Tanzania (Part 2): Zanzibar
Tanzania (Part 2): ZanzibarAugust 2004
The following morning, I was on the 6am luxury tourist bus to Dar Es Salaam. It first returned to Moshi (near where we had started the Kilimanjaro climb), past the ‘House of Lubricants’ (oo-er), and then headed south down the well surfaced main Tanzanian highway B1 accompanied by the impressive Pare Mountains and Eastern Arc Mountains. Lovely scenery and flat savannah. The hamlets and towns were tidier than the Kenyan equivalents. The road was the best I had travelled along in East Africa and we flew down the highway with just one stop and a police check.
Nine hours later, Dar appeared. With 3 million people, it is Tanzania’s major city (but not the capital which is Dodoma further inland). It was also Tanzania’s Nairobi – a city of liars and thieves, a western city centre with no tourist attractions. It was certainly a lot hotter than the previous days. The port was a short walk away and I was immediately accosted by touts trying to lead me to dodgy ticket offices for a $40 fast boat. Any guidebook told you that it was only $35. I was down to my last single US Dollars and when I did find a legit place, the owner first refused to take them. ‘Since when did US Dollar Bills become unacceptable?” I asked. I had read that Zanzibar is a US Dollar stronghold, so with 30 minutes before the boat left, I failed miserably to find any Money Bureau that would exchange Tanzanian Shillings for Dollars. They were open. They just refused. I left Dar, hating the place.
At the port, with the fast boat arriving late from Zanzibar, lots of western tourists were waiting in orderly lines, while Africans tried to jump in front, only to have security guards haul them back. We all had magnetic scanners flashed down our bodies and luggage for guns and explosives. A bunch of local porters headed to the boat to offer their services to the disembarking passengers. One guy was a strange freaky looking Albino with the biggest teeth I had ever seen. He looked like the drummer from the ‘Banana Splits’ TV series. There but for the grace of god…
Even on the boat, the deceptions continued. I got chatting to some Canadian tourists who had hated Dar so much, (‘hassle and rip offs’) that they had left one day earlier. One of them had been duped into paying an extra $5 to sit up top. Noone else had. She was livid when she discovered the con. “If I ever catch the little bastard, I’m gonna sucker punch him”. She never did. The fast boat held over 200 passengers. It was a pleasant, smooth ride northeast to the island of Zanzibar. Crew members pointed at something. I saw a geyser of water erupt from the water – a whale? Apparently they are migrating at the moment. Others said it was a dolphin. Who knows? To our left, westwards, the sun descended into a red ball. To the right, we followed the western coast of Zanzibar, a low lying green island.
We rolled into the port at Zanzibar Town at dusk and I primed myself for the bad reputation of touts awaiting us. It is usually so bad, that most tourists just jump in taxis to be away. Off the boat, I just kept my head down and walked on quickly, ignoring anyone who spoke to me. Someone tried to steer me to the Immigration Office and I ignored them too. I had memorised the route to my selected guesthouse which lay in the heart of Stone Town, the old Muslim maze of alleyways
I found Creek Road, the main road that borders Stone Town. It was a hive of activity with street markets and dalla-dallas (public transport). Away from the port and in darkness (no street lights), I was amazed that noone was following me. I cut into the maze of Stone Town and followed my instincts. One tout then followed me (they are looking for hotel commissions and the price automatically rises if you walk in with one in tow). I was lost but disappeared into a large courtyard. The tout yelled “No way there”. Some smartly dressed youths were sat around a table. “Flamingo Hotel?” I asked and one (a law student) got up and led me down some narrow alleyways to the hotel – the cheapest in Stone town. At $10 a night, it is very popular, but I secured the last room. Ensuite, cold shower and breakfast.
Dumping the pack, I ventured out and found a local fish and chip shop nearby. It wasn’t like an English one. Everything was done outside. Two people sat on stools and peeled potatoes, another shredded cabbage, and someone else tended two large woks of hot oil under wooden fires to cook everything. The local fish and chips were on display in a tall heated glass cabinet. It was popular with the locals. Muslim women dressed in black ‘bui-bui’ which covered them head to foot, ordered chips for the family and smothered them with pints of tomato sauce. Local Indian traders barked commands and demanded bigger helpings.
