21 – 25 SEPTEMBER 2011

ZANZIBAR – Country number 20 – ZANZIBAR

STONE TOWN

A calm two hour ferry ride across the waters, which was most unlike the ferry booking offices the day before. Now Zanzibar is not officially an independent country, although its immigration is certainly alive and well here with very formal forms to be filled on and an exit form to return on departure of the island. Whist waiting in line, I notice one bloke has all his passport and visa photocopies but the chap in uniform is very unmoved – I’m happy I didn’t listen to Mr Rwanda’s advice!

It’s a two minute walk to Bandari Lodge, a traditional house and my room is gorgeous with lots of windows, mosquito netted wooden traditional beds and lovely thick whitewashed walls.
There is a kitchen to cook in and breakfast is provided. Cheap, cheerful and very atmospheric – very suitable for Stone Town and very like Rubys in Mozambique Island, just not as stylish.  Later, when walking about and trying to orientate myself to this Malindi area someone is waving to me from a café – it’s Fin whom I last saw in Harare and it’s lovely to see him again. He’s been here for a few days now and fills me in on all the tips and places to see. He recommends a spice tour, tells me where there’s free wifi, what the beaches are like andto go Forodhani Gardens for dinner where everyone meets up in the evening.
We chat about our travels and Fin is certainly doing it very well – meeting people and really getting to the countryside.
He’s leaving on tonight’s ferry to start moving northwards to meet his brother in Cairo from where they will travel the Middle East. I wish him luck on the overland travel up through Sudan and we both wonder if we may meet again up in Uganda. I have now decided to not be surprised at who I may meet again from here on in!! That night I head to Forodhani Gardens by the sea and it is very atmospheric here with lanterns lighting an array of stalls and many people strolling about with families and friends. Upon closer inspection it looks as if there is very little variety here with mainly two different sorts of stalls either selling sugarcane juice or various shellfish/fish kebabs at outrageous prices. I can’t understand how locals are affording this food and listen carefully to soon realise that there are two different prices being quoted – one for locals and another for the mzungus tourists. Next night I try Darajani market where the juice is half the price and variety of food available is very different to Forodhani Gardens. I finish my meals here with great masala tea.

I am staying close to the harbour where there is a fantastic fish market that is alive with boats coming in and workers wading out with baskets to carry in the catches to be auctioned on shore. I visit here a few times just because it is so lively and interesting especially for people watching. Returning to Darajani market in town, I buy a couple of pieces of very fresh tuna to cook up for my lunch on a couple of days. Another day I search out an indian restaurant to have a great vego thali.

One morning I meet up with Judi  who I was put in touch with by Tanzania Girl Guides. Judi is looking to start a Girl Guide unit on Zanzibar – originally from Sydney, married to a Tanzanian and running two restaurants and a guesthouse! They now have a little girl and Judi is looking at Girl Guides to provide an alternative recreation that is traditionally available to moslem girls (tv at home!) here.

Fine weather for walking all over town each day because I just love the great architecture here in Stone Town that is now very much valued; tiny shops, courtyards and laneways always winding through to somewhere else, and of course because of the high storied houses there is plenty of shade. It’s a melting pot of African, Omani, Arabic, Portuguese and Indian cultures. Stone Town streets and alley ways are lovely – full of children running to and from schools, little girls in full hijab and little boys walking to Madrassas. Women in black hijab and niquaya, men in kanzu and kofia walking to the many mosques dotted inside the town – the oldest dating from 1831, Msikiti wa Balnara. There is The Old Fort built around 1700 by the Omani Arabs on the site of a Portuguese chapel and is decorated by a very modern Girl Guide badge at it’s entrance!! The gorgeous Old Dispensary, being renovated by the Aga Khan Charitable Trust and the Anglican cathedral of St Monicas is built over the former slave market site and auction yards.

