Pemba

Note, this is for Pemba in Mozambique, not Zanzibar!

In 1999, my mum and I went to visit my sister in Pemba; she was spending a year helping to run a backpacker’s camp, right on the beach. She knew quite a few people in town and one night wangled us a visit on board a traditional dhow that was docked in Pemba Harbour. While we were sitting on the deck, watching the sun go down, we saw a small school of dolphins appear in the bay. We got into the dhow’s rubber dinghy and followed them; they let us swim in the water near them, although never letting us get quite close enough. We swam with them for half an hour or so, and then they turned and went out into the deeper water. I’ll never forget that—I hope they’re still there.

Pemba was a magical, wild place. The buildings were riddled with bullet holes from the civil war and everywhere there were “beware of the mines” signs, but there was something in the air. I would go back in a second.