Stanzania - Zanzibar

Monday morning Christine and I took the ferry from Dar to Zanzibar. It was very little extra to upgrade to the air-conditioned first-class section, so we rode in style, eating chocolate and watching the new Karate Kid movie. Arriving on the Zanzibar beaches was gorgeous, and we couldn't believe how big the island was. Of course we were constantly heckled by taxi drivers as we made our way on land, which was a little overwhelming, even for what I'm used to. I'm sure it must have been especially crazy for Christine. But we made our way to our hotel, which was very close by.

The people at the hotel were incredibly helpful, and gave us tips on everything we wanted to do on Zanzibar. We arrived around 1:00pm and found out that we still had time that afternoon to take a private boat out to Prison Island. The island was small, only about 250 yards at its widest point, and never actually was turned into a prison, though that was the original intention for it many years ago. Many of the original buildings have been preserved and now it is strictly a tourist site. We were first led around the island and stopped a ways off the coast to go snorkling around the coral reef. It was so cool to see the many types of coral, sea aneonomies, all different rainbow colored fish, starfish, those black, sharp, thorny guys, and plenty of other things that I don't know how to accurately describe. It took us both a bit to get a hang of the snorkling, but it was such a blast!

Then we got on the island, which had kind of a guided tour path around the buidings with some historical info, and there was even a fresh-water swimming pool for guests with the water coming from an underground pipe from zanzibar. We ran into a herd of peacocks for our first wild-animal sightings of the trip. By far the most interesting though was the tortoises, the oldest of which was apparently 189 years old! They were all kept in one area and ranged all the way to just 10 years old. Of course they filled the stereotype of moving incredibly slooow - I only saw one riding around on a skateboard, but he wasn't even wearing an orange bandana.

 

In the evening, we went to this place called Forodhani Gardens for dinner. It is a huge lantern-lit garden where people set up tables and sell (supposedly) fresh seafood or make other local specialties such as soups, mini pizzas, and sugar cane juice. The variety of seafood was incredible - among those I remember them saying are, tuna, baracuda, kingfish, lobster, crab, red herring...but there were plenty of others too. Everything had so much more flavor than I've ever tasted in Tanzanian food.

The next day we did the Spice Tour, which was a widely recommended must-do, even though it is rather touristy. I have to agree with the recommendations, though, it was a great full-day trip. There were 2 small vans for our group (the kind that I'm used to cramming 40 or so people into), and our first stop was to one of the local spice farms on Zanzibar, where we got a guided tour and got to see how various fruits and spices grow naturally. Some of the spices included nutmeg, vanilla beans, ginger, cinnamon bark, lemon grass, and some plant with orange seeds that the Maasai tribe apparently use for facial paints. We also had a demonstration on how to climb a coconut tree while singing the native Tanzanian "welcoming visitors" song, all the while being handed expertly made grass-woven bracelets, necklaces, ties, and even the coveted "King of Spices" crown.

After the actual spice tour, we stopped to see the old Persian baths briefly, and they gave us an excellent lunch of pilau (seasoned rice), curry, and chipatis, which were all cooked with the different spices we had just seen. We then drove a ways to a place called Bububu, where we went down into the entrance of a cave was used for hiding slaves during the time of slave trading. Zanzibar was a major port for slave trades, harboring and sending many East African slaves to various nearby countries around the southern coast of Asia. Arab immigrants and Zanzibar natives worked cooperatively to continue transporting slaves to and from Zanzibar, even after it was banned in the 1800s, by hiding them in caves like this during the night and boarding them onto small dhow boats in the daytime. We could see the many tunnels that went to different parts of the island from within the cave.

Nearby the cave was a short trail to an amazing and very isolated beach on Zanzibar's eastern coast. The water was perfect, not very warm like the Indian Ocean waters I'd been to in southern Tanzania. We stayed and swam for an hour or so and then got dropped off back at the hotel. Quite a full trip!

For dinner I wanted Christine to try possibly my favorite Tanzanian dish - chipsi mayai, which is essentially a french fry omelet, and therefore delicious. But apparently it isn't very common on Zanzibar. We passed this swanky restaurant that was right on the coast and wanted to eat there just so we could watch the sunset, and I asked them if they could make us chipsi mayai but they said no - i guess it wasn't a classy enough meal for that kind of place. The restaurant was called Mercury's, which we soon found out was named after Queen singer Freddie Mercury, who apparently was born on Zanzibar - who knew! Anyways, they clearly put his name to shame by not serving chipsi mayai.

Today we finally got whammied by the rain, which was on and off for most of the morning. We were planning to do a hike in Jozani forest, where there are very rare species of monkeys, three foot rats...? and other cool animals, but didn't have time in the end, so we walked around the fruit market for a while and then got on the afternoon ferry back to Dar. Tomorrow we take an early bus to Iringa, 7 ish hours, where we will leave from the following day for a safari in Ruaha National Park. We are both very excited and can't wait to see what kinds of animals show up to greet us. So more great pictures are on the way!