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Tanzania 2012

It's another long flying day to our final destination, the first flight is back to Selous, then on to Dar Es Salaam. It's a rather hot and nauseating bumpy ride, but we land safely. Finally we board our last small plane for the 20 minute flight to Zanzibar

 

Zanzibar

Zanzibar is an archipelago of historic Indian Ocean islands, awash with atmosphere, intrigue, and idyllic beach experiences. There is plenty to see, do and discover. As the birthplace of the Swahili, site of Sultans' Palaces and renowned for its spice plantations, the little island republic of Zanzibar features larger than life on the world map.


(click to enlarge)

After landing in Zanzibar town, we are met at the airport and taken on the 1 hour drive to Pongwe Beach.

 

 

It is certainly an eye-opener to see the real people and real homes and schools of Zanzibar, before arriving at our idyllic white sand beach. When we arrived, wow! What an amazing beach.



 

The room we had was at the end of the beach (Val's Room), and had the best view of the beach. It was a simple room, perhaps a little dated but really suited the wind down we wanted to do after 3 weeks of bouncing around in Safari trucks.

 

 

 

There was a lot of ants on our patio early in the morning, and we had a ceiling fan that would go into a thunka thunka mode every once in a while that ended with us turning it off on hot evening, but they provided us with an oscillating fan. When you looked out onto Pongwe Beach from our room, it was pretty hard to complain about a few ants and some warm temperatures.

 

Croc footprintsHermit Crab tracks

Each night would include an excellent dinner, and always a yummy dessert, like a fruit filled coconut with Ice Cream. One night the dinner was more traditional Swahili food with King Fish, complete with traditional Swahili entertainers.

 

Every morning we woke up to this amazing beach, and lazed around, reading books, sitting in the sun, avoiding the sun, swimming or wading depending on whether the tide was in our out.

 

   

Even when the tide was out you could wander on a sandy bottom sea for almost a kilometer. Our first day would be spent sitting on the beach, lathering up with SPF50 sunscreen and watching the ladies from the village wander the beach collecting seaweed to sell overseas.

 

Our Second day would be spent in the shade avoiding more sun on our sunburns. In our room we were provided with a wicker basket complete with towels, and a little green flag, if we ever wanted a drink we just had to plant the flag in the sand at the foot of our recliners. Within a few minutes someone would come and take our order, after a couple days I was tired of Fanta, and asked for Iced Tea... "What? I don't understand". I tried to explain, "it's like Chai Bora (hot tea), but it's cold". A few minutes later a girl comes with a bug fancy glass complete with fruit decor, looks great! After my first sip I realize they have made me the world's strongest Long Island Ice Tea.

 

 

With the tide out we took a wander out towards the reef, it seemed like we could walk forever, and the water barely came over our waists.

 

 

That night we had another great dinner, and as we are sitting there eating dessert, I notice something crawling along the rafters in the roof. Apparently a couple of Bush Babies are regulars here, they come down and the bartender gives them bananas.

 

It's always a terrifying walk back to the room across the sands for Norine, every 4 or 5 steps there is a hermit crab winding it's way through the sand. Luckily we have a good flashlight, but it still scares the crap out of you when you don't notice the Masai Askari's on the beach until they say "Jambo".

On our third day we would spend the morning on the beach (in the shade), and then head to the Historic Stone Town.

 

STONE TOWN

Stone Town also known as Mji Mkongwe (Swahili for "old town") is the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar. The heart of Stone Town mostly consists of a maze of narrow alleys lined by houses, shops, bazaars and mosques, with streets that are too narrow for cars. It was the flourishing centre of the spice trade as well as the slave trade in the 19th century. Its architecture, mostly dating back to the 19th century, reflects the diverse influences underlying the Swahili culture, with a unique mixture of Arab, Persian, Indian and European elements. For this reason, the town was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Stone town would also be the first place where we had to use the Tanzanian Money. It is Shillings, and is about 1500 Shillings to 1 dollar. Americans that see this money will never make jokes about Canadian money looking like Monopoly money again.

 

 

It was very interesting to see it's old buildings and narrow winding passageways, but it was also kind of depressing (especially having been to similar layouts in Greece), the people are friendly, but the town is in very poor condition, and there is lots of garbage around. One of the things that made it much more interesting was our Muslim guide Habibu, a local University student with a vast knowledge of the area.

