Up the coast of africa!

Trip Start Aug 28, 2006
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Tanzania  ,
Monday, January 29, 2007

Realizing that I had not given myself enough time to see Tanzania before I went to Kenya, I bagged the Malawi portion of the trip and decided to head straight to northern Tanzania.  Why not Zanzibar?  It is one of those exotic names that you grow up hearing and are always curious about, so why not just go?  There was a direct flight, so I got there late and checked into a nice place.  It was funny, when I was waiting for the flight I sat next to an older guy who worked for air tanzania (the airline I was on) and we talked for a while, then when we were getting ready to board he gave me 10,000 schillings ( about 10 dollars) and said have a few beers on him.  It was really nice, I tried to decline, but he insisted.  Either he was really really generous or I looked very bedraggled.  Maybe it was a combo.
I stayed in Stonetown for three nights. It is a very old Swahili town where you see mixes of all the influences of trade across the Indian ocean, and sadly there was alot of slave trading going on here.  There is a labyrinth of streets full of beautiful carved doorways.  Alot of fishing and bananas, alot of influence from india and arabia, mosques and churches and hindu temples.  I spent my time wandering the streets and sitting in cafes to escape the humidity.  I had a great evening at the Monsoon restaurant sitting on cushions on the floor and listening to a great Taroob (sp) music group.
The official language of Tanzania is Kiswahili, so I started learning how to greet people here, and to say thank you.  Jambo! is what everyone yells at you to say hello.  It gets to be a bit much since as a tourist every five seconds some guy hanging around on the side of the road doing nothing( these guys are an international phenomenon!)yells JAMBO!!! ooooh, I got kind of tired of it, but it was harmless.
For the last night I headed up to the northwest coast for a night at a low key beach resort, Kendwa Rocks. 01-view of a stonetown street
01-view of a stonetown street
 The plan was for me to meet a boat guy to take me across to Pangani to my friend Lisa's on the mainland the next morning.  It was very beautiful, but I think because of a huge italian resort up the beach, the place was really touristy.  Paintings for sale everywhere and even Masai selling jewellery.  But I managed to avoid all that and had a really relaxing time just reading and jumping into the amazing turquoise water!
The next morning I met Wahidi, Lisa's boat guy friend, and his young assistant.  I loaded up my big bag into his dhow with lots of wierd looks from people on the beach and we took off!  It was a three hour trip across, which was really fun, but really not too smart.  Tiny little boat, one engine, big waves, out of sight of land...that doesn't add up to a good decision.  But it was really cool and luckily I had some of those wrist bands for sea sickness, it was a VERY up and down ride!  As we got closer, Wahidi kept saying "we can kill two birds one stone" I was like, what are you talking about? Then we got to this sandbar island and we stopped and he said we could go snorkelling.  I said I didn't have any stuff and no bathing suit, so he pulled out a bucket full of masks and we dove in in our clothes.  That was awesome.  We saw giant clams, coral and all kinds of tropical fish.  Walked around on the island for a while and meanwhile young assistant cut up a pineapple and I offered some pringles ( which he proceeded to eat by taking a bite of ten chips stacked up all at once, not recommended.)  As we approached the shore, I could see Lisa and Ulrik's place perched up on the bluff on an abandoned beach and could see them walking down the hill with the dogs leading the charge, big hugs as I jumped off the boat soaking wet...that was great.. 02-bananas in the market
02-bananas in the market
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