Zanzibar

This post comes after the end of internships one, not before.

So, a total of six of us wanted to go to Zanzibar for a few days over break here. My friend Stephanie and I had a slightly shorter itinerary than the other four, because she flew back home on the 16th and I had to meet my mom at the airport on the 18th, while the rest of the group had a little more time to kill. We all rode an overnight bus to Mombasa together on Wednesday night, then we split up: Steph and I got a flight from Mombasa to Zanzibar, while the others went down the coast a little farther by land then caught a sailboat into Kendwa, a village on the northern tip of the island of Zanzibar.
First, I must say something about overnight buses from Nairobi to Mombasa. They are not pleasant. I slept very little thanks to the bumpy roads and the constant starting and stopping- even in the middle of the night the Mombasa highway is packed, bumper to bumper traffic because it’s such a major route for distributing goods shipped in through the Mombasa port. Then, when we arrived in Mombasa at about 6 in the morning, we had to sit and wait in the bus station for a while until it got light enough to be safe to walk outside.
Mombasa is HOT. At seven in the morning, as Steph and I wandered in search of a cab to take us to the airport, we were already drenched in sweat. It just doesn’t cool off in Mombasa, at least not in December. We found a taxi and set off for the airport. A short 45 minute plane ride later, we were at the Zanzibar international airport. Which is roughly half the size of the Central Wisconsin Airport, but with none of the security features. As we walked toward the door with our luggage, we noticed a cardboard sign with “CUSTOMS” written on in in Sharpie. Under the sign sat a friendly looking toothless old man. Turns out “customs” in Zanzibar means waving a polite greeting to the old guy then heading on your way. The heat in Zanzibar puts Mombasa to shame. As we walked out of the airport into a tropical sauna, we were attacked by about seven thousand cab drivers. I stuck with my usual selection tactic for this sort of situation: find the tallest guy and get out of there.
“Which hotel can I take you ladies too?” Hmmmm, it’s just that we don’t exactly have reservations anywhere. Steph had heard that a hostel called St. Monica’s was pretty cool, so we had the taxi take us there and hoped they had an open room. We were in luck. The room was amazing, small and cozy but with a private balcony. Bednets and ceiling fan included, all for $25 per night. St. Monica’s happens to be the site of the last slave market in Africa. As part of our overnight package we got a tour of the cellar below the hostel where slaves where kept until market day, and the cathedral built in honor of a British guy that worked to end slavery in East Africa.
Stephanie and I spent our afternoon just wandering Stone Town. It’s a perfect town to just let yourself get lost in. The architecture was fantastic. Brief cultural lesson: all along the coast of East Africa from Somalia as far south as Mozambique there is a common culture referred to as the Swahili culture. Aside from the Swahili language, these groups share the mixed influence of East Africa and the Middle Eastern and Arab traders that settled there for centuries. Stone Town is a perfect manifestation of that cultural mix. It was impossible to walk more than a block without running into an ornate mosque dating to the 15th century or some equally interesting building. The buildings are all very tall and close together, and the streets narrow cobblestone, so it feels like trying to get through a maze. A lot of the street scenes seemed more reminiscent of Europe than Africa, at least until a lady babbling away in Swahili offered you “good price for khanga, best in town”. For dinner, we had traditional Swahili food at an inexpensive local restaurant called Lukmaan’s near our hotel. Swahili cuisine is absolutely fantastic. The best food I’ve had in Africa. It’s all about spicy rices and curries and seafood. We went to bed tired from all the traveling and wandering, but highly content.
The next day was rainy. It was a true Storm Over Paradise!!! (couldn’t help myself) Steph and I wanted to find cheap public transport to get to Kendwa, where we would meet the rest of our group for a few days of relaxing on the beach. You’ll notice that “cheap” is a consistent theme throughout this vacation. I’m quite proud of what we accomplished in the end.