I ordered some kind of bony fish (barracuda?), chips and cabbage for £1 and they found me a stool to sit outside with the staff. For the next few evenings I became a ‘regular’ while they laughed at my shorts. Other tourists would walk past with expressions on their faces that said ‘He must be mad’. In my opinion, you can’t beat cheap, local, fresh street food. In a western restaurant, I would just sit and read a book. Here, I was could watch the street life. African Muslim men sat outside local cafes in their long smocks drinking tea (no bars in Stone Town!), kids played in the alleyways and Muslim women trolled around in black.
Later on, I discovered a small food shop of spartan stock, with an internet café for locals and video tapes for rent. A tiny girl poked her head over the counter. I pointed at Fanta in the fridge and she gave me one and disappeared. Eventually, her old grizzled, bearded grandfather appeared in his Muslim smock. He had Liverpool players (English football club) stuck up around the walls and we discussed football. His stepson also supported Liverpool but refused (unlike many locals who all wore English football shirts) to wear their shirt because they were sponsored by Carlsberg. Alcohol was against his religion. This also became a regular stop for the cheapest sodas in town and I learnt that he was Iranian. His parents had moved here in the early 20th Century. He had never been to Iran, but his wife and family had all emigrated back there. He had no intention of leaving Zanzibar which was his home. “I was born and I will die here”.
“The lure of the ‘spice islands’ is legendary. From exotic Stone Town with its fascinating labyrinth of narrow streets, to palm fringed beaches and pristine coral reefs, the island is a complete change of pace from the mainland with which it is linked as part of the United Republic of Tanzania” (LP).
Brief history: It’s wealth of spices, turned it into a major trading island with Arabia and Persia and a powerful city state up to the 15th Century. The Portuguese took it over, and then got kicked out by the Arabs from Oman. By mid 19th Century, it was both the largest producer of cloves and the major ‘entrepot’ or holding point for all African slaves being sent around the world. Apparently, nearly 50,000 slaves were passing through Zanzibar annually until the British stepped in and ended the slave trade. This trading wealth explains why Zanzibar town is full of beautiful colonial mansions (Livingstone House still exists, where David Livingstone, a famous Scottish explorer, based himself before his final trek into Africa in the 1860s). In 1964, the Arab empire was kicked out when Tanzania gained independence. Zanzibar still considers itself separate but tolerates Tanzanian authority. The spices are still grown and exported, but tourism is the major economical boost.
Photo of ‘The House of Wonders’ Colonial Building
The hotel provided an excellent breakfast on its rooftop; fruit, orange juice, eggs, a lovely small loaf of fresh bread, butter, jam and tea. I set off to explore the town outside Stone Town in daylight. My first impressions were of friendly people. Everyone said ‘Jambo’ and noone bothered me. Policemen dressed in smart white uniforms stood by road junctions and shook my hand and gave me directions. Muslim women pottered down the road. An old rusty roller coaster/funfair stood dormant and rusting. Cows and goats grazed on the street rubbish. Lots of old three or four storey colonial mansions with wooden balconies, now mostly Government offices. Noodle makers had trays of freshly made, er, noodles drying in the sun. It was dusty and very hot.
I found the only place in town to get US Dollars from your credit card. There had been a rush on Dollars from the enormous amounts of tourists and they restricted your withdrawals. Ironically, living at the local level, I hardly used them. At the One Ocean/Zanzibar Dive Centre, I chatted to Gary, the Aussie owner who had been here for eight years. It was peak season and the diving off Mnemba Island was booked up for three days. I would have to occupy myself over the weekend.
The rest of the day was spent exploring the famous buildings, alleyways, markets and Muslim life of Stone Town which is a small, compact area, but just a great place to get lost in. It didn’t have the allure of ‘Fez’ in Morocco, which is still the best example I have ever visited but it also didn’t have the aggressive touts. It was definitely the most interesting ‘historical’ place that I visited in East Africa. I just walked anywhere, crisscrossing previous paths. One souvenir shop owner yelled “Are you lost? This is the fourth time you’ve passed by”. I was only bothered in the wealthier ‘tourist hotel’ district of Stone Town by the endless nut sellers, street kids, souvenir shop owners (‘free look’) and excursion offers, but they took a polite refusal in their stride. At one market, a man sat on a stationary bicycle, peddling backwards and sharpening knives and machetes on a grinder where the handlebars should have been.
