Bongoyo Island

Hello all!

At the YMCA in Dar es Salaam, I met a great group of folks. My second night here, we retired to the Canadian guys' room, and they played guitar and doxycycline bottle shaker and sang while the rest of us lounged on the beds drinking Safari and Seregetti beers. It was awesome! The boys are in a band called "How to Build a Robot." The next day, the Coloradan girl took a bus back to Kampala, Uganda where she is working, the Canadians headed up for a couple day trip in Bagamoyo, and one of the Israelis (Roi) flew back to Israel, leaving one Israeli (Sefi) and one Brit (Sofia) with me in Dar. Sofia decided to catch up on all of her journaling, so Sefi and I decided that we should go find a beach.

We decided to try the small island called Bongoyo. My guide book said that there was good swimming at all times of the day because there was no reef. Sefi and I took a small boat with a Chinese couple and a South Africa guy across the bay. The trip took about a half an hour and provided some great views of Msasani Peninsula, what I think must be the North Coast, and also of Dar's giant barges. As we approached the beach, my excitement grew. The white sands stretched approximately the size of a football field, was studded with a few thatch umbrella bandas, and was surrounded by clear turquoise water. It was empty! When we landed, it became clear that the whole beach would only be shared between Sefi, myself, the South African (Antony), the Chinese couple (Steven and Monica), a British couple who had arrived before us, and a few Tanzanian staffers.

Sefi and I put in our orders for lunch and then walked through the scrub brush over jagged lava rock to Shark's Lagoon. The tide was out, so we walked through a few inches of warm water, admiring crabs, starfish, and a few small fish in little pools. There was a neat little cave in one of the lava rock walls that I decided to explore. The roof was quite low, about 1m so had to crawl over the slippery rock to get through. I could see that there was a little coral beach 50m in that was lit by sunlight, so I decided to go all the way to check it out.

Lunch was waiting for us when we returned. Antony had lazed on the beach and looked after my bag, and we all ate together. Sefi and Antony had fish, and I had a crab and some prawns with cold cokes. It was all delicious! Antony explained that he was here on business and that his company makes powders for flavoring water out of Johannesburg.

After Sefi and I spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the warm, salty water, we headed back to town to have another delicious meal with Sofia at an excellent Indian restaurant called the Alcove. What a day! Bradt travel guide rocks!!

Love,

Kara