Breakfast:
Kochuri, more "beef fighter" (see the post from Day 7), ratatouille, bananas cooked in a creamy cardamom sauce (yum!), dates, yoghurt, coffee w/ milk, some kind of bran muffin, mini bananas, sweet donut hole w/ honey and cardamom
As you can see there is a LOT of food made available for sampling.
The hotel booked us a snorkeling trip to Changuu Island (also called Prison Island) when they booked yesterday's spice tour. Another stout barefoot man arrived to pick us up, and we followed him the few blocks to the beach. We waited in a little shack that served as both boat repair shop and snorkel equipment storage and rental station. Our escort gave us snorkels and fins to try on and then disappeared. While we waited for him to return, another group arrived and tried on snorkels and fins of their own. They quickly boarded a dhow and set sail. There were at least 8 people in their group, but it looked like Nate and I would have the ship and crew to ourselves again. Soon, though, our escort returned with two additional people who would be on our trip with us. Fortunately, they were a brother and sister who had been on our spice tour yesterday! They were Chilean-born Norwegians, about our age, who were on vacation. The sister was very outgoing and spoke excellent English. The brother was petite and shy.
We soon boarded the dhow and had a very pleasant sail to the island. Our escort, who would also be our captain, finally introduced himself as Ali. He had a mate, too; a quiet man who clearly has spent his life at sea.
We toured the island and its sanctuary of giant tortoises. We fed them cassava leaves, which look just like collards. The former prison grounds are now a super-exclusive resort.
After feeding the tortoises we went back to the boat to snorkle. The Chileans decided not to go. While we were suiting up I found a strange spine-like bone on the beach. I showed it to Ali who quickly broke it with his teeth to make sure no one would step on it and get a puncture wound. The water was extremely rough, which made the snorkeling difficult and the water cloudy with stirred-up sand. The boat was parked pretty close to the reef, too, which made for some very close calls! We called it quits after only about 20 minutes and went to lounge on the beach until time to return to Stonetown.
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| starfish |
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| Changuu pier |
The trip back was difficult because the water was REALLY rough. More on this tomorrow.
We disembarked, said farewell to the Chileans, and walked north along the beach until we got a little lost. Eventually we found our way back to a recognizable part of Stonetown and decided to find a lunch spot. We stumbled on the Silk Road Restaurant, which we recognized from one of our guide books. We'd heard good things so we decided it would work. The restaurant is located on the top floor, is mostly open-air, and has fantastic views of the city and the water beyond.
Lunch:
Ndovu beer, appetizer of flatbread w/ crudités, mint sauce, mango chutney (spicy and vinegary w/ the peel still on), and a sweet dark thin sauce of unknown name. Nate ordered Murg mirch tikka, which is a tandoori chicken marinated in a chili paste - it came with fries. I ordered fish tindaloo. According to the menu, tindaloo is big in Bollywood. We thought this was pertinent information to include in the menu.
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| view from Silk Road |
After lunch we wandered in town a bit more and then returned to the hotel to dress for supper. I wore a full-length yellow dress with a long black cardigan, gold strappy sandals, and dangly earrings (this is my favorite outfit so far).
Supper:
House white wine (goiya?); appetizers of pumpkin soup w/ cardamom and calimari in a passion fruit sauce; main courses: I ordered ratatouille, mango chutney w/ red onion, chapati, fried potatoes, and spinach in coconut sauce; Nate had grilled snapper (turns out that's Changuu), beef stew, rice, stewed bananas in coconut sauce
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| our apologies to the chef - the photos don't do the meal justice |
For dessert we shared halua, which we had been hoping to try on this trip. Halua is a dense, gelatinous confection made with a grain flour such as semolina.
We wrapped up the evening with beers at the Sunrise Cafe, which we declared to be our favorite bar of the trip. We were so exhausted that we could barely keep eyes open.
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| you know you love the cheetah-print label |
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