General Photos Stone Town
More General Photos of Stone Town
View over Stone Town
I returned to the Immigration office at the Port to get ‘officially’ stamped in (having ignored it last night, I later discovered that it is a legal requirement). The sun and heat were incredible. My wonderful Kilimanjaro tan peeled off my face in one day. I gulped down ice cold sodas all day. Resting in the shade, outside Immigration, I sat with a plump man. “I saw you arriving last night. Red Shirt and shorts. Big backpack.” he said “I called out, but you are very stubborn”. “Zanzibar Town has a bad reputation” I replied. “Yes, we have problems with the ‘beach boys’ and drugs. They come over from Dar and ruin our island”.
After my first day, I had been pleasantly surprised by Zanzibar/Stonetown. Locals were happy to sit and chat. It was relaxed, cheap and the weather was great. It was nowhere near what I had expected with the tout problem, but you still had to be careful. I met two German women who had booked and paid for two nights at a beach resort up north. When they turned up, there was no booking and they had both lost $80. Boy, were they pissed off. There are many organised, reasonably priced excursions you can do (Prison Island, Spice tour etc) but I had seen it all before elsewhere and decided to explore the island on my own using public transport (Note to Matthew in Japan; sorry, more public transport tales).
Darajani Market area on Creek Road is where all the dalla-dallas leave from. These are long pick up trucks with an open back, covered with a roof (for luggage), and wooden benches around the edges. A poor African version of Phillipino transport without the chrome decoration. When I arrived the next morning, I saw one with ‘Nungwi’ on the windscreen which was my destination. There was blood all over the ground. Someone dragged a bloody cow skin from the back. Rough ride, I thought. Then chunks of cow meat were also heaved from the interior. The butcher yelled at me and smiling, pretended to gnaw the bloody joints. I was rather relieved when I was waved on to other non bloody DD’s leaving up the road. I clambered aboard one whose centre was filled with trays of eggs.
To start with, half-filled, it was quite comfortable with lots of space. As we left town, a procession of passengers climbed on and off, rapidly filling it. The young conductor, a real show off, jumped off the moving truck, yelling the destination, herding on more passengers and as the truck took off he would chase it, hold onto the side with his flip flops dragging along the ground and use his strong arms to pull him up. Muslim women with kids sitting in their laps, one guy in tribal costume .Then more Muslim women boarded and squatted in the centre with the eggs. At one point, I counted 25 people on board (they are designed for 15); two up front with the driver and 5 hanging off the back. My legs were crushed. At a police check, it was obvious that we were overloaded and the men hanging off the back jumped off. The policeman counted the passengers and disciplined the conductor for overcrowding. After the police check, the men who had walked past the police boarded again. The last stretch of the two hour journey was a dirt road and dust filled the back.
Nungwi (the most popular beach resort area), on the northern tip of the island, was a desolate, broken down hamlet of concrete shells and huts. Locals sat outside their hovels passing the time of day. I walked towards the coast, where a few tourist resorts attracted the beach seekers. The tide was in and what little beach remained was covered in green slimy seaweed. Dhows were moored off the coast. Local women passed by, carrying large yellow containers on their heads full of water from the village pump. I walked around the northern coast for a few kilometres, along the slender yellow beaches, past mostly empty resorts, and waded around the jagged rocks where the waves crashed against them, and then doubled back inland. Heading the other way, I discovered more popular resorts. I was rather disappointed by the area and $40 a night seemed a high price for what was on offer. I can think of oh, at least, 100 places in the world with a better beach holiday on offer. Tourists wandered around the village looking for something to do. Then the rain started. I was outta there.
I chatted to a German couple on the returning dalla-dalla, who had arrived by tourist minibus and were fed up with the inflated tourist prices and nothing to do. “This ride is one tenth of what the tourists are paying to get here on the tourist buses”. My ride had cost &163;2 each way). I learnt from them that there was an Indian restaurant near the Port that sold beer at local prices.
Back in Stone Town and in refreshing sunshine, I explored more of the maze and late afternoon, very thirsty, headed for the Sea View Indian Restaurant near the Old Fort. On the first floor of an old mansion, I was able to drink ice cold ‘Safari’ beer, write my diary and have a wonderful view over the harbour as the sun set. As I sat on the empty balcony, Mr Joshi the friendly owner, came over for a chat. “Ah, so you are a writer”. He had the hairiest ears I have ever seen on a man (like a youth trying to grow a moustache on his ears). He also had goofy teeth, one of the two main ones would move when he talked. Creepy! I complimented him on his beer. “I am a Hindu. I do not drink” His parents were from Gujarat in India, but he was born and had lived all his life on Zanzibar.
