Zanzibar: Sleeping in Stone Town

As I sit down to write this post about Stone Town, I can’t help but mention the recent attack on two British girls that were in Zanzibar for volunteer tourism. The girls were on their way to dinner one night when someone drove by on a motorcycle and threw acid on their faces and bodies. Reports speculate that the girls got into a dispute with a store owner and this was his gruesome form of retaliation. While many say that this is uncharacteristic for the island, I think that if it had happened before our visit and I knew about it, I definitely would have felt less secure about wandering aimlessly through the city. Kent was already on edge as we tried our best to navigate Stone Town, which is very old and made up of twisting streets and alley ways, virtually all indistinguishable, and even worse after dark. I kept assuring him that no one was following us or out to get us and we were perfectly safe because the locals depend on tourism for survival and would not do anything that would put tourists at risk. However after this attack, I would encourage tourists to make sure they know where they are headed when going out at night and that women be very respectful of local culture by properly concealing their legs and shoulders in public.  

Typical street scenes and traditional door in Stone Town

Our first 3 nights in Stone Town were spent at the DhowPalace, a beautiful, historic hotel with roots that can be traced back to 1559 when it belonged to Sheikh Mushin bin Mujbia. It was located in a quieter part of the city and right on the main road of Kenyatta, which was nice because we didn't get lost wandering around the twisty streets of the old town looking for our hotel at night. The Dhow Palace was decorated with incredible antiques, including a wonderful old gramophone, white washed walls and dark wood ceiling beams but the stand out attraction was the brightly colored stained glass windows that decorated the interior courtyard of the hotel.

One of the two beautiful interior courtyards at the Dhow Palace

Hallway at the Dhow Palace

We had some interesting encounters with the hotel staff, who were decidedly less than professional.  When we first checked in, the front desk attendant immediately offered us a variety of excursions while the bell hop who escorted us to our room offered the same trips at the lower price. We had to constantly remind the concierge of the current conversion rates of shillings to dollars because some days he would charge us a higher rate for our excursions and we had to correct him in order to not get screwed out of our money.  Also I’m pretty sure that the man who made omelets at breakfast hit on me when he asked if I was here by myself. “I’m with my boyfriend,” I said pointing at Kent who was never more than 5 feet away from me the entire time we were there.  

Beautiful stained glass windows in Dhow Palace Courtyard

Our last night in Stone Town we decided to stay in a different hotel, the Jafferji House. Upon checking in, we were greeted by the concierge in a way that I can only describe as sensual, i.e. lots of eye contact and soothing vocal tones. We were told our room was being upgraded to the Sultan’s Suite, which meant an extremely large bedroom, enormous enclosed patio and outside bath tub. The hotel was owned by a famous photographer who published multiple books on Zanzibar and is credited with putting it on the map as an international tourist destination. While the staff at Jafferji House was incredibly helpful, the experience was clouded by the fact that my boyfriend and I discovered that our entire bodies were covered in insect bites the day we left. I’m not sure if we contracted them from the Sultan or from the skanky massage parlour that we were fooled into patronizing because of its must-do rating on TripAdvisor. 

Sultan Suite at Jafferji House

Zanzibar: Dolphin Time!

The sky was turning a pale shade of gray as we drove up to the small village of Kizimkazi. Our driver stopped the car and as we emerged several local men ushered us to some beams of wood that held snorkel equipment of various shapes and sizes. One man thrust a grungy pair of goggles and snorkel at me. “No,” I said adamantly and pointed to the black mold growing inside the mouthpiece. “Here,” he shoved another at me. “Fine,” I said. At least I couldn’t see all the bacteria lurking inside on this one. The other people in our group got their things and we were shown to a boy who motioned for us to start walking out into the shallow bay.

Kizimkazi Bay in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Unfortunately not the shadiest dive rental store I encountered in Zanzibar

“I’m not liking this,” I complained to Kent as I trudged through the water jumping to avoid the small blue Portuguese man o' wars that were waiting to bite my toes. We arrived at the rickety dhow right as the rain and wind were starting to pick up. I was definitely regretting my decision to bring my nice camera on this excursion but luckily the second mate grabbed my bag and stuffed it under a plastic tarp. "That won't help us if we capsize," I thought to myself as the captain engaged the motor and began to maneuver the dhow out of the relative safety of the bay and into the open water. 

Kent helping to carry the gear as I have a nervous breakdown about jellyfish 

Our captain, who looked no older than 20, instructed us to put on our fins and snorkel gear and jump into the water as soon as he said “Go!” "No way in hell am I blindly following this guy’s instructions," I whispered to Kent skeptically as the boat bobbed up and down over the waves. However moments later we caught up to 2 or 3 different boats filled with people and I saw the first glimpse of dolphin fins peaking in and out of the water. 

