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It was a later morning departure so we got to sleep in. I got up before the wakeup call and sat out in front of the tent in the morning sun. A troupe of black faced monkeys came down out of the trees behind the tent to our right and scampered across the walkway and field in front of me for 10 minutes or so. They don’t like to be on the ground and would race from tree to tree to feel safe. Pausing occasionally to fight with each other with lots of screeching and carrying on but very little actual fighting. They’re like little kids. Hey, me first! You stepped on my tail! Oh yeah?
We had a nice breakfast, just us, outside in the trees. We’ve started to get more comfortable with people waiting on us hand and foot. Just in time to leave
We took an extended drive to the airport for some last second game viewing. We saw 3 or 4 topi standing on top of termite mounds. It was a bit comical to see. All in a row. Apparently it’s both to provide a better view of predators and also to show off for the females. It’s the Topi Dating Game. One seemed to be doing much better than the others. He had 3 or 4 females around him.
We spotted a male and female ostrich. In fact we saw the female before Francis did. We’re getting pretty good at this animal spotting thing. We also saw a very large impala herd. Easily 25 females. Francis said the male ‘had a lot of work to do’. Then, just before the airport two big elands. One out in the open, the other standing in the middle of a bush where you could only see his head.
Then on out to the ‘airport’ — a dirt strip and an empty green steel shack and a couple of safari trucks. Our plane isn’t there yet but others are waiting so no worries (just a little). But it does show up. We say goodbye to Francis and get on board. Our pilot is Humphrey. There’s a passenger sitting in the co-pilot seat (there were no other seats available). He’s a former pilot (had his own plane) so Humphrey introduces him as the co-pilot. We all tell him not to touch anything.
It’s a quick and easy flight to Nairobi where Richard is (thankfully) there to meet us. It’s a bit wild and woolly at the airport but we manage to find our bags and figure out how to get out. Then another drive through Nairobi. We really want to take pictures but we’re trying to be respectful of the people who don’t like their pictures taken without asking. So we’ll just have to remember it in our minds. It’s nice to be back on paved roads and not getting an African massage.
We get a room at the same hotel but in a different area this time, part of the main building. So we don’t have to go through multiple security gates to get there. It’s very nice. Dark wood stairway and floors. Very pretty. And a real bathroom with a real toilet and a real shower. I wish we were staying more than a few hours. We’re being picked up at 4:30 am in the morning. We need to figure out how to get some food before then.
We had dinner at the patio cafe. I had sushi of all things. The tuna was actually pretty good. Marion had a Chinese dish. Mongolian beef. I think we were both looking for something different after safari camp food. We arranged with the hotel desk for food in the morning. Or we thought we did. “Just fill out the card and hang it on your door”. Yeah, well, the earliest they deliver is 6am. Oh. Well then just write ‘deliver at 4am on it’. Why didn’t I think of that?
Breakfast is included in our stay but about 15 minutes later they called the room and said by the way you understand there is a ‘service charge’ for this. $11 dollars. Kind of steep I’m thinking but ok. Oh and that’s per person. $22 for yogurt, croissant and cereal!? Ok, what’s the alternative? Yes, please ridiculously overcharge me for this. Thank you. About 10 minutes later they call again. We don’t make croissants until 5am. Bummer, that was the one thing Marion really wanted.
Pearl Harbor, the movie with Ben Affleck was on the TV. It is not a good movie. It is especially bad on a 12 inch screen from across the room, in particular when they put up the Japanese sub titles and they are microscopic and you can’t read them. Although we got the gist of it (Attack! Attack again! Ok stop now, good job.)
Morning came early. And they dutifully showed up at 4am with our breakfast. We had about 15 minutes to stuff it down, which I did while also IM’ing with my sister Audrey on Facebook. Richard was waiting for us out front (no traffic at 4am) and off we went to Nairobi airport. All I can say is, not impressed. First problem, we couldn’t figure out where the Kenya Airlines check-in was. There was just a red sign that said Economy and for some reason I thought that was a rental car counter. But it was Kenya Air. We figured that out, then tried to go through passport control. Nope, you have to fill out this blue form. The form is for entry into Kenya but whatever, if you want a form, here’s a form. That got us into the gate area. A dank, dim narrow corridor, under construction to boot, with a row of duty free shops. We perused those a bit and found a store with coffee, tea and t-shirts. We bought what we thought was about $40 worth of stuff that turned out to be $70 we think because of tax. Or maybe it was the tourist upcharge. We didn’t argue. Then down to our gate which is at the end and downstairs into an even darker, dank, decrepit area, falling apart, filled with cheesy 70’s style plastic seats and one person. Well, I guess we were a bit early.
