December 23rd, our first full day in Zanzibar, started very early. 4:51am to be exact. We didn’t mean to wake up that early, but it was hard not to wake up when the call to prayer from the nearest mosque began. It literally sounded as though the man calling everyone to pray was standing in our room. He wasn’t, of course, but it sounded like it. Sarah and I looked at each other, waited for the call to prayer to be over and went back to sleep for another three hours.
We finally got up and had breakfast at our hotel’s rooftop restaurant before setting off to explore Stone Town for the day. We spent most of the day shopping. I won’t go into too much detail about that because this post would be ridiculously long if I did. Let’s just say that the stores in Stone Town are definitely designed to appeal to tourists. They are huge and have lots of stuff in them. We’d gotten used to shopping in Dodoma and found the stores in Stone Town with all of their choices to be a bit overwhelming. There were even stores that accepted credit cards. You can’t pay for anything with a credit card in Dodoma. I’m serious, there is not one place that accepts cards. We found at least 5 places on the same street in Stone Town.
Another thing that stood out was the sheer number of tourists. It was a bit mindboggling. We’ve gotten used to being the only non-Tanzanians when we walk down the streets or walk into a store. Not in Stone Town. There you could go to a restaurant or a shop and the only Tanzanians would be the ones who worked there. It was pretty odd.
We had lunch at a great place called the Stone Town Café. We liked it so much that we had lunch there every day we were in Stone Town and even stopped by on our way back to Dar es Salaam on December 29th. After lunch, we decided to go to the Anglican Cathedral to find out when the English Christmas service would be and to take a tour of the Cathedral and the grounds.
The Anglican Cathedral in Stone Town is built on the site of an old slave market. When the market was still running, there were 17 slave caves where thousands of men, women and children were imprisoned as they waited to be sold to slave ship captains who would take them to various places around the world. Only two of the 17 original rooms are still in existence today. The others have been destroyed. It was a bit jarring to go on the tour, as you might expect. We bought our tickets and followed our guide into a building that is now part of the hostel that the Cathedral runs. We went down some stairs and turned a corner and found ourselves in a room where 75 women and children were kept as they waited to be put up for sale. The room was not big at all. It was dark and musty, despite the three small windows, two of which were added after the market was no longer operational. The room had a raised platform about three and a half feet tall that went around the perimeter of the room leaving a small area in the middle. As we sat on the edge of the platform, our guide explained that we were sitting on the same place that the women and children who were kept in the room sat and slept. Our feet were hanging in the part of the room that served as the toilet.
After he’d given us some background information on the slave trade and we’d looked in a room across the hall where 50 men were kept while they waited to be sold to slavers, we went back outside to look at a memorial. The memorial consisted of five statues of people with chains around their necks. The chain and collars used in the memorial were actually used on people who’d been imprisoned in the caves on the Cathedral grounds. Our final stop on the tour was the Cathedral itself. It’s an impressive building in its own right, but its history and what’s been done to commemorate that history is quite moving. Our guide gave us a short history of the Cathedral and of the religious make up of Zanzibar. The island is 96% Muslim and 4% Christian. There are 15 mosques in Stone Town and 2 churches, one Anglican and the other Catholic.
The history of the Cathedral grounds permeates the interior of the Cathedral as well. There’s a cross in the Cathedral that was carved out of the tree under which Livingstone’s heart was buried in Zambia. Given Livingstone’s abhorrence of slavery, that seems entirely appropriate. What was the most striking and moving for me though was actually a small circle of white marble in the floor directly in front of the altar. The circle marks the spot where a tree that was used as a whipping post used to stand. Slaves were tied to the tree and whipped to see how strong they were. If a slave could be whipped and get up on their own, their price went up. If they were not able to get up, their price went down. The white marble circle is surrounded by red marble to symbolize the blood of the slaves. Imagine having that history present with you every time you went to church.
