East African safari operator Foxes Safari Camps has released a powerful video of the experience on offer at its Lazy Lagoon Island Lodge, on a private island off the coast of Tanzania, within the Zanzibar channel.
Life at the lodge is deliberately slow, intentionally channelling the “pole pole” lifestyle – a Swahili phrase meaning “slow slow”. This encourages guests to connect with the true meaning of island living with a bit of help from pool-side loungers, beachfront salas, an al fresco reading room and leisure areas for a round of snooker or darts.
“Most people need to disconnect from the mainland and get more energy and then return to their duties. Ocean is a treatment. Ocean is medicine and has many benefits. It is spiritual to human beings. Ocean is good,” says the production’s narrator Abdul Fungo, Clerk at Lazy Lagoon Island Lodge.
The lodge’s 12 A-frame, en-suite bandas each feature an airy loft with two twin beds – ideal for families travelling with children – and an upstairs balcony with unobstructed ocean views. The downstairs area, with its double or twin beds, leads out onto a spacious wooden deck with a hanging daybed and the beach a few steps away.
Restful beach days can be interspersed with water activities, day trips to desolate sandbars and the lesser-visited historic sites of Bagamoyo and 13th century Kaole Ruins along Tanzania’s Swahili coastline.
The Fox family began building the lodge in 1992 and completed it in 2000, sourcing their building materials from the family farm in the Mufindi Highlands. Guests often like to finish off their safari holiday at one of the Foxes Safari Camps in Tanzania’s southern and western national parks with a few days by the ocean.