Friday 2 September 2011

Tanza Week 3

Day 14. Woke up as per usual in Moshi with a nice treat of bacon and sausage sandwiches from Benny the chef! (He was a legend and came out clubbing with us one night along with Robert who never took of his baseball cap!) Packed up all our things and got on the hot hot bus for a long old journey to Tanga. Took so so long and we were all busting for a toilet break which never seemed to arrive. Had to stop for ages at a strange sort of truck stop come service station thing as the other Camps International group were supposed to be in convoy with us but we kind of left them behind then they broke down... Oops. Played lots of card games and ate biscuits for a couple of hours while we waited. When they'd caught up we came across an overturned lorry which delayed us further. Took 9 and a half hours in the end to reach Tanga. The campsite was super cool, on the top of a 30ft cliff with beach view! Quite hot and sticky here though when no breeze. Saw the moon rising over the sea. Possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Day 15. The village near our campsite is very religious. Mostly muslim so lots of calls to prayer at all hours of day and night consisting of a guy doing a crazy song over a meggaphone. The ones at 3 and 5am were the hardest to ignore... At this camp site we were staying with another group of about 20 students from around the UK. Mostly a year or two younger than us but a great bunch, we had some fun over the two weeks together so this day I said hello. We went down to the school where we did lots of project work. It was a 40 minute walk along the sandy track passed all the palm trees to the school. There the headmaster greeted us and showed us round all the classes. Our task was to build some new toilets as the school of 600 kids only had 4 toilets. Set about work clearing the grassy area with a hoe. Very hot indeed here so you can guess where my nickname 'The Shade Seeker' sprung from! Saw some cool wildlife like very hairy caterpillars and praying mantises. Did some carpentry, making door frames, in the afternoon. Ndjoko the cool carpenter guy was pretty chilled but we actually had a work bench this time! Luxury. Plus we could work in the shade of the trees which was nice. Walked all the way back to camp. Hot hot hot. Then we went down to the beach. (About a five minute stroll as you had to loop round the camp to get to the access step things) IT WAS AMAZING> The water was just so so so warm, like a bath. It was incredible. We stayed down there for ages. Showered back at camp with the much more civilised shower facilities. Cold water but with a proper shower head and woven cubicles made from palm leaves. They had proper toilets that flushed here too! Washed some clothes then dinner was some strange bean based thing which I was unsure of. Stayed out chatting with the new folk all night and had a great laugh. Sun rise was at 9pm tonight exactly one hour later than the previous day and just as mesmerising.

Day 16. Managed to sleep through the call to prayer today! Woopee! 3 Weetabix and a couple of jam sandwiches for breakfast (Should do the job you'd think) Cloudier today but still very warm. Walked down to the school and did more work constructing the toilets. Built a wall which was pretty cool learning how to lay bricks from the mason guy with a plumb line and mixing cement and everything like that. LifeSkillz yeah! Pasta and veges for lunch. More work on doorframes. Straight in the sea when we got back. Lovely refreshing swim and good way of cleaning yourself too to be honest since having applied factor 50+ suncream three times a day then working in the dust and mud you get pretty filthy!! Had a meeting about our up and coming PADI lessons and had to complete the first three chapters of the text book for the following morning! What a bummer on the evening but it wasn't too bad as we 'helped' each other. :) Beef curry followed by mango for dinner. Yummo. Had a camp fire and had some fun but got bitten lots by mosquitoes!

