Where's PJ - April 2024? Africa!

Greeted by school kids, Pemba Island, Tanzania

It's my sixth continent.  Antarctica alone now awaits my footsteps.  I wasn't seeking a wife (though the next shot might look that way):

but mixing with the local culture in out-of-the-way places was definitely the most memorable part of this trip.  The village on Kilwa Kisiwani has about 1000 people, and the island has no roads and exactly three motorbikes.  Otherwise, you get around on foot or by bicycle.  They only have a few solar panels for power, and yet this fellow had a smart phone and wanted a selfie with the strange westerner with the big white beard.

Wildlife wasn't bad either.  No safari on this trip, so no pics of the 'Big Five' and their cohorts.  But there were rare Zanzibar Red Colobus Monkeys, and out in the Indian Ocean on some of the remote islands of Seychelles, there were many encounters with giant tortoises.

Among the flying creatures were fruit bats called Flying Foxes, red-footed boobies, Frigate Birds with the male's distinctive red throat pouch:

There were giant coconut crabs.  These guys were more than a foot across, but they get as big as three feet!

Then there were the massive baobab trees.  The ones on Madagascar are well known.  I had intended to see them, but a travel restriction on visitors from the African mainland (due to a cholera scare) nixed that visit.  I had to settle for other species that aren't quite so cartoon-like, but still monstrously impressive:

Let's just keep the pics going.  The ancient Arab-origin Dhow is the standard fishing vessel of east Africa. Note that the mast and boom supports are just made from ordinary 'sticks'.

Mozambique

Yes, those African sunsets were killer -- even caught a good 'green flash'

More to come in May.  Stay tuned.