Fish guts on our shoes

We awoke at 5 am on Rose's 55th birthday to the call to prayer from the nearby mosque resonating over the city via loudspeakers. One of those moments that brings home the fact that you are in another culture.

We have been befriended by a couple of ‘touts’ as they are called in the guide book. Our second ‘friend’ was Simba whom we met first on the first day and again the second day twice. On our first encounter, he showed us his artwork which was quite beautiful. Lovely colourful oil paintings of Masai people and animals scrapped and painted onto canvas. On the second meeting, he walked us around the fish market where fish is smoked and sold along with fruits and vegetables and other merchandise and then took us to the harbour where the fish is gutted, cleaned and auctioned. Without him leading us we would never have seen as much.

Later that day, we flew up the coast over Bagamoyo, a town on the coast, and over large rectangular areas that we learned the next day were salt fields. Zanzibar was visible in the distance. Our pilot was an Argentinian woman and the plane was the smallest one on the tarmac, seating at most 5 passengers. Lined up beside the other air taxis, it looked like a giant mosquito!

We landed on a sandy airstrip near the lodge where we were met by Conrad, one of two managers. During the short drive to the lodge we saw several monkeys which we would soon come to realize are everywhere. We were met by Sofia and other staff bringing cool wet facecloths and cold juice, welcome after the hot trip.

The rooms are delightful as is the whole set up. Grass mat roofs on pole construction frames. Bathrooms with sand and rock floors and an open shower. Beds with mosquito netting. The breeze off the ocean fills the room and the ocean at high tide is 50 feet away. We are screened from neighbours by palms and guarded by Masai.

The place runs on solar power and a generator. There is no cell phone signal, at least not on our phone, no internet, and no land line.