Tanzania Days 15-16: Just One Night (Last Time)

It was the last time we'd hear the 4a call to worship. We were leaving this afternoon. We both wanted to get one more snorkel trip in before we left so our favorite guide, Issa, took us out in the morning. As we were loading up, he purchased these fish from a fisherman and said he'd cook them for us for lunch after our trip.

We didn't go too far from Chole.

Scorpionfish

Issa fish

Partway through the snorkel, he guided Brenda back to the boat. I didn't know what was happening. I thought Brenda was having mask problems. Turns out, Issa wanted her back on the boat so we could snorkel together. Seems he had a little crush. I felt really bad that Brenda's last snorkel was cut short once I found out.

While we were snorkeling, a crab on the boat was having his way with our lunch.

It was time to go so Issa and I came back to the boat.

The captain served up a little snack for us.

We got back to the island and while Brenda and I were cleaning up and packing up, Issa indeed grilled the fish for us. He speared them with a stick and cooked them over a fire. They were quite delicious. The crab didn't eat too much off the end.

We invited Issa to eat with us but he refused to do so. We got the impression that it was frowned upon to invited the staff to eat with guests. We've come across that a lot in Africa. The owner's daughter seemed especially perturbed that Issa cooked for us. Maybe she had her own crush?

Finally it was time to go and we loaded up into the boat to return to the mainland. We gave everyone hugs and as our boat was pulling away, Issa ran along the beach waving to us. We arrived at the mainland and were driven to the airport where we boarded our 4p flight back to Dar for the night.

Forty minutes later, we were about to land in Dar.

We arrived back at Hotel Slipway, the same hotel we'd stayed in for one night before we went on safari. We had some dinner and watched the sunset then called it a night.

We had several hours the next day before we needed to make our 6p flight to Doha. There was a shopping center built around our hotel so we did our souvenir shopping before leaving. It was perfect. After a late lunch by the waterfront, we bid goodbye to Tanzania one last time.