A previous English author had written about him and he proudly produced the book. The author had written “Mr Joshi was a godsend. But he had the hairiest ears I have ever seen on a man and goofy teeth which moved when he talked” (I had written this description in my diary before reading it. Small world!). Mr Joshi then told me how the 1994 edition of Lonely Planet had complained about the slow meal service. Tourists had read this and when they turned up would ask “What’s the fastest thing?” “The bill!” replied Mr Joshi. He had a policy “Anything served within 29 minutes”. “Why not 30 minutes” asked various tourists “1 minute discount!” I liked Mr Joshi, and like my fish and chip shop, and Iranian shopkeeper, he became a regular port of call whenever I was around. As far as I was concerned, this was the best place in Zanzibar. Recommended!
Photo of a typical sunset from Seaview Restaurant
Ironically, late one afternoon, I was taking in the beer and sunset (as you do) and I spotted Vernon and family walking past below. This was the whinging English family that I had caught a ride with in Kenya, between Maasai Mara and Lake Nekuru. They had survived the seven day safari. “We had a better driver after we saw you, though we didn’t think much of Lake Nakuru”. They then proceeded to give me a rundown on how bad Mombasa in Kenya and Zanzibar was, the incessant touts, flies, rip offs etc and glad they were flying home soon. So was I. It was nice to meet the archetypical English tourists again. Not!
With another day to spare, I decided to explore the beaches on the east coast. Business as usual at the markets; furniture sellers, fruit sellers with oranges piled high and huge jackfruit sliced open, sugar cane grinders producing sugar cane juice. I boarded a plush (for Zanzibar) minibus and we drove around the outskirts for 30 minutes, checking out all the other heaving markets, trying to fill up with passengers. My $1 ride took me south east across the island, past endless banana plantations and the Jozani Forest (the last indigenous trees on the island). Reaching Paje, we turned north along a dusty trail to the scruffy beach hamlet of Bwejuu. From there I walked south, along the much better beaches, passing the infrequent and mostly empty seaside hotels. Palm trees formed a picturesque border to the white beach, full of empty seashells, and the stunning turquoise sea. The local kids would run up and say “Jambo. Money” or “Jambo. School pen.” Fishermen set up long lines of standing fishing nets in waist high water. It was very hot (35’C). 10km south, I reached Jambiani, where the beach turned into old coral beds. I headed back up the dusty trail to Paje, which had more empty hotels, and caught a dalla-dalla back to Stone Town.
Three days earlier, I had arranged to be picked up near my hotel at 7am.by the Dive School. In true African style, the driver forgot and around 7.45am I walked to the One Ocean office to discover the minibus had already left. Apologizing, they hired a taxi to take me up to the north east coast. The taxi driver first had to get a day permit costing £2.50 to allow him to leave Zanzibar Town. We motored north along the familiar road and then cut across the island. A small chicken dashed across the road and was flattened. My taxi driver, a Muslim, had eight children and complained that he was poor. “So stop having children” I joked.
A final dirt road took us to the plush Matemwe Beach Village Resort, where a Spanish instructor was waiting for me. We grabbed some gear and waded out to a speedboat which roared down the coast to catch the Dive Boat which had already left. We tied up to the boat with a dozen divers/snorkellers and climbed aboard and then headed out towards Mnemba Island, surrounded by a coral atoll with waves crashing over it. The island was very small. You can rent it out for $7000 a day and Bill Gates did this for his Microsoft executives for Millennium night in 1999. It costs $500 a night to stay in the small resort. Not that we ever went ashore. I would spend the next three days diving off the island, the prime diving area off Zanzibar. The surrounding atoll offers a good range of wall dives and drift dives. The hard corals are in good condition; honeycomb, pillar and brain coral, clouded by shoals of fish.
Unlike, say, the Red Sea, where there are hoards of dive boats at every dive site, we only ever saw a maximum of four dive boats and noone ever dived in the same place. We would descend in groups of four with a guide, which made the experience even more enjoyable. The deepest dives were only 20m but you could see everything. The first dive at Kichwani, was relaxed and allowed me to spot some new species such as the Frogfish, which looked like a bloated black piece of coral (hard to spot) and Leaf fish, which were yellow/green, and floating near the coral, looked like a leaf dropping. Crocodile fish (which lie on the sandy floor like small flat crocodiles), and an elusive poisonous Stone Fish were added attractions. I was very impressed.
