Weekend in Zanzibar Darling
Trip Start
Oct 19, 2005
1
17
33
Trip End
Ongoing
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Zanzibar,
Tanzania
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
After an emotional last meal with most of the gang I had hung around with in Gabs, I travelled down to Jo'burg in order to fly to Dar Es Salam to meet Meg. Dar is big and jammed with people, quite a contrast from Gabs and the Kalahari desert! It's an onslaught on your senses, colour, the brightly coloured and patterned materials of the women's khangas (sort of saris), the smells of frying food from road side stalls, the sounds as sellers try to get you to buy their cashew nuts as they weave in and out of traffic and the humidity.
I spent a night there before heading back to the airport, where I had spent over 2 hours the previous day waiting to get a visa to enter Tanzania, to meet Meg. It was brilliant to see her and catch up on all the gossip and what's being going on..wedding plans, working in New York, etc. We had a few hours to kill in Dar before heading to the domestic airport and flying out to Zanzibar over beautiful clear azure waters. We touch down in this tropical paradise of palm trees and white beaches and decide to spend a night in Zanzibar town/ Stone Town. After being shown a couple of places we plump for the more expensive but miles better room in a budget guest house. After recharging our batteries we went for a stroll through the small narrow streets of Stone Town, past stalls and shops selling everything from spices to flipflops, jumping over surface waters, dodging small children and moped mayhem we get thoroughly lost and eventually find our way back to the old fort and the food market.
Kendwa Beach
A couple of mojitos later we join locals and other tourists to buy fresh fish and chapatti at the food stalls along the water front. After a lot of haggling we walk away with fresh octopus and marlin with banana in a chapatti for GBP2.50.The next morning fuelled by a breakfast of homemade yoghurt, fresh fruit, breads and the now obligatory banana we get in a taxi and head for Nungwi in the north of the island. The guide book says that a trip by dallas dalla, the local buses would take 1/2 a day - Bollocks, it took us 1 1/2 hours on the way back and well worth doing (it was Meg's favourite part of the weekend!) as women crouched on the floor and the men hang off the back. Whilst in this private taxi (a minibus) I meet up with Shay, a Texan, who I had met on the Ilala in Malawi - how random. He and his girlfriend, Mary-Beth, Meg and I all decide to stay in Kendwa Rocks. We had a lovely chilled out weekend, lazing in hammocks, indulging in seafood, swimming in the beautiful waters of the Indian Ocean and in between rainstorms, taking long walks along beautiful white beaches. The north is a bit built up with backpacker places and more luxurious resorts, but it being low season was not particularly packed...no full moon raves!
I really loved spending time with Meg and it made me realise how much I have missed my friends back in the UK. However saying that I can't quiet believe its been over 6 months, the time has flown by.