There is a Beit El-Sahel (Palace Museum), the sultan’s residence until 1964 devoted to the Sultanate era and Beit El-Ajaib (a House of Wonders) built in 1883 by Sultan Bargarsh as a ceremonial palace. Great displays at the latter: A Kanga display - kangas are printed cotton wraps worn by women that often incorporate a Swahili proverb. There is also a life sized mtepe – a traditional Zanzibar sailing vessel made without nails. Both of these lovely buildings have fabulous vistas of the Zanzibar shoreline and back towards the town from their balconies.

I book a ‘spice tour’ on Fin’s recommendation and because Zanzibar was founded on spices. We are driven to someone’s garden an hour out of town where there are a couple of each variety of spice including turmeric, nutmeg and vanilla. Our Spice lunch is very ordinary, but there is turmeric in the vegies. The tour’s highlight for me was to see the Hamamni Persian Baths, built by Sultan Bargash in the late 19^th Century. Other than that, forget about the spice bit – no plantations BUT I did get to see a vanilla flower.

Having a sunset beer at the Africa Hotel, I chat to an American couple who are renewing their vows tomorrow at the St Joseph’s Catholic cathedral.
Just for fun I try to get there but too late she cried after going to the wrong church. So when I finally get to St Joseph’s church I stay for the next local weddings – two together. One wedding party with hawthorn colours and the other a mint green. The brides are done up like princesses with their guests are all dressed in colours corresponding to the wedding party they are attending. There is much hooting, ululating and cheers at various parts of the wedding mass including the ’I DO’ bits. It was lovely to witness so much happiness and hope here, in a continent where these emotions can often seem to be very much missing in day to day life for a lot of people here.

Meeting up with the Colombian in Stonetown

Walking down through Kenyatta Rd a tourist passes and recognises me – he’s certain he knows me asking ‘do you remember me? Do you know where we met?’ He is vaguely familiar and I make a guess that it was probably in West Africa? YES, he tells me, we met in Mopti and then I remember The Columbian!! We took the boat together with a bunch of travellers along the Niger River up to Timbuktu. I last saw him at the Desert Festival where he could only stay one day because of having to catch a flight back home….. And he’s been home, worked and is now at the tail end of another travel through East Africa, flying off tomorrow morning back to Nairobi and Barcelona!!! I still find it UNBELEIVABLE to meet people like this. I mean this continent is BIG, the countries many, and even to be in the same town and then the same street at the same time to meet is amazing. Esteban is lovely to talk to and he has news of the Croatians we travelled with and we are both friends on FB with Temoris. I knew that a few of the folk we had all been together had been very ill with Malaria after that trip to Tim and he tells me he saw the horrible Dutchman another time in Spain and avoided him like the plague! We agree to catch up again some more tonight at Forodhani Gardens and chat for several hours there. We part ways wishing each other luck with promises to find each other on Facebook.

The very BIG tree

Apparently there are also lovely beaches here on Zanzibar but alas I didn’t have any interest in visiting them proving how very slack/selective I am becoming! Soon enough the calendar tells me its time to return to the mainland and with my return ticket in hand it is only a matter of turning up, getting on board the Sea Express and waving farewell to Zanzibar. aahhhhh after the rain the waters are as smooth as…. Aaahhhhhh And onwards through Tanzania again

FACT:  Zanzibar was one of East Africa’s great trading centres for centuries, where Africa, India and Arabia met. Persia was arriving from the 8^th Century and trade in gold, ivory, wood and slaves prospered along with the adoption of Islam. Along came the Portuguese in the 16^th Century, then the British and then the unlikely Omani Arabs whose empire prospered with slaves, ivory and cloves. SO much so that the Omar Sultan moved his court here in 1840. By 1860 Zanzibar became independent from Oman with Omani Sultans ruling under a British Protectorate until 1963 and full independence. In 1964 a declaration of unity was signed with Tanganyika and Zanzibar became part of the new United Republic of Tanzania.