NEPAL TOURISTS I

 

                                                                                                                           10th May 2015

    The second day in Nepal had already started. At 9am we went downstairs to have breakfast. Laer, we left the hotel and we decided to visit de Batsala Temple. But first, let me introduce it: 

   The stone temple of Batsala Devi depicts many intricate carvings; however, it is most famous for its bronze bell, known to local residents as 'the bell-of barking dogs', as when it is rung, all dogs in the vicinity begin barking and howling! The colossal bell was hung by King Ranjit Malla in 1737 A.D. and was used to sound the daily curfew. It is nowadays rung every morning when goddess Taleju is worshipped.

          After seeing this, we wanted to explore a bit more the city, so we went walking to Swayambhunath. This is an ancient religious complex atop a hill in the Kathmandu Valley, west of Kathmandu city. It is also known as the Monkey Temple as there are holy monkeys living in the north-west parts of the temple.

         While we were taking some photos of that building, it started to rain, (you can see it because of the grey clouds) and as we didn´t carry our umbrellas with us at that moment, we had to go to the nearest bar to cover ourselves. It was 13.20h then, so we decided to have lunch there. It was called TAVERN PUB & GRILL.

         The food was really nice and also the ambiance!! It all costed 1588,02 NPR (15€).

          When the sky was clear enough, we went to the buddhist area of Boudhanath. It was kinda nice!

       It was 7pm when we finished our tour and we were really tired of walking, so we walk for the last time back to the hotel.

AIRPORT MOOD

                                                                      9th May 2015

         At 4.30 we left the hotel. We were very sleepy but we managed it well drinking one-or 2- coffee each one of us. We left Stone Town and we took the car to go to the airport.

     When we arrived there, we parked the car in the rent-parking and we entered the building. The plane from Kenya Airways (580€ each) took off at 5.45am. We did one escale, and we arrived at Kathmandu Airport at 2.45 am (10th May).

      A bus was waiting for us to carry us to the hotel (25 minutes far from the airport). The hotel was named NEPALAYA***, located in Thamel-17, Kwabahal, Kathmandu. It had a flat roof, were we could see the whole city and mountains(that was amazing), wiFi, and it costed 190.45€ each.

 

    It was already 5am and we were very tired, so what we did was to sleep until 11am and later we rent a car in Cheap Car Rentals/ beoo.com. After doing this, we started walking until reach the centre of the city, where we took some photos of the local markets placed there and also of the picturesque inhabitants.

                                                    

                        
     After discovering some of the major cities of Kathmandu, we decided to enter a restaurant because it was lunch time(14h) and when we finished eating these delicacies, we went back walking slowly -while admiring the city- back to the hotel.
    

BYE BYE ZANZIBAR

 
 

                                                                                                                  8th May 2015

        

             The last tourist-day for us in the island was about to beginning and we decided to do something different: we wanted to go on the Spice Tour of Zanzibar ($40 each). The duration of this activity was about half a day, so it was the perfect plan for us: We just had to go there and the evening return to the hotel, pack our suitcases, do the last walking through the streets and prepare ourselves to take a flight with the duration of 30h to reach Nepal.

                    At 11.30 a bus was waiting for us just in front of our hotel to go on that tour, which started at  Kidichi Village.

 First of all, we visited the  most famous ruins of Zanzibar:  The Persian Baths. They were built in 1850 by Seyyid Said bin Sultan. (They are referred to as "Persian" because their construction was commissioned to Shirazi architects. The word "Hamamni" means " baths").

 

 

                After seeing this magnificent and extraordinary buildings, we were led to the Kidichi Village, were the spices were waiting for us. But before talking about food or any kind of its products, let me tell you what we did. 

           We first saw the whole village in about an hour or so. We saw its big doors, streets and people. I will now make a brief introduction of this place: Kidichi is located at the highest altitude in Zanzibar (110m) above sea level. It´s very close to most Spice farms in Zanzibar and located in the most fertile land, that is the reason why most of the Sultans plantations were around this place. 

       What we did next was to entered some  tents, huts or similar, where there were some monitors with species and plants. They explained to us the procedence of those foods and a little indication of how could we use them in cooking.

 

 

          In this tour, we found lots of spices! As an example, we saw vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, garlic, ginger, coriander, oregano and more! We also saw some fruits as: banana, pineapple, jack fruit, custard fruit, oranges, star fruit, tangerine, passion fruit, mango, avocado, pear, papaya, grape fruit and many others.

 

                  Just after finishing this amazing and surprising activity, we shared lunch with our tour partners, they were so nice! 

