Back from "paradise"...
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Well I'm now back in Dar Es Salaam after over 2 weeks in Zanzibar. It was a great time, though I'm ready to move on. I spent the entire first week just exploring the narrow streets of Stones Town itself. Few people actually spend much more then a day or two in Stones Town, preferring instead to quickly head north to the beaches, and I think that's a mistake. The streets are too narrow for cars, so mostly they are filled with pedestrians, bicycles and crazy moped drivers constantly honking their horn and every corner. I suspect many of the alleys haven't changed at all over the last few decades. Stones Town, and Zanzibar for that matter, is noticeably more Muslim then the mainland which adds so much to it's character and charm. It also makes it a bit harder to stroll around snapping photos at will, but for the most part, the average person was ok being in a photo. Though like in just about every Muslim country I've visited, few women wanted to be seen in a photo and many went so far as to it quite clear that they did not want their photo taken, even if my camera wasn't even pointing anywhere near them. I duly obliged to every call of "no photo" and while I missed hundreds of "great shots", it's probably better to leave those then to cause some stupid incident.
Other then just randomly wandering down unnamed streets and alleys, I went on the required "Spice Tour" on day two, and rented a moped to get around the island later that same week. The Spice Tour is something every tourist pretty much goes on, it's almost a rite-of-passage when going to Zanzibar. Personally, I didn't care all that much for it because I haven't a cool about spices to begin with. Getting all excited about, say, nutmeg, when you don't really know when or how to use nutmeg, is kind of difficult. However, the best part of the spice tour is that it takes you out of Stones Town and into some of the small villages that you otherwise wouldn't have visited. I had more fun playing with the local kids and wandering around the villages then I did following our guide. At one stop, I had about a half dozen local kids, who where either experiencing a crazy sugar high or just get really excited when the tour goes through, all following me in a game of Simon-Says, or more like Simon-Does. I raise my arm, they raised theirs, then burst out laughing. I raised my leg, they raised