The next hop of our trip took us to Chumbe, a coral island beach resort off the South-West coast of Zanzibar. The founders and management pride themselves on their ecological credentials, but beyond being a lovely place in a stunningly beautiful location, it’s as good an argument against compost toilets as I’ve ever seen.
The idea was to shrug off the cares of the world for a few days, loafing on beaches, snorkeling on one of East Africa’s best coral reefs (I would have killed for some scuba kit, but it was not allowed there, and the price I was quoted for a day trip to Mnemba atoll would have broken the bank more than decisively).
To get to Chumbe, it didn’t seem to matter whether the tide was high or low, in both directions we ended up having to take off our shoes and carry our crap (with some help) across a stretch of shallow ocean before getting to the ferry boat. The only difference was that our afternoon trip out was right into the afternoon winds, resulting in a mad rollercoaster ride that made us fear being swamped by the waves more than once.
Some of the cooler aquatic fish-type critters we saw included (non-fish) hawkbill turtles that let us swim with them, crocodile fish, coronet/trumpet fish, loads of (also non-fish) hermit crabs, moray eels, beautiful peacock groupers, spotted sting rays, swarms of barracuda, and loads upon loads of ridiculously colorful reef life. Our guides, two marine biology postdoc-type “ramadan volunteers” hired for the month, were great about pointing out and explaining fun lifeforms.
Ramadan, alas — most of the staff stayed out of sight during a large part of the days, it was only near the end that I discovered the lot of them sitting around in the shade. I’d loaf about too, if I couldn’t eat all day — but then again, with all due respect, even if I did go for organized religion, I wouldn’t pick one that forbade me from eating lunch for a whole month — or from boozing at all. Bleah on that.
Zanzibar, despite generally being comparatively laid-back about the whole religious thing, is strongly muslim and occasionally very traditional about it, something we were reminded of when some of the male staffers at Chumbe didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with Karin, or to even acknowledge her existence. We were also very politely reminded, on arriving, that while we were welcome to come pray at the 100-year-old mosque if we were muslim, we maybe should stay the hell out otherwise, historical building or not.
Funny thing, though, most of the time they were friendly, and some were intensely engaging, to both of us. And considering nobody was eating all day, the boys were surprisingly un-cranky.
From everywhere on the shore, we watched the fishing Dhows go by, and in the evenings, saw the lights of Dar-es-Salaam in the distance when not watching the crisply clear starry sky or hunting giant coconuts crabs in the mangrove forest. It’s a beautiful, beautiful peaceful place, but you’ll get sand in your shorts no matter how hard you try.
Chumbe Island
P.O.Box 3203
Zanzibar/Tanzania
+255 (0) 24 223 1040
www.chumbeisland.com
