After a long and eventful first day around Stone Town and Zanzibar we decided to head on to the north side of the island, with a few stopovers of course.

 
Luckily we had rented a great little 4×4 to help us get to some of those harder to reach locations.

 
Palm trees not too far from the beach. It’s interesting (and a little sad) to see how a mere 100m away from the fancy ocean frontline hotels for tourists you have the locals who basically live in shacks and seem to hardly make ends meet… it ruins the “perfect” image of Zanzibar that travel agents sell you.

 
Still early in the day, we had plenty of time and thus decided to go to a mini island called Uzi that can only be reached through this very jagged road when the tide is low and it’s not submerged in water… second time I was really happy we opted for the 4×4 over a normal car after that drive to the remote beach party 😉

 
Plenty of people actually walk (as you cannot bike on these rocks) which I imagine is not easy in the heat… it’s a long road.

 
If you stop and look around, you can see plenty of little creatures who must be wondering what the hell you’re doing there 😉

 
The tiny island is very much off the beaten path and there’s not that many people around. We kept getting strange looks driving or walking around as most tourists don’t venture this far south. By chance, we stumbled upon this empty football pitch at one end of which was this giant (and I meant GIANT) tree.

 
The palm trees were quite high as well, but no where near as massive.

 
The only person near the pitch was this kid who was a little shy in the beginning and was somewhat hiding from us. But he ended up warming up and we actually took photos with him 🙂

 
On the way back to the main island we came across these guys… best means of transportation!

 
One of the most unexpected and cool things we saw that day and I dare say on the trip as a whole — a swarm of kids who’d just finished school walking or biking home to their village on the main Zanzibar island.

 
I don’t think the photos do it justice — it was literally hundreds upon hundreds of students in uniforms, a sight that came in very sharp contrast to the otherwise mostly empty streets and little villages we saw around the island. It was spectacular.

 
We stopped at various spots along the way. This is just a fisherman fixing up his boat.

 
Heading up north, we decided to stick to the eastern shores where we found some pretty large beaches like this one.

 
Perhaps it’s hard to tell from the photo, but it’s massive — easily tens of kilometers across and over 50m wide (at low tide, granted).

 
Meto looking all adventurous 😉

 
The low tide actually let us walk around quite a bit and see corals like that exposed from the water.

 
Shells.

 
Love that shot. The kid was trying to catch fish with a stick while balancing on who knows what… mad skills.

 
Postcard material.

 
One of the most beautiful hotels we came across… wouldn’t mind spending a night or two here 😉

 
Driving up the shore, we came across these guys playing football. Being avid players, both Meto and myself immediately decided we absolutely have to join them. Luckily, the kids seemed excited to play with a couple of pale folk 😉 It was an exciting barefoot game, let me tell you! I ended up having a few cuts on my feet and needed 20 mins to cool off after playing in the intense heat around noon, but it was SO worth it — definitely one of the highlights from Tanzania for me.

 
Being a relatively low island, it was good that the road passed through some hills that allowed us to look around a bit.

 
New pipes, perhaps a plumbing system?

 
The colors on some of their clothes were incredible! It’s not by chance I chose the title of the overview post — where the colors don’t fade.

 
At dusk, we were by Nungwi beach on the northwest side of Zanzibar.

 
We didn’t get the picturesque sunset I was hoping for, but it was nevertheless quite nice to just chill on the beach for a little while after the eventful day.

 
Stars over Nungwi.

 
Our sleeping quarters for the night… the net was a must, despite taking malaria pills!

 
The following morning (and our last at Zanzibar) we drove to a tiny little beach on the eastern side so we can greet the sun. It was too cloudy for that unfortunately, but it was still a stunning view.

 
Contemplating life just before the 6am dip in the ocean 😉 It started raining literally 2 minutes after I took the shot… what a morning!

 
More of Africa coming soon…