Leaving Zanzibar today makes me feel very sad. I’ve never planned to spent more than 1 week here, but finally I ended up with 17 days.

Zanzibar gave me the relaxation and deceleration I needed urgently when I left Germany. I adopted the slow, often chaotic “polepole” lifestyle quickly, gave up all mind-blocking hectic, came down and enjoyed living in the moment.

I really like the close contact between locals and tourists on Zanzibar, both live side by side. Leaving new friends behind make it even more hard to go today.

Wow! I knew Zanzibar seems to be a beautiful island, but I had no idea how beautiful it really is! Endless white beaches and the calm sea which glimmers in the same heavenly colors like the South Pacific around French Polynesia. It’s not overrated to call it a paradise. The food is amazing, I have delicious fresh fish every day, and local people want to chat nonstop. Jambo! At the beginning it felt strange sometimes, but now it’s always a funny and friendly conversation.

I spent one day in Stonetown and after that, I went to the north of the island, to Kendwa and Nungwi. Perfect spots to take a break from busy life. When I’m not relaxing at the beach or watching the sunset, I go for diving, swimming with turtles or SUP. Especially in Nungwi there are a lot of parties at night, but I only went there for one or maybe two Serengeti beer, now I’m not in the mood for party all night.
Actually I’ve planned to spent about 7 days on the island, but once I’m in paradise, I don’t wanna leave. Also I’ve met the best buddy to explore the life and the spirit of Zanzibar. So 7 days are already gone and I’m still here. Polepole 🙂

I love spotting turtles and when there are two turtle aquariums in the neighborhood, of course I wanna see them. I chose the Baraka Natural Aquarium, which allows to feed and swim with the sea turtles. I was kind of timid at the beginning, didn’t know if they will bite or what will happen if I will bump into them. But they were very friendly 😉 An unusual experience for me which I wouldn’t have missed.

Of course I want to go diving when there’s an ocean nearby. My idea was to make a few dives at Mafia Island, where I want to go later. But talking with a few people in Nungwi made me curious about Mnemba Atoll, which is located around the east coast of Zanzibar.

I made two dives at Kichwani and Wattabomi. Although the underwater landscape is not that impressive and unfortunately lots of corals are not alive, I really enjoyed the dives. The turquoise water is crystal-clear, the visibility excellent, and we’ve spotted miscellaneous animals. Various moray eels, stonefishes, trumpetfishes, triggerfishes, boxfishes, lionfishes, pufferfishes, … For our big amusement, an octopus snatched the reel of the surface marker buoy from our dive master – he didn’t get it back. Dolphins accompanied our boat a bit on the way back to Nungwi.

Sorry for not sharing my latest experiences for such a long time. I made some shorter trips and after I returned to Germany my mind was stuffed with so many things which left no time for updating justhalfaworldaway.com. To be honest, some of those things were not important. I don’t understand why I provide them space to block my mind. Living in Germany makes it difficult for myself to set priorities wisely. Hopefully I will be able to handle it better in the future.

Now I’m in Istanbul. Waiting for my transfer to Zanzibar. Tanzania is my first trip to an African country, except Morocco – an amazing country where I want to return as soon as possible, but it doesn’t reflect the images when I hear “Africa”. You know what I mean: the wide savanna grassland with all those animals we only know from zoos, the traditional singing of the tribes, the smile of the people, the mystical spirit. So my expectations are kind of sophisticated 😏 But now I just want to relax for a few days. I want to make real holidays. That’s why I chose Zanzibar as first stop. I will give more updates soon 😉