The Unexpected

As you may know, we try to make the best of the unexpected, often because that's where we find the adventure in our travels. The following unexpected events were not adventurous, but they did add interest to our day.

On our first morning, as we enjoyed our first coffee, Marlene was passing through the apartment, and there perched on the bedside cupboard  was a cat. A young, healthy and quite domesticated, cat. We welcomed her with a scratch behind the ear, and our day went on as she hung around for hours. We affectionately named her Cat.

Our second unexpected event involved ladies tending their garden.s The beach here is very level, so when the tide drops, the distance to the water goes from only a few meters to a few hundred meters.

When the tide was out, we could see sticks in the sand and ladies tending to the area. We ventured out to see what it was all about, and the ladies were sitting in the shallow pools of water working their gardens of seaweed. Heavy string or cord went from stick to stick, and the seaweed grew on the string. They would remove a piece of seaweed, tear it in two, harvest one half, and tie the other half back on the string. They then let the harvested seaweed partially dry in the sun before bringing it ashore.

By late afternoon, we were on the balcony having a glass of wine when there was a noise from inside the apartment. Marlene's investigation found one of our large plastic bottle of water had fallen from the kitchen counter onto the floor, but Cat was not around, and so the mystery went unsolved.

A while later a grey streak passed behind me on our narrow balcony, and then the monkey stopped in the palm tree adjacent. The monkey and I were in eye to eye contact when another, then another, and another came onto the balcony. For the next hour, more monkeys came across our balcony similarly in 4s and 5s, stopping long enough for us to admire them, or maybe to see if they would get a handout. We're reasonably sure, one of the early visitors unknown to us, viewed the open door as an invitation to go in, snoop around, and tipped the water bottle off the counter.

Our stay is just starting, so we'll probably see more of the unexpected, here on the island of Zanzibar in the wilds of Africa.

Click here for the next story in this series: http://travellingwithsteveandmarlene.blogspot.ca/2016/11/the-rhythm-of-village.html