 

 

We meet Habibu at the main market area, people are selling everything, we even see a guy with a blanket selling 8-Track players and old circuit boards. Across the street lines of daladala share taxis are waiting for their fares. From the front of the market we wound our way into the Meat Market, kind of disgusting, slabs of meat are hanging from hooks, and there is flies everywhere.

 

 

From the Meat Market we crossed over to the Fish Market, it is astonishing just how many varieties of fish are for sale here. There is everything from tiny anchovy like fish to sharks. Although not quite as disgusting, it is 10 times as smelly.

 

 

As a welcome change to our senses, we left the fish market and entered the spice and fruit Market. We learned some more Swahili...

Hapana Asante - No Thank You

 

 

Our next stop was the most disturbing of our entire trip, the former slave market site. Until slavery was abolished in Zanzibar in 1897, this was the center of the selling and torture of Africans prior to shipping them off in overloaded boats to Europe and the Americas.

 

These small rooms would be stuffed full of slaves, until it was time for the weekend auctions. Almost 70 people in these dark and barren spaces, men stored in one room, and women and children in the other, Happily all that remains of this slavery today is these rooms and the monument to the slaves, hopefully this is never forgotten.

   

There is no shortage of religion here, there is a mix of both Christians and Muslims, but About 95 percent of Zanzibar's population follow the laws of Islam. Every corner we turn it seems there is another mosque, twice during our tour our guide has to leave us to go pray.

   

There is some very interesting architecture around Stone Town, especially the large Indian doors with Elephant guards. Right next to them are run down buildings, very angry looking cats chewing on garbage, and some of the scariest looking power lines I have ever seen. We also had a good laugh at the little kids around town, they wave at us and say "Jambo Mzungu"... Hello White Person!

 

 

   

We spend a little time at the museum learning more of the history of Zanzibar and Stone Town, before we make our way to the Africa House Hotel. Africa House goes back more than 150 years and is a very popular destination to watch the sunset. Norine and Habibu order pop and juice, but I go "All-In" and order the Funky Monkey, a rather delicious drink served in a coconut, it went down way too fast.

 

 

 

The sun goes down rather quickly, and we do a little souvenir shopping before a blackout wraps the area in darkness. We say goodbye and Asante to our guide, and our driver takes us back to Pongwe Beach in the dark. Apparently this is common, as the government does rolling blackouts in a different area each night, as they say the people have used up their allotment of power.

The trip to Stone Town truly gave us a glimpse into the lifestyle of the people, not just in the town, but also talking to our driver as we passed the many small villages and ramshackle schools along the way. Once we got home we started planning how we were going to send some school supplies to some of the needy schools of Zanzibar... they just need the basics; pencils, rulers, notebooks. We can help.

On our last night we had an excellent dinner and then had dessert with the Bush Babies again, and in what seemed to be a blur we were walking back to our room for our last night in Africa... where did the time go?

Lala Salama - Good Night/Sleep Well

On our last day we had to pack up and leave our room, we left our luggage with reception, and spent the rest of our day hanging out at the infinity pool. Not a bad way to wrap up our trip, lazing in the sun, having drinks brought to our chairs.

 

 

With a lot of sadness we had to leave our little paradise, and pile into the van for the drive to the Zanzibar airport.

When we get on our plane we notice that our pilot is Marta, the Spanish woman we met at Selous Safari Camp. She asks how we are, makes sure everyone is on board, and we are off. Our flight from Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam landed before it was supposed to take off from Zanzibar... funny. That meant we had a little longer wait in the hot and humid airport in Dar, but we were on our way home.

 

Even though we spent 12 hours in the Schiphol airport on a rainy day in Amsterdam, the memories of our trip couldn't be dampened by the disorganization and disfunction of AirTransat and their flight back to Vancouver. Even though we paid extra in advance for our Club Class seats so we could sit together, they sat us apart, and wouldn't do anything about it. I asked another passenger traveling alone, who happily swapped seats so we could sit together for the 9.5 hour flight. Even their "Modern" entertainment system couldn't play a movie without high speed shuffling to random spots every 15-20 minutes. Can't bring me down... our luggage was first off at YVR, and we rushed home to the smiling face of our dog Silva, who was just a little over-joyed to have us home.

Hakuna Matata - No Worries

It was certainly an unforgettable trip, the trip of a lifetime, it would certainly rank as the best trip we have ever taken, and given it was in celebration of our 25th anniversary that only seems right. Africa... we'll be back.

Kwaheri, nitakuja tena