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Published: January 13th 2012
View from the fourth floor balcony of the House of Wonders
A nighttime market takes place every day in this park on the waterfrontZanzibar was definitely one of the highlights of our trip, but our time there had some ups and downs. We arrived at about 4am after 24 hours in transit. This was the wackiest transit in our itinerary as the only way we had been able to get a flight to Zanzibar was to fly from Maputo all the way up to Addis, then back down to Dar Es Salaam, then to Zanzibar. That, coupled with the 5-hour drive from Tofo to Maputo to catch the first flight (and my stressing out about getting stopped by the police and missing our flight), meant that we were ready to crash on whatever horizontal surface was available at our hostel, called Warere Town House. We had only booked a room for the following 3 nights, thinking it wasn't worth it to pay for a night that started at 4am. We were pleasantly surprised to find that they had prepared us a room for our arrival and would only charge us half price. We showered off the travel grime and immediately collapsed into the comfy, mosquito-netted bed. I had to put in some ear plugs due to the sounds of fighting tomcats and the early-morning
Muslim call to prayer that wafted in our open window, but we both managed to get in a good 6 hours of sleep before walking into town for a late breakfast.
Stone Town turned out to be a busy, friendly, vibrant, town rich in heritage from all sorts of different cultures. A vast majority of the residents called out "Jambo" and "Karibu" to tourists as we walked by ("Hello" and "Welcome" in Swahili). The streets are a warren of narrow alleys surrounded by three-storey stone buildings, which make for a nice, cool, shady walk to where you are going, if not a direct one. There are countless little shops in these streets and if you decline to enter, the shopkeepers graciously let you continue on your way rather than being pushy or following you. Despite getting lost several times, we never felt unsafe during the day and anyone we asked for directions was invariably helpful.
We spent our first day enjoying the food which was consistently delicious and soaking in the atmosphere, which is hard to describe, but very different from anywhere we've been before or since. It is a laid-back, friendly place which
just oozes history and culture, and the Zanzibaris, as I said before, are one of the most welcoming people that we've met. We checked out the House of Wonders which at one time was a sultan's palace but is now a museum, and learned a bit about the origins and development of such a unique place. I don't remember all of the details so I won't mis-quote anything here, but major influences were the slave trade, the spice trade, and the colonial expeditions to explore Africa.
On our second day we did a walking tour of Stone Town and learned about the ornate Zanzibar doors (decorated with designs that describe their owners' profession, such as chains for a slave trader), walked through the bustling spice market (probably the best-smelling market I've ever visited) and visited the Anglican church which is built on the site of the former slave market. There are still slave dungeons that tourists can visit and the tiny, slitted windows and cold, dark, cement slabs were sobering to see.
In the afternoon, we took a small boat through the choppy waves to Prison Island, so-called because it was designed as a
African entertainment
We watched this huge ferry unload on to the beach; the trucks and vans had to get up enough speed to make it up the sandy slope! prison and quarantine station during the days of cholera and plague. This was a bit of a disappointing excursion as the main facility on the island is now a slightly run-down, deserted sanatorium-type resort and most of the areas were designated "Residents Only". The highlight was the Giant Tortoise sanctuary where our boatman and guide ignored the "Do not touch or feed tortoises" signs and we got to scratch their wrinkly necks and in general observe their slow, ponderous, almost prehistoric-seeming behaviour. We also did a bit of beachcombing while our fellow tourists went for a swim (we hadn't been told to bring our bathing suits; memories of San Pedro de Atacama Hot Springs) and wade in the Indian ocean.
That evening we were treated to a surprise dinner with Taarab music as a wedding present from my cousin, organized by her friend and Zanzibari boyfriend. This was an amazing experience which greatly enriched our time in Stone Town. For those of you who have never heard Taarab music, it is definitely worth a Google or YouTube search or two. The food was delicious as well and we sat on pillows at a low table in the
Chuck watching the procedure for loading and unloading a ferry on the beach
This bus got stuck, and was towed up to the road with a huge rope. Even the locals gathered around to watch the proceedings. traditional style.
For Christmas we splurged on a boutique hotel called 236 Hurumzi, where we stayed in a room called Tour Pavilion. Each room in this hotel is done up with Arabian Nights style decor, and ours had a private observatory on the roof. The whole room was open to the balcony with only mosquito nets and curtains at night to keep in the air conditioning. It was very comfortable aside from the mid-day heat, but this was inescapable in Stone Town.
