Just one week of good wind is immediately followed by the next week of permaflake. The wings of horny kiters fall out of the sky at eight knots. A nasty stomach bug tries to push all my food out the wrong end for a few days. At high tide, I walk across a carpet of thousands of jellyfish to Dongwe, eight kilometres to the north. Poor villages and rubbish dumps on the beach alternate with empty luxury resorts.
Paje is suddenly completely deserted. If Jack Nicholson jumped out from behind a palm tree grinning madly with an axe, I would simply hold my stomach out to him: “There, you can have it, it’s already broken anyway.” The Paje cemetery is also a rubbish dump, and the whole of Paje is a cemetery. (more…)
Kiting with jellyfish
All the locals and long-term kiters say that the wind on Zanzibar has been exceptionally bad since December 2015. At the end of my second week, with just three good days so far, it finally arrives. For six days, the wind blows at 14 to 22 knots for a few hours every day. We have a lot of fun in the shallow water on the beach and in the waves up to two metres high on the outer reef.
The wind statistics published on Kitereisen, for example, give us false hope. For January it gives almost 100% gliding wind. It defines this as 4 Beaufort = 11 to 15 knots. 11 knots are actually reached almost every day, for a few hours, and often only in peaks. The basic wind rarely gets much stronger. Since mid-December 2015, there have been few days with at least 15 knots of basic wind. (more…)
Touring Sansibar
On the third day, I finally need the scooter for more than just withdrawing more money. I drive to the north of the island. Zanzibar is really tropical and green here. I realise how much I was depressed by the monotonous flat forestlessness in Paje. The route leads through sugar cane fields and spice plantations in the steaming jungle. A tour of a spice farm with tastings of fresh ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, cloves, passion fruit, star fruit and vanilla cheers me up further.
The Zanzibaris in the north seem happier than those in the arid poorhouse of southern Zanzibar. Smurfy schoolchildren in blue and white uniforms wander along the streets of the poorest villages. In one of them, I hit an easily overlooked high braking hill at 80 kilometres per hour. I manage to avoid a spin. But not another puncture five kilometres further on in the deepest jungle. (more…)
…simply withdraw money
Zanzibar is almost like travelling the world 100 years ago. I let the sound of the sea outside my beach hut beat up my tinnitus and surrender to the circumstances. There is very little of that, in every respect. I’ve been completely offline for three days, as has the wind. The time needs to be utilised. I hire a scooter.
The issue of a local driving licence, prepared in blank thanks to a bribe, is completed with the speed of a drop of heavy fuel oil falling from the tip of my nose. After two and a half hours I set off. The arse end of the world is just 15 kilometres beyond Paje. Deepest central African backwoods. (more…)
The Zanzibar Blues
I sit in the shade in the morning and blow upwards towards my glasses. It’s the only thing that helps against permanent fogging after a heavy thunderstorm the night before. 34°, 95% humidity, no wind. On the plus side, the Zanzibari mosquitoes are all non-swimmers and swimming is the only thing you can do in this air.
The roof of my palm leaf hut at Demani Lodge has a leak. Fortunately, right above my head. Saves the morning shower, which is not always available. After half an hour I’m clean – but unfortunately I can’t sleep any longer. The bed falls apart when I push it away. Assembling the bed in the darkness of the power cut is so exhausting that I only wake up after a total of 14 hours. (more…)
The Author
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.