Ahoy! Zanzibar Pirates Dead Ahead!

A common situation that we have been negligent in reporting is our pining for a good old western-nation noise bylaw. After you have spent several months in Muslim countries listening to a few good, but mostly bad, mullahs try to belt out a “call to prayer” five times a day, it can get irritating. The ones around 1am and 5am being the most annoying. You find that it becomes automatic, not even a conscious decision, it’s just you see minarets or loud speakers close to a hotel or hostel and you move on. In Dar es Salaam this is not possible! Why five times a day - let the worshipers sleep!

Zanzibar is a tropical state island of Tanzania with a long history steeped in exotic tales and events. It was famous for its pirates and infamous for its slave trade. We would soon find out that pirates still exist, though the sabre has been replaced by the mobile phone. There are many ferries to the island with several different classes (VIP, first, second, third and steerage) of which the prices start at $20 and drop to $2. We being Muzungu are VIP’s for commercial reasons and after we pay the VIP price we can sit in any class we want. After this was worked out we started on a leisurely cruise up the coast of Africa and then east to Zanzibar. For some reason, I never really thought of the coast of Africa like a tropical paradise. I always thought of Africa as jungle, savanna and desert, but the beaches are spectacular and basically empty as Africans do not have a bunch of time for leisure. Ancient dhows (traditional sailboats) sailed around us against the back drop of the sky-blue water and white sand beaches. These ancient vessels have been passed down from generation to generation with no modifications at all.

We docked in Zanzibar’s Stone Town at dusk to an African madhouse of activity on the dock, everyone and everything gets off all at once so we hung back and watched the scrum. Luckily we were met by our hotelier at the dock who led us through the impossible maze of Stone Town. From above, this city would look like the game “Pick-up Sticks”. Hundreds of very narrow ally ways going every which direction and you guessed it - the place is made out of stone. Of course there are no cars able to fit in this mess but motorcycles somehow ride though ferrying the resident’s needs with motorcycle trial rider’s skill, except these guys have 200lbs of boxes/bags/bales tied to their bikes.

Our hotel was hundreds of years old with carved wooden columns, beams, archways and doors. This was made even spookier by the power being out and we wandered around by candlelight. As with all African cities, night travel is sans “footing” (we were walking one day when an African asked us why we were “footing”. After some clarification we found that he meant walking. His English was still hundred times better than my Swahili) but there is an area in Stone Town that is safe to us at night. Here is where they set up open barbeques with a dozen or so vendors selling all types of seafood that they cook for you right there and you sit on the grass and eat a delicious meal. Table after table of fresh fish, octopus, crab, shark, barracuda, eels… you name it they could find it and cook it. It was great!

The next day we went on a Spice “TOUR”, as Zanzibar is known for their spice farming. These tours could be compared to paint drying tours if they existed. Spice Tour - “This is clove. We grow it for export and cooking. We also use it for traditional healing of stomach ailments.” Paint Dying Tour – “This is wet blue paint, it is drying, and we use it for traditional painting.” On it went through a handful of spices. Enough said! The only good part is that some Brits negotiated with our tour guide and got us out of there early!

The next day we decided to travel to the east side of the island to the small fishing village of Jambiani which is a picture postcard of an ideal tropical fishing village. White sand like icing sugar, houses made of coral, natives plying the reef in dugout canoes and ½ litre beers for 50 cents. TAKE NOTE HERE: The trip out was by dalla dalla (shared minibus taxi) for 3000 shillings and we were told there was lots of dallas back. A dalla driver is a failed rally race car driver who wants to live in the tropics. For those of you who have driven with our friend Higg Dog (Ian Higgs), this is his calling. High speeds, dirt roads and unexpected obstacles! We found a newish stone bungalow on the beach with hot water, a luxury, for $20 a night with breakfast, of course. Viewed activities on our first walk down the beach included – women collecting seaweed, children digging clams, very young children tending babies, men repairing canoes, men burning palm leaves under canoes to rid them of algae, teenage boys climbing coconut trees hand over foot - all on a spotless white beach with a gentle aqua marine ocean as a back drop. Welcome to paradise. Oh the 50 cent beers - welcome to Shangri-La!

