Traveller's Invention

And in the very wise words of our favourite traveller, Paul Theroux:

I saw it, you didn’t
Therefore I am licensed to exaggerate

Can't think of words to finish this all off. Thought we’d turn to the wise words of 2 of our favourite authors on this trip for the final words. Think they sum it all up better than we ever could:

From ’Two Lives’, a fantastic book by Vikram Seth…

Behind every door on every ordinary street, in every hut in every ordinary village,
On this middling planet of a trivial star,
Such riches are to be found.
The strange journeys we undertake on our earthly pilgrimage,
The joy or pain we taste or confer,
The chance events that cleave us together, or apart,
What a complex trace they leave:
So personal as to be almost incommunicable,
So fugitive as to be almost irrecoverable.
Yet seeing through a glass, however darkly,
Is to be less blind.

Homeward bound

Sitting in a hotel room in Dar, waiting for a flight back to London. Stomachs full of butterflys Travels over for now.

Kendwa rocks

Then the waters calm down, turn an obscene shade of turquoise, and the white glare of Nungwe beach appears on the horizon. 30 minutes later and we’re wading through the surf with all our belongings on to the baking hot midday sand. There’s still no electricity but we’ve rung round and found a place that keeps the air con on till 4 in the morning. It’s cheap, cold and has one of the best patches of beach we’ve seen anywhere. Just a few metres into the water and you’re neck deep in the most beautiful sea. And it’s seemingly the only sea in East Africa that isn’t 50 degrees C.

More books, hammocks, fish burgers and spriticus and we’ve lost another 10 days on Kendwa. We’re running out of time, slowly, yet still too fast for our liking. We may never fully appreciate all we’ve learnt from this trip, but I think the memories will keep us happy for a little while. Until next time atleast.

We head out on a dhow for snorkeling and read and sleep and before we know it we’ve lost 7 days and are sat on a tiny little boat heading through big swell across the sea to Zanzibar. Not sure it was the safest thing we’ve done, and it was certainly one of the more vomit inducing, but half way through the 3hr trip Sarah spotted a distant dolphin somersaulting out of the water. Within minutes we’re surrounded by an inquisitive pod of 60ish dolphins jumping alongside the boat.

Peponi Beach

So we headed off on one last sweaty, bumpy journey south, over the border back into Tanzania. The road is terrible, we wait in unbelievable humidity for a dalla dalla to leave Tanga, to Peponi beach resort…one of our favourite places in the whole of our travels. Awsome chocolate brownies, a beautiful banda overlooking the sea and a great pool.

Diani Beach

We left Mombassa for the beach. Packed ferrys. Packed Dalla dallas. A pool and a beach. But Diani on the Kenyan coast is full of leathery Italians in tiny pants, and the swarm of beach boys who follow them round. All inclusive wrist bands prevail. Great ice cream though.