It’s lit up like a Christmas tree at night.

We drive around the peninsula to explore other parts.

Including Grosse Bucht, popular with windsurfers. Despite Arctic conditions, Maria insists on going for a dip.

You see a lot of flamingos in Africa. We’ve seen them in Kenya, and Malawi, and several places here in Southern Africa. They like salt marshes.

Back in Lüderitz. Some more examples of German influence.

This is the main feature of Namibian tourist brochures and posters – mountainous red sand dunes, blue sky, and not much else.

This is a Mecca for lovers of deserts. (Guilty as charged.)

The red sand gives everything a vaguely Martian look

Some of these dunes are hundreds of metres high.

This is all part of the Germany-sized Namib Naukluft Park.

We trudge back from the half-hour trek to Deadvlei.

Our camping location is in nearby Sesriem. There are jackals in the night and oryxes browsing outside the dishwashing area during the day.

Oryxes are found throughout Namibia. Their name comes from the ancient Greek word for ‘pick-axe’.

They feature prominently on the Namibian coat of arms.

Then it’s through more desert on the way to the coast.

We finally reach the coast at Walvis Bay. Walvis Bay itself doesn’t look too appealing, so we carry on up the coast to Swakopmund.

The road between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund reminds us of the United Arab Emirates.

Lots of ship traffic at Walvis Bay. It’s Namibia’s main port.

Swakopmond, like Lüderitz, has lots of German-era buildings.

All that’s missing is men in lederhosen and women in dirndls.

We have a good time in Swakopmund. It’s pretty cosmopolitan, compared to Lüderitz. Less remote-feeling. The best restaurant in town is The Tug. We eat there twice. The town has great bookshops.

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A few strange memorials in the middle of town. One is for fallen German soldiers of both World Wars. Even though South West Africa was administered by British ally South Africa for all of one conflict and three quarters of the other.

Close by is one even stranger, the Marine Memorial. It’s a memorial to the – relatively few – German soldiers who died in the Herero War of 1904-1907, commonly recognized as the first genocide of the twentieth century. (I always assume that everyone is familiar with this event, but whenever I mention it, I get blank stares. I find this surprising, especially in these days when everyone claims to be an expert in Colonial oppression.)

Sight or Insight of the Day

In Swakopmund, we stay at the Desert Sky Backpackers. It’s clean, comfortable, and well located.

The best thing is the owner’s dog, Mischa. She’s the friendliest dog ever, and soon latches onto us as a pair of attention-lavishing suckers.

She follows us around the property. We kind of adopt her, taking her for walks along the beach.

That is, we have been here before. We can’t remember which year. Maria thinks it was 2011.

We camp most of the time. Campsites in Southern Africa wouldn’t strike, say, northern Europeans as particularly luxurious. But the humblest campsite here is like staying at the Waldorf Astoria compared to the campsites we’ve been to in East Africa.

Camping is basically a middle-class activity. And in most of Africa, there is no middle class. There are a few rich people – usually politicians – and most everyone else is poor. (Interestingly, the Indian community in East Africa seem to make up the middle class.)

In Southern Africa, there has always been a middle class for whom ‘the holidays’ meant loading the family into a caravan and staying at the hundreds (thousands?) of campgrounds in South Africa and the surrounding countries. And the tradition continues.

We spend the night camping at the Ai-Ais Hot Springs Resort.

The campsite is infested with baboons. We add a slingshot to our panoply of anti-primate weapons.

There’s something about this country that we can’t get enough of. Our love of deserts is well-known. The wide open spaces, the lack of people, the surviving intact infrastructure (thanks to 55 years of South African administration).

Next stop: the Fish River Canyon. It’s supposed to be the world’s second largest (after the grand canyon).

It’s a four to five day hike. According to wikipedia:

‘Due to flooding and extremely hot summer temperatures reaching 48 °C during the day and 30 °C at night, permits are only issued between 1 May and 15 September.’

So we won’t be hiking it this trip.

Our next destination is Lüderitz. Along the way, we stop at the slightly-off-the-track remains of Fort Naiams, an old fortress from the short-lived German era.

Apparently it used to look like this.

There are a couple of servicemen buried on the site.

At the picturesque hamlet of Aus, we visit another final resting place. It’s a Commonwealth War Grave. It’s unusual, because there are both British (South African) and German soldiers buried here. (Aus was the site of a POW camp in WWI.)

Between Aus and Lüderitz, we pass through surreal desert landscape.

We arrive in Lüderitz. The town has many examples of stolid Teutonic architecture of the early 20th century.

