Chilling by the beach in Peponi

“Where are you from?” asked the Tanzanian man squashed up next to me on the back seat of the bus. We were on the first of three buses on our way to the next destination of our trip and Claire and I were squashed on the back row of the bus with a number of other passengers. This man was previously standing in the isle until the person next to me got off. He saw his opportunity and grabbed the available seat for himself. I told him we were from England. “Where abouts in England?” he asked. I told him Brighton. “Ahh Brighton,” was his reply. I asked this friendly chap where he was from. “Do you know Richmond?” he asked. Turns out this man, called Martin, was born and raised in Tanzania where he met his future wife, an English lady called Kate who was over here working for a number of different charities. He had been living in England for a fair few years now and was back in Tanzania on holiday visiting his family.

Martin used to run a bus company here in Tanzania, managing the business himself whilst also driving buses from time to time. He met Kate, his wife, when he was driving a bus and she got on. She became a regular passenger and the pair got to know each other over time and they are now married, living in the UK with two children. Martin, Claire and I ended up chatting for the rest of our journey about living in England, comparing it to life in Tanzania. Martin also asked me if I liked football, and who I supported. I aske him the same questions. There are, it has to be said, a lot of Arsenal and Manchester United fans in this part of the world. So far on our trip we have seen countless people wearing these teams’ shirts. So I was taken aback when Martin told me he was a Millwall fan. Turns out they were his local team when he moved to England.

As we were talking, it turned out that Martin was heading in the same direction as us. His brother was picking him up from a little café in Msata, the town we were heading to, and was going to drive him all the way to Arusha, his final destination. He offered to give us a ride around 80km in the direction we needed to get in, and elated at the prospect of grabbing a car, rather than a crowded hot bus, most of the way to Peponi, we jumped at his offer.

Martin, Claire and I then got off the bus in Msata and waited for around an hour for his brother to come pick us up. “He’s a big man,” said Martin, “I tell him he is eating too much. He’s very fat.” Claire and I laughed. The three of us enjoyed some sodas in the shade as well as some cheap (7p) chapattis, chatting away. Martin told us all about his time in the UK, complaining that the weather is too cold for him, before showing us pictures of his kids playing football. Before we knew it his brother had turned up and we were back on the road, sat in the back of a nice, flashy and air conditioned car. Martin and his brother were great fun and urged us to come and visit them in Arusha when we got the chance. We exchanged numbers and promised to be in touch in the near future. He drove us to the bus station and put us on the correct bus making sure we got a fair ticket price, before bidding us farewell and setting off on the rest of his trip.

A few hours and another bus trip later, and Claire and I had finally made it to Peponi. We thought that Firefly would not be beaten, but we were wrong. Peponi is a stunning place that sits right on the beach. There are bandas – thatched huts – available and they also offered camping, much to the delight of Claire and I. We would often stay at a place for a few days, camping for the first few nights to keep the cost down before upgrading to a room for a bit of comfort. This strategy not only meant that we managed to save a bit of money, but the upgrade from the tent to a proper bed was always greatly appreciated. Camping is uncomfortable. And hot. In Tanzania it’s incredibly hot. So once we moved to the banda, after three nights in an unbearable hot tent, we were ecstatic to sleep beneath a fan. Peponi is even closer to the beach than Firefly with a beach bar, a nice pool and some great nooks and crannies in which you could sit and chill out.

Our tent, for the first few nights of our stay.

During our stay we also got to see a pretty eclectic mix of wildlife running around. First up there is Poppy, a small Jack Russell who would accompany us on our walks along the beach. Then there was a nice grey cat who would come and sit by us as we chilled. There were also loads of monkeys hanging out in the trees, occasionally making their way to the ground. And, every night in the evening as the sun began to set, hundreds of hermit crabs, of different shapes and sizes, would make their way up the beach and walk around between the tables as we all had our dinner. There were also the huge colonies of ants walking around in designated channels that they had seemed to have constructed themselves. We were also joined on our last night in the banda by a luminous neon green metre long snake that was hanging out in our thatched roof.

During our time at Peponi we went for some leisurely walks up the beach and also popped into the nearby village. We also spent some time swimming in the sea, hanging out around the pool, playing some scrabble and eating some incredible, fresh seafood. We ate prawns, crayfish, calamari, tuna steaks, fish fillets and more. However, the best night had to be the night when we cooked for ourselves. Claire and I hadn’t prepared a meal since we left Miryante, so when we found out that you could borrow the barbecues at Peponi we got excited. That night, as the sun set, we sat by the barbie with sand between our toes listening to the Indian Ocean lapping against the shore. We had our music playing and were making our way through a nice bottle of red wine, cooking up red snapper fillets with a lime, chilli and ginger rub. We also made some jacket potatoes wrapping the spuds in tin foil and leaving them amongst the coals. We then sat down and tucked in to our first home cooked meal in a month. We couldn’t have been happier.

Claire BBQ-ing