Zanzibar!

I have just had one of the most fun trips I can remember. Maybe just cuz I had no expectations but it was incredible!

As I need to be in Tanzania over a weekend for work and I’d already spent a weekend in Dar Es Salaam and truthfully, I think it might be boring if I was there alone. I decided I would spend the weekend in Zanzibar instead. I did some very last minute planning and only bought my tickets a few days before I went – so the good flights were all booked. Since I couldn’t leave the office at 2pm on Friday (I was there for a special workshop after all), and the only other flight was at 5am (so I would have had to leave my hotel at 3 and wouldn’t be able to dive since there are rules around how close you can dive to flying), I searched a bit and found a charter flight which turned out to be hysterical. I get to the airport and there’s an office with the company name on it (no check in desk) with three men sitting there. No one was at the desk, and when I asked they said he’d be right back. I had no idea if I was in the right place, if there was some other desk I should be at or what I was waiting for. He eventually came in so I went up and asked and he asked me to wait for the people who were there before me. That would have been fine but I didn’t know what I was waiting for. He clearly was a one-man show and would talk to a passenger and then go out and fuel a plane and come back and talk to someone else. Finally it was my turn and he gave me a boarding pass (no ID check) and told me the flights were usually quite late. As it turned out it was quite timely – we took off only 15 minutes late. It was a little prop plane that could seat about 19 people, but there were only about 8 of us so our luggage went on the other seats. Great flight with very pretty views of Zanzibar as we came in. And so nice to travel without any of the normal security hassles – they screened the bags but that was it. Remember what that was like?

I thought the hotel transport quote from the airport was too high so I decided to try my luck with local taxis. Some guy showed me a rate list and off I went with my taxi driver Ronaldo. He was fabulous and substantially improved my Kiswahili (although given where I was starting, that’s not hard). It took maybe an hour and a half. I got to the hotel (Nyota Beach Bungalows) at 9pm where the manager said he had been awaiting me and kept the restaurant open for me. No check in – just gave me a room. There didn’t actually appear to be any other guests, in this adorable place with stone beach huts that at $40 a night was one of the cheapest places on the stretch. So that evening I spent having fresh fillet (pronounced with the ‘T’) of tuna and Serengeti beer on the beach (which was too dark to see) thinking this was as good as it gets. BTW the hotel was minimal but great, provided good towels and beach towels, a great mosquito net that I contemplated stealing but decided to just keep an eye out for, a fabulous hot shower (despite the shower head falling on me twice) and the friendliest staff.

The next morning I got up early to take my 15 minute stroll down the beach to the dive center where I had booked a day of diving. Immediately I met this lovely woman, Amy, from Britian. I don’t always like traveling alone – even diving – as sometimes you end up in a group of people who all know each other and ignore you – but there were about 14 people on the dive and all were friendly and were made of up tons of stragglers like me. The diving was pretty great, lots of turtles, the snorklers swam with dolphins (bummed I missed that) in amazingly beautiful reefs and water. And the dive center was probably the best I’ve ever used, so safe and professional and had plenty of staff to keep with the group. On the way back (after 2 dives) I made plans with Amy to go to her hotel (she was staying at the dive center hotel) for dinner. My dive partner was on the fence about going back to Stone Town (the capital) or finding a cheap place to stay in Matweme (which is where we were). When I mentioned my place he decided to give it a shot. Which meant that then I had a friend, Jon – a corporate lawyer from NYC - at the hotel as well. We spend the afternoon chatting over the only food the kitchen had available at the time, Pringles. And then headed back to meet Amy for dinner. Her hotel had a big buffet and they sat us with a couple we had dived with earlier; they were from New Zealand on their honeymoon. Lovely dinner that lasted long into the night and I was very glad to not be walking the beach solo late at night. Amy was excited as she had gotten a coupon for a free bottle of wine and didn’t want to drink a whole bottle by herself so split it with me and Jon.

I spent the morning working – preparing the week of presentations and trainings I was going to do in Dar. There was also a deaf, mute guy that worked at the hotel who liked to interact with me. First he brought me an incredibly fragrant leaf; I tried to place the smell but all I could think of was lemons. He showed me various trees on the compounds. Later he came down to the beach to see what I was working on. He indicated he was deaf and mute (which I had already guessed, given that he hadn’t said a word) and made the “you and me are thumbs up” symbol. To which I agreed. He then said “you and me are….” And indicated the symbol that you make during the magic penny song when you say “and roll all over the floor”. I’m not sure what that meant exactly.

The tide moves substantially and often so that there was no beach when we walked to dinner and tons of beach when we walked back. As the tide goes a half a mile each high/low tide it’s interesting to see how the locals work it. When tide is in they fish. In low tide the kids dig out worms from the sand in a fascinating “smoke them out” maneuver, and the women and farm seaweed (literally, there are plots). The beach has people on it working but very few touts (they seemed more like people just walking along asking you for money than actual touts) and you are not bothered much. Conversely there aren’t a lot of restaurants or cafes or anything lining the beach.

John and I decided to head back down to the other hotel to see who was around at about noon. We first ran into the couple from New Zealand who took us into their honeymoon suite (free upgrade) that was AMAZING!! Not overdone at all, just wonderful. An airy cabin with open rooms and a kitchen (with a chef), a small pool just for them and incredible ocean views. Almost worth the $450 a night it would normally cost! Amy came along as we spent a lovely afternoon around their suite and eventually made our way over to the real swimming pool for snacks. And then it was time to leave. I will likely see Amy this coming week in Dar and Jon in a few weeks in Nairobi – it was so nice to meet such fun people so easily. None of them are living like I am, they all live where they’re from and were just doing some holidaying but they were very welcoming. And while I had this image of Zanzibar as paradise – from where I’m not sure, does anyone know how that impression came? – the beach was absolutely beautiful and while it was really hot (and I did burn while working on the beach this morning) it was also really breezy so not uncomfortable for sitting around at all. I highly recommend this trip – for just lazing around☺