The Woermann Line was once the main link between Germany and its African colonies.

Strange to see buildings like this surrounded by sand and palm trees.

Our accommodation is in the old wheelhouse of a fishing vessel.

Nearby is the ghost town of Kolmanskop.

Large parts of coastal Namibia have been strictly off limits for more than a century. The map describes these areas as the ‘sperrgebeit‘, that is, ‘forbidden zone’. Apparently because of the diamond industry. In the old days, you could pick up diamonds off the ground. Then different mining techniques were used. Now they have underwater diamond mining. Unspecified threats, both legal and physical, are hinted at to trespassers.

It’s all very mysterious.

Like ghost towns everywhere, it’s kind of spooky.

It doesn’t take long for the desert to reclaim its space.

Sight or Insight of the Day

On a day trip, we visit Diaz Point, 20 kilometres from Lüderitz. Bartholomew Diaz sailed by here in his Africa-rounding expedition of 1487.

It’s a desolate, wind-scoured place. There’s a lighthouse (that doesn’t work), what looks like a weather station (that doesn’t work), and a couple of houses (that look abandoned.)

There is a pleasant coffee shop and a campsite that offers ‘sheltered accommodation’.

Maria loves the place and insists we camp here overnight. Even though there are hefty (and colourful) scorpions around.

So we do. By the evening, we are the only people on the peninsula

Later that evening…

We are looking out over the whitecap-lashed Atlantic when we both exclaim ‘Did you see that?’ A humpback whale leaps out of the water about a hundred metres away. And repeats this performance again and again, as if for our benefit, ten or fifteen times.

(The photo is not ours, it’s by Todd Cravens and was copied from the Unsplash copyright-free photo site.)

We can honestly say this is one of the most amazing things to ever befall us, completely by chance. What are the odds that this whale would do his breaching right in our (relatively narrow) field of vision? Divine providence? Or just plain dumb luck?

At least that’s what Sir Francis Drake called the Cape of Good Hope in 1580.

In his journal, he opines that the Cape of Good Hope “is a most stately thing and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth“. He said this at a time when the number of people who had actually travelled the circumference of the earth could probably fill a couple of city buses.

It’s one of our favourite cities. The physical location is so distinctive, its skyline is unmistakable.

There was an interesting article in The Economist a few months ago about South Africans leaving Jo-burg for Cape Town. Easy to see why.

Here’s another view.

In the distance you can see Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela cooled his heels for 18 years.

To get here from Blantyre in Malawi, we fly to Cape Town via Johannesburg. Finding ourselves once again in Johannesburg airport is a bit traumatic: this was the scene of our frenzied Fall-of-Saigon departure back to Canada at the onset of COVID in 2021.

But it’s great to be in South Africa, especially Cape Town, after spending a couple of months in East Africa, we undergo the same culture shock we happily underwent going from Egypt to Cyprus. (Was that really only in January of this year?)

We only spend three days in Cape Town, mostly taking care of business. Then it’s up the west coast.

Maria really likes the flora along the way. This is a biome unique to coastal South Africa known as ‘fynbos‘.

We are constantly amazed at the first-worldness of South African infrastructure, despite the inevitable Zimbabwification of the country. Especially if the Economic Freedom Fighters party – with its Mugabe-esque appropriation plans – ever gets into power.

We stay in beach towns along the way wherever possible.

Lots of commercial activity going on. Vast wheat farms.

Freight trains on their way to transport copper ore from the north.

South Africans are serious about their biltong (‘jerky’ to North Americans.) I love the stuff. Maria hates it.

There are healthier products around. We’re not sure what this crop is, but it’s very green.

We’re ecstatic about heading to Namibia again. It appeals to our love of deserts.

This is my, let’s see, 1982, 1987, four visits together with Maria -my seventh visit to South Africa. My fifth with Maria. And we have never been up this coast before.

Sight or Insight of the Day

We find a really good deal on a rental vehicle. It has plenty of storage for our camping equipment.

It’s going to be our mobile home for the next few months.

We name him ‘Dassie’, after the sure-footed rock hyrax.

That’s what Malawi calls itself in its publicity material, anyway. It’s mostly true. People in Malawi are friendly and helpful in a sincere way, like most citizens of small countries. In other places we’ve been, people often only want to talk to you in order to part you from some money.

We continue up the lake. Our next stop is Nkhata Bay. I was here in 1987. Things have changed a lot. At that time, there was virtually nothing here.

