The whole process for entering Tanzania was very slick as we had already applied for a visa prior to our departure. This meant no line ups and no waits. We grabbed our bags and headed for a taxi. The next morning, we noticed that all of our zippers on the external parts of our bags were open…and not surprisingly enough, empty! We had no time to investigate further as we had a morning departure from Dar es Salaam to Stone Town via a ferry. After purchasing our ferry tickets for a very horrid exchange rate (currency in Tanzania is Shillings but all of the commercial operators list their prices in US Dollars - so when converting back to Tanzanian Shillings, they make a small fortune on tourists like us), we were bound for the island that we had pictured in our minds to be pure paradise.
When we arrived, we saw a very different picture –street vendors everywhere, crowds of people from all areas of the world and Garbage! Garbage was everywhere including the ocean. We later met a couple of doctors studying abroad and they had seen a couple of syringes floating past them in the water. Needless to say, they did not (and encouraged us also) not to swim in the waters near Stone Town.
After we were successful in dodging all touts and taxi’s, we arrived at our hostel which Lonely Planet had deemed ‘perfectly acceptable’. We were tired, hot and too lazy to look elsewhere so we settled on the place for a whopping $35US per night (trust me, not so good of a deal). We were also informed that the island was without electricity, and that it has been this way for the past 3 months (and we think our government is bad). They informed us that they had generators which would be in operation from 6pm to 11pm every night. After paying, I went to use the toilet but after seeing the condition of the bathroom, my sudden urge to pee dissipated. In the communal washroom were bugs crawling out of the sink and multiple marks/streaks from multiple peoples business (since there was no electricity, the water pump was not in operation which meant no flushing the toilet).
We left the hostel ASAP and thought we would kill the day wandering through the historical narrow streets of Stone Town. The man at reception was very friendly and gave us some good advice as to where to eat – there were just two restaurants that kept their generators running 24/7 for the tourists. You don’t realize just how many things are affected from lack of power – refrigerated and cold food being a number one priority. But, even knowing this, we tried to stick to the fresh fish of the day and kept our fingers crossed that we would not get sick.
Stone Town was so hot that we could not even survive one hour without taking a break in one of the two cooled off restaurants – we sipped tons of Cola’s and bottle after bottle of water. Jeremy and I both agree that we have never experienced such heat waves and high humidity in our entire lives. We do not know the exact temperature, but we were told by many that we were above 45 degrees (the generators only added to this heat and made the already unbearable temperature even more unbearable…if that is at all possible). After the sun set, we headed back to the hostel which had just turned on the electricity for the 5 hours as promised. We started recharging are usual things – camera’s, laptop, iPods and cell phone. We opened the windows and to our surprise, our building was situated right next to a garbage dump – that’s what the smell was! We tried to cool off by having a cold shower (we couldn’t have even had a hot shower if we wanted to) but it was still so hot out (not to mention we were on the second floor) that nothing did the trick to cool us off. We lay in bed tossing and turning and tried to keep cool by drinking copious amounts of water. This was all good until about 11pm when the generator was switched off and the ceiling fan (that was providing a small amount of relief) came to a standstill. We were living in hell and I did not think it could get any worse…but trust me, it did! Next came the mosquitoes and they attacked like crazy and at one point, I drenched myself head to toe in OFF – aka my savior. The hostel had provided us with mosquito nets but there must have been holes in them as they bit me like crazy. Although Jeremy was sweating profusely, he was not affected by the bugs (lucky ducky). We again continued to toss and turn until it was dawn then quickly had another cold shower (before all of the water was used up). I basically waited and prayed that our shuttle bus (which would take us to the North part of the island called Nungwi) would not forget us or break down making us have to spend another night in this place.