Ultimately after much rattling of chains that would have made Jacob Marley proud, a set of double doors opened up to the actual gate area. We started to go through then realized we had to go through security again there. Bag screening and what not. But we wanted to be in the right place. We had bought some water at the shop, which was duty free, so we had to drink it all before boarding, which we did. But as boarding time approached, it was clear that I wasn’t going to make it. I knew it was a relatively small plane and I was afraid it wouldn’t have a bathroom (didn’t turn out that way, it had one). So I went back to security and told them I needed to go out. They said I could if I left my boarding pass, which I did, but I kept the colored card they gave me. On the way out, I could see the line in was about 30 people deep and not moving quickly. It was about 10 minutes to boarding but I went for it. There really was no choice.
I got back to the bathroom (where a man was washing his feet in the sink) and back to the gate fairly quickly and in true savvy traveler style, I waved the plastic boarding card I had and elbowed past the people in line and went through and up to the counter to get my boarding pass back. Rude American, but I didn’t miss the plane. I should mention that right in front of us while we were sitting there crossing our legs was a windowed wall with a chained door that looked like it had been added more recently than the rest of the airport. Through the chained door, taunting us, were the toilets that had been intended for this area. But for whatever reason, they had blocked them off.
Marion managed to hang on until we got on board and jumped up as soon as the seat belt light went off and beat the rush. We weren’t the only ones who wished there were bathrooms in the boarding area.
It was a quick one hour flight to Zanzibar. It’s much warmer here and humid. We landed at the same time as a big Italian plane. So it’s a mass of people swarming the 3 or 4 people at immigration in their little tin shack. The counter area is inside but it’s not very big. So we’re left out on the tarmac in the hot sun waiting for the line to move. Everyone is also trying to buy their Tanzanian visa. We had gotten ours ahead of time but couldn’t figure out how to get past the crowd up to where it would do any good. We’re standing out on the tarmac trying to get through the doors and it’s getting hot. Once again displaying our savvy traveler skills we managed to worm our way up to the front and flashed our visas at an immigration officer. He motioned with his hand that we needed a stamp, which we needed to get from this guy over here. We kind of eased our way into the line so we were only about 3 people back. But the process is they take a full set of fingerprints (on a scanner) and it takes forever. As the place was emptying out, we finally got through.
Our pickup guy, Anwari (I think) was there to meet us, thank goodness, and he took us into the parking lot where his father (Ali maybe?) and he loaded up our bags and headed us into Stone Town, with a series of “Welcome to Zanzibars”. I don’t think they knew much more English than that. The drive into town was much like the drive to Saruni. Lean-to shops, people everywhere, very third world feeling, which of course it is. We get into town and it doesn’t really get much better. It’s going to be interesting wandering around town. I haven’t seen any tourists yet.
We catch a glimpse of the ocean which looks beautiful and go by the harbor where there are a bunch of ships, then through some twisty turny streets and here we are at the Zanzibar Palace Hotel. This is clearly an older building and has a lot of charm. We are wary of charm. We’ve been to a number of ‘historic’ hotels. They tend to have historic plumbing and heating and cooling systems. And often historic matresses too.
The desk clerk informs us that as it’s 10:30 am, there are still people in our room and it might not be ready until two. We aren’t prepared to hit the streets just yet, we haven’t put on any sun tan lotion for one thing and we definitely are going to need shorts. So we park in the lobby and hang out (thus hopefully impelling them to hurry once the people are out of there). Shortly after 11 our room is ready. It’s cute, but small. And uh oh, mosquito netting. But we’re prepared for that now.
Marion settled in for a rest and I did some log writing. And next up is venturing out into the streets to find some food. This should be interesting.