Now it has scores of guesthouses. The population has nearly tripled.

It’s still a hippy mecca of sorts. We stay at a lodge called the ‘Butterfly Space‘. We’re in the Beach House, a spot so relaxing that I barely leave the hammock for two days.

We know a place is right for us when we don’t leave the property because we have everything we need. There are even a few friendly dogs to pet.

We do manage to pry ourselves away to go for another snorkeling excursion.

We are ferried to a rocky bay in a rustic wooden boat by Captain Andrew.

Finally, we wake at 5:00 AM and make a ten-hour dash back to Cape Maclear to spend our last few days at the Chembe Eagles Nest resort before leaving Malawi for South Africa.

It’s the weekend, so we no longer have the resort to ourselves. But we manage to soothe our jangled nerves (after a pothole-tormented road trip from the north) anyway.

Sight or Insight of the Day

While driving up to Nkhata Bay, just before entering a small village, I see a man dressed very much like this walking nonchalantly down the road, coming in our direction. Big wooden mask. Strange costume.

This guy must’ve been a Gule Wamkulu dancer, on his way to or from a gig.

Maria was asleep, so she missed the whole spectacle. (This makes up for the time we were on a bus in Sumatra – a very conservative Muslim island – and Maria saw a naked man walking along the highway. I was asleep.)

First thing: it’s November 23rd, my sister Lynne’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Sis!

As predicted, we linger in Cape Maclear for three days.

One day we take a catamaran trip to a nearby island to do some snorkeling.

We have the boat to ourselves. As in many places, there are few other guests.

We get to a quiet bay that’s swarming with colourful fish of the cichlid family.

Lake Malawi is famous for these. It’s like swimming in an aquarium.

We set off in search of fish eagles, common in the area. These look a lot like bald eagles.

We get a photo of one scooping a fish out of the lake. (To be honest, it was a dead fish that Moses threw in.)

On the way back, we skirt the coast along Chembe village. Apparently it was much smaller at one time. Now it’s a raucous town with hundreds of fishing boats puttering out into the lake at all hours.

We mentioned the two Finnish women and their snazzy Land Rover. We’re perfect neighbours for each other because we’re all quiet and unintrusive.

They work as bear guides in Finland in the summer. Then they spend months traveling in this vehicle, which they purchased in Namibia. They leave it in Africa when they return to Europe.

We drive north. Along the way, we stop in at the Mua mission. The Kungoni Art and Craft Centre is part of this mission. Started in 1976 by Father Claude Boucher (from Canada), who is still there today. The Centre has surprisingly well-carved items, compared to the usual tourist tat.

We succumb to the urge to buy a little something for our travel wall.

The mission also provides accommodation that looks like a slice of Tuscany.

There’s also a church with African murals inside and out.

Because it’s Sunday, every town is full of people attending services of some kind.

Malawians are mostly Christian of varying sects, with a big sprinkle of Muslims in most places. Everyone seems to get along well. Local Muslims don’t seem to be caught up in the wave of head-severing Islamist violence in Africa that is cutting a swathe from northern Mozambique to Somalia and across the Sahel to the Atlantic Ocean. Western media isn’t interested in reporting this, for some reason.

We break our journey at the Bua River Lodge. We intend to camp, but are told that they no longer allow camping because elephants roam the property at night.

We are the only guests, so we get a deluxe tent with a broad balcony to ourselves.

We get a guided walking tour along the river, home to lots of crocodiles.

The pattern of a croc tummy is printed in the sand where one just slipped into the river.

It’s so relaxing, we decide to stay over another day.

At night, the friendly South African couple who manage the place cook us a BBQ.

It’s about ten kilometres from the lodge back to the main road. The traditional villages we pass through on the way look much more pleasant than the squalid towns along the highway.

We have noticed this elsewhere in the country (elsewhere in Africa too) when we wander off the beaten track. It’s the lack of economic opportunity that drives people away.

Back on the main road, bound for Nkhata Bay. The road is appalling in some places. Potholes the size of the Grand Canyon. The edges have crumbled off, leaving a steep drop to be risked whenever we pull over to let a big truck pass along what is now a single lane. Fortunately, there aren’t many big trucks. And the road does eventually improve.

Sight or Insight of the Day

In search of something to read, I come across a well-used Penguin paperback copy of Villette, Charlotte Brontë’s last novel in a book swap shelf.

I’m getting a kick out of the mid-nineteenth-century dialog. It’s full of exchanges like this:

Dr. John: “Do you and she correspond?”