After we finished our tour, we made our way back to our hotel to wait for our friends to arrive. Maaike and Lianne, who both teach at the Dodoma Deaf School, Leane and Jo, who both teach at CAMS, and Josiah (Leane’s son) and Gwen (Jo’s daughter), who were both visiting for the holidays, arrived at about 6:45 and checked into their rooms at the Garden Lodge. After they’d had a chance to shower and rest a bit, we headed off to Livingstone’s, a beachside restaurant, for dinner. After dinner, Leane took us to an alley where there are about 20 tables of seafood shish kabobs set up. You can order any of them and they’ll be cooked for you on a little charcoal grill. We’d just eaten, so all we did was look, much to the disappointment of all the vendors. It was quite late when we were finished looking, so we caught a taxi back to our hotel.
On the 24th, Leane, Jo, Josiah and Gwen headed off to Paje (a beach on the eastern coast of Zanzibar) and Sarah, Maaike, Lianne and I stayed in Stone Town to explore. We took a small boat out to Prison Island to see the old prison and the enormous population of tortoises. I should say here that I had a bit of trouble getting out of the boat when we arrived at the island. The boats pull up to the shore, but not so that they’re on the ground. You still have to wade through a bit of water to get to the sand which means that the boats go up and down with the tide. There are obviously times when multitasking is not something I do well and trying to climb out of a boat that is going up and down in the waves while trying to hold up my skirt so it doesn’t get wet was definitely one of those times. The left side of my skirt and my t-shirt got a bit of a soaking much to the amusement of Sarah, Maaike and Lianne-I think Sarah enjoyed it the most. Actually, I know that Sarah enjoyed it the most!
The prison itself was rather unremarkable. The tortoises were another story, though. After we bought our tickets, we were each given a handful of some kind of vegetation to feed to the tortoises. They were only too happy to come right over and eat everything we gave them. We walked around the enclosure alternately feeding and watching the tortoises – and taking lots of pictures of course! Sarah’s green skirt was very popular with the tortoises. Several of them tried to bite it because it was about the same color as the vegetation we were feeding them. None of them had any luck, although one came close. After we’d looked at the tortoises, we went down to the beach to wait for our boat to come back.
I didn’t have any trouble getting on the boat, but getting off once we were back in Stone Town was another story. This time it wasn’t my fault though! Our boat driver, captain I guess, had obviously seen that I had some trouble getting out of the boat the last time. So, he decided that he was going to help me. I was actually doing pretty well climbing down the short ladder despite feeling very unsteady due to the waves when he tried to help me off the ladder. This caused me to slip and drop the hem of my skirt into the water and get wet again - much to Sarah’s entertainment. We walked back to our hotel so I could shower and change and so Maaike, who’d gone swimming by choice at Prison Island, could do the same. Then we went to lunch at our favorite café and spent the rest of the day wandering around the shops to Maaike and Lianne could see them. We decided to have dinner at the same restaurant that we’d gone to the night before. This time we didn’t have a reservation, but the waiter we’d had the night before actually bumped some people from a table for us. As we sat on the beach listening to the waves, none of us could really believe that it was actually Christmas Eve.
Christmas Day began the same way that our other two morning in Stone Town did-with the call to prayer from the local mosque. We got up, though not at 5:00am, and went to the English service at the Cathedral. We thought that we’d get to sit in the main sanctuary for the service, but that was not to be. We were stuffed into a side chapel instead. The chapel filled up quickly and our pew which comfortably sat five ended up with seven people on it for most of the service. We used the Church of England liturgy and sang familiar Christmas hymns, but it just wasn’t the same as being home.
After the service we had some time before our taxi was supposed to come, so we stopped at an ATM to get cash for our stay in Bwejuu (no ATMs there) and stopped at the Stone Town Café to get something to drink-did I mention that we liked that place? We went back to the hotel, picked up our bags and set off for our hotel in Bwejuu on the eastern coast of the island. On the way, we stopped in the Jozani forest to look at the Red Colobus Monkeys. It was pretty amazing. They are not shy at all and we were able to get really close to them. The only challenges proved to be not stepping in monkey poo and not getting peed on. I’m happy to say that I was able to avoid both of those things!
