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Published: April 20th 2005
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Happy Easter! I have just returned to Dar es Salaam after a nice 5 day vacation in sunny, sandy, beautiful Zanzibar. As always, life in Africa is full of mini-adventures, and many amusing moments (at least in retrospect).
Zanzibar is known as the fabled spice island and is accessible by either 1.5 hour ferry or 20 minute flight from Dar. Deciding to get some good photo ops, Sean (new traveling partner, roommate-to-be, patient listener of many rants...) and I took the ferry on Thursday morning. After leaving him to sleep off the remnants of a very productive night (I chose to languish in the bubble, he was not so prudent), I spent the ferry ride outside chatting with a missionary and his ex-wrestler friend (Nikita?). Interesting fellow… never knew missionaries had such a good income?
Upon arrival in
Stonetown, we were kindly deposited at our hostel by the missionaries and explored the area. Stonetown is a completely different world - it has very narrow winding streets and nothing seems to be perpendicular. In other words, for people who have a poor sense of direction (i.e. ME), it’s quite easy to get a little disoriented. And the roads are a bit treacherous as one must navigate and avoid crazy drivers and the various touts who wish to sell you anything from Bongo Music CDs to cashews to take you on a spice tour or offer you weed. The latter, btw, was not offered to me at all - but for some reason Sean was approached numerous times… lol
At any rate, we managed to meander through the streets and find Freddy Mercury’s restaurant, which, incidentally, did not play Queen music (instead subjected us to horrible techno rave music, set on repeat of course). I was fortunate enough to take some great photos of the children in Stonetown who were playing on scaffolding or creating their own “air hockey tables.” They were so friendly and invited me to join in - honestly, the kids here are so beautiful…
Our evening entertainment proved to be very amusing and I take full blame for this misadventure. For some reason, had an idea that it would be great to see traditional African dancing and music (but since when does a trumpet = traditional African instrument?). So I dragged Sean to the old fort in Stonetown where we were subjected to the gyrations and pelvic thrusting of an overly ambitious and enthusiastic Tanzanian man. Sadly he was neither fully clothed nor particularly attractive to the senses (both on the eyes or the nose) and he refused to end his solo performance at our table-side until Sean kindly parted with 1000Tsh. Key quote of the night: “I can’t look away.” No further comment necessary.
The next day was spent on Mr. Mitu’s spice tour. This was really interesting as our guide took us to various farms where the spices are grown. Highlight of this day was a tie between seeing cacoa (mmm… origin of heavenly goodness known as chocolate) and munching on a really bitter quinine leaf (basis for some anti-malarials - wish our guide had told us that prior to biting into it - yuck). Other amusing events during the day include the fearless poultry, who seem to think that they have the right of way. I gasped as a mommy chicken led her chicks straight across our path, only to have our minivan run them over. Our driver assured us confidently that they were ok… I have my doubts.
Beaching was the itinerary for the next few days. We headed north to
Nungwi and arrived to discover a totally different atmosphere. Nungwi is essentially a resort town with many bungalows set on the beachfront and not much else to do but suntan, eat, and swim - lovely relaxation. On Saturday night we headed to
Kendua to check out the full moon party. Now Kendua is about a 30 minute walk along the beach from Nungwi, which is fine during low tide, but during high tide, there is no beach to walk upon. So despite warnings from a local with whom I had the dubious honour of sharing my last name, we ventured into the incoming surf at 1:30am to make it back to our hotel. Luckily the tide was just coming in so we made it home safely, and were able to appreciate the beautiful halo around the moon…
Again the phrase
“Hakuna Haraka Afrika”(there is no hurry in Africa) was prominent in my mind as we embarked upon the mission of renting a sea kayak the next day. After a few frustrating and circuitous conversations with various “businessmen,” Sean and I were comfortably seated in our kayak, heading north (maybe south - dunno,look at map) along the coast. Now I’m not one to do much physical exertion on the water so basically I relaxed and suntanned while Sean showed off his physical prowess and expertise. I succeeded in filling his seat with water once I figured out which side of the paddle to use…
At any rate, we headed back to Stonetown to catch the ferry back to Dar es Salaam on Monday morning. By this time I was craving sweet things (no, fruit salad does not qualify as dessert for me) so went in search of lovely ice cream (mmm…) and more beautiful kangas (so very very pretty…). However, the enjoyment of the morning was abruptly lost upon being accosted by 6 touts at one time, all yelling at each other and trying to get us to follow them to various places. Was quite intimidating actually…… and caused both of us to be quite done with the traveling-experience-game. But we managed to make it onto the 3pm ferry, both of us aptly bestowed the name "Seam" on our tickets (shrug, whatever), where I had the pleasure of having a ringside view of the mass chaos that ensues just before the boat leaves…… although the gangplank was gone, people kept throwing luggage overboard and trying to hurdle across the water and the sizeable railing to get on the boat. Finally, after much pushing and yelling, we were Dar-bound…
Thus ends my first trip to Zanzibar. Next time I would like to go see the Eastern coast and hopefully more untouched beaches, and maybe I'll give in and see those endangered red-bottomed monkeys (not a big fan of primates, to be honest). Of course need to indulge in more ice cream and maybe another pretty kanga or two... or three?
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