Relaxing on a white sand beach
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2011
1
16
19
Trip End
Jun 26, 2011
Where I stayed
Matemwe, Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The food we ordered was excellent! We enjoyed our dinner so much that Wolfi asked for the chef to come out so we could pay her our compliments.
The environment here is fabulous. There are only seven rooms in the hotel - an eight is under way - so the service is very personal and since only 3 rooms are occupied right now we kind of feel like we have the resort to ourselves.
This morning we came out for breakfast and ate alone on the beachfront terrace, watching the waves roll out to the reef in the distance. Our breakfast is included and is incredible! We started with a plate overfilled with fresh fruit, served with fresh mango juice and tea or coffee. Then a stack of toast is brought with a selection of spreads, made in the village, followed by our choice of an item from the menu. I took scrambled eggs and bacon, which came on another piece of toast. I was pretty stuffed after that.
We relaxed near the sitting area by the bar and helped ourselves to books from the small traveler's library. We tried to swim in the very shallow water. When tide is out, there isn't much left to swim in and the sandy floor is dotted with seaweed, sea urchins and some very large rocks. We noticed there were short poles that stuck out of the water a bit. They were very hard and we thought they were solid wood but it turns out they are a type of seaweed. They are only in a few spots so once you swim past them you just have to worry about the sea urchins.
We abandoned swimming to go for a walk in the village. Everyone we passed called out hello (Jambo) and waved as we passed. Even the stray goats frolicking through the streets seemed to smile at us as they passed. We went back to the resort where I enjoyed a fabulous beach-side massage before lunch on the terrace. We walked down the beach to the recommended dive shop, One Ocean, where we registered one diver and one snorkeler on tomorrow's boat. Then we quickly returned to our resort to partake in the full two hours of Happy Hour, where cocktails were just US$4 each. We each tried four different cocktails, all very nice and very strong.
We had another delicious dinner which we followed up with some socializing at the bar, primarily with the two staff members that greeted us last night. We went to bed fairly early, as you tend to do when it's pitch black by 6:30pm, and cooled off in our air conditioned room before falling asleep in our beautiful four poster bed.
