Spirited Away

Opening a hotel is never easy. But you have to admire the way the Fundu Lagoon resort on the lush island of Pemba has overcome obstacles. Just off the coast of Tanzania and north of Zanzibar, this small isle boasts few roads. Many parts are only accessible by boat. Then there are the dark arts. “Witch doctors will come to probe the deepest mysteries of voodoo,” British author Evelyn Waugh wrote of Pemba in 1931. “Everything,” he said, “is kept hidden from the Europeans.”

The place is far more welcoming to foreigners now, but making a go of Fundu Lagoon when it launched in 2001 still meant catering to local spirits as well as to overseas guests. At the behest of islanders convinced the location was haunted, the resort called on a witch doctor, two unlucky sacrificial bulls and several mediums to cleanse Fundu of its unwanted visitors.

And that’s too bad for them. Nestled alongside a remote beach stretching for kilometers on the island’s southwest coast, Fundu Lagoon’s dozen tented rooms offer simple, rustic comforts underneath thick Makuti thatch. Its handful of suites — a more recent addition to the resort costing another witch doctor and a couple of goats — boast plunge pools and space for private dining. Just make sure you’re hungry: dishes like crab ravioli in white wine and saffron sauce or grilled squillfish, all served up by local staff, make the best of what the island’s waters offer.

The same goes for the scuba diving. The reefs off the nearby isle of Misali, a conservation area that protects nesting turtles, reveal some of the most spectacular marine life in the world, with everything from surgeonfish to fairy basslets teeming amid mountains of unspoiled coral. If you rise early and take a short boat ride around Pemba, you might glimpse breaching spinner dolphins. Dry land’s no less rewarding. Whether sipping a Pemba punder, a local vodka cocktail, at the side of the pool (exorcised for just two goats and a skinny cow) or savoring sunset cocktails at the jetty bar, the only spirits you’ll be in touch with are the distilled kind. www.fundulagoon.com