Zanzibar, Tanzania: Chipati's On the Beach Revisited

A week in the tropical paradise of Zanzibar, it all sounds so blissful and wonderful. But Zanzibar has its ups and downs, not to mention we are smack dab in the middle of "rainy" season. While this was good for the budget, it meant we didn't see a day without rain, and presently it was raining for the last 24 hours straight on the island.

Getting to and from Zanzibar is half the adventure as it involves rabid touts, or in Swahili, papai ("ticks"), aggressive taxi drivers, pecan pimps, the high sea rocking the boat and the inevitable mass of people pushing to get in and off the boat. We sent early to book our tickets and still had a hard time avoiding touts that simply will not stop hounding you, they get comission if they bring you to certain offices. That and people rush the boat, trying to catch you off guard to grab your bags so you have to pay them for carrying your bags or to convince you to go to a hotel where they get comission. Getting out of the port is hard enough, where you not only have to dodge cab drivers and touts, but fork lifts and fishermen all moving at high speed between the shipping containers. And then there is the immigration stamping which allows room for about two lines of people and while you are getting stamped into Zanzibar people are pushing to get past you. All this sound like a boat load of fun? Then why not throw in the roll of the seas which involved our rather large boat (big enough for over 100 people and fairly new) smashing down on giant ocean rollers, people screaming and cargo slamming. We even lost somehing overboard which is where it all went downhill because we spent a half hour rocking in the waves, where upon the barfing began.

But the island, white sand, palm trees, tourqoise water and torrential rain! We spent a few days in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Stone Town while is a winding labrynth of moldy houses filled with shops, mosques and muslim people all intermingled with rain puddles and touts. It is really hard to shake the touts, no wonder they are called ticks, and we spent a good deal of time trying to be polite. It is the low season on the island, so there isn't much business to go around and even if you tell someone no 3 times in a day, you will see them again the next day.

And once again, everything is open to haggling, especially when you are a tourist, they just jack it up when they see you coming. But there is a lot of fun that can be had once you learn the system and we spent a few nights eating at the lively ocean front seafood market sampling everything from shark, and falafels to Zanzibar Pizza (beef, veg, egg wraped in dough). We got hosed the first night, as we didn't really know the system but we haggled fiercly the second night and paid even less the third night.

We had our tout too, his name was Eddy. He was a pretty nice guy, but of course he is out to get the most from us and we are out to pay the least to him. On the first night at the market he introduced us to his "friend" who owned a stall, but ended up just being a food papsi and we ended up paying more for our meal than we should have. Justine, angry, told Eddy that we wouldn't give him our business because of his "friend." We then got discounts on going on a Spice Tour and transport to the North Beach. Of course we say discount, but no one would agree to do anything for us if they weren't making $$ off of us. It is a hard thing haggling though, because people are really friendly and you know that waht you are haggling over ends up being about 1 USD, but even all of that adds up for us right now. Still, sometimes you have to think, what is that really to me?

Touts may be a hassle, but the island has a very friendly vibe and nearly every local you meet greets you with "Jambo" or "Hujambo" to which you reply "jambo or sijambo". Then you might get a Mambo, so you say poa (cool). Being that there aren't that many tourists it is hard to get anywhere without having to get into conversations like that.

The north beach of Nungwi was pure tropical bliss and mosquitos. Sand with all of the whitening promise of Cologate, but none of the minty aftertaste. It really is picturesque with a rough edge to it. Beach boys and fishermen hang out on the beach waiting for tourists and you can't even sunbath in the rain without someone trying to sell you something.

Many of the fishermen still use wooden dhows with a sail to fish, and there is even a dhow building centre at Nungwi. They pull in all sorts of fish and tropical shells from the tourqoise water. Hours can be spent wandering the white sand playing with hermit crabs and looking at sharks that have washed up. But once that is done and it is raining again, there isn't much else to do but spend money on drinks or activities.

But onwards we move and from teh rain of the coast we are heading inland to Arusha towards the Serengeti and the Nogorogoro crater. We managed to travel the last month with only one 5 minute stint of rain, and our time here on the coast has been enough. We were also asking where Africa is, and although the mosques and the sea sickness weren't really what we were after when we asked that, we found a different answer to our question here on the coast, one that we won't forget anytiem soon.