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Zanzibar - 29th May to 9th June
Hello from Tanzania!
So much has happened since we've been in Tanzania and we're having an amazing time, hopefully I can do it some justice on this blog.
Our flight over to Zanzibar from London was pretty uneventful until we reached Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania where we were due to get a 20 minute domestic flight to Zanzibar to sun ourselves before our 7 week stint of volunteering. The flight with "Precision" air was delayed by 6 hours while they fixed the plane in full view of the terminal. Once we'd actually boarded a massive row broke out on the back of the plane between a couple of passengers and the flight crew. It was certainly an interesting introduction to Tanzania.
Thankfully we arrived safely in Zanzibar along with our bags at around 12am where we were picked up by a motley looking crew in a banged up 7 seater bus from the hotel. It was an eerie place to arrive at night - no street lights or proper roads so we made the 30 minute trip across the hotel to our hotel in pitch black through tiny bumpy roads dodging goats in the middle of the road. Arriving at the hotel we were greeted at the gate by a guard with an AK47! In Reception, we were also greeted by the hotel guards who are Massi warriors dressed in traditional robes with spears and the hotel manager where we discovered we were the only guests in the hotel! We were very happy to get into our room although very tired and slightly jumpy after our long and random journey.
For the first 5 days in Zanzibar we stayed in a small village called Uroa on the east of the island. It was coming to the end of the rainy season which is low season for tourists, so the weather was amazing with only a couple of tropical showers in the morning. Uroa beach was lovely, just what you'd imagine an African beach destination to be, and pretty deserted due to low season. Just some kids playing football and the local fisherman brining in the mornings catch. Even so, in this small village there are still a couple of touts or beach boys as they're called locally trying to sell trips and pretty much anything they can make money from. One guy in particular, Andurra, latched on to us on the first day and we ended up drinking warm beers with him in his brothers bar - a wooden shack with 3 plastic chairs.
In our hotel, being the only guests and apparently due to the manager being quite stingy, lunch and dinner had to be pre-ordered in the morning with no menu of course. The first night we had dinner, they set up a table for us beside the pool and garden area which looked very romantic. While sitting there a large bunch of bats started to swoop down drinking water from the pool inching closer and closer to our heads as the meal continued. Tim was freaked out by their "flappiness" so after that we decided to try out some other places for dinner. The village has a couple of hotels which are quite nice and then a lot of local shacks in between. The villagers are very very poor and generally just hang out by the "main road" (dirt track). Walking up the road during the day is fine and the people especially the children were fascinated to see white people. The children would run up to us, touch our skin and then smell their hand! At night however we didn't feel particularly safe venturing up the road at night in the pitch black. On our first attempt venturing up the road in search of a restaurant with a menu, it was quite daunting and we were accosted by our rafaki (friend) Andurra. We didn't realise but one of the Massi guards had been trailing us and came up to stand beside us, seeing him Andurra slinked away cursing "Awh Massi!" We found a lovely hotel 5 mins walk away and later that night their giant head of security walked us back with his shot gun. After that night, we decided to pay the Massi warriors in our hotel to escort us and pick us up at the restaurant.
It's actually pretty cool walking around with a Massi warrior. They apparently must kill a lion before they're considered a man. All the locals are scared of them so the only thing that bothered us on our food quests were the giant snails the size of Tim's hand that come out at night. The Massi warriors are so nice and friendly, some of the younger ones can speak English but our favourite Massi Julius can't speak a word of English just Swahili. He's very funny, he comes to talk to us and just talks away in Swahili knowing we haven't a clue what he's saying then starts laughing (in a nice way). Tim and Julius generally communicate through a series of pointing, hand waving and grunts. Before we left he gave us 2 traditional bracelets as gifts - in the hope I think that he could have Tim's 7 pound Casio watch that he'd discovered was waterproof and was amazed by - but still it was very nice of him.
The Massi apparently have a pretty good deal working in the hotel but they all live together in this tiny shack at the gate that only has room for a few camp beds. They get paid 110,000 TSH (about US$65/GBP40) a month and the hotel staff get 150,000 TSH (about US$90/GBP60). One day we were walking to Pongwe beach just north of Uroa accompanied by one of the hotel staff (he came with us as there was nothing to do when the only guests left for the day). He told us how 2 years previously a thief had ran into the reception with a machete and cut the manager who refused to open the safe. The Massi heard the commotion, ran up and threw a spear hitting the thief on the back of the head killing him! A different world. Pongwe beach was beautiful and probably my favourite place in Zanzibar because it's not too touristy.
We also visited the most northern peak of Zanzibar, Nungwi, renting a motor bike (a pretty old banger that we stupidly rented from Andurra) to reach it. The ride up was fun if not a little challenging - dodging crazy (actually insane) drivers, herds of goats and random chickens with a few down pours of rain thrown in for good luck. We were stopped on three separate occasions by the police who were just looking for a bribe or "gift". The first time we were stopped by 2 policemen and while Tim was giving one of them a gift the other one was proposing to me!
Nungwi's beach and scenery is so nice and probably is a little nicer than Pongwe but it's very touristy.
After 5 days of blissful beaches and weather with interesting insights into local life, we decided to head to Stonetown so we could have a bit more freedom walking around to different restaurants without the Massi escorts. Stonetown on the west of the island is part of Zanzibar town, is on the beach and has a great selection of restaurants and bars where you don't need to pre-order hours in advance and they have menus! Still no street lights though and for the largest town in Zanzibar its pretty run down. There are so many touts looking to sell everything from diving trips to sun glasses, you can get away from them. We stayed in the Tembo palace hotel which was great and right on the beach with no sign of bats! Watching the sunsets at their beach bar was one of the best parts of the trip to Zanzibar. The beach was quite busy with lots of locals coming to swim in the evenings and the ferry pulled right up to the beach for loading which was comical to watch with no ramp.
Over the course of our stay in Stonetown, we dined out at a traditional Tanzanian restaurant, Indian restaurant, Freddy Mercury's restaurant (who knew he was born in Zanzibar) but the best by far was the Ethiopian restaurant. We've never had Ethiopian food before so the whole experience was brilliant. Definitely worth a visit if you take a trip to Zanzibar. On one of the first days we arrived in Stonetown we went on a safari blue trip sailing on a traditional dhow boat around the island with snorkeling and site seeing. We also visited a deserted island where we had a massive seafood lunch with lots of different fresh fruits for dessert, an awesome day! Another day we took a boat out to prison island where there's a turtle sanctuary that has a turtle as old as 189. Tim was in his element and even managed a jump of the jetty to swim back to shore. We arrived back that evening to discover Peter Andre and an entourage of about 40 people chilling in our hotel and he was staying in the room right beside us! They all went on the lash that night and were partying in the bar beside us till late. The next day Pete and his crew sunbathed beside is all day recovering. It was very random. His camera crew was there the whole time filming for his show. On our last day in Zanzibar, Pete and his merry crew had organised a charity bike ride around the island. So watch out for us on his show!
Zanzibar is definitely worth a visit, it's not up to the same standards as a European holiday destination just yet but once you get into the island rhythm it's really enjoyable. It has some amazing beaches and day trips and certainly relaxed us before the next phase of our trip. On to volunteering we go!
- comments
Brendan H. Crazy stuff. Plenty of interesting points for the 4@4 in there... You'll have to share more with us as the epic adventures continue!
Erin Sounds amazing guys xxx
Jill Thank you Anne for such an amazing description of your stay in Zanzibar fancy Tim being wary of the bats!
Ben Write more. I like it