Day 37 – 42: Peponi Beach Resort

Distance:

289 km Bagamoyo to Peponi

9 296 km trip to date

It was time for a bit of rest. We travelled north to Peponi Beach Resort in the Tanga area where we were prepared to just sit around for 5 days and do nothing. The drive to Peponi again took us 7 hours – perfect tarred road where you are limited to the 50km/h for the never-ending villages, and with a lot of busses and trucks going north to the Kenyan border.

The landscape is very tropical with huge palm and banana trees and also patches of citrus. On sale next to the road was a fruit new to us – jackfruit.

Wikipedia: the jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit, reaching as much as 55 kg in weight, 90 cm in length. The flavor of the ripe fruit is comparable to a combination of apple, pineapple, mango, and banana.

We received our second speed fine. But now we know how they operate. Someone is sitting behind a bush (no vehicle visible) with a radar just where one passes the 50 sign. If you drive more than 50 they forward a picture of your vehicle with registration plates and the speed as well as the 50 sign also showing on the photo to the next traffic officers, who then pull you off the road, showing you the photo on their cell phone. Another Tsh32000. And not more than 30 km further down the road, they pulled us off again with a photo, but this time the back of the 50 sign was shown on the photo. When we argued about it, the officer told us that it was the cancellation 50 sign, and we just told him that they cannot prove that to us. They let us go after a long argument.

Peponi is a nice camp. Beautiful restaurant with good food, excellent swimming pool and bar area, quiet beach area for walking. The sea temperature is lukewarm, with crystal clear water where one can see the bottom and we swam every morning at high tide. During low tide the water is ankle deep for half a kilometer. We spent some time catching up on house-keeping – washing, repacking the vehicle, etc.