Anyway, the least costly way to get to Kendwa from Stone Town is to take a dola dola. They were described to me as similar to Kenya’s matatus, but that’s a lie. A dola dola is in fact a pickup truck with an extra long bed with benches running around the perimeter and a tarp overhead. These benches could seat about 12, so of course we piled 28 people in and set off. The island of Zanzibar really isn’t too big, so the drive to Kendwa was only 30 or 40 km. But it took a long time to get there because of frequent stopping to let passengers off and on. And the rain continued the entire way.
A soggy Stephanie and I found our resort in Kendwa, a beautiful place right on the beach. We checked in just as the rain was letting up, and went to dip our toes in the Indian Ocean. For those of you who’ve never seen it, the Indian Ocean looks strikingly similar to other oceans. Which is to say, it’s gorgeous and I love it. That night we did a little cooking of our own (to save money, you know) on a jiko, which is basically a tiny portable charcoal grill. The next day was packed full of Zanzibari adventure. We got up and walked toward the village a few kilometers to the north of all the Kendwa resorts, since everybody in our group firmly believes it’s important to see how the locals live and get out of the spotlight of tourism. High tide hit when we were about half way there, so we enlisted the help of a boat taxi to help us get around the cliffs. The village was everything our resort was not: dirty, on a rocky stretch of beach with a ton of seaweed. Barefoot, and sometimes naked, children approached us and showed us their skill in cart wheeling over the sand dunes. It was impressive; I’ve got a video to prove it. We ate lunch at a local food stand. It was delicious but I’m shocked that none of us suffered from adverse gastrointestinal effects.
After lunch we went snorkeling with a friendly guy named Romeo who charged us $3 per person for the whole afternoon. He sat on his dhow boat and worked on his tan while we flippered around. He may or may not have had any licensure to guide a snorkeling expedition, but it was a lot of fun.
After dinner all of us just hung out on the beach and looked at the stars. With no light pollution and a clear sky, it was quite a view.
Next morning Steph and I caught a dola dola back to Stone Town for two more days of shopping at the markets and visiting historical sites, as well as just reading in the shade at the beach. We’re both capable of spending many hours at a time doing this. One of the cooler touristy things we did was a spice tour- you go out to a spice farm and see how various spices are grown and harvested and you taste a lot of tropical fruits. At the end we ate a lunch made with all the spices we’d seen in the morning.
I feel like I talk about food a lot, but so much of it was so good, so I’m going to give you one more highlight. Every evening, street vendors cover the huge garden on the waterfront in Stone Town. The food is cheap even by our standards and unlike anything I’ve ever had before. There were dozens of men operating these pressing machines that squeeze the juice out of sugarcane, then they add lime and ginger and ice to the juice, which makes for a very tasty and refreshing beverage. Then there’s the Zanzibar pizza, which is not pizza in the American sense of the word. It’s a piece of dough topped with spices and meat and vegetables, then the chef cracks an egg over the whole thing, scrambles it up, folds it into a dough- omelet pocket sort of a thing, then grills it. It’s heavenly, even if it sounds strange. There were fresh seafood stalls everywhere selling lobster, crab, tuna, squid, octopus, basically if it came from the sea you could buy it. A popular dessert was the “banana nutella chocolate pancake”, which I think speaks for itself.
Leaving Zanzibar was sad. As Steph and I walked back to our hostel that night, with the sound of evening prayers drifting out from mosques all over the city, I felt at peace. It had been a very good vacation. Zanzibar is a place I’d visit again in a heartbeat. The people are far friendlier and more accepting to strangers than Kenyans. Also, I was forced to speak a lot of Swahili since English is not as common in Tanzania as it is in Kenya, but the people of Zanzibar talk slowly and have good grammar, which is useful for a beginner like me.
Finally, Tuesday morning Steph and I headed back to the Zanzibar International Airport. We were asked “Do you have anything illegal that you should declare?” and we passed through security. We had a few hours to kill just wandering in Mombasa before our night bus back to Nairobi, where I am now, for the time being. My mom is arriving in two days (two days!!!) and we’ll be off to explore Mt. Kenya, Maasai Mara, and the south coast of Mombasa.
I have exactly one complaint about Zanzibar: there’s no electricity. Some hotels have generators but they use them sparingly. We spend several long, hot nights looking up at our idle ceiling fan and hoping for a breeze that never came.