            At 6pm aprox. we arrived to the hotel, we packed our bags for the next day and for dinner time, we drove to Obama Beach to spend there our last night in the beach while eating typical food. The temperauture was incredible and the people so kind... We didn´t wanna leave it!

  

 

Night, night!!

  xx

                                                           

EXPLORING NATURE II

 


                                                                                                                  7th May 2015

         There were only 2 days left to go to Nepal, so we had to take advantage of those days, and that´s what we did. On Thursday morning we went sunbathing to Nakupenda Beach after breakfast. We went by car, and when we arrived there, we saw a little shop for renting boats, so we decided to rent one. It costed $50 per hour. 

 
 

     Staying out there was a dream! When Olivia and I went to Paje Beach, we both thought it was like paradise, but when we were walking down Nakupenda´s sand I didn´t know what to think... The entire island was surprising little by little our minds! We didn´t want to leave it!!

    We had lunch at the very beginning of the beach, inside one tent. This had several people inside preparing food so they invited us and we became good friends!

When were packing our stuff, preparing for leaving that marvelous sand, we notice some sound coming out the sea... There were dolphins! We couldn´t believe it but it was real! We both dived into the sea and also, we found some corals and shells. After that we went back to the hotel. It was quite hot and late, so we decided to stay there until the next day.

 

EXPLORING NATURE I

                                                                               6th May 2015

        On Wednesday morning, Greta and I wanted to visit the most famous photographic museum of the island, because after arriving there we´d seen it on a magazine. This museum is called: "The Beautiful Eyes" but before it, we went horse riding because we knew that the evenings in the island were very, very hot, so we decided to visit the Maisha Mazuri Horse Riding Club(the night before we´d agreeded to with the owners of the horses).  

   It is located in the heart of a characteristic local fisherman's village, set along the beach of Kiwengwa, in the north-east of the island. 

     We took our stuff and we drove with our rented car directly to the club.  We arrived there 45 minutes later or so, we changed our clothes in a little cabin and we went outside to the beach (it´s just in Kiwengwa Beach). 

    A monitor gave us one horse for each one of us, they were called Sandy and Julian, and as we knew how to ride them, he gave us total freedom but told us that the activity ($35 each) was to swim on horseback in the ocean. And in was really funny!

 

         Swimming on horseback in the warm water of the ocean was an undescribable feeling... The horses took us into the waves!!! It was a very greatful experience! (We spent there 1-1.5 hours)

                                                       ***

      After leaving the horses we went to tan ourselves in the Kiwengwa Beach until 13.30 pm. At that time, we went directly to a restaurant called The Globe inn, and when we finished lunch, Greta and I visited the Kiwengwa Caves (15pm). At 18 pm we were resting in the hotel and at 19h aprox. we visited the museum. 

  
   
(We even saw these adorable animals in the Cave!!)

      

SAFARI DAY

                                                                                                                      5th May 2015

              The 5th morning of the 5th day on the island was the same until breakfast. When we were drinking our coconut juice and eating some mangos, we heard some information in the table in front of us saying something about "Cheeta´s Rock", a famous safari near Stone Town. We hadn´t planned any activity actually, so we decided to sing in on that interesting activity. I mean, everyone that travels to Africa does a safari, it´s vital, isn´t it? 

              So, at 10 am, we left the hotel and we went directly to the bus station were we asked for that safari. A man standing there told us that we had to participate in that safari if we bought the entrance on the internet.  We did that. We searched for this page using the wiFi of the station (because no one in the town used it) and we bought the tickets for 10.40 am. http://www.cheetahsrock.org/

                      The tickets costed $140 per person, and we arrived to the safari at 12 pm. The first animal we saw a family of gorillas. They all were coming slowly towards us, so we went to see another species. 

 

                       Next, we saw a lemur, and 3 pumas, they were all doing nothing but anyway, they were curious. Also, we saw some elephants and a lion hunting some buffalos.

                    After that show, we were watching at the meerkats, one of them came next to me. The people close to us were laughing about that situation, but so do I. The animal started smelling me, it looked at me as a little cat, and I gave to it a walnut and it left us while he was eating that. So lovely!

                                                                    ***

             In the evening, when we arrived to the city (5pm) we decided to go to a spa resort there, so we chose the "Sea Cliff Resort" because before going to Tanzania, we searched it on Google and it was the best one on the island.  We entered the SHWARI spa and we spent all our evening until dinner time enjoying the paceful massages and chinese music. It was marvelous!