Paje in Pictures

The pictures say it better than I can so here is Paje in pictures:

 

Clayton and I were walking along the beach when we strolled into the town. These boys immediately came out to see the giant (Clayton).

While I had a bit of a photo shoot with one of the little ones Clayton played soccer with the older boys. It got weird when one of the locals started speaking to him in Swahili, mistaking him for being a local as well due to his cappuccino skin!

Even-though he did not buy anything here, they showed up the next morning at Mango Beach with their Masaai brothers and turned the beach into a flea market – courtesy of Clayton telling them exactly where we were staying as well as promising that we will buy something. This is how we bought the most expensive piece of copper wire that now lies in the toolbox in the car.

 

Hidden in the mush are these evil sea urchins. Clayton was unfortunate enough to step into one of these – you do NOT want to step into one of them.

 

 

Some of the more expensive spots in Paje but we just had to go look how the other half lives. We ended up buying drinks at a quarter of the price at a local spot and sipped it on the beach watching the weather go from bad to worse.

 

Venturing from the beach we got to see the real Paje.

 

Drinking red wine and living the dream – that was one of the best meals. Freshly baked rolls with balsamic vinegar and salad. Breakfast was with a view and always had pancakes and nutella and avo juice (soooo good).

This was a slight disappointment that made the awesome experience at Mango Beach just a little bit less awesome. Matt took his mom to the Rock Restaurant (we would not have been able to even afford a cold drink) so we stayed in and ordered from Mango Beach. This was the bean curry or half a bean curry that Clayton ordered and I ordered the calamari… The calamari was so tough I could not even cut through it with a steak knife. After multiple attempts to gnaw through a strip I decided to send it back – something I never do. The little piece of shit for a chef told us that we had to specify how we wanted the calamari (rare, medium and well done) and because we did not specify he made it well done. No refund to be given. My family will know exactly how rubbery it is when I say it was worse than the duck we had for Christmas lunch in Grootbrak a couple of years ago… for the rest reading this: Bridgestone tyres aspire to be this rubbery!  We eventually spoke to the owner and we only paid half.

 

The snorkeling was disappointing but getting out on the open water on a local dhow was magical.