It’s hot in Paradise
Mamba (that’s what all the people say here),
Day 1 started with a walk around the neighbourhood, after which we cooled down for a while in a luxery shopping centre, with marble floors known as “the Millenium Towers”.
It’s strange to see a big marble block with futuristic reflective windows in a place like this, there are a lot of small dirt roads with a lot of small shops, they sell food pretty much everywhere, there are a lot of strong smells while walking around, 1 moment you’re enjoying the smell of meat being grilled and the next its the typical smell of hot trash.
There are lots of chickens walking around and dogs sleeping in the shade, it’s really a different world, and even though it’s a pretty “rich” part of town it’s still really poor by my western standards.
All the people are really friendly, but for the most obvious reason, white people have money, as soon as you stop and talk to them it’ll result in them trying to sell you artsy stuff, or trying to get you in their taxi.
After all that walking we decided to go back, eat and drink something and after that try if we could get some money at the ATM, which we couldn’t, just the receipt, no money, but that’s pretty normal here, nothing to worry about, after finding an internet cafe (see previous post) and buying some SIM cards for our phones we took a taxi to the kilimanjaro hotel, where Beer, Jeroen and I met the rest of the crew.
We walked to the ferry to paradise, which was an experience on it’s own, we’re were told to watch our bags/wallets because it was gonna be crowded, so crowded that it wasn’t possible to move at all, we took a taxi to a nice resort at the beach where we sat on the beach and drank a beer, it was heaven, and hard to believe that it was all real, the contrast between the poor city life and the beautiful beach was a surreal experience.
I walked down the beach and through the water for a bit (setting foot in the indian ocean for the first time), chased some crabs and within 5 minutes found found more cool sea shells and pieces of coral than I’ve collected in the previous 23 years of my life, too bad it’s illegal to take things with you, guess the small sea shell that’s in my bag now officially makes me a smuggler.
We had dinner, I had chicken curry, and after that went back to the guesthouse, where I edited pictures for a while and got my first mosquito bite (on my foot), all together a great first day.
the power just died, so I better save my battery and end this post.
some (small) pictures:
the view from the mil. towers
hey man! haha whoops, forgot when you were leaving and just caught your last 3 posts today! sounds like a promising start to your adventures. Is your buddy’s real name ‘Beer’ or is that a nickname?
Looking forward to your posts man! take lots of pics! oh and use your Diana+! lets see some Africans and Giraffes!
Don’t get into any strange taxi’s man!
Hi little brother!
You’ve found more cool sea shells than the ones we found in Portugal?Impossible! You’ve got to bring me some…even though it’s illegal
Nice pics!
Glad you’ve gotten off to a good start! The pictures are beautiful…it’s funny how the cityscape looks so similar and yet so different. Anyway, stay safe and have fun!