After a rest, we applied copious amounts of sun screen, plucked up our courage and headed out into the streets. The hotel manager had given us a basic path to follow so we wouldn’t get lost. The town is filled with little narrow streets and with the buildings so close together it’s easy to lose your bearings. But it’s a peninsula and it’s bounded on 2 sides by ocean and on the third third by a major road so it’s hard to go too far astray. We found the ocean fairly easily, near a very large tree where all the taxi drivers sit in the shade waiting for fares. Well, they don’t really wait so much as pounce on you as you walk by and ask if you want a taxi. No? How about tomorrow? We’ll see. What time? Uh, we don’t know. Bye.
There are lots of boats in the harbor (I guess it’s a harbor, it doesn’t look very protected) from large luxury yachts to small dilapidated wooden boats. The water is turquoise blue and looks very inviting. We’re looking forward to getting up north where we can swim. We passed a restaurant but realized we didn’t have any Tanzanian money yet. So we headed down the beachfront a ways to the bank. Tanzanian shillings are a great bargain at this point. You can get about 1670 to the dollar. So we had to take out 300,000 shillings to get a few hundred dollars. Nice to see we had millions in our checking account :-). It came out in 5000 and 10,000 notes so we got this giant wad of bills that I quickly stuffed into my pocket. We’d already been hounded by people selling t-shirts, towels, and worst of all these guys selling a CD of Tanzanian music. They come up singing the songs. It was interesting the first time, the next 12 it was just annoying. I finally told one guy, you know we’ve been offered this CD about 10 times already. He seemed surprised.
We found a restaurant across from the bank that looked appealing because it had grilled cheese sandwiches and burgers. Of course they are nothing like at home as it turns out but it still lured us in. The waiter was very nice and chatted with us. And offered to serve as a guide and drive us up to our hotel. Everybody’s got something to sell. But if we hadn’t already had it planned I would have taken him up on it. He seemed very sincere. He tried to convince me to try a glass of bungo juice. I had never heard of the bungo fruit. He said it was kind of like mango, which I don’t like, so I passed. A violation of the ‘try new things’ rule of travel but they had watermelon/lemon which I tried instead which was quite refreshing. (The next morning they had bungo juice at breakfast. It’s quite good. So there you go.)
After lunch we wandered up the tourist road. Lots of interesting shops. At least at first. African tourist stores have a lot different stuff than your typical Oregon beach tourist town for instance. But after 4 or 5 stores it still all starts looking the same. T-shirts (of course), but carved wooden animals and spoons, spices (it is the spice island after all), some interesting drawings and paintings, books, etc. There was one shop selling old photographs of Tanzanian history — presidents signing things and what not. Very odd but someone was in there buying one when we were there so they had some appeal to someone (we did not buy any).
We missed whatever turn the hotel guy had told us and continued down the road to the point we hit the ocean again and knew we had gone too far. We started back overland but very quickly found ourselves off the beaten track and things were looking a little dicey. So we retraced our steps back to the tourist walk. It was hot and we continued to be accosted by people wanting to be our guides, take us on a taxi ride or sell us the damn Tanzanian music CD. So we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. On the way yet another CD guy accosted Marion and after repeated no thank you’s starting poking her. She got very mad at him (rightly) and stormed off. He yelled after her ‘go visit Europe, don’t come to Africa’. Asshole
There was a big commotion near the restaurant/bank. Two big trucks of army guys and lots of cars. We couldn’t really tell but it looked like maybe there was a ferry loading. Not sure if the army guys were just waiting to load on the ferry or something else was going on. But we managed to get by them and continue on without being accosted or arrested. We walked through the Forodhani Park which is very pretty and then back along the waterfront.
We managed to find our way back to the hotel and had a nice rest. It’s hot. At some point we’re going to figure out how the A/C works. We’ll have to venture out again to find dinner then I suspect we’ll call it a day. Tomorrow will be interesting. Marion kind of had it today but I’m hoping she’ll get a second wind. There’s a guided walking tour that gets into the history which seems like the big deal here. I might be able to talk her into that if it’s not all day. But we’ll see.
Sounds of Stone Town from our window — children laughing and screaming as they play in the streets, the sound of the mosque calling for prayers, many men shouting at each other, trucks and motor scooters. Lots of honking.