Lucy Snowe: “It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making application for that privilege.” (This is mid-nineteenth-century English for ‘No.’)

Imagine living in a time when people actually spoke like this! Too bad most people today wouldn’t think of reading a book written in another decade, let alone in another century. (Or another millennium.)

I can imagine a future where ALL books that don’t meet certain criteria of diversity, equity, and inclusivity will be consigned to raging bonfires, Fahrenheit 451-style. Not ’til after I’m gone, I hope.

On our last day in Zanzibar, we go for another snorkeling excursion.

It’s raining on this side of the island, but more gently than before. Besides, we’re going to be in the bath-temperature water all morning anyway.

There is a fantastic reef just a few kilometres away. Besides lots of fish – sorry, no underwater photos – we can see the wreck of the cable-laying ship Great Northern lying on the bottom.

Back near our hotel, Maria purchases a dashiki-like blouse in an act of solidarity with our friendly hotel staff.

In a remarkably normal flight next morning, we arrive in Blantyre, Malawi.

Our accommodation in Blantyre is an oasis of calm surrounded by a lively bus station.

We also eat here. One night we have pizza from a wood oven. It doesn’t hold a candle to our brother-in-law Chris’s wood oven pizza. People have been known to drive a hundred kilometres for Chris’s pizza. (Well, those ‘people’ are US, but no matter…)

It’s time for some more intensive near-term planning.

In our quest to find a competent SIM card supplier, we visit a shopping mall. Like many urban places in Africa, there are shops that specialize in supplies for small farmers; seeds, fertilizer, hoes, etc.

In the window, we see something you don’t see everyday: snake repellant.

Malawi reminds us of Mozambique in several ways. For one thing, people walk everywhere. For another, the women here wear wrap-around skirts called ‘chitenges‘ (ChiTENjay). Like the Mozambique equivalent ‘capulana‘, they come in thousands of bright colours and lively patterns.

Our first destination is the Zomba Plateau. The quaint town of Zomba at the foot of the plateau was the capital of Malawi until 1974.

(Maria likes the sound of the name ‘Zomba’. We give this name to our new rented wheels, a sort of mini 4WD vehicle made by Suzuki.)

We plan to spend the night here, but a combination of rainy weather and the non-existence of our targeted campsite convince us to move on.

On our drive back down the plateau, we pass many bicycles overladen with firewood.

We end up spending the night in Liwonde. There is a national park near Liwonde, but we are reserving our game viewing for larger parks.

Our bungalows have carvings identifying the cabins. Ours is the Buffalo cabin. In the morning, we find a tiny tree frog sleeping in the eye socket of our carving.

This is Damiano. He’s preparing our dinner of grilled chicken and vegetables with rice.

There are mango trees everywhere in Malawi. So of course there are mangos for sale all over the place.

We catch our first glimpse of Lake Malawi. This is the prominent feature of the country.

The lake is a source of fish. These ladies are drying fish on top and getting shelter from the sun below.

The countryside is embellished by flame trees.

More overladen bicycles. These men are carrying great sacks of charcoal.

Our goal today is Cape Maclear, on a scenic peninsula that juts out into the southern end of the lake.

We arrive in Chembe village. In addition to the usual small motorized fishing boats, there are a lot of these craft, carved out of a single log.

We stay at the Chembe Eagle’s Nest Resort. It’s at the quiet end of the beach.

When we arrive, we are the only guests, besides a pair of Finnish women camping in their snazzy Land Rover.

This gentleman is delivering the fish for our dinner. They’re kampango, which we later learn are under threat from overfishing.

We’re thinking of spending three nights here. It’s tranquil and uncrowded at this time of the year.

Sight or Insight of the Day

One thing we forgot to mention about Zanzibar. We are shocked – shocked, I tell you – to discover that it’s a hotbed of sex tourism for European women looking to hook up with Masai men.

At first we thought these Masai come from the mainland to flog trinkets on the beach and charge to have their photo taken with visitors. Like in Kenya. Then we noticed there were a suspicious amount of single women treating their Masai ‘companions’ to drinks and giggly conversations. Finally our hotel manager removed the scales from our eyes.

What can be the attraction? The mind boggles.

Reader, it did eventually stop raining.

We arrange transport to the east side of the island and spend three nights in Matemwe. Shortly after our arrival, the sun finally comes out.

We stay at the Seles Hotel. (Well, actually, at a nearby private annex.)

After days of torrential downpours, it’s a pleasure to sit in the sun.

It’s very relaxing. Relatively little harassment from people selling stuff on the beach.