You’ll have to wait to hear about the Bwejuu stay and the Dar es Salaam adventure another time!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Off to Zanzibar…
Despite the fact that I was looking forward to going on vacation, I have to say that I wasn’t really looking forward to the beginning of it. Why you ask, well in order to get to Zanzibar I had to spend 7 hours on a bus and another 2 plus hours on a ferry boat. All in the same day. Not really all that fun.
Sarah and I left Dodoma on 22 December on the 7:00am bus to Dar es Salaam. We chose to leave that early for two main reasons: 1) it wouldn’t be as hot if we left early in the day and 2) we wanted to make the last ferry to Zanzibar. The bus ride itself was rather uneventful. We both read for most of it. The only really noteworthy thing was our stop in Morogoro, the unofficial halfway point between Dodoma and Dar es Salaam. The last time I made the bus trip, there were a lot of women on the bus and so the line for the bathroom was long. This time, there were significantly more men on the bus and so the wait for the restroom was minimal and we were soon back on the bus again. Once we left Morogoro, it started to get warm. By the time we reached Dar es Salaam and hit the inevitable traffic jam, Sarah and I were both sweating a lot, but the adventure was just beginning.
We had sent a text message to Frank, the taxi driver who picked us up in August when we arrived from the US, to see if he could meet us at the bus station. He didn’t respond, so I sent another text. Still nothing. I finally called him and it turned out that he was not going to be able to meet us. However, he sent his younger brother Allan to pick us up. So far, so good. We needed to make a stop at Luther House Hostel, which is near the ferry terminal, to see if we could book some rooms for our return trip to Dar at the end of December. As we were making our way to the hostel, Allan told us that he had a friend who worked for the Zanzibar ferries office and said that it would be good to have him meet us at Luther House and then go with us to get our tickets. Never having purchased ferry tickets we agreed, even though we thought it seemed a bit sketchy.
We made it to Luther House, but they didn’t have enough room for us. As we waited for Allan’s friend to arrive so we could go to the ferry terminal, we learned that Allan had to be somewhere else so he’d called a friend of his to take us to the ferry. Our new driver and the ferry guy arrived at about the same time and we transferred our bags from one car to the other and headed off to the terminal. Once we were there, we got to wait in the hot sun while a guy who worked with Allan’s friend took our money and the photocopies of our residence permits to go get our tickets. We ended up paying for first class tickets, which came out to 60,000TSH for the round trip. They kept trying to tell us that we’d gotten some sort of a deal, but by that point we didn’t really care. We just wanted to get on the ferry. We were told that our tickets were for the 3:30 ferry and so we had to hurry to get in line. An old man took our bags and off we went. I should admit at this point that neither Sarah nor I are light packers, so it was actually quite impressive that the man was able to carry both of our bags with no trouble. It was actually a bit difficult for us to keep up with him.
We made it to the line with no problem. The old man pushed his way to the front and left our bags at the front of the line. We were stuck about halfway back. We waited for the passengers to get off of the ferry which had just arrived from Zanzibar and was definitely not leaving at 3:30. I think we started boarding at 3:30, but the boat didn’t leave port until at least 4:00. When we were finally reunited with our bags, the old man showed up again and took them down to the boat for us. The bags sat on the main deck of the boat and we were directed up to the first class cabin, which was just up a short flight of stairs. Sarah and I gratefully sank into some relatively comfortable chairs and enjoyed the air conditioning. The ride itself was a bit bumpy, but otherwise just fine. They did hand out sick bags just in case anyone needed them. We spent most of the trip watching the movie ‘The Fugitive’ and wondering why they chose that particular movie to show.
After about two and a half hours, we arrived in Zanzibar. A porter grabbed our bags and we went up to the customs window. There was already a long line to go through the port, but when a customs official would have directed us to the end of that line we pulled out our residence permits and were able to bypass the line completely. We found a taxi driver and set off to our Stone Town hotel, the Garden Lodge. We checked in and got up to our room at 6:40pm-12 hours and 25 minutes after we’d left our apartments that morning.
We went to dinner at a restaurant called Spices Rendezvous which was about 2 blocks from our hotel. The name sounds French, but the food was not. It was an Indian restaurant that had been previously called Maharaja, though why it was renamed is anyone’s guess. After dinner we headed back to our hotel and tried to stay cool for the rest of the evening.