Our crew

“JUMP!” the captain yelled. Flustered, I began to assemble my equipment and several minutes later jumped into the water just in time to see in the distance the fins of the dolphins quickly swimming away from me. I waited for the boat to circle back around and dejectedly crawled back onto it. “Now you believe me?” the captain smirked as we drove off in another direction. 

The next time I was ready when we spotted the magical dolphin fins in the distance. “GO!” I hurled myself over the side of the boat and began swimming like I did when I was 12 and desperate not to come in 6th place in the 50 freestyle. I looked around me and was amazed to be surrounded by at least 30 beautiful, muscular, light gray dolphins.  I was so close that I could have touched their strong bodies and frankly, I was surprised that they hadn't smacked me in the head as I tried my hardest to keep up with them. I couldn't see Kent or any of the other divers. It was just me and my pod of dolphins. I didn’t care what direction I was swimming in or the fact that I was in the middle of the East African Ocean on a shady boat with a teenage crew. It was just such an amazing experience to see these wonderful creatures up close playing around with the silly humans who kept haphazardly throwing themselves into the water. 

Kent on the hunt!

Zanzibar: Scuba Diving, Nungwi Style

Since the idea of lying on the beach for 6 days sounded like complete torture to Kent, we decided to spend our time scuba diving. Kent and I met in Bocas del Toro,Panama, when he was getting his PADI certification and I was getting a tan. So since it was my first time scuba diving, I had to spend hours studying via an online course before we arrived in Zanzibar. But that meant that as soon as the taxi dropped us off at the hotel, I was ready to start my practice dives. There were several dive shops to choose from in Nungwi and we decided to go with Diving Poseidon, a dive shop run by an Austrian couple, Bernhard and Isle, and located about 200 steps from our hotel. Since Austrians were in charge, we knew it would be an efficient, by-the-book operation.

Learning to scuba dive was a little overwhelming at first. On my first practice dive, in only about 10 feet deep water, no one told me that I needed to equalize my ears (by plugging my nose and blowing out) so I spent the rest of the day feeling as if I were still underwater. Luckily that cleared up and by the second day I was ready for the open water.  Unfortunately it was raining so in addition to the sea being very choppy and cold, the underwater visibility was poor. Not that I was really focusing on what I could see- I was too preoccupied with trying not to crash into coral or the sea floor as I struggled to learn how to inflate and deflate my oxygen vest, which controls buoyancy.

I’m not gonna lie, after the first dive I wasn’t sure I was digging this new hobby.  But by the second dive of the day, I got slightly better at balancing myself and was able to enjoy more of my aquatic surroundings. 

We even saw a tiny little seahorse that was getting dragged back and forth along the ocean floor, just like me. Over the next few days we saw amazing underwater creations: highlights included neon colored fish of every shape and size, iridescent blue parrot fish, spotted sting rays, lurking eels with beady eyes, a giant stripped devil fish, coral reefs of bright lime green, red and pink, and giant lipped grouper. 

Zanzibar: Langi Langi

Though I had my initial worries about the hotel, we ended up loving Langi Langi.  For about $100 a night, we had a clean, cool room with a view of the lush garden. An added pleasure was the fresh picked hibiscus flowers that our maid would leave on our bed at night. We enjoyed breakfasts of fresh fruit, crepes, red beans, fried fish and pastries made with touches of cardamom and cinnamon served every morning on the hotel’s wood deck overlooking the beautiful turquoise water and white sand beach.

This deck was our favorite place to hang out. During the day we lounged on lawn chairs, safe from the cat calls from the beach boys, and escaped down rickety stairs into the water for a refreshing dip.

On days with a low tide, we would watch the local women wrapped from head to toe in bright, colorful fabric wade out into the water to catch sardines, octopi, squid, clams and mussels. They would then bring it back on shore directly below the deck and divide up their share. One day I decided to capture the moment digitally but as soon as I focused my camera, one woman pointed up and they all started shouting at me. I immediately put my camera away and for the rest of the trip, only took their photos at a safe distance.

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A majority of the nights in Nungwi, we ate dinner on the Langi Langi deck as well. We had developed a friendship with the hotel owner and chef Rasta because every day he would recommend a new place for lunch (as the Langi Langi closed for lunch during Ramadan) and we would come back and tell him it was crap. Rasta had a very quirky sense of humor and a sign posted in front of the restaurant described his restaurant’s values and his observations. Kent's favorite was "here a pizza will come faster than the police."  His food combined Indian and South East Asian spices and was delicious, if you didn’t mind waiting at least an hour. We my favorites were the octopus curry and stuffed tuna with shrimp sauce.  

