The day’s mission was to make our way up North to a small town called Kaole. We(Tej, India, Noah, Lisa and myself) did make it there, but somehow when we navigated our way North from Dar we got a little mixed up. We ended our drive five kilometres North of Kaole, yes I know we were coming from the South! So we were now in Bagamoyo, but why waste the drive? We found a beach and went out to enjoy. The tide was down and there was a very flat sandy area that we walked out on toward the ocean for about a kilometre. It was great, there was crabs, fish and all the other little goodies that one would expect to see. When we left the car to go down to the ocean there was a very nice man that offered to sell us all sorts of seafood. Thinking that might not be a bad idea for supper I told him we would talk after being out of the water. Well sure enough he was by the car waiting for us 45 minutes later. We talked and worked out a price (25 jumbo Prawns for 5000 shillings, about $4.50) and I was off for a walk with him to go and see them and do the pickup. After we made it the 5 minute walk to his brother’s house, we found out that he was sold out for the day. So plan B, we started to make our way to his friends house to get some from him. About another 5 minutes in and I was starting to wonder just how far away “My friends house is not too far” really was. So after a little language barrier problem I figured out that he wanted to take bikes to this house and pickup the prawns. Well I was not ready to jump on a bike and follow a local into the village for 15 minutes with only a little money and nothing else. So plan C, I told him to take the bike and go to the house and get them and I would meet him back at the beach. So I gave him the 5000 shillings and he was off. I turned and made my way back to the beach and wondered if I had made a mistake. After meeting up with the others at the beach we waited for the seafood king! Twenty minutes later and we called it off. I truly don’t think that he tried to rip me off and I really don’t care if he did. The only thing that I hope did happen with the money was that it was used for him or his family for food or whatever else they need.
So back to the mission of the day, we made our way South out of Bagamoyo and after a little help from the locals and a couple of kilometres on rough roads we were there. Kaole is a small town that was founded in the 13th century. It was an ocean front town that was driven by the Slave trade and then was left to go north to Bagamoyo due to the better shipping docks. The main attraction we were drawn to was the ruins that were of a Mosque, some local’s houses, and a cemetery. These tombs that were in the cemetery were very different in the sense that they had vertical columns that indicated the importance of the individual inside. The higher the column the more important the person was. The construction of these buildings was out of hard corals (full size and shape), shell fish that had been crushed to form cement and water. Needless to say this did not seem like the most ergonomically friendly building process. The neat part of the ruins that we visited was that it had been taken over by Mangrove trees on the ocean side. These trees tell us that there must have been a great wave or other natural change. There is no reason that these people would have made the town in a location that was at risk of being overrun by natural causes.
So home ward bound, to our prawnless dinner. After a cooling shower it was time for a burger dinner, off to rest my full belly, goodnight. Eric.
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