Stone Town
As we waited for our ferry, we met a bleach-blond Irishman named Paul. He had been travelling in Tanzania for a month and his final stop was Zanzibar. Despite the fact that he was rather monotone, mumbled and we could only understand every second word he said, we decided he would be the perfect addition to our crew.
We arrived in Stone Town after dark and were escorted to a nearby guesthouse. We were paying double what we had paid in Mtwara but it was to be expected in Zanzibar. We dropped off our things and made our way to the Forodhani Gardens: a park where local vendors sell and grill all the seafood that was presumably caught that day. Even though the freshness is under suspicion by the locals and the place was swarming with tourists, I still thought that it was quite delicious.
We then went on the search for cheap beer. Our search led us to Starehe, a bar that is accessed by going through a gift-shop. There we met the God-among-men, Dulla, a local Rasta who had hook-ups all over the island. We chilled with him, Alimin, a British expat; Louis, a Franco-Brit with a penchant for fedoras and some other random assortment of people.
We chilled there for a while and then went Zanzibar-hopping which led us to a complex of three clubs, each one containing a maximum of 15 people. The only club that was popping was called Livingstone, a bar catering to wazungu (the actual plural form of mzungu) and their thick wallets.
After being in Africa for over two months at this point and hanging out primarily with locals, I actually felt more awkward approaching white people. So after the bar/club-hopping, spending
all of our money and fighting off the local prostitutes in search of wazungu money and drinks, we called it a night.
The next morning I wandered around the architecturally and historically impressive Stone Town and Chris and Paul worked on their tans. That evening Chris and I took it easy, while Paul went out with some Irish med-students he had met earlier in the day.
What is worth mentioning is that while Paul and I were playing pool, Paul suddenly yelped and grabbed my shoulder and ran into the bathroom. He was standing at the door waving for me to come over and Chris and I just stood there blankly looking back at him. It had turned out that a guy in the bar had pulled out a fake gun and was tackled to the ground. Apparently this guy does it every once and awhile to scare tourists and to make the locals laugh. It worked on Paul but had it been a real gun, he would have been the only one out of the three of us who would not have been shot!
The following day we had arranged to do a boat excursion with Dulla to nearby Prison Island. The prison had actually only been used as a quarantine facility for TB. The main draw of the island was a sanctuary for Gigantic Tortoises from Seychelles. They looked like something out of Jurassic park, or more aptly, teenage mutant ninja turtles. That same afternoon, Dulla had hooked us up with a guesthouse in Jambiani beach in eastern Zanzibar.
Jambiani
Jambiani was heaven on earth, absolute bliss. The white sand beaches, lack of hawkers and brilliant star-lit skies made this a place to remember. What I will never forget as well are some of the people we met while we were there.
Simba
A hilarious fellow with a bizarre sense of humour who was in tears laughing when he told us a male friend of his cried when his father died. No matter how long we hung out with him and told him that we just wanted to relax, he would still offer us trips to see the dolphins or go snorkeling. For a price of course.
He was also the one who introduced us to the reply Poa Kichizi Kama Ndizi, Swahili for "cool like a banana". This response to "how are you" will make you an instant hit with the locals anywhere in Tanzania.
Saimon
A displaced Maasai herdsman who once killed a lion with a spear because "he really loved his cow" and the lion had killed it. After he realized that we weren't going to buy any of his jewelery, he just hung out with us and always tried to get us to pay for a cab to the nearby village of Page. A highlight was walking down the beach with him, dancing with his walking-stick and mock-singing Maasai songs in high-pitched gibberish while he sang in his high-pitched voice.
One night, we even crashed a Spanish wedding and witnessed the most intense dance-off I have ever seen. It was between a local and a bearded, Hawaiian shirt wearing, middle-aged man; to the pulsating rhythm of Eminem's Lose Yourself. The bearded guy definitely won, especially for his side-push-up pelvic-thrusting.
Another glorious moment was when a local painter, drunk off his ass, was nearly in tears talking about his difficult life. Paul, who had been texting, totally oblivious to the man's story, looks up at him and says, "do you party"? Realizing the contradiction between the story and Paul's question, Chris and I laughed our asses off. To be fair, the drunk guy was way too hammered to be insulted by any of this.
On another night (we stayed in Jambiani for 5 nights), we had an amazing feast apparently prepared by Simba and his wife: sitting under the stars, on carpets in the yard of Simba's home for the hefty price of 4 dollars.
All the memories of Jambiani will not be happy however. One of the days we were there, a fire broke out in one of the hotels and destroyed several homes, hotels and local businesses. The fire made the national news and the President of Tanzania even came to see the aftermath. Our thoughts and well-wishes go out to everyone that was affected by the terrible fire, especially the lovely Italian couple who had just opened a terrific cheap restaurant that we had eaten at 3 nights in a row; before it was burned to the ground.
Nungwi
After growing weary of our lethargic lifestyle in Jambiani and since Paul had already left us for Ireland, we made our way north to the beach resort town of Nungwi.
Even though the rooms, food and beverages were more expensive, we still managed to find curry-beef with rice, bread and a coke for a whopping dollar Canadian.
We had replaced Paul with two Irish girls who I will not name because I have no idea how to spell their Gaelic names, we just called them Edel and Teresa.
On one of the days, I had gone scuba diving to the Mnemba Atoll, which was probably the most spectacular dive site I have seen to date. I was originally supposed to do two dives, but the second was cancelled due to an impending storm.
As it started to rain and the winds picked up, our boat rocked with an intensity I have never experienced. Three people on our boat got extremely ill and were vomiting to the point of passing out, well at least just one of the three.
On this boat I had met a girl who was from Ottawa and had been volunteering in Zambia as part of her studies. Why she is worth mentioning is that she had also done the gorge swing in Vic Falls like Chris Ong Tone and myself, but as the rope had become taught, believe it or not, she broke her back! (It wasn't a major break, but still).
Both nights in Nungwi were spent drinking way too much Konyagi and partying it up with our new Irish friends. For some reason, a nice local kid named Peter hung out with us the entire night and asked my counsel regarding Christianity. Although I don't consider myself religious, I was overcome with the spirit (of the nation, AKA Konyagi), so I'm pretty sure I led him in the right direction.
Stone Town Part Mbili (Two in Swahili in case you couldn't guess)
We were back in Stone Town for the first day of Ramadan, and since 95% of Zanzibar is Muslim, they take it very seriously. It was quite incredible to see the religious devotion of hundreds of thousands of people. Also, we were lucky enough to meet up with Dulla and his friends one last time before heading back to mainland Tanzania.
Our 10-day stint in Zanzibar was incredible. The people, beaches and sites exceeded our already high expectations. We really took advantage of the Hakuna Matata (no worries, and yes that expression is Swahili, not just in the Lion King) attitude.
This was our last stop before embarking on the most challenging part of our African voyage: climbing Africa's tallest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro!
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