Zanzibar, Tanzania
April 18th, 2009
Hearing mixed reviews of Zanzibar (“highlight of our trip” and “too touristy”) we made our way to see for ourselves what it would be like. We took a luxurious ferry, especially when compared to the Ilala of Malawi, but paid a luxurious price of $140 return for the two of us. The ferry was smooth sailing, air conditioned and comfortable. I slept and Karel watched a pirated movie about Cyborgs trying to take over the world (yes it was as good as you imagine it could be). I woke up just in time to see the end of the movie (don’t worry the humans won) and a few episodes of Mr. Bean.
We arrived in good time, around noon and started to make our way to a friend’s recommend of St. Monica’s guest house. Unfortunately we picked up along the way a tout and it took the best part of an hour to get rid of him. There were a few touts about on the island and we learnt that the only way to avoid having them following you was to completely blank them. A bit uncomfortable to do in the beginning as it feels so rude but we quickly adjusted and enjoyed our free status.
We found St. Monica’s and booked a room. It’s a beautiful place to stay, on the budget end of things but extremely clean and supporting a good cause. The church itself was built on the former slave market and gives tours of the slave chambers where slaves were kept for three or four days without food and water awaiting market day. Market day would involve the slave being tied to a tree post and whipped so that buyers could see the strength of their potential purchase. East Africa’s slaves were sent to Persia, Arab nations and Madagascar. These slaves were separated by sex. The females were essentially added to harems and the males were castrated and used for work thus having a very different history to those in Europe and America where those slaves were encouraged to procreate as more slaves meant more laborers.
Our days in Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar were spent wandering around the narrow alleyways and getting deliciously lost admiring the beautifully carved doors, hearing children running and laughing and enjoying the men drinking their strong coffee. It really was heaven, especially as April is extremely out of season and the number of Muzungas (whites) is so low. We loved eating in local restaurants and tasting all the traditional dishes and going for our tea and cake at the church café. We also spent one day on a Spice Tour seeing the array of spices grown from the vanilla which is hand pollinated, to the nutmeg, lemongrass, cloves and more. It was brilliant fun and we met some great people.
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