We go on a snorkeling/scuba excursion to the Mnemba Atoll, just offshore from Mnemba Island.

This is what he coast looks like from the small boat that takes us to the atoll.

We see lots of fish, including a mantis shrimp.

Maria can’t resist going for a swim in between snorkeling sites.

This photo shows the unearthly blue of the waters surrounding the atoll on the return trip.

Our next stop is Kiwengwa, a village down the coast.

It shares the same powdery white sand as Matemwe. We’ve never seen such a clean beach in a developing country. Probably because the locals don’t have the money to purchase consumables that turn into trash.

The Sipano Lodge is our home for the next few days.

One unusual aspect of Kiwengwa is the use of lateen-sailed catamarans. Just 15 kilometres up the coast, all of the boats have outboard motors.

We can’t resist cat pictures. This is Rafiki, the hotel’s resident cat.

These places are in a transitional state of touristic development. There are extremely expensive private resorts owned by global European hotel chains like Melia and TUI. But there are also many medium-priced accommodations. But not too many.

In another ten years, the seafront will probably be full of concrete monstrosities and abandoned, half-completed construction sites, like Mexico and Turkey.

The place is not yet overrun with Russians. We have found that many places Russians like to go to are sort of disreputable. We have yet to figure out if Russians go to them because they’re disreputable (that is, nobody scolds them about their journalist-murdering, baby-killing fascist regime), or they become disreputable because Russians go there.

Sight or Insight of the Day

There is always trouble in Paradise.

This place is so beautiful. But following the global trend, so many beachfront places have atrocious music blaring out from gigantic speakers at atom-shattering volume. Why anyone would prefer to hear brain-dead techno music instead of the sound of the sea and the wind blowing through the palms is beyond comprehension.

After a chaotic day of flying from Nairobi – don’t ask – we finally arrive in Zanzibar.

What is it about the name ‘Zanzibar’? I remember first hearing the word as a kid in the theme song for schlocky 60’s sitcom ‘The Patty Duke Show‘, about two kooky look-alike cousins:

‘Meet Cathy, who’s lived most everywhere,
From Zanzibar to Berkeley Square…’

It just sounded so exotic. Even today, our brother-in-law Chris says ‘Zanzibar! That’s such a fun word to say!’

The old town, known as ‘Stone Town’, is a warren of narrow streets and alleyways.

Intricately carved wooden doors are a Zanzibari thing. We pass a madrasa where we see boys hunched over their Korans, deep in study. We are invited in, but only because we might take their photograph and give them some money. We politely decline.

There are heritage buildings that have been turned into hotels much fancier than ours.

My main interest in Zanzibar is as the heart of the former Indian Ocean slave trade. Zanzibar was the main outpost of an Omani Arab empire that bled central and eastern Africa dry of countless people that was a match in barbarity and cruelty with the Atlantic slave trade.

It was finally stamped out by the British.

You don’t hear about this much in the West because it doesn’t match the Western-people-bad-everyone-else-good narrative that simple people use to make sense of their world. You certainly don’t hear about it in modern Oman.

Even though modern surviving slavery is largely restricted to Muslim countries – Mauretania, Sudan, Libya, the Gulf States – black people seem to be willing to give a pass to their former Arab taskmasters. There is no movement demanding reparations from the Gulf State gazillionaires.

(There was a smidgen of Karmic payback. During the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, thousands of Arab and Asian Zanzibaris had their property looted and were then tortured, raped, and killed. Most survivors fled the island.)

A different kind of market. We stop to watch an auction take place at the fish market.

Present-day Zanzibar has lots of very pettable cats in the streets.

As we tend to do when near the sea – Zanzibar is an island – we treat ourselves to a good dinner of seafood.

It might not be common knowledge, but the late vocalist for the band Queen started life in Zanzibar as Farrokh Bulsara. So of course, there is a Freddy Mercury Museum.

(His Zoroastrian family fled to England after the, um, disturbances in 1964 mentioned above.)

In the 1980’s, my friend Ann and I attended a Queen concert at the Westfalenhallen in Dortmund, Germany. It was a pretty rockin’ event, as I recall.

Sight or Insight of the Day

It rains a lot our first few days in Zanzibar. I mean, it hammers down in great deluges and solid walls of water for at least eighteen hours. We’ve never seen anything like it, not even in the Andaman Islands.

The tin roofs of most buildings make a hellish clatter as the rain smashes down on them. The streets are awash. We begin to wonder if the rain will ever end.