Day 17. Rained during the night for the first time this trip. Woke me up but we had to get up early anyway for the scuba. A very strange morning was spent hanging around waiting for the scuba guys to get stuff ready and take us down to the hotel in Tanga (30 mins on the bus) then set up the DVD player to watch the information video of all the stuff we'd covered in the homework. It wasn't that it was too terribly organised it was just odd doing so much hanging around after all the hard work we'd been used to doing. Plus we really wanted to get in the pool and do some scuba practise! Had to do a 200m swim which was easy enough for everyone. Lunch at the hotel was amazing. Chips, rice, veg, fish, chicken, beef stew, salad and all sorts. And a free coke! Got in the pool with the scuba kit after lunch. Learnt how to clear the mask underwater, swim about and find each other's regulators. Pretty enjoyable even in the pool really. Such a strange experience breathing underwater! When we got back to camp I played some frisbee with the villagers and some of the group. Brilliant fun but pretty warm! Then joined the group heading down to the beach for a swim! Such a good day. Burgers and potatoes for tea too! ...Don't ask how but I ended up teaching everyone the Christmas Pudding Song at pudding. Quite bizarre but they loved it. Did some more scuba homework then had a camera masterclass from James. He's one of the Camps International leaders from the other group who came with them from England.

Day 18. I love waking up to the sounds of the sea and then the beautiful sea view as the sun rises! Fishermen are always out on their little boats too. (Fishing seems to be one of the few things the men of the village we were in did during the day. Othertimes they can be seen sitting... sitting playing games, sitting chatting or just more sitting while the women did 45,793 jobs around the place. Saying that, it's all pretty chilled. This Is Africa!) Another chilled out day of scuba education at the hotel pool in town today. Learnt the backwards roll into the pool, sharing air, removing the weight belt, removing the BCD (Buoyancy control device), maintaining neutral buoyancy and swimming about. Took a fair while, we did stop for ice cream after though whilst the cool monkeys bounded about the place with their bright blue bottoms, returning to base about 6pm. Soup then spaghetti for dinner then more mango! Not half bad. All the girls discovered how bad their sunburn was from earlier at the pool. I did tell them to cream up but would they listen to Uncle Chris?! :o) Ali the dive instructor popped by and did some cool card tricks. Stars are incredible. I like just looking up for ages at them. You can see lots of satellites if you're still enough. 

Day 19. Sausage sandwich for breakfast. Got the bus down to the yacht club at half nine then hopped on Eric's boat called The Beast with all our scuba gear. Rode out to the dive site just off the island we could see from our camp. Spectacular stuff. Amazing conditions, blue sea and ski. Took about 20 minutes of speedboating to drop anchor and get in the sea with our gear. I didn't start off so great as I forgot to undo the on valve so was spluttering about trying to breath and inflate the BCD. Ooopsy. Ali saved me though so it was all good. Then we had a great time diving down to about 10m. Found the pressure hard on the ears to start then realised equalising requires more of a squeeze than I'd thought and was fine from then on. We did more practice of the technical stuff then swam about looking at all the fishies and the reef. Water was amazingly clear, looking up at the surface from so far down was quite other-worldly too. Really loved it! Great boat trip back then we took our exam back at camp. Got a cheeky 98%. Job Done. Played some football with the locals on the pitch across the way from our campsite. Very very hot and sweaty at right back! Then played some frisbee with the kids from the village. Went down for a swim in the sea. Colder and shallower today though. Bought some cool material from Pam (Eric's wife - they own the campsite and live nextdoor. Really nice family) Soup then meatball and veg then mango for tea! Showered, washed more clothes. Excellent day!

Day 20. Painful shoulder this morning. Must have pulled something playing sports previous day. Left camp at 7am to go diving. Headed out to the same spot as before and the water was even clearer this time! Did an emergency swimming ascent which was pretty fun - look up at the surface, deflate your BCD and shout Ahhhhh all the way as you kick up! Did some orientation with a compass then swam round the reef. Down to 18m this time. Incredible sensation indeed. Saw a puffer fish and lion fish and loads of other cool stuff like a giant blue star fish! I was amazed how light it still was down that deep. When we got back to shore I asked to go snorkelling off the boat when the next group went and did their dive. Best result ever, had such a good time exploring the reef for a couple of hours. Had a chilled afternoon at camp. Tried out Ugali for dinner which is the local staple meal. It is just maize and water mushed up together like a cross between mashed potato and dough really. Not my favourite I have to say. 






























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