Zanzibar…

February 8-10

We flew into Zanzibar from Arusha on the 8th. It was a relatively painless process (and a larger plane). When we arrived to Zanzibar, we grabbed our luggage and went off to try to find the rental car that Michael had reserved. We went out of the terminal to find a guy with a sign depicting Michael’s name on it with all the other cab/tour people waiting. It was a very strange process. Michael had reserved the car online and had paid online, so the guy walked us to a beat up 4 wheel drive, handed over the keys and left us. That was it. No request for identification. No paperwork. When in Zanzibar I guess.

We drove into Stone Town straight from the airport. With only two full days on the island we wanted to get into town right away so we could spend the next two days on the water. We had a few google maps vs. the world issues once we got into town including streets that didn’t exist and google suggesting we go the wrong way down a one way street. These issues are fine but cause some anxiety when the streets are full with cars and people and you are in their way. We finally navigated the town and parked down by the water.

Next small anxiety: we had our bags in the car that we were going to be leaving on the street for a few hours while we went to dinner. Not horrible, but I’d prefer not to do this in the downtowns of many US cities, so some anxiety there. But nothing to be done!

Stone Town has a bustling waterfront with lots of shops and food vendors. This made us a bit sad that we had dinner reservations and not enough time to explore the town.

The city has tons of winding alleys to get lost in:

Michael had booked us dinner at a really neat restaurant in town: The Tea House in the Emerson Spice House. The house is a restored palace that combines the unique culinary heritage of Zanzibar with a menu that mixes Persian and Omani dishes.

Folklore says that Arabian slave owners were paid by the British to free their slaves in this building. The street that the building is on, Hurumzi, got its name during this period from the words uhuru (freedom) and mzee (old man).

The restaurant is on the roof of the building, with a 360 view of the city and the water.

The meal was served on traditional tables, low to the floor, while we sat on cushions around the tables.

What this means is that when I take a picture of our delicious food, you get to see the bare foot of the man across the room…

Every. Time. And mine too apparently.

The food was great plus they had a group of musicians performing traditional music.

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After dinner we took a long route back to the car (ie we got lost) but we reached the car and it was all there, luggage and all. Boom! Big win! What else could go wrong at this point?

Well, let me tell you. We were staying at a guest house that was on the other side of the island. The post dinner drive was about an hour and a half. We popped it into google maps and headed off. We got within about five miles when the roads got really rustic. Sand roads with huge rocks. We got to a point where Michael didn’t think he was going to be able to get over the super steep incline of the rocks, so we turned around and took another route. After about 2km down a sand road on the alternate route, we ran into the same issue. So we turned around. Again. This time, however, mid turn, when the car was perpendicular to the road, the car died. Dead battery. Completely dead.

So with the car completely blocking this road, we sat in silence for a short period of time. The real issue is that we didn’t know where we were, we didn’t have data access and google maps was offering confusing information. Michael called the guest house and no one answered. It was after 11pm, so not a huge surprise. But we legitimately did not know what to do. Michael gave them another call and thankfully someone answered! The manager of the guest house. He was very concerned, but couldn’t really figure out where we were from our instructions. And unfortunately, he was there alone with his 16 month old daughter who was asleep. He wanted us to walk to the main road while he figured out a solution for his baby.

So we got out of the car and tried to push it back to a parallel position to the road. I was worried that leaving the car there was going to be a huge issue – plus we couldn’t get our luggage out of the trunk in the original position. We did some good work to get that car as out of the way as we could. The road was really skinny, so no cars would have been able to get through, but it was better at least.

We grabbed our backpacks and started on the hike back to the main road. About 15 minutes in, we reached the main road and within 30 seconds of our arrival, a car pulled up to us. It was our guest house manager! Amazingly fast arrival (he got the night watchman to watch his daughter).

So crisis averted. The next morning, Michael and a taxi driver went back to the car to jump it. Apparently they do this without cables. They just take their battery, flip it upside down and touch the two together to jump. When in Zanzibar…

When Michael got back, we took to the beach for a relaxing day on a very empty beach. The guest house had a few awesome dogs that would walk out to the beach and hang out with you. Very sweet and gave you that fun feeling like they are your dogs without any responsibility.

As previously stated… super empty beach. We had lunch just a few hundred feet down the beach:

This is a good time to mention that Zanzibar is 90% Muslim. And everyone is fully covered. You could feel it a lot more in Stone Town than on the beach. There were a few tourist with their shoulders exposed, and I don’t dress that scandalously in the first place, but I was cognizant of it and tried to be respectful. The biggest thing is that I kept my shoulders covered when we were driving. There were a lot of police check points and I have no proof that it added any value, but we had zero problems.

That night we went to The Rock restaurant for dinner. Another incredible place with great food and a stunning view.

During high tide, they have to take guests out on a boat to get to the restaurant. During low tide, the beach looks a bit more like this:

On our second full day in Zanzibar, we went deep sea fishing. Some of you already know this, but when Michael and I went to Costa Rica for our honeymoon, I ruined deep sea fishing by getting super sea sick and ending the trip early. No fish caught. So I dramamined up and hit the boat.

We were hoping to catch anything, but we were mostly pumped for Marlin. Two of our poles had lures along with this bait tied to the hooks:

After a short while we saw these dolphins. Not a good video, but the boat was rocking too much and none of my pictures turned out.

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And then we caught the biggest…. nothing. We caught nothing. We had just one bite of the entire day towards the end of our five or so hours on the boat. Both our captain and Michael saw it – it was a Black Marlin and our captain thought it was in the range of 150 kilograms (330 pounds or something). It hit two of our lines, the second one with authority. But by the time everyone jumped into place it was gone.

So a long day on the water with nothing to show. But I didn’t get sea sick! Yay for meds!

After so much time in the sun, we spent the afternoon in the shade by the guest house just enjoying the nice weather and some amazing prawns and hanging with the monkeys:

We really enjoyed Zanzibar and I was sad that we hadn’t allotted more time here. We are in the period of our trip where we are moving around too much. But soon we’ll have some slower time (hopefully)!