Our shuttle (aka mini bus) service did come, we had to walk a few blocks to get to it, but none of that mattered, all that I cared about was that we were leaving this horrible place (Jeremy did not think it was that bad but trust me…it was). I was very apprehensive during the one hour drive and I kept secretly grabbing Jeremy’s hand and squeezing it. The roads were very small with all the usual distractions that we have seen before but only now add cows and donkeys pulling huge carts with overflowing produce and goods. Jeremy did not seem that nervous but all I could think about was that our lives were in the hands of this crazy taxi driver. We made it safely to the northern tip of the island and we ended up hopping off of the shuttle before our intended hotel. We were told that the place we had booked was not the ideal location. So, we checked in to the Amani Suites with a beach front view – although it was very pricy (100US per night), we had shopped around enough to know that this was the going rate for Zanzibar.
We headed to the beach and contemplated sitting on a couple of beach chairs but that was until we were approached by a worker who told us that to use them, they would cost $10US each per day – ‘a very good deal’ in his words. We were horrified at the price and Jeremy put his skills to work and built both of us his famous ‘sand/beach recliner’. They were very comfortable and a great conversation starter as many people informed us that we should go into business and sell them for half price of the beach chairs - we would be rich! We stayed in the sun glued to our books for a few hours before retreating to the shade. We had applied tons of sunscreen but looking back at it now, I don’t think it had done anything…after all, we were just using SPF 40 and really, to be safe, I think we needed at least SPF 70 (if they even make that?!?). We tried to cool off by swimming in the ocean but the water was like a warm hot tub, no where could we find a cool place to hang. This was basically the only time we were able to sit in the sun because we both got so badly burnt (me more so than Jeremy). While we were lounging both in the sun and the shade, we were constantly interrupted by people trying to sell us stuff. This stuff ranged from sunglasses to paintings to wood carvings to drugs to snorkeling trips. These people drove me crazy and I just ignored them but Jeremy couldn’t resist striking up a conversation. This only meant one thing to them…a sale!!! Jeremy got suckered in to buying a hat and box of fruit. I tried to reason with him and tell him we were being horribly ripped off on the fruit but Jeremy believed there ‘sob’story. We later asked the hotel what the going rate was for some banana’s, 4 mangos and 2 pineapples and they informed us that 5000 Shillings would be more than fair…Jeremy paid 15000 shillings (and would have paid more had I not been there).
We did meet one very nice and sincere man named Emmanuel, who convinced us to support him and buy some hand carved wood work. We decided to get a few key chains for my parents for their business at the lake. The key chains are beautiful and say, “HHHaven – Cochin” on them. It took Emanuel the better part of the day to complete them and he was very gracious when we gave him the money.
We walked up and down the beaches and really wanted to rent a paddleboat but because of the price ($40US for ½ hour…crazy expensive especially when we can go paddle boating for free up at my lake) we thought swimming would be fine enough. This was the one disappointing thing about Zanzibar – everything was commercialized and everything was very very expensive.
Day 2, we relaxed in the shade taking turns from our patio (with the great ocean view) and lounging on the coarse white beaches. Towards the end of the day, Jeremy and I started taking a million photos of the beautiful beaches and vibrant ocean colors; we had asked a young girl to take a picture of us. She happily agreed and asked where we were from. We told her Canada…she said, “me too”. She had asked us where, and we said, “Saskatchewan”. She said, “me too”. It turns out that Rebecca, her mom and dad are from Saskatoon. Her mom is a doctor and knows Jeremy’s dad Ted (also a doctor). Her father is retired from Sasktel and used to work with Jeremy’s good friend’s dad (Chris Whiteside). Rebecca works at Stantec and works with my great friend’s husband JP (Nicole Mills). All I can say is what a very small world when you run into another family from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada on the white beaches of Zanzibar, Tanzania and they know the same people you know – six degrees of separation right?!? We swapped tons of information (including emails) and they gave us some really good advice about a cheap place to stay just a few beaches down. We immediately headed to this beach hotel and after I bargained down the price to $30US a night, we reserved 2 nights and a snorkeling cruise with them.