We had dinner at Mercury’s. I couldn’t really read the menu to see the whole story but it had some relationship (possibly just fans) to Freddie Mercury of Queen who was born in Zanzibar. His family left while he was still quite young but fame is fame and you might as well take advantage. It’s right on the water and had a great view of the harbor.
On our way there we passed a group of boys playing in the streets. Likely the ones we heard shouting and laughing from our window. They were playing a game that I think is likely called “Rock Toss” that seemed to consist of a few boys hurling rocks at the heads of the other boys, whose job it was to not get hit by them and bleed to death. Both the throwers and the dodgers seemed to be having a good time. They were both laughing. It was the classic example of that old parental saying “it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye”. But we were in no position to say anything.
As we ate, there was a large group of men were playing soccer on the beach as it got dark. You could only see them in silhouette with the boats/water behind them. It looked cool and very fun. The moon was just a thin sliver and set shortly after the sun. Lots of bugs for awhile but then they settled down. Marion had fish tacos which were quite good. I had grilled chicken. It was a breast and thigh (I think) but it must have been from the scrawniest chicken ever. But homemade ice cream for dessert. Marion had Old English Toffee. I had chocolate. VERY tasty. We decided we would do the city tour after all and arranged for a 9 o’clock pickup.
The call for morning prayers came over the loudspeakers at 5:30am or so. I can’t get into a religion that wants me up that early. The only thing I’d be praying for is to go back to sleep. Very uncivilized. Although given that the call is now done by loudspeaker, it would seem that someone has figured out how not to get up early. It’s pouring down rain but hopefully it will clear before it’s time for our tour.
Tour time came and no worries. The rain has stopped and the sun is out. We meet our guide Godfrey in the lobby and off we go. He starts off with a little history. Zanzibar is actually a bastardization of the words Zangy (sp?) meaning black and Barre (sp?) meaning port, or Port of the Blacks. Subtle. But anyway, it got turned into Zanzibar by the Arabs after they took over. They prefer z’s to g’s I guess. The island has had many rulers. The Persians, then the Portuguese, the Omani Empire, then the British then finally the Africans themselves. Slave trading went on here from the 1200’s to the 1900’s. Yes, for 700 years. Pretty amazing. The British finally stopped it although even after they banned it in the mid 1800’s there was still illegal slave trading going on until the early 1900’s. Originally it was the Arabs who wanted the slaves. Primarily women to work as domestics and concubines. But some men. The Portuguese used them too, as did India as well as the Dutch (in the East Indies). It pretty much sucked to be an African for most of the time since the birth of Christ.
There was an interesting twist to the story. The Arabs would castrate any men they sent home as slaves to prevent them from engaging in relations with Arab women. As a result, there is not a large population of blacks in the Middle East the way there is in the United States. And per our guide, if you ask the Arabs if they were involved in the slave trade today they’ll say no and as proof they’ll say “look around, there are no blacks here”. Crafty. But unfortunately for them, the Arab men often got the concubines pregnant so there are ‘black arabs’ but no one likes to talk about it there. They’ve just been in the sun a bit longer than others I guess.
Anyway, we ventured off. In a different direction than we walked yesterday so we were immediately lost. It makes a HUGE difference to walk behind a guide who knows where he’s going than to wander the streets by yourself. The anxiety level is much lower when you have no idea how to get back to the hotel.
After a few minutes we came to the main market. And what a scene. People everywhere. The place is just humming. You can really feel it. There are stands everywhere with people selling everything you can think of. Trucks and carts and scooters and anything else that can carry anything are going to and fro.
We stopped at a spice stand (pretty sure it was a friend of Godfrey’s) and Marion got a collection of spices to bring home. Some common ones (clove) and some less so (cinnamon coffee). No haggling. We suck at that. But still pretty cheap.