Zanzibar: The Beach Boys

We jumped right into exploring the island by taking a walk along the beach to the Mnarani Natural Aquarium. It was along this path that we had our first glimpse of what we would be dealing with for the rest of our 10 days in Zanzibar.  It started harmlessly enough; a man approached Kent and I and welcomed us to the island. “Where are you from?” he asked interested. “U.S.A.,” we replied. “Oh, Obama,” he enthusiastically responded. “Yes, Obama,” we said, excited that he viewed this as a good thing. Obama had just spent a few days in Dar Es Salaam under the guise of brokering a trade agreement between Tanzania and the U.S., but local sources said it was because they had just discovered a new oil reserve in the country and U.S. businesses wanted the rights to it.

                “Where are you going?”

                “To the turtle sanctuary”

                “Oh, I will take you there.”

After having been given a stern warning from our hotel concierge about scams from the “beach boys,”a.ka. men who spend their days walking up and down the beach trying to get tourists to purchase a sunset cruise, snorkel trip or a carved piece of wood, we realized this was not simply a friendly local trying to make us feel at home. “No thanks,” we said and tried to walk faster. “Hakuna Matata,” he repeated as he too quickened his pace. We tried various ways of reasoning with him that we didn’t need his services and after 10 minutes of this painfully awkward stroll, we approached the aquarium. Luckily he just shouted to something to his fellow beach boys and left us on our way. 

Beach boys in Nungwi, Zanzibar

After that experience and several more like it, we began to learn how to be polite but firm in our refusals. However the beach boys put somewhat of a damper on our beach experience because we could not enjoy simply laying on the sand because we would be interrupted every 5 minutes with someone trying to sell us something. Unlike Mexico or Italy where beach vendors are also rampant, these beach boys were incredibly smart. If we tried to speak a language other than English to pretend that we didn't understand them, they answered us right back in that language. One young boy was able to speak to me in German, Italian, French, Spanish and Chinese (well for this one I just took his word for it). Another beach boy came very close to convincing Kent to buy something by guilt tripping him about how tourists come to the island and patronize foreign owned hotels and restaurants that don’t actually support the local economy, where the average monthly income is about $50.    

Beach boys walk up and down the beach in Nungwi

Besides selling various products and services to tourists, our dive instructor also enlightened us to the fact that many also sell themselves. Many European women come to Zanzibar specifically for trysts with the beach boys and he said that Zanzibar is to women what Thailand is to men. Indeed, we saw many older women walking along the beach at night accompanied by beach boys or rolling with them in a hidden cove on the beach. 

Zanzibar: Touch Down in Tanzania

Arriving in Zanzibar, an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, after a 20 minute flight from the international airport in Dar Es Salaam, it was clear that we were on a different continent. With some anxiety we finally encountered the driver that was to escort us an hour north to the beachside escape of Nungwi.  As we passed through the hustle and bustle of the main town, the buildings began to morph into single story, one room structures made of mud, wood and stone finished with coconut palm roofs. Children played in the red dirt among chickens, goats and cattle while mothers and grandmas stood guard over roadside stands selling small tomatoes, limes, peppers, lychee, squash, cassava and root vegetables. Behind the villages and through the trees we caught the occasional glimpse of the deep blue ocean in the distance.

Even in the taxi, I was still a little trepidatious about this journey Kent and I were undertaking. We’d read that Zanzibar is an incredibly conservative island and local women cover themselves from head to toe in respect to their Muslim faith. On top of that, we would be in Zanzibar right in the middle of Ramadan, where people fast from sun up to sundown. We had no idea what to expect from the locals and I was a little worried about not being able to wear my cute new bikini as I frolicked on the beach, yet excited that I might lose a few pounds from the fasting bit.

The town of Nungwi was not the idyllic fishing village I had imagined exploring. Instead it consisted of single story cement structures, many without doors or glass for the windows. Merchants sat languidly in the heat watching our taxi closely as we drove along the dirt path. Finally a sign spray painted onto a scrap of metal announced that our hotel, the Langi Langi, was this direction. It can never be a good sign when a sleeping establishment cannot afford proper signage but my anxieties were quieted as soon as we pulled into the drive way and saw the beautiful white washed buildings with dark wood beams, lush tropical gardens and big blonde Scandinavian tourists milling about.