Earlier that day, we had looked at getting some laundry done but the prices were so outrageous that we couldn’t bring ourselves to get any of it done. We figured we worked too hard to blow it on laundry. Undies were $1US each, T-shirts were $3US each, Shorts were $3US each….you get the point - very VERY expensive. Had we not been down to our last pair of undies and recycling our dirty shirts and shorts, I probably would not have been so creative. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I scrubbed out the bathroom garbage can and filled it with scalding hot water and added the suds –painfully Jeremy (yes Jeremy helped too…what a gem!) and I took turns swishing, turning and swashing our clothes in the bathroom garbage can – we were our very own washing machines. We were truly revolted whenever we changed out our water as we never could have imagined that our clothes could have contained so much dirt! Hours later, we relaxed on the patio strewn with all of our clothes, watched the sun set over the ocean and sipped on our lovely ice cold Coca Cola’s from a BOTTLE. I don’t know why, but pop taste’s so much better from a bottle than it does from a can. Later on that night, we walked down the beach to a nearby hotel for supper and entertainment. The food was amazing and the local dancers were very talented (and humped the air on multiple occasions – very comical).
On day three, we checked out of our $100 US hotel a night and into our $30US hotel a night – the only real difference we noted was that we no longer had A/C – but really, what good is A/C when you have no electricity. We left our luggage with reception and hopped on the snorkeling tour boat. Here we met a very nice Finish man named Thomas who now currently lives in Rwanda. I read most of the way to the island, casually glancing up and the unbelievable scenery while Jeremy, Thomas and Dredge talked the whole way. It turns out that Thomas used to work as a police officer but has now switched careers to help pursue and prosecute genocide in Rwanda. Dredge is originally from Uganda but has been hired to help as a translator in the rest of the groups investigations. They had worked together for three years and you could see that their work had really helped them to form a very strong family like bond. Dredge, our age, was pretty much a son to Thomas who watched over him constantly and teased him like a father would tease his own son.
We snorkeled for about 1 ½ hours before climbing back into the boat and sailed to another island for a prepared lunch. We saw tons of vibrant and very colorful fish, a manta ray (very dangerous here), two types of eel, starfishes and tons of sea urchins.
When we arrived on the island, we were greeted with a beautiful smorgasbord of fresh tuna (steamed over a fire), rice, salad and our favorite…fresh fruit including mangoes, pineapples and banana’s. We stuffed ourselves then took hundreds of photos of the island (I wish we could share these pictures with you but unfortunately our bag with all of our electronic devices were stolen in Kenya before we had time to upload – will tell you more about this later). From here, we sailed back to our island but it was not long before we had a pod of maybe 10 dolphins swimming next to us. The whole trip was so amazing and so beautiful – we really felt blessed.
That night, we arranged with one of the workers on the snorkeling boat a private fishing trip for 2 hours for the following morning. We really wanted to go deep sea fishing but the prices started at $500US a person. We figured the $40US total was a bit more in our league. That night, we ate supper at the hotel restaurant and watched the local guys play a game of soccer in the sand. This followed into sprints on the beach, followed by pushups in the water. When the guys turned to gymnastics, I happily joined them and we took turns doing back handsprings down the beach. I was inspired by their creativity as they had made a makeshift springboard out of a large truck tire. We truly felt like we had found paradise.
On Day 4, we meet our new friends and hopped aboard their little fishing boat. I have to admit that I was again a bit nervous as it seemed like we were driving out to the middle of the sea and nowhere did I see any fishing rods. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Jeremy assured me things would be fine and sure enough, just as soon as he said that, we had stopped, anchored our boat and were piercing our squid bait with our hooks. We did not have fishing rods (which explains why I could not see them onboard) but we used a plumb bob (heavy weight), a fish hook and fishing line. We were instructed to drop the line and when we felt ‘quick biting’ just pull up until the end of the line and hook were back up in the boat. Jeremy immediately caught a fish but once we took a look at it, we both laughed and assumed we would be throwing it over – I am not sure what to call it because it seemed like a large minnow. We did keep it and our captain told us that these tiny fish make great soup. They informed us that our goal was to catch twenty. Jeremy and I both took turns (or so it seemed) catching these little guys and in the end, I had caught 4 while Jeremy had caught 5 ½ (I call it ½ because one was so small that even the guys said we should let it go). I was distraught at the fact that the guys were not killing the fish so Jeremy (my sweetie) asked our captain to finish the fish so we would not have to witness them jumping around in the pail –and they agreed…which is very kind I have to admit. Our fishing trip turned into 3 ½ hours of pure joyful fun and on our way back, I took some beautiful pictures with our boat, our captain and skipper, the anchor and the endless colors of the waters…these picture are what is killing me as it was my favorite from Zanzibar and now because we do not have it, it will only remain in our minds.