The market is divided into 3 main sections — beef, vegetables and fish. After a look at a cart of raw meat and a pile of hides we decided we’d peruse the fish area instead. There was quite a variety. One of the big items is octopus. I should have taken a lot more pictures than I did but felt a little uncomfortable shoving a camera in people’s faces. It would be sort of like Africans coming into the Beaverton Safeway and snapping pictures of us buying peaches. But I still got a few as did Marion. Each stand had a different kind of fish including a couple of real whoppers out front. Marlin I think. But definitely multi-hundred pounders. Just lying sandy and dirty on the ground though. They didn’t look too appealing. And a couple of huge rays that looked even less appealing.
From there we headed down the main drag (that used to be a stream before the British filled it in a century ago) and down to the slave market area. The Catholics built a church on the site of the slave market in an attempt to ‘cleanse’ the area. Also a school and hospital. A nice thought actually. The altar is right over the whipping post area. You don’t get whipped if you do something wrong as you might expect. You get whipped when you’re up for sale. If you whimper or cry you’re weak and you’re price is lowered. If not, you’re strong and get a better price. Not sure there was any incentive for the person getting whipped to demonstrate strength but that was apparently the algorithm.
Godfrey pointed out an interesting architectural aspect of the church. There are a series of 12 columns in the back. They’re upside down! The day they were installed the supervisor was out and the workers put them in wrong. By the time he noticed it was too late. Hakuna Matata as Godfrey said.
We went down and saw the dungeons where the slaves were kept. A tiny dark room with no food, water or toilet. 70 people in a room that could comfortably (if you could call it that) probably hold 20. Not pretty. Many died from suffocation. I asked if it wasn’t better strictly from a business perspective to improve conditions to keep more alive (and have more to sell). But there were a number of reasons not to. Primarily, it was psychological. If you’re going to subjugate a person you can’t treat them humanely. You have to give them no hope or they might decide to rebel. And from a profit standpoint, you could lose some percentage and still come out ahead so there was no real incentive to maximize profits.
Godfrey showed us a tree near the church that is a ‘soap’ tree. It has berries on it that when crushed and mixed with water creates a soap. He found a spigot and showed us. He had about 3 or 4 berries and when crushed produced a fair amount of lather.
We continued on and ended up in the area we had been yesterday, making our way to the Africa House hotel and up to the Sunset Bar to check out the view. It looks like a nice spot and we may go back tonight to have a drink and watch the sunset from there. This was the old British club. Lots of dark woods. Very pretty. And a handy bathroom!
From there it was back up towards the ocean towards the Old Fort but through some shopping areas we missed yesterday. Everyone wanted us to come in (some very insistent) but we didn’t do any shopping. We’re getting a bit anti-commerce at the moment.
We’ve been passing all sorts of interesting doors. Big heavy wooden doors, often with elaborate carvings and other ornamentation. Stone Town is known for its doors and there are posters and books for sale in the shops. Godfrey pointed out there are two types. Arab influenced which are straight across at the top and Indian influenced which are curved. The Arabs tended to carve palm trees and camels while the Indians tended to carve pineapples and elephants. The most interesting feature on the Indian doors was very large metal protrusions like a spiked dog collar. In India in those days people tended to break into your house or fort or whatever stronghold they were trying to get into by having an elephant push the door in. So the Indians put big metal spikes on the door to dissuade this sort of behavior and it became the custom. So even though there are no elephants in Zanzibar, there are a lot of doors with extensive elephant butting protection.
But anyway, we continued through town to the Old Fort, which we had seen the day before but hadn’t gone in. It’s kind of interesting in an ‘old ruins’ sort of way. The walls are still (mostly) standing but there’s not a whole lot to see. Various enterprising folk have set up shops along the walls. And they’ve built an amphitheater in one area where they have a couple of major concerts each year.
We had come in a side door and wandered out the front door, past the man who looked a bit surprised to see us come out. Seeing as you typically have to pay to get in (we think). Same at the slave market too actually. In fact the hotel manager had given the guide money to pay for our tickets to the slave market and yet magically we didn’t have to pay. I think Godfrey has figured out how to pocket a little extra change from his tours. But that’s ok. We all have to make a living.
Last stop was the House of Wonders. This was a building built by the Sultan of Oman for events and administration. It was called the House of Wonders by the locals because it was the first building in Zanzibar to have an elevator, running water and electricity. All very magical items for the locals at the time (and based on our hotel, elevators are still a mystery). It’s a museum now and we may go back this afternoon and check it out.
