Zanzibar
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
1
29
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Zanzibar,
Tanzania
Thursday, December 29, 2005
The trip took about nine hours, plus an extra 40 minutes to push our way with the mob onto the single ramp that led to the dock. Still, we were in an air-conditioned room, in comfortable seats. My perception of bad rides had been changed for ever
at the beach
.We arrived around 10PM and were met by a guy sent by the hotel with which we had reserved a room. He led us through the labyrinthine walks of Stone Town. At night the dark corners, blind turns and haphazard layout felt intimidating. Knowing that it had been a major slave market lent ghosts to the eerie shadows. We would wait until the daylight to get lost in that town.
When I think of Zanzibar I think of sultans, spices and slaves. In my minds eye it is in a mythical location along with Timbuktu and Shangri La. The waters surrounding the island fade from the mysterious early morning blue into an ethereal jade and roll onto white sandy shores. Livingstone and Stanley had both prepared for their expeditions there.
The old part of town is called Stone Town in the guidebooks, presumably for the masonry that the buildings are made of. Its urban design follows nothing that is familiar in the West. Buildings were built, then added onto, then attached to, then expanded on in any available direction. The resulting corridors of narrow streets evolved as an organic process. Bikes, scooters and pedestrians could just squeeze through.
There are pointed archways and crenellated white washed walls. Many thick wooden doors with brass spikes running through them and intricately carved jambs and headers open into courtyards
dinner in Stone Town
. Long concrete benches are built against houses on the streets. Evidence of how the heat inside the houses has produced a lackadaisical, social society.Our second night in Stone Town we ate at the Forodhi gardens where fishermen set up large grills and set up their catch in a park. Skewers of marlin, shark, tuna, king fish and lobster sold for a dollar. A one pound crab claw cost two. Men cubed potatoes and fried them in large cauldrons for chips on the side. We ran into a couple of guy that we had met in Moshi and together we ate our fill on a small bench beside the grill. Afterwards we joined them for tea and dessert in a breezy beach front restaurant.
The next morning we left the shops of Stone Town, bound for the Eastern side of Zanzibar. It was supposed to be the less crowded side of the island though we doubted that we would find anything that was remote, especially around New Years.
The guesthouse that we settled in was at the end of a long beach. We asked if wee could get a discount if we stayed for a little while, maybe three or four days, maybe longer. But, at $20 a night it was already discounted. The place had about 20 bungalows, each with its own beachfront porch, but only about eight other guests. By the end of our stay we outlasted them all and had the entire place to ourselves. We ended up staying nine nights
kids and video
.At high tide a short wall kept the water about 8m from our front porch. At low tide, the ocean receded about 250m, revealing an almost flat white beach. It was a new moon the day we arrived which brought the water crashing into the wall and spraying into the air.
The view from land was truly incredible. Like looking at campfire I was mesmerized staring out into the ocean. In the afternoons, at low tide, we would walk out to the water. It was surreal and seemed like we should have been walking on another planet. Maybe Neptune. Flat white sand stretched almost to the horizon where a thin green strip emerges with mirage-like edges. Walking into the liquid was like wading in the aqua glaze of a porcelain vase. It was truly astonishing; A gem on our Earths neck.
A couple of boys came by our banda selling homemade doughnuts. When I paid them, I did a simple slight of hand trick and make the coin reappear in one of their ears. That was the beginning of my minor celebrity in the village. That, and the fact that when you poked my flesh it turned from red to white, then back to red. They really loved that. Both tricks got gasps followed by smiles, excited talking and small crowds.
We would walk through the village and hear "Jaswa," then look over to see a few heads watching us and funny attempts to repeat the trick
magic tricks
. I held the coin in my left hand then feigned grabbing with my right. Then, in many variations I revealed that it had disappeared: I would toss an invisible coin high in the air, and then grab it with my left. Or I would line a kid up, wind up and throw an invisible fastball at his head making the coin reappear in his ear. Or, I'd flip it in the air and follow its invisible path to someone pocket where my palmed coin would reappear. Or, I'd slap it into my own skull and spit it out of my mouth. Once was never enough. Each time, I would repeat the trick many times. It was fun. The kids loved it and the adults were taken by surprise. I did have a little Uncle Frank in me.We found a two table restaurant in town that served pilau (rice with spices) and beans. It was right by a hut made of palm leaves where several of our new friends sold fruit. For less than five dollars we could get two plates of pilau, a large bowl of beans, a pineapple, three mangos and two sodas. Staying on the beach we kept ourselves under our budget and lived very well.
Eating the mangoes was like drinking the perfume of a sweet flower. The pineapples were so plump that each bite produced a mouthful of juice. One afternoon we were sitting in the shade of a coconut palm slicing fruit, gazing into the water, unable to keep ourselves from repeating "it is so beautiful here." Wooden dhows with tall masts and white sails carried fishermen out to the reef
sand and sea
. Women wrapped in vividly colored kangas balanced baskets of seaweed on their heads. A continuous breeze cooled the air. It was a paradise. A pantless toddler ran down to the beach, squatted on his haunches and took a dump while peacefully staring out into the ocean. It was a third world country as well.The days faded into one another. Twice we hired a dhow and spent the afternoon snorkelling, floating in the currents with tropical fish and painted sea stars. At night we would lie out under the stars and stare into the milkyway for hours. By the last day I had succesfully sabotaged all of the porch lights around our banda by unscrewing the bulbs just enough to eliminate the light pollution around us. There were no banks and no ATM's so eventually our cash ran out. We wondered if it could get any better on the island and decided that we had it as good as we could hope. After a couple of nights in Stone Town we would continue to Dar and then continue with the rest of the trip.
Being sedentary was nice. Our stay in Jambiani was longer than stays in most of the countries that we had seen. It was four and a half months since we left Colorado. Record snows were falling back home, but the warm waters had eased my dreams of snowboarding.
