Evening all. We’ve just had a friend, Ivo, staying with us and for part of his stay we took ourselves off to the other side of the island where all the tourists hang out. As it turned out we were about the only tourists there. A bit of a quiet period apparently. A brief selection of pics to capture the mood follow:

A Masai walking down the beach. Coolest dudes I’ve ever seen. You try making a red and purple check skirt, sandals made from old tyres, and a brolly (yes, they carry brollies) look cool. These blokes can.

Rothco shot (the two blotches are Nadine and Ivo). And below, a picture of the Rhine by some Gursky bloke  which went for $2.7 million a week or two back. A rip off if you ask me. Mine would look much better on the wall. It’s yours with a frame for 50 quid.

$2.7 million for this! You have to be off your trolley mate.

This has much more going for it than the sad, wet polaroid snap above it. Yours for a tenner. I’ve dozens of them. That other bloke only did one.

We basically spent the entire holiday sitting on our arses watching stuff drift in front of the camera.

Some photogenic little kiddy lost in a daydream. It was only when I hit him with a decent half pitched coconut that he woke up.

View from our room balcony. Don’t know if it has anything to recommend it as a shot but I like it and it’s my blog.

My wife under a tree shrub thing surrounded by the druggy dayglo colours of Jambiani.

You might just be able to make out the wee lad playing with a home made boat. All the kids had one. Each had makeshift rigging that mimicked the larger boats. We were told its how they start learning the mechanics of sailing before they graduate onto the real thing. A shame they don’t do the same with swimming. A lot of fishermen still die each year because they can’t or are weak swimmers. While we were there we heard of a celebration in the village for a fisherman who had turned up alive 3 days after his boat had gone down. He’d simply clung to a piece of wood for 2 days and ended up a couple of islands away. If he hadn’t hit that last island the next stop was a 3,000 or so mile drift to the Indian sub-continent.

Our holiday front door.

Local kids walk up and down the beach selling home baked food.

This one was selling ‘visheti’ small sugary doughnut twists. 10c each. I managed to knock her down to 3c. She wouldn’t stop crying until I gave her a pen (no ink left in it). Anyway, very tasty but a bit of a sugar hit.

Local game of footy between the ‘Village Under 10s’ and the ‘Masai Calves’. The calves got slaughtered, during and, I think, after the game.