Zanzibar- Paje

Scott and I arrived to our accommodations in Paje very ready for some nice, relaxing beach time. We stayed at a place called Demani Lodge, which may be our best-value accommodations thus far.  For a very reasonable price, we got to stay in this sweet beach hut for four nights.  The lodge also had a pool, a hip bar, and good food.  

While there wasn't a multitude of beach activities to do, we did manage to have a couple excursions. One of the most notable was a snorkeling adventure we went on with "Captain Mu".  Captain Mu picked us up at Demani and led us to the beach, where we expected to meet some sort of boat.

The tide was pretty far out at this point, so we ended up walking a ways on a sand bar, all the while I am searching the water for a boat we're supposed to get on.  I saw one in the distance, but to my eyes, it looked like some kind of homemade wooden boat. As we got closer, I realized this was the ONLY boat we could possibly get on, and it was indeed a homemade wooden boat. Needless to say, I was not excited about this. (For those who don't know, I'm not the biggest boat fan.)

Following Captain Mu to our "sea-faring vessel"

We boarded the boat and set sail for....an unknown snorkeling location. I started to get over my fears as I saw how Captain Mu and his First Mate used their wooden boat expertise to sail us towards where we supposed to go.  We finally arrived to a reef area where we were able to snorkel and see all kinds of fish and coral.

Smiling on the way back to the beach.

Another day, we went to another resort on the beach so that Scott could do some windsurfing.  I'm pretty sure the people at the resort hadn't had a windsurfing customer in a while.  Also, the high tide was not until around 4pm, so we had to wait around.  But it was cool because this resort was a little swanky, so we ate lunch there and used their pool until Scott could windsurf.  We call this activity "resort hopping".

Look at that expert windsurfer! Keeping the sport alive!

Besides these activities, we spent most of our time trying to stay cool.  It was HOT.  Thankfully, Demani had a pool that allowed us cool off and we spent a lot of time swimming here and reading.

All in all, we had a great experience on the beach!  It was exactly the kind of laid-back experience we were looking for.  On Saturday, we headed back to Stone Town to get ready for a flight to Nairobi and meeting Scott's parents for our safari!