Diving off the coast of Pemba
Trip Start
May 08, 2007
1
9
10
Trip End
Jul 17, 2007
Chake Chake, Tanzania
Saturday, July 14, 2007
The plane to Pemba was a tiny 12 seater so it was fun to just look over the pilot's shoulder and see what he was up to. I was expecting a lot more button pushing and other important looking activity, but he just took off, sat back and that was about it. Oh, and then he landed. Yeah, that was good. Upon landing Rose and I had a fun little experience with the taxis - the guy wanted SO much to get into town, and he wouldn't lower the price, so we just decided to start walking figuring he would drive after us lowering the price as he went. This did not happen, and after about 10 minutes of walking we realized we were out of a ride. Well no worries, something would come right? And indeed, about 20 minutes later a daladala came by (after the airport people told us there would be no more daladalas) and we hopped on. The town of Chake Chake is small, but homely and cute. We met some Canadians and Brits, as well as a New Zealander coming from working a 2 year stint in Uganda. Together we decided to hire a boat to the small island of Misali for a day of laying on the beach and snorkling.
Man, paradise is an understatement. White beaches, reclining chairs, a really incredible coral reef with fish to boot, this was the vacation I had been waiting for!! Being the unlucky person I am, I got to spend the next two days around Misali scuba diving. We saw some amazing coral, dolphins, giant fish, and all kinds of other neat stuff. I haven't been scuba diving in forever, so it was an amazing reintroduction.
The nights between scuba diving Rose and I spent hanging out in Chake Chake annoying the locals. We decided that instead of being asked the usual 5 questions which are:
-Where are you going?
-Where are you from?
-What is your name?
-Are you married?
-Do you have children?
We would instead ask them the questions and see what kind of responces we got. It was great fun, I think they thought we were crazy.
On our last day in Chake Chake we bought a chicken and named it Titanic. The whole process was hilarious for sure, but then walking down the street with a chicken tucked under our arm was pretty much the capping experience of the trip. She squacked a lot, so we had to let her go eventually, but not before we took her to this dillapitated theme park. It was kind of creepy - all of these old rides that were just sitting there rusting unused. We had a good time with Titanic though, and then let her go after a while.
Thus ends our good times on Pemba - oh! Actually Rose got engaged to the guy driving the 301 Daladala. So felicitations to her!
