Having the Munchies be a bad thing

 

Some of the best beaches in Zanzibar are to be found of the East side of the island.   Paje,  Bejuwe, Dongwe and Jambiane  consist of a mixture of resorts and restaurants where visitors can sit back and watch locals go about their daily life seaweed farming and fishing whilst Dows glide across striped azure and aquamarine coloured waters.    Machamvi Kae (just north of these beaches)  is much quieter and more chilled than some of the main tourist areas (where the party goes on all night) so this is where we decided to base ourselves.    Our stay at Sagando Hostel started out well.  The room was great, it was one of the cheapest rates going for accommodation (ie backpacker affordable),  the gardens brimming with flowers,  humming birds, lizards and bush babies.   There was a small bar,   restaurant  and plenty of space to sit and watch the world go by.

Unfortunately the longer we stayed the more hit and miss the food service became which I suspect was due to the amount of smoking that went on by the staff and the subsequent raging munchies that follows.   They ran out of coffee, butter, chips,  potatoes and didn’t replace them for days, despite the store only being 2 minutes walk up the road,  the toaster didn’t work, most of the food on the menu (apart) from the fish was taken off as no one seemed to be able to rouse themselves to go shopping,  some meals were  inedible and portions became ridiculously small, we knew the end had come when the chef and marketing manager quit.

“Can I have the calamari?” I asked

“”No calamari”   was the reply

“Do you have Octopus then?”

“No Octopus” but we have a big fish the waiter said

“We had fish earlier”  What else do you have”

He thought for a bit then replied brightly “prawns”

“two prawns please”

5 minutes later he came back

“Sorry no prawns…………. but we have a fish”

“Last night you served us 3 small nuggets of  kingfish each and charged us  9 dollars a meal  so no thanks”.

Since the only other place to eat was the resort on the beach and they were having a bbq for guests that night we settled on pancakes and chips.  The food came out served with a smattering of prawns!  Interesting.  We finished up and asked for some coffee

“sorry no coffee left”.    Absolutely hopeless – what more can i say.

The worse thing about this particular hostel  was the blatant lie that they had  wifi when they didn’t.   What they actually had was access to the resort next door’s password and this was changed the day before we arrived due to our hostels owner owing someone money.   We stayed 9 nights and despite our constant reminders still had not sorted it out by the time we left.   But the resort down the road did a good deal and for 10 dollars a day we could use all its facilities, including swimming pool, snorkelling equipment, wifi , sunbeds and restaurant and for anything we spent was the 10 we has already spent was taken off the bill.    An awesome deal.