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I’d never seen a moonrise until I traveled to Tanzania.
I’ve seen my fair share of spectacular sunsets, and sunrises..but a moonrise is just something I’d never thought about until I landed on Paje Beach in Zanzibar.
There I was, lying on a sunbed chatting with some cool people I’d met from the hostel, when the familiar big, reddish purple half sun rose up from over the horizon.
Except it wasn’t the sun.
It was the moon, and the first time I’d ever seen a moonrise.
There it was.
A powerful, blood red moon rapidly peering up over the horizon just beyond the ocean.
Unfortunately, most of my pictures don’t do it justice. My budget Android phone was no match for the might and splendor of the moon.
There’s a special feeling you get when you are standing opposite a gigantic, blazing red moon that changes the beach from pitch black to a glowing night beach and looks as if someone switched all the street lights on.
In less than 10 minutes, I watched as the moon transformed from being a bright yellow and red disc far in the horizon to gradually moving further up in the sky and metamorphosing into the familiar white ball hanging higher up with the stars.
It’s difficult to appreciate how a person can miss the moon when you are cooped up in a flat in London – but when it makes such a difference to whether you can see properly on the beach at night, you really begin to appreciate it.
The best places to see the moonrise in or near Paje are the Rock restaurant in Pingwe, Sunset Beach Resort, Masai Mara bar in Zanzibar and of course, Paje Beach.
Once you’ve seen a moonrise in Zanzibar, you’ll never look at the moon in the same way again.