Zanzibar: What I did

Having in my last two posts discussed at length the semi-arduous journey and then the satisfying friendliness of Zanzibar's people, I'll proceed now to actually explain chronologically what I did while I was away on my adventure.

So, at Dar on Monday, after the Battle of Ubungo and a ten hour coach ride, I had a tasty little chicken curry soup thing at the adjoining restaurant to the Jambo Inn and then settled in for a night's rest. To continue the trend of aggravating financial dealings with taxi drivers and bus ticket salespeople, I was followed back to my room by the owner of the (also adjoining) internet cafe who informed me that I forgot to pay for my hour's worth of net time. Oops, I said, and gave him a 1,000 Tsh note. Wait a minute, I then said, and grabbed the note right back. Yes, in fact, I had paid. The man spoke little English, and didn't really understand me (and seemed to genuinely believe I hadn't paid). This ultimately resulted in me talking to the owner's security man, who politely asked me again if I had paid. I said I had, and we left the conversation at that. It was only a dollar.

Dar was boiling, but my room was freezing – thanks to the air-conditioner I tried leaving on all night long. This didn't help my cold too much. The next morning, after deciding to sleep in and skip the 7 a.m. ferry, I sauntered down to the ferry terminal and got confused between ticket touts and certified vendors before settling on a mild but not unsettling rip-off of a fare. Around the corner, I chilled in a shopping mall (that had an Apple store inside, oddly) for about an hour before grabbing a 10 a.m. boat over to Zanzibar.

Around two hours later, I emerged from Zanzibar's sea port, dragging faintly annoying touts in my wake. I'd made a friend on the trip over, an Indian girl called Sonya who spoke immaculate English, so we ditched the touts and grabbed lunch together in front of my hotel – the Clove. After this second Indian dish, we parted and made non-committal plans to see one another again on Thursday – my 24th birthday.

If you're wondering why so much Indian stuff is going on in Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar, I can try to explain. Basically, Tanzania has a fairly large Indian population – thanks to hundreds of years of immigration. Zanzibar was previously controlled by Indian sultans, and back when the slave trade was at its peak in East Africa, Stone Town was the continental capital for human trafficking.

Anyway, the Clove Hotel proved to be a fantastic base of operations for my stay in Zanzibar. I had a nice four-post bed all to myself, a warm shower, hearty breakfast and beautiful rooftop for views of the ocean and surrounding rustic urban sprawl. After settling in and unpacking, I went wandering around Stone Town – making sure, at least at first, to stick to the coastal periphery of the small city. I'd save the maze for later.

By the time I'd reached the end of my Rough Guide map, I'd only been walking for about ten or fifteen minutes, and was thus surprised by how small Stone Town seemed. Later, that central maze of alleyways would change such perception.

After an ice cream break at an Italian place called Amore Mio – with a beautiful seated view in front of the west-facing seafront – I burned time at a net cafe before settling into the Livingstone for a few happy hour beers and some menu research. The Livingstone is one of the better known restaurants in Stone Town. It's located within the former British Consulate, back in the good ol' days of the empire. Tables on the beach provided me with a view of an industrial boat being loaded up with cars and all sorts of bags. I had an unsatisfying crab claw dinner – which, being a crab claw dinner, you really expect to be delectable – but an otherwise fine evening watching the sun go down over acrobatic somersaulting teens playing on the beach in front of me.

The next day, I woke up early for my Clove breakfast and then got picked up from my hotel by the driver for the spice tour I had signed up for. After grabbing some other guests – a German couple, a Swedish woman and Aleem, the Scottish lad from Manchester University mentioned previously – we took off to a spice farm located about twenty minutes north of Stone Town.

I'd had many people tell me that, if I was going to Zanzibar, a spice tour was totally mandatory. If I didn't go on a spice tour, then I was truly missing out on a special experience. Now, I learned a few interesting things about spices, and got to smell a lot of nice-smelling doohickeys, but I didn't exactly have my mind blown to a million sniffable pieces. Still, it was nice to get out of Stone Town to experience a different side to Zanzibar – and, I ended up getting along well enough with Aleem to eat lunch with him on my birthday.

Before that, though, let's continue with the spice tour. After the farm, we went to a market stall and sampled a variety of tasty fruits, then went on to peek at some ancient Persian baths. They were OK. More interesting was the slave cave, a giant hole in the ground near the ocean that was once used to hide hundreds of slaves in. It was pitch black, giant millipedes crawled around my feet, and I imagine it must have been simply horrible to have been cramped down there with no food, water, or freedom.