Over a small tasty lunch of samosas, pancakes and lots of fruit, I chatted to Mike, a German, now based in Washington DC, about his intentions to climb Kilimanjaro. We were constantly interrupted by Tracey, a loud, rich New York woman who had done it, but hated every minute. Just what you need, a negative response to everything positive I said about the experience. In the end, I told her to shut up. She became the butt of the jokes on board thereafter. It was amazing. No matter, the nationality, she pissed everyone off with her whining. A Swedish guy, dozing, mumbled to me “You’re lucky mate. You’ve only put up with her for three hours. We had to put up with her yesterday as well”. On the Safaris, she had gone 5-star with her own private driver and chef (‘The food was awwwful!”) and she had moved out of the $120 a night bungalow at the Matemwe Beach Village Resort and moved to a $150 resort up the road because she “didn’t feel safe”. Gimme a break lady, the resort was full of tourists!
As a novice diver, she was over concerned with safety and her ‘buddy checks’ took an age: “Do I test my whistle?” “Should I apply my anti fog lubricant to my mask now?” Just shut up and get in the water! When she did step off the boat, she did a marvellous pratfall and her mask came off. Fortunately, she wasn’t in my group today.
On the second dive called ‘Aquarium’ I spotted three turtles. One was dozing on the cauliflower coral and as I swam up to within a metre, it opened one eye as if to indicate “Piss off, I’m napping”. It was a rough drift dive where you let the current drag you along. The sand was wretched up off the sea floor reducing visibility. I clocked a ‘Guitar Ray’ (another first), like a blue spotted stingray, but with strange triangular fins sticking up on its back. There were large brown rock cod, beautiful shoals of yellow and black spotted Arabian Sweetlips and the usual tropical fish suspects. Max, our guide had an excellent strategy. As divers ran out of air, he signalled them up to follow an orange inflatable buoy along the surface, which he dragged behind him below. This allowed Joost, a Dutchman and I to continue much longer underwater. Usually, everyone comes up when the first air is depleted. With my Instructor status, I was left to look after myself which was great.
Back on the boat, Tracey regaled us with her “near death experience”. During the dive, her mask had flooded and she had panicked. The Spanish Instructor had cleared her mask himself (a neat trick if you can do it). Mike, the German, (who was only snorkelling) tactfully asked “so this near death experience… did it change you?” “Whatdaayamean?” she squealed, misunderstanding how near death experiences usually result in some self reflection on your life.
Back at the Beach Resort (which was a bumpy 30 minute ride on a dalla-dalla; the boat was left offshore because of the tides), and unable to afford the $120 cottages, Joost and Susan (the Dutch couple), German Mike, a Brazilian guy and me headed off up to the scruffy village a kilometre away, to check into our cheaper $10 accommodation at Mohammed’s where we all supposedly had reservations. There were only four spartan shacks, which contained a bed and mosquito net, cold shower and western flush toilet. Electricity was on for 30 minutes until 8.30pm and then you used candles. It had been double booked and Mike, looking at the rooms, went next door to pay $30 for a far superior room. He was only staying one night and felt he deserved the comfort.
Joost, Susan, Mike and I decided to lord it up that night and head to the Beach Resort for a meal. The restaurant was full, but they found another table to set up. Although we were ‘non residents’, we were invited to gatecrash the pre-dinner beach cocktail party with the wealthy tourists. In my element, I tackled the brandy/orange cocktails, calamari tapis, sate sauce and cashew nuts. Four large cocktails in 30 minutes seemed to do the trick. Over dinner, Mike and Susan decided to split a bottle of wine, while Joost and I stuck to beer. We had a great night drinking and laughing about Tracey. It was rather a shock when the $84 bill arrived! (almost as much as I spent in Zanzibar in a week, excluding diving). The bottle of wine had cost $30 alone! I felt relieved to only have to pay $14. The small portioned food was tasty, but I knew why I hung out at the street markets. Walking back along the beach to our primitive rooms, a full moon was above us. The night sky was the best carpet of stars I can ever remember seeing. Even the Milky Way was visible. Finding my room using my head torch, it was the best night I had in Zanzibar and one I will never forget.
My three companions were taking the next day off. I awoke to hear the waves crashing on the beach, which, after my previous explorations, I can safely say is the best I saw in Zanzibar. So if you ever visit the island, you know where to come. Just don’t stay at Mohammed’s! A decent breakfast cooked by Mohammed’s sister was thankfully thrown in.
