Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
VITONGOJI
Beaches for scenery rather than swimming (though you can take a dip among the rocks at
high tide if you want), the shore near Vitongoji town has several small attractive baobab-
dotted coves with some weirdly eroded rocks and a little sand. The top spot is
Makoba
Beach
, just past the underutilised
Mbuyu Mkavu Hotel
( 0777-418532; r full board
US$100) which has big, simple rooms with Zanzibari beds and its own tiny beach. It's a
peaceful retreat, but with spotty service.
Makoba Beach is 7km out of Chake Chake. The last dalla-dallas are Vitongoji town
(Tsh500, 30 to 45 minutes) which is 2km away, but you might be able to convince them
to deliver you for Tsh2000. Take the left junction at the end of the paved road; the other
road leads to smaller
Liko La Ngezi Beach
. It's an easy bike ride. If you're driving here
yourself, go slow and don't use bright lights when passing through the army base.
PEMBA FLYING FOX
Pemba's only endemic mammal is a large and critically endangered bat
Pteropus voeltzkowi)
called
popo
in Swahili. They spend their days in trees
rather than caves and the island's biggest roosting site, home to some 4000 bats,
is in a burial forest at
Kidike
( 0777-472941; adult/child Tsh7500/2600)
about 10km northeast of Chake Chake. If you arrange things in advance, there
are cooking classes, homestay (US$20 per person) and other cultural activities
available. Kidike is 3.5km off the Chake-Wete road. Some people at the junc-
tion will hire their bicycles or you can wait for a lift.
Popo
can also be easily seen in
Wete
(
Click here
)
. There are several colonies
in
Ngezi Forest Reserve
(
Click here
)
but they're all very far from the trails.
MKAME NDUME (PUJINI) RUINS
About 10km southeast of Chake Chake, near Pujini, are the atmospheric ruins (late 15th to
early 16th centuries) of what was either a fort or a palace of the infamous Mohammed bin
Abdul Rahman, who ruled Pemba prior to the arrival of the Portuguese. Locally, Rahman
is known as Mkame Ndume (Milker of Men) and for Pembans, his name is synonymous
with cruelty due to the harsh punishments he meted out to his people. The primary feature
is a large stone staircase that led from the kilometre-long channel (now dry) connecting
this site to the ocean, and while only a few small walls are left standing, the remains of the
ramparts show its scale and, with some imagination, give an indication of Pujini's power in
its heyday.