Sarah and I left Dodoma on 22 December on the 7:00am bus to Dar es Salaam. We chose to leave that early for two main reasons: 1) it wouldn’t be as hot if we left early in the day and 2) we wanted to make the last ferry to Zanzibar. The bus ride itself was rather uneventful. We both read for most of it. The only really noteworthy thing was our stop in Morogoro, the unofficial halfway point between Dodoma and Dar es Salaam. The last time I made the bus trip, there were a lot of women on the bus and so the line for the bathroom was long. This time, there were significantly more men on the bus and so the wait for the restroom was minimal and we were soon back on the bus again. Once we left Morogoro, it started to get warm. By the time we reached Dar es Salaam and hit the inevitable traffic jam, Sarah and I were both sweating a lot, but the adventure was just beginning.
We had sent a text message to Frank, the taxi driver who picked us up in August when we arrived from the US, to see if he could meet us at the bus station. He didn’t respond, so I sent another text. Still nothing. I finally called him and it turned out that he was not going to be able to meet us. However, he sent his younger brother Allan to pick us up. So far, so good. We needed to make a stop at Luther House Hostel, which is near the ferry terminal, to see if we could book some rooms for our return trip to Dar at the end of December. As we were making our way to the hostel, Allan told us that he had a friend who worked for the Zanzibar ferries office and said that it would be good to have him meet us at Luther House and then go with us to get our tickets. Never having purchased ferry tickets we agreed, even though we thought it seemed a bit sketchy.
We made it to Luther House, but they didn’t have enough room for us. As we waited for Allan’s friend to arrive so we could go to the ferry terminal, we learned that Allan had to be somewhere else so he’d called a friend of his to take us to the ferry. Our new driver and the ferry guy arrived at about the same time and we transferred our bags from one car to the other and headed off to the terminal. Once we were there, we got to wait in the hot sun while a guy who worked with Allan’s friend took our money and the photocopies of our residence permits to go get our tickets. We ended up paying for first class tickets, which came out to 60,000TSH for the round trip. They kept trying to tell us that we’d gotten some sort of a deal, but by that point we didn’t really care. We just wanted to get on the ferry. We were told that our tickets were for the 3:30 ferry and so we had to hurry to get in line. An old man took our bags and off we went. I should admit at this point that neither Sarah nor I are light packers, so it was actually quite impressive that the man was able to carry both of our bags with no trouble. It was actually a bit difficult for us to keep up with him.
We made it to the line with no problem. The old man pushed his way to the front and left our bags at the front of the line. We were stuck about halfway back. We waited for the passengers to get off of the ferry which had just arrived from Zanzibar and was definitely not leaving at 3:30. I think we started boarding at 3:30, but the boat didn’t leave port until at least 4:00. When we were finally reunited with our bags, the old man showed up again and took them down to the boat for us. The bags sat on the main deck of the boat and we were directed up to the first class cabin, which was just up a short flight of stairs. Sarah and I gratefully sank into some relatively comfortable chairs and enjoyed the air conditioning. The ride itself was a bit bumpy, but otherwise just fine. They did hand out sick bags just in case anyone needed them. We spent most of the trip watching the movie ‘The Fugitive’ and wondering why they chose that particular movie to show.
After about two and a half hours, we arrived in Zanzibar. A porter grabbed our bags and we went up to the customs window. There was already a long line to go through the port, but when a customs official would have directed us to the end of that line we pulled out our residence permits and were able to bypass the line completely. We found a taxi driver and set off to our Stone Town hotel, the Garden Lodge. We checked in and got up to our room at 6:40pm-12 hours and 25 minutes after we’d left our apartments that morning.
We went to dinner at a restaurant called Spices Rendezvous which was about 2 blocks from our hotel. The name sounds French, but the food was not. It was an Indian restaurant that had been previously called Maharaja, though why it was renamed is anyone’s guess. After dinner we headed back to our hotel and tried to stay cool for the rest of the evening.
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