Back to hotel and we’re dripping wet. It was hot and humid out there. We sucked down the water they left us for brushing our teeth so we’ll have to replenish our supply. Time for a little nap then lunch.
We thought we’d go back to Mercury’s because it’s nearby and they have a good selection and a patio overlooking the beach. It’s just a quick left and a few minutes’ walk and there you are. Except it’s actually two lefts. But we only made one. We were well off track when we finally realized things didn’t look right. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, I knew I should have made that left turn at Albuquerque. So where the heck are we? Well, we know we need to make at least one left. So let’s try that. Hmm, not helping. How about another left. We’ve hit a major street and Marion remembered that if you don’t hit the ocean, you hit a major street so we shouldn’t parallel the road and we definitely shouldn’t cross it. Okay, so let’s turn left again. We shouldn’t have been that far from the ocean (and we weren’t as it turned out) but in the narrow little streets we couldn’t see an opening. We of course didn’t bring the map because we were just going down the street to a known spot. And I’m thinking, don’t 3 lefts make a right? Aren’t we going the wrong way now?
But we didn’t panic. And a few hours out walking with the guide this morning gave us a new confidence in getting around and not being scared. And finally things started looking right. There was a marine supply store and we could see shipping crates. Must be getting near the ocean. Then we spotted the clock tower of the House of Wonders and we knew we had found our way out. And just up the street was Mercury’s where we had a nice lunch. I had the fish tacos this time and Marion had a seafood pizza complete with squid and octopus. But it was pretty tasty.
It was a regular traveling salesman parade along the beach in front of the restaurant and we had a front row seat on the deck. We passed up the opportunity to buy a Zanzibar or Tanzania soccer jersey, carved wooden figures, scarves, sunglasses, and the ever present Tanzanian music CD that if I knew it would keep everyone from trying to sell it to me I would buy just to get it over with. But the scarf guy made a sale to the people behind us and Marion gave him a smile and a thumbs up which he seemed to appreciate. They seemed to be buying one of everything actually and took a lot of the pressure off of us.
While we were having lunch a big dark cloud came over. It looked like rain but it didn’t. And kept things relatively cool although humid. It will probably ruin the sunset but them’s the breaks. After lunch we headed over to the House of Wonders. We paid our $6 each and headed in to a very dimly lit decrepit old building. It was kind of interesting architecturally on the inside. It’s mostly open space. But not so much from an exhibit stand point. There was a big wooden boat in the middle and a few semi-interesting displays. Not a great museum but an interesting diversion.
There was an impressive curved wooden stairway up to the 2nd and 3rd floors. And from the third floor balcony you got a pretty decent view of town and you could overlook the Old Fort. Up at the top was a contingent of someone important. There were cameras flashing and a video camera and various people paying deference to various other people. They were a bit dressed up too. We meandered through them in our grubby safari wear and managed to get in a few of the pictures. Hope they like them.
Marion wanted to look at some wooden boxes we saw at a shop in the fort when we were on our tour. So we walked over there. The boxes are very beautifully carved, by hand, by the people there. We found two we liked. We didn’t haggle, we don’t like to. And I’m sure the vendors appreciate getting full price as well (which still isn’t much). We asked to get a picture of the workshop (a maybe 4×6 foot space). They agreed but only if we took their email address and sent the picture. An odd request but we said ok. They may be hoping we can ‘help’ them just like the guy at the gallery in Kenya.
Down the way we found some drawings and paintings we really liked and the artists were the ones doing the selling. Marion struck up a conversation with the one who did the pieces she liked. He went to an art school in town for a few years to learn the basics then basically self taught himself from there. He did pen and ink drawings with ink watercolor washes. Really cool looking. We ended up buying a bunch of them and even managed to negotiate a small discount. He didn’t seem nearly excited enough to be making a sale so we think he must be doing pretty well. (We bought a drawing from a woman at an art festival in a little town in Oregon and she was so excited we were wondering if we were the first people to ever buy something from her). He wrapped it up for us with cardboard so it wouldn’t get damaged on the way home and wrapped it in enough packing tape we may never get them out. Hopefully customs won’t need to look at them.