We met a very nice restaurant owner, Hassan, who took us under his wing and showed us around, cooked for us and educated us on the local history. The next day Hussan took us in his dhow out to the reef, about 1.5km off shore, to go snorkeling. The first thing you do when you get into a dhow is you bail out the water. The next thing is to caulk the cracks with paper to reduce the amount of required bailing. In this dhow the caulking and bailing did not stop until we hit the reef, though I did not feel like this was unusual for these crafts. The snorkeling was OK but I think it is tough to snorkel and not compare it to the amazing Red Sea. The highlight was when the tide lowered and we went octopus hunting while walking on the reef. This is done with spear and stick, pinning them in their little caves and then dragging them out. They are powerful buggers. Hassan was able to find one huge octopus that we tussled with for about 5 minutes before he was dragged out. This is followed by the oddest celebratory singing and dancing I have ever seen but we could not help but laugh and join in as Hassan’s joy was infectious. Hassan said that he would cook this catch up for us at his home as a special honor. When we got to his house his wife and daughters eclipsed Hassan in the wild song, dance and laughter department. It was only later that we learned that this was Hassan’s first octopus catch in seven years. Damn that octopus was good all cooked up in a curry masala over rice.

The next day we spent walking on the beach, sitting talking to children and helping the local beer economy. So all that is left to do is catch a dalla dalla after 3 days and 3 nights of bliss. Ahoy! Pirates Dead Ahead! The “9:30, no problem, price the same” dalla dalla did not show up at 9:30am, nor at 10, nor at 10:30 not even at 11:00, even after lots of assurances by our hotel manager that the empty dalla dallas that were driving by on the distant road were not the “right” ones, we waited. By this time we thought we were getting screwed over so out to the road we went with our hotelier on our heels saying we should wait at the hotel (our hotel was 5 bungalows). First dalla I flagged down was spoken to by our good buddy very quickly and then drove off. This was repeated two more times then after our buddy made a few cell calls they stopped stopping all together. So we figured that there was a certain dalla that our buddy would get a kick back from, but we had little choice but to wait. Anyone who has witnessed Brandy’s temper can imagine the not-so-kind words that were flung at our hotelier. Finally about noon the dala came and the price was now 5000 shillings per person. The group already in the van had been picked up at 8:00am and had been told that it would take about an hour to get back to Stone Town, they were prisoners of these pirates and I guess so were we. But with the afternoon marching on we had little choice but to submit to these bastards. We actually enjoyed talking to two Canadian medical students on the trip back.

We decided to take the night ferry back to Dar es Salaam, thus avoiding another expensive $10 night hotel bill in Stone Town. And again we were VIP’s but unfortunately so were about 40 Brit overlander kids. Overlander is the cheapest form of touring. As a group you live on this bus, eating out of the kitchen and tenting as you go along. These kids had taken every square inch of floor and couch space with the provided sleeping mats. Brandy and I joined the few unfortunates who were sleeping on the largest window sills. The man beneath my sill had the annoying habit of stinking up my space with his foul feet. Then the AC quit and the temp rose to about 40C. This was before we got under way! Once we left the lee of the island we got into some 3m seas with the waves spraying over the windows above our heads, which of course brought up the sea sickness of about 30% of the overlanders. The sound and smell of retching, the heat and the putrid feet forced me to the upper deck where I spent 5 hours with Africans classed “steerage”. It was quite enjoyable until the sea sick overlanders discovered my little haven. Finally, dawn showed that we were only a few kms from Dar harbour, the hellish trip was ending. I wandered down stairs to wake my beautiful wife from her blissful drug-induced sleep. Why I did not follow her lead and take those two Gravol pills I will always regret. But hey we saved that ten bucks!

Zanzibar was a tropical paradise that we both enjoyed even though we had bad transportation mojo. To see the locals live the way they have for centuries was as unforgettable as the incredible sunrises. So we are back on the continent on our way to Kenya and if God is willing, a man can still get a decent plate of bangers and mash. God Save the Queen!

Photos:
Dhow off Zanzibar Coast
This is a clove...
B&K at Sunset - Stone Town
Zanzibar BBQ
Brandy in Dalla Dalla
Coconut Harvester - Jambiani
Our Beach - Jambiani
Hassan, His Family, and Our Octopus
Bungalows at Jambiani
Jambiani Sunrise

Return of the FFP:
This FFP is very odd. These African children saw us using these Post-it Notes for marking the pages of our guide book. When we passed them around there was a brief conversation among them and “bang” they slapped the colourful pieces of tape on their foreheads like that is where they belong all along. They made no further mention of them and walked away with the Post-it notes still on their foreheads.
FFP #8