We spent the last day again on the beach in the shade buried in our books. I love that Jeremy is content relaxing and reading…a trait he no doubt acquired from both his family (Brenda, Teneille and Brooke) and Hawaii. Jeremy met a local who did not speak any English yet he was able to play a couple of games of cards – I still am confused about the rules...I think Jeremy is too but it was so nice to see a local man smile so much with Jeremy (although I think he was pretty drunk). We treated ourselves to some seafood curry at an amazing restaurant at a nearby hotel called Langi Langi. We were seated on the patio that was built over the ocean and again, watched the sun set over the vast ocean in front of us. It was very romantic and a perfect way to end our little bit of paradise on Zanzibar.
On Day 5, we headed back to Stone Town (I shudder at the thought of it) via the personal car of the hotel owner but only this time, we headed to the airport and not downtown where the ferry was. We opted in taking a plane from Zanzibar to Arusha (more costly) instead of the painful task of waiting to catch the 3 hour ferry back to Dar Es Salaam followed by a days wait then a 10 hour bus ride to Arusha (very cheap) where the start of our Safari was to begin. Our driver and hotel owner, Hasheena, gave us a good background on Zanzibar and his thoughts as to why he (along with then entire island of Zanzibar) wants to separate from Tanzania. When Tanzania had their power outages and power issues, the government worked efficiently on the cities like Dar and Arusha (who had their power out for a mere 24 hours)where as Zanzibar is still waiting…it has been 3 months now without power and the government continually makes their ‘pie crust’ promises to the people. The government, in what they believe is an act of good faith, supplied every household and every business with a generator, but because the common people are so poor, they can not purchase the fuel to run the generator let alone food to feed their families, making the generators completely useless. If this is not bad enough, the oil companies raised the prices of fuel on the island to as high as $4/liter. When we had visited, the price had dropped to just over $2/liter. Hasheena had also said that for him and his brother who work in the tourism industry (and own the beach front hotel) their business has been greatly affected and they have experienced major economical losses. When we left, the power was supposed to be restored within the week so we told him that we would keep our fingers crossed and prayed for him.
Just a side note about Tanzania…these are the peculiar things we have noted so far:
1) When gassing up, people do not turn off their vehicles - I am not sure if they think this is more economical, more fuel efficient or maybe they just don’t know the dangers involved, but everywhere you go, no car, trucks or bikes turn off their engines.
2) All showers in Tanzania do not have a shower curtain and they are not contained in a tub or a surround wall. This means that water sprays everywhere (yes, this includes the toilet, mirror and sink) and goes on everything. The water drains along a slightly sloped floor until it reaches a small drain in the corner of the bathroom – very bizarre…but then again, I wonder what they think about our culture and our ways of life. I bet there would be someone similar to me, writing a blog about how we have these peculiar curtains in the shower that get wet from the shower water.
3) And the strangest of all is the sex tourism. Yes people travel from all over the world to come and sleep with the local men. The ‘predators’(as the mainland Tanzanians call them) just sit on the beach with their nice clothes, and wait for their next prey to come and find them and pay their way. I could not believe this when I hard about it – have people not heard of AIDS???
We arrived safe and sound at the Stone Town Airport and waited painfully to check in to the very slow moving lines (airport official were not skilled at multi tasking). We waited another hour in the departure room (very very hot) before boarding our 12 seater plane and saying one final goodbye to this little place of paradise.
Also as a side note, some of our pictures from Zanzibar and Stone Town were uploaded (and are on the website) but because we were experiencing internet issues, a great deal of them were missed out - :(
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
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