After this depressing episode, more lighthearted affairs were in order, so we trekked to the beach nearby. I slipped into my swimming trunks and rushed eagerly towards the blue ocean. It was very warm, and very pleasant. I collected some sea shells and had a pee in the ocean. I didn't even need to go that bad, it just felt necessary.

Back in Stone Town, I went on my second culinary adventure – which turned out even worse than the first (the Livingstone). The outdoor seafood market at Forodhani Gardens, just a minute's walk from my hotel, was highly recommended in my guidebook. In spite of warnings from both Aleem and a Danish couple I had met, who told me not to go, I was continuing to put increasingly unnecessary faith in my Rough Guide. I spent 5000 Tsh on skewered lobster meat, and it was not any good at all. Two seafood meals in the seafood capital of Africa – and both of them fairly shit.

The next morning, I didn't feel so great – due to the bad lobster – so took it easy for a while. It was my birthday, after all, and I wanted to ensure I was feeling OK eventually. After sorting out a new ferry ticket stamp at the terminal – which proved as confusing as Dar's, owing to the fact that almost everyone was a tout – I answered birthday messages on Facebook and spoke to my mum, before eventually heading off to lunch with Aleem at Monsoon.

Best to avoid the seafood, thought I, and ordered a nice little steak that came surrounded by small appetizers like thick chickpea humus and cassava leaves. It was a very tasty birthday meal and I enjoyed Monsoon enough to return the next day for lunch.

After discussing what videogames we most looked forward to playing upon our return to the West (mine's Mass Effect 2. Or maybe Bioshock 2. Something 2), Aleem and I parted and pledged the usual Facebook friendship exchange.

I then decided to brave the maze of Stone Town all on my own (the previous day I had looked around for a bit with Aleem, who had been there for a month). After all, I was 24 now, and therefore old enough to look wistfully back upon teenage years. Surely that qualifies me for a solitary walk down some streets. Apparently, though, it doesn't grant me the ability to navigate said streets – as I spent the better part of a day looking for the Anglican Cathedral, which was built on the site of the city's once infamous slave market. Simply could not find it.

Following the social escapades of the maze that I summarized in my last blog, most of the day was over and it was time for dinner. Almost tempted to order food to the rooftop of my hotel (which is possible from the Indian place next door), I sided with another must-do recommendation – this time from a reputable source, my friend Brandon, who has spent time in parts of Africa as a volunteer Edward Norton lookalike.

So, my birthday dinner was pizza at Mercury's – the restaurant named after Zanzibar's most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) son, Freddie Mercury. As Brandon noted to me, it's a little ironic to have a bar in Africa dedicated to a man who was openly gay and had aids. Neither of these things are popular in Africa – at least not in terms of legality (the former) or social acceptability (both). At the end of the day though, Freddie was a musical legend and that's all the bar seemed to think too. My pizza was called the Princess Salme and, for a feminist-themed feast, it was absolutely scrumptious. Sorry, just had to use a word that sounded a little gay.

So after another night spent watching the sun go down on Stone Town's gorgeous harbour – this time with a view of a group of locals playing beach soccer – I clocked in for my last night's rest at the Clove.

The next day, equipped with a better map, I set off to locate the elusive Anglican Cathedral, and find it I did. In the basement of a hostel on site is a pitch dark, scary chamber where slaves used to be kept, sometimes upwards of 75 people at a time, before being sold at the market. The cathedral was an interesting place also, as it housed a cross made from the wood of the tree under which the explorer/missionary/slave-trade-abolitionist Livingstone's heart is supposedly buried.

After the cathedral, I took off into Stone Town's eastern market streets, which I expect are rarely visited by many tourists, and got some surprised glances from shopkeepers and workers busying themselves on the streets. I was on a mission for a soccer jersey for Dar Es Salaam Simba. Sure, I wasn't in Dar, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. Unfortunately, it did, so I had to settle for a nice Zanzibar one instead. Not even sure if Zanzibar actually has a soccer team, though.

All that walking about - missionary work, if you will - had me fairly worn out, so I sat for a while in the renovated Forodhani Gardens, watching ferries and industrial ocean liners going about their daily duties. I returned to Monsoon for a long but affordable three-course lunch – as my ferry wasn't until 4 p.m. - and then moseyed on towards the ferry terminal. Snuck into first-class seating for the return ferry, for some necessary retribution against my ticket problems, and talked to some businessman from Bangalore about how marketing has two metaphorical sides, cooking a meal and presenting it, or something. We got into Dar and I shimmied past the hordes of taxi drivers itching to give me “good price my friend”, opting to walk back to the Jambo Inn instead.

Burger, fries, bed, shower, taxi, bus, home. A great trip that almost deserves an exclamation mark. Almost!