Tanzania Day 57-58 - Jambiani

On Friday with the election results released the night before there was mixed feelings about the safety of being out and about. Some suggested staying in completely, others suggested avoiding Stone Town only and others said it wasn't a problem!

We took a taxi down to Paje and if anything the streets seemed quieter, we assumed this was due to people heading to Stone Town to protest. We finally found a shop willing to take slightly more money for a sim card in return for not giving our finger prints etc so we were back online!!

I finally decided the hair was too much and went for an African haircut, I tried to keep it simple as I wasn't sure how it could translate so went for 'grade 1/2 on the sides and grade 3 on top' whilst pointing where I meant. It seemed to work ok and we were both pleasantly with how it turned out, although gem now thinks it's hilarious to say I look like an egg 😂😂

We headed to Paje beach with the intention of jogging back to Jambiani (about 8km) but before we could start the wind/torrential rain seemed to come from nowhere, we took cover at Drifters but as it was early-ish there was nobody around. Whilst we waited an American guy arrived to check in, he had just been staying in stone town and said it was pretty wild with tear gas and police beatings. He was in a hotel with a balcony so they had sat outside watching until the tear gas became too much. We mentioned our plan to run back and he asked to join as his friends were in a hotel near ours so after the rain passed we set off. The run was nice and we got as far as the Blue Reef restaurant (about 6km) before deciding to stop for some lunch. We bumped into Farris and made plans to head to Summer Beach for their party that night. We had a drink at Drifters and gem watched a film and had dinner at B4 and then we headed towards Summer Beach. We had a good group together with american 2 Bulgarians a Hungarian plus some others and it was a nice party with loads of locals. We stayed a while, and even managed to dance with some Massai before sharing a taxi home with Farris.

Saturday was a complete right off though as we spent all day on the swing beds by the beach just reading, sleeping and relaxing.Read more