Reading by the Sea

A couple of Saturdays ago, The Engineer and I decided to head down to South Beach. There are two ways to get to there:

1. The ferry
2.The road

The ferry is technically the shorter route. The ride lasts all of 15 minutes (at the most) but the problem is, you have to wait an additional 2 hours to get on the thing which hardly seems worth it.

After having suffered through other ferry waits during our previous 2 visits, The Engineer and I decided to risk the road even though we weren't certain of the route. Roads are not clearly marked in Tanzania and our appalling Swahili speaking skills would prove no help at all if we ever had to ask for directions.

Despite these risks, we felt that driving down the wrong road would still be 'driving' as opposed to sitting like a pair of losers in the never-ending queue to the ferry - so off we went.

It turned out to be a fortunate choice because we arrived in just one hour, without making even one wrong turn! I credit this to The Engineer's impressive 'inner compass' that has been honed over his years of working in the field, optimizing mobile networks all over the world (goodness knows it's no thanks to me! I sometimes can't find my car at mall parking lots back home!)

Despite its extremely boring and grammatically incorrect name (there's more than one beach) , South Beach has a lot to offer the visitor who wishes to unwind by the sea. The Indian Ocean twinkles in the sun and seems to stretch to eternity. If you know where to go and you're really lucky, you can get an entire powdery white beach to yourself.

With this in mind, we gave the more popular (read: disturbingly crowded) beaches a miss and drove to a place called Kim's Kamp (apparently not just grammar but spelling is also somewhat of a challenge at South Beach *grins*) We knew of this place from our previous visit to South Beach with The Boss on Easter Sunday.

There was just one other family occupying one banda (hut in Swahili) in the short row bandas that faced the beach.



A Tanzanian man collected the entry fee of TSH3,000 each and brought us a little waste basket so we wouldn't litter the beach. After that, we were left to our own devices.

We chose our banda and spread out our Maasai cloth in front of it before placing the only two pieces of camping gear we own in all the world - a pink chair that doubles as a backpack and a picnic set. Both of these are fabulous presents from Pinky and I took a picture just so she'll know that her gifts are being put to good use! Thank you, Pinky *blows kisses*



The water was right in front of us - no obstacle to the view. It was so perfect that it looked like it had been painted just for us:



We spent all that afternoon reading (even The Engineer, who generally prefers the TV, was engrossed in The Kite Runner)


It was absolutely lovely to sit by the sea and read with no sound but that of ocean waves breaking softly on the shoreline.

Tanzania may lack Body Shop, Aldo and OPI nails but I must admit that every once in a while, it doesn't matter.