Tanzania 

6 June 1977. Silver Sands Beach, Tanzania.   Back in Africa, at certainly the nicest beach on the East Coast we know. Clean water, not much seaweed, no gunk from the ships to soil the feet.  Cool, at times, with a southerly wind, though the heat can be strong when the rays decide to beam down. Took a surprising number of photos here, of flowers, butterflies, fishermen, Nicole; and I’ve decided to have my photo taken tomorrow  (could this be the first since Kilimanjaro?) I’m looking and feeling marvelous, and exercising like mad (85 situps, 55 push-ups, 20 minutes of jogging).  I’ve even gained some of my stomach back, and Nicole no longer talks of my “skeletal” body. I’m leery of becoming overconfident: India is still to come.

Bad news (at first): Nicole’s backpack was lost by Air Madagascar somewhere between Majunga and Dar, and there is only one flight a week connecting the two cities. She goes to France tomorrow morning to raise Hell. Fortunately, we still have the tent, the stove, the miscellaneous bags, and can manage - as we have nicely these past two days, camping and cooking at Silver Sands. We straight off bought some more kanga material, and tomorrow she may go for a shirt as well. And all the other tourists we’ve been running into for the last time on the plane ride; but once more they broke their trip at Moroni, to wait three days later for the plane for Mombasa. We discovered through one of the above travelers that our mail was indeed forwarded to Tanna, as Terry did not succeed in his mission. That’s seven weeks since we’ve had any mail.

The first morning here I got up early and strode out, binos in hand, to catch the local ornithological scene.  With little effort, and two hours of dallying, I nailed five new species, including the spectacular paradise wydah, thumping through the air like a kite with a heavy tail; the Zanzibar bishop, red, orange, and black and in flight somewhat like a large furry bumblebee, and the green winged ptylia, he best looking of them all, with about five major colors and enumerable shadings, gratings, streaks, and funnies covering its tiny little gorgeous bird body. Good season for the little flying friends. The butterflies were also more spectacular than I remembered them from November, and I spent a whole morning stalking them with the Olympus to little avail. Why don’t the pretty things ever land? I actually ended up catching two by hand, squeezing their thoraxes as I remember I did in the seventh grade, and then placing them in pretty plants for photos - they flew off and disappeared as soon as I got the camera in position.

This beach is actually the only African one we’ve been on, and that makes it Nicole’s favorite. An amazing number of local folks spend their time here fishing, mending, nets, collecting and cleaning shells, and strolling on the beach. Today we saw at least two dozen boats and more than 100 people doing it in the low tide  - and we saw three fairly large two masted fishing vessels with elegantly curved hulls beached together, the first I’ve seen of a size larger than the more ordinary double outriggers.

Idea: when the trip is all over, write it up and describe all the folks we met, then send it to all in a signed and numbered edition. Maybe John Daniel can help me here. Which means I better start describing folks more detail than I’ve been doing thus far.