For Christmas Eve dinner, we ate at the Rootop Restaurant of our hotel. We had come by a couple of days earlier to make a reservation thinking that seating might be sold out. We were reminded of the predominantly Muslim religion in Stone Town when it turned out that we were the only guests to be seated in the traditional cushioned area (the few other diners chose to sit at tables). This meant that we had exceptional service for the 6 or 7 course meal (I can't remember there were so many!) and front row seats for the traditional music and dancing, which was interspersed with Christmas carols over the sound system.
It was definitely a memorable if not Christmassy Christmas.
Readers may be wondering why I haven't described any diving excursions yet. That's because we didn't get a chance to do any dives, let alone try to get our Advanced Open Water Certification as we'd hoped. Chuck's previous excursion in the Indian Ocean meant that he now had a raging sinusitis and there was no way that he would have been able to equalize properly during our first few days in Zanzibar. We were hopeful that this might clear up after Christmas and we might get a couple of dives in...unfortunately this was not to be either.
Christmas Day was when the downhill part of our Zanzibar stay began. A couple of people had told us that a fun thing to do is to rent scooters and tour around the island, stopping for lunch at a beach resort and in general, seeing more of Zanzibar. I was apprehensive, but we decided to go for it. Our first warning that this might not be the experience we were hoping for were the scooters themselves. Chuck's was a kick start with no working lights, gas gauge or
brakes. Mine at least had a key start, but the throttle and clutch were hard to grip and as the stress of the drive escalated, I had to grip even harder as my sweaty palms would cause my hands to slip off. I swear that the clutch and throttle began to stick as the day went on, but maybe it was just the numbness in my hands that meant I couldn't feel how much pressure I was using. We set out with a vaguely-drawn highway map and very few directions and the fun began. Driving in Africa is very hard to describe and you just have to do it to find out what it's like. The lanes are only a suggestion and people will try to fit wherever there is a gap and there is no minimum speed limit so there are countless sudden stops. You are competing with huge trucks belching black smoke, pedestrians, people on bikes, people pushing bikes laden with all manner of things (think bananas, firewood, live chickens), motorcyles and scooters laden with all manner of things (we saw one guy holding a plate glass window!), cattle-drawn carts, cattle, goats, dogs, chickens....add in driving on the
left, very few traffic lights or street signs, roundabouts, potholes and gravel-strewn curves and driving a scooter in this chaos is bound to take a few years off your life. Whoever recommended this activity must have nerves of steel, that's all I can say.
While we were trying not to get killed, we lost our way. When we ended up at the airport we knew that there had been a wrong turn somewhere. Luckily for us the friendly Zanzibaris were always willing to set us straight, and we eventually found our way out of Stone Town. We stopped again to ask for directions "to the beach" and thought we were going the right way, but when we ended up off-roading with our Vespas on a dirt track through a remote-seeming village, we decided to turn around. As we were getting back into a little town called Bambi that we had already driven through, it started to rain. Soon it became a monsoon-type downpour and since we could barely see and were being pelted painfully, we pulled over in Bambi. Chuck hadn't mentioned until this time that he wasn't feeling quite right. When the clouds lifted we decided
to press on, but not before I amused a gathering crowd of local children by being unable to get my scooter over a bump on to the road, and needed the assistance of yet another friendly Zanzibari. We soon found ourselves rained off the road again and by this time Chuck was looking distinctly green. Finally the sky cleared and the sun came out to dry us off as we drove back into Stone Town (surviving a construction site that narrowed to one lane over a gravel-covered bridge) and Chuck made it just in time to a gas station toilet to discover that he had food poisoning. I won't get into the gory details, suffice to say that gas station toilets are sketchy in North America, so imagine a gas station toilet in a Third World country. We finally made it back to the place where we'd rented the godforsaken machines and Chuck had to use one more public toilet before staggering back to our hotel. He spent the rest of Christmas, 2011 sweating, puking and using the toilet for other purges in our expensive hotel room with a view. My Christmas dinner consisted of chicken curry generously obtained for
me by a staff member from a local restaurant.
Needless to say, we didn't get any diving in, which is a regret. I also regret that we didn't get to the beach, aside from the little stretch on Prison Island. We spent our last day in Zanzibar recovering (Chuck), shopping and eating (me), and catching up on reading and journals. As I said, Stone Town and the Tour Pavilion room were lovely places to do these things. Still, I was feeling like we'd had a lot of lazy days with our time in the beach town of Tofo and now the chill town of Stone Town, so we were looking forward to getting back to the more active safari scene in the Serengeti, and having a New Years 2011 better than our Christmas!
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mom mcphie
non-member comment
exotic
glad I didn't know about the scooters ahead of time.