We had come to Zanzibar from Arusha via Dar Es Salaam [link].
Zanzibar is not far from Dar Es Salaam and it only takes about 90 minutes on the relatively frequent boats. After the bus travel, I knew that this would be a far more pleasant journey and so it proved. It was a lovely day and we were able to sit outside to have some fresh air and some great views.
Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, (in fact the name Tanzania comes from a mixture of Zanzibar and Tanganyika which merged on 26 April 1964) but that does not mean that you don’t need to go through an immigration process when you travel from the mainland. It is not the smoothest of processes but it is still one of the better ones in Tanzania as there are a lot of international tourists that make the journey so it is a fairly well worn path.
The port is in “Stone Town” which is the most built up bit of the island with hotels, bars and other entertainment being plentiful. It had a very nice atmosphere and so we found the hotel and had a walk around the area looking at the architecture and life. It was pretty nice and it definitely felt like a holiday being relaxed without being too hot. The market was huge and pretty amazing to be honest. There were many things being sold and we walked through for quite some time. I did not want to risk taking my camera out though... They did sell all kinds of stuff but the main item seemed to be football shirts. As my friend said, this was one of the most amazing markets in the world, with a history of trading exotic spices and rare products for trade with all the continents and now it was selling Premier League football shirts. What an indictment of how globalisation has gone. We found a relaxed coffee place [Zanzibar Coffee House] in the market and planned the next day, we knew that we would be getting the car so we planned how to spend that day - the non Stone Town (which was a very walkable size) things to do would be going to a beach and a spice farm.
After that, we found the Sunset Bar at Africa House which has a western facing terrace bar which was excellent. Busy, but excellent.
The next day, we (by which I obviously mean "TC") were driving so we got a map and made our way to some beaches. We drove for about 90 mins towards the beaches of Paje and Jambiani [map] which was a quiet and relatively simple affair as there are just not that many roads - we still had to stop a few times of course.
When we stopped by the road to check the map, and then start again, we soon had our second run-in with the local law enforcement... Flagged down by a policeman with a bright white hat, we stopped and he made some very animated conversation. English may not have been his first language, but he saw an opportunity and he tried to take it.
"Why no belt?"
"I am wearing a belt"
"Why you hurry to put belt?" [accompanied by massively overacted motion of putting belt on].
Essentially, he was accusing us of driving without our belts on, which was obviously illegal and we were going to be charged. He wanted to take our details and my friend, surprisingly, agreed and said
"OK, let's drive to the police station."
The police officer said it was far away and we should process it here. My friend refused to do it here and wanted to go to the police station for the fine. Again, the police officer was not pleased and spoke about the waste of time and effort. My friend asked me how much money I had (under my breath) and we then persuaded him that he should accept a lesser fine from us now in cash - I think it was about USD10. Some nice, low level corruption. Again, I was pretty surprised but my friend had been in Africa for a while and was well aware of the scam - and knew that the police officer was not going to go to the police station and lose his spot.
We did not stay at the beach too long actually as we just wanted to go for a short while (I am not a fan of lazing by the beach) so we just had a spot to eat and TC had a little swim in the ocean. Actually, the beach was really ugly at lowish tide but the restaurant we went to (The Sea Horse, which was very nice - I had coconut infused fish) told us that it would improve once the water came in. It did, and it took only about 15 minutes!
From there, we moved onto a spice tour which was nearer Stone Town again so we drove back. The policeman was no longer at the same point - maybe he was having a break.
The spice tour was great but not that organised. We went to a spice farm and one of the locals on the farm, with some payment from us, gave us a tour himself. he was about 15 but his English was pretty good (he spoke some Italian too) and he showed us loads of spices and banana. It was very interesting and the tour lasted about an hour. The farm also had a set of stalls where you could buy the spices ground up and packaged. Preying on our innate racism again, we were told we would get better prices than the white people that also happened to be there at the time. Marketing genius.
We had to drive back to return the car before it got dark so we were back in Stone Town for the evening - a Saturday evening. And what better way to spend an evening in Africa than watching the global game. So we watched an English Premier League game (Arsenal, as TC is a fan, link) in a bar called Tatu, like the Russian media band. We did eat beforehand though, and it was great. There is a market in Forodhani Gardens [map] where there is fresh seafood sold, cooked there on sticks. You can choose what you want and there is a friendly atmosphere with loads of people - tourists and locals - out for the evening. The food and drink was great and relatively cheap too.
The next day, a Sunday, we would be making our way back to Dar Es Salaam so that we could fly to Lilongwe on Monday morning.
In preparation, we both got up fairly early for a morning walk around Stone Town (I think we were both pretty enamoured with the town) and to take some photos. It was much cooler in the mornings, oof course and it was a great opportunity to see the architecture. Historically, Zanzibar was also a major trading point for something other than spices - slaves. The slave trade was massive through Zanzibar and was centred in a slave market around the location of the Anglican church. In fact, the church was built once the trade was over (negotiated by British forces) with the help of freed slaves. The monument there is rather well done but I cannot judge the museum as I did not go.
The boat ride was not in the cool morning and was both delayed and slow. In fact, it was terrible as there was not an open space, the smell of fuel made me feel sick and nauseous enough to last for some time after we got back to Dar. The flight on Monday may have been early but that would not prevent a little more football watching as Liverpool were playing Manchester City [link] which we watched at the Kilimanjiro Hotel after getting a more simple dinner.
For obvious reasons, TC was very concerned about getting to the airport sufficiently early so we booked a cab to get us while it was barely morning (3am or something) but then we would be safe... Wouldn't we?
1. Freddie Mercury, of Queen fame, was from Zanzibar and they seemed relatively proud of him - or at least recognised his influence. The relationship was quite strange, I felt, as he was quite famously homosexual and Tanzania is very anti-gay. Hilariously, on one of my bus rides, I did read a local paper and there was a little bit about David Cameron. The local political parties were loosely affiliated with the Conservative party and the Labour party in the UK and the Labour equivalents were railing against the Conservative ones because the UK Conservative party were, at the time, talking up gay rights and Cameron was pushing through “gay marriage” legislation (in spite of opposition from the majority of the Conservative party). I guess they did not realise that the UK Labour party were in greater support of it. The reason I found it hilarious was that the Conservative party have not historically (or presently, in fact) been major fighters for the rights of the LGBT community and Cameron himself famously attacked the Labour government for abolishing section 28, the homophobic legislation introduced by Thatcher’s government.↩
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