Back on the dalla-dalla to wade out to the Dive boat. After Tracey’s ‘near death experience’, they decided that she needed a ‘refresher course’. Max told me to take the Brazilian guy down (with his camera) to amuse ourselves, while he did some retraining. The Brazilian had never dived on his own before saying “I’m glad you’re an Instructor”. I hunted around for lion fish, moray eels and then waved him over to take photos.
We were diving at Wattabomi. Rejoining Max, Tracey and another diver, it was an average dive. A huge Triggerfish and a huge shoal of yellow Snapper swept around the water like a massive, tightly packed swarm of bees; 3 metres high and 2 metres wide. Back on the boat, the Brazilian was over the moon at his first independent dive. “That was brilliant” he said “you found me so many things to photograph”. We aim to please. Just after we had climbed aboard, six dolphins appeared on the surface and then ducked underneath. I leapt into the water with just my mask and swam with them for five minutes until they swam away.
It was overcast and cold. Tracey had decided to skip the second dive at the ‘Aquarium’ (I dived it 3 times and it was like a different place every dive). She missed the dive of her life; 8 turtles (Green and Hawksbill), one with a large cleaner fish stuck to its shell, a massive Napoleon Wrasse fish, nearly a metre square, and spectacular amounts of colourful fish. It was just like diving in a natural aquarium with fish swimming all around you in large numbers. We returned to find a freezing cold American woman and tried not to boast about what she had missed while she bleated about the freezing conditions. She should have dived. The water at 27’C was warmer than the air above. Back at the Resort, I had a farewell beer with German Mike and the Brazilian who were both leaving in the late afternoon. Mike had been excellent company in the short time I knew him. That night, the rest of us tucked into delicious fish and chips at $4, far superior to the Resort food.
Same routine for the final day. Tracey was absent (Thank God, probably sulking). The Dutch couple and I dove at Kichiwani again with more of the same… 1 giant Napoleon Wrasse, 1 frog fish, 1 turtle (obviously lots more, but you tend to remember the special sightings). One final dive at the Aquarium which was excellent… a strong drift dive that dragged us underwater like out of control spacemen…another 8 turtles and a spectacular colourful array of fish species (that’s enough fish spotting – Ed). I made that dive last an hour, after everyone else ran out of air after 40 minutes. Six dives, all different. I really enjoyed the relaxed attitude. Some challenging diving and the best selection of fish I have seen since the Red Sea. Recommended.
After farewell beers, the Dive School laid on some transport for the Dutch couple and I to get to the main road and grab a dalla-dalla back to Stone Town. As we passed the isolated hamlets, all the kids jumped up and down and screamed ‘Jambo’ (which was nice). Our bladders were bursting from the effects of the cold beer. Thankfully, the two hour journey was interrupted by a fuel stop. I think Joost and I let out as much as the truck let in! Later that night, I went out with Joost to sample the Night Market food, set up for the tourists near Mr Joshi’s restaurant. Four African-Overland tourist trucks had arrived that day, and the place was heaving with ‘gap year’ students. There were endless stalls of food laid out to be cooked under gas lights along with the usual souvenirs; we sampled various skewers of meat kebabs and Zanzibar ‘pizza’ (Mkate Wa Mayai – ‘bread eggs’). Take a thin pancake, fill it with mincemeat and chopped spices, a slither of processed cheese and throw in a raw egg. Wrap it into ball and pat it down and fry for 10 minutes. Delicious. I had a few of those!
Photo of Night Market Food (during day)
Final comments; If you’re touring around East Africa, Zanzibar is well worth a visit. An interesting cultural experience, friendly people, generally chilled out, great diving. If you are thinking of coming here just for a beach holiday, I’d think again. The beaches are ok, but you might as well fly the same distance to somewhere else with far superior beaches. You can live cheaply enough ‘roughing it’ but the costs mount if you do it as a ‘two week, no cash limits’ tourist. You might as well fly to Thailand and stay at Raleigh Beach, near Krabbi, which knocks the socks off any Zanzibar beach.
Up at 5am. The rain poured down outside, but had stopped by the time I hiked with my pack to the deserted Port and booked a ride on the 7am fast boat to Dar. Out of Tanzanian Shillings, I jogged a 2 mile round trip to the Barclay’s Bank ATM and when I returned, the port was full of tourists. The boat was packed and it was a rough ride. Waves disappeared below us and we crashed down to meet them. Tourists grabbed paper bags and threw up throughout the journey.
I had enjoyed my week in Zanzibar, but it was time to return to Kenya for the final days…