We managed to avoid the rest of the sellers and headed back to the hotel, sticking to the ocean road so we wouldn’t get lost. We’ve got one more excursion to get dinner and that should about do it for Stone Town. It’s an interesting place. I’m glad we came. But also glad it’s time to move on to the beach hotel
One last foray out into the streets. It’s about sundown and even though the skies are pretty cloudy, I talk Marion into going out to make sure there isn’t a photo waiting to be taken. Turns out there really isn’t. But it’s about dinnertime anyway. We walked along the ocean front down to where the shops and things are. All along the waterfront kids were jumping into the ocean from the seawall. Many in quite dramatic fashion with flips and dives. A lot of them just jumped in with the clothes they were wearing. We could relate. It was very hot and muggy. It looked like fun but we didn’t join in. I suspect they do it every night.
The street vendors are out in force. I guess it’s late in the day and they’re getting desperate. But they just won’t take no for an answer and follow us down the street. The guy who initially tried to sell us a CD yesterday is back and this time he’s got a sob story. He’s just trying to get money for food. He hasn’t eaten all day. He’s hungry. Marion is a soft touch for a story like that and before we know it, we’ve got ourselves a CD. But for only about $4, not the $20 he originally asked for. Turns out it’s really good at getting all the rest of the CD vendors to leave us alone. We just wave it at them. But the really good salesmen have a trick up their sleeve. A second CD! “You know the one you bought is Kenyan music. *This* one is Tanzanian.” Aaargh.
One guy just would not leave us alone and I almost had to shove him away. Marion pulled a pretty good trick on one. When he asked where we were from she said Espana. He said oh, como esta? and she rattled off some Spanish at him. It seemed to work although I don’t think he was convinced and when we walked back that way later we took a circuitous route to avoid him.
We escaped by heading into the restaurant where we had lunch the day before and we liked the waiter. He remembered us. Back again?, he said. I thought you left. No, not until tomorrow. As we sat down and started looking at the menu, the power failed. And when the power fails in Zanzibar at night, it’s DARK. But the power fails so often that many people have generators so various places came back fairly quickly. But not this restaurant. So, what can you cook when you don’t have electricity? Burgers and fish (guess the grill is charcoal fired). So we had some grilled fish, which was pretty tasty. And I think the waiter appreciated us sticking it out.
We also discovered as we talked about it, that the fishing industry in Tanzania and Kenya is making a comeback. Why? Because the Somali pirates have scared off the big commercial ships from Japan and elsewhere that come in and decimate the fishing grounds. But the locals don’t have a choice. They still go out. And with the reduced fishing, they’re actually starting to do pretty well. So score one for the Somali pirates.
By the time desert came (chocolate cake and ice cream, yum) the power came back on. We told our waiter we had been a bit worried about getting back to the hotel in the dark. The ocean road was reasonably lit but back in the little streets we might have been working by braille. We hadn’t brought a flashlight with us. He said not to worry, he would have taken us back. How nice! (When we told Daniel this on IM later he said, ‘yeah, to rob you!’. But I’m sure he wouldn’t have.) He wished us well in our journeys and our lives, hoped we’d come back next year, and all in all was a very pleasant and decent guy. We got his picture and promised to tell our friends to come to Stone Town and visit his restaurant.
So now we just had to get back to the hotel. We passed by Forodhoni Park where the locals set up food stalls every night. It looked like some pretty interesting stuff but we a) had just eaten and b) didn’t trust the food, so we intended to just look. But a very nice gentleman came up to talk to us and gave us his sales pitch. Come look at my fish I’ve been fishing all day. I make all these wonderful things. We figured we had the perfect answer — we just ate. But at the end of the description of all the various things he had (all kinds of grilled things on sticks which looked pretty good) he told us that all the extra food goes to the orphanage since they can’t save it and they’ll go out fishing again tomorrow anyway. Don’t know that I believe it (orphans? really?) But being the softies that we are we bought a piece of coconut bread which they guy seemed to appreciate. Although “you couldn’t also buy a kabob”, he asked? They’re like Jewish grandmothers these guys.
We managed to get back to the hotel without buying anything else. We really really hope that the beach place isn’t crawling with people selling things too.
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