15/10: Changuu (Prison Island)

Today we are going to Changuu or better known as Prison Island, but first Freja and I wanted to try to find a charger for her camera as she forgot hers in Arusha. We went to a store that seemed the best possibility. They had the camera, but didn’t want to sell her the charger alone. Which is understandable, they were just very rude about it. But we had to get back as we were leaving for Changuu at 10 am. We walked with the guide to the place where we had to take the boat from. Our price was only 20 dollars per person, so we didn’t expect miracles. When we got to the place where they boat was we borrowed some equipment from them. Then we started sailing we sailed for about half an hour before reaching Changuu. We started off with seeing the giant tortoises (turtles is way easier to say!). They were shipped here from the Seychelles in 1919. Some of them are way over a hundred years old. We had expected them to walk freely, but I see why they can’t do that since there have been a lot of robberies over the decades since they came to Zanzibar. After that we saw the prison, though apparently it isn’t the original. Then we went snorkeling. I am not at all good at swimming. I taught myself almost all I know, and that isn’t much. So getting in the water which was about five meters deep, deeper than I have ever been before, was terrifying. But I did it f course, because I believe that you should always try. I mean there is no shame in trying and failing, as long as you tried in the first place. It took even more courage to get away from the boat and every time I tried to really snorkel I could only do it for a couple of seconds at a time, because after that I was too scared that I would get too far away from the boat. So I stayed near the boat, but I was in the water as long as the others. I think that if it had been truly beautiful I could have done more, but it was very dark and green colors, nothing to keep me too interested. Talking about courage and things like that I am reminded of my mother: since I went to Tanzania she has biked 1320 kilometers and that was yesterday. Today I’m sure she has done a lot more. My fear today is nothing compared to the kind of things she has have to overcome in the last two-three months. After that we went to the beach on Changuu. It seems I really didn’t have enough sun scream on. At least now I have serious sunburns on my entire back and legs. So when we went out to dinner that night I could hardly sit down properly. We went to the Serena Inn because on Tuesdays they have a concert of original Zanzibar music and we stayed there to eat though it was really expensive. In the Lonely Planet guide it said that the staff was lackadaisical, but no more for sure. They were very attentive and it was a good night despite of the sunburn, though I had a bit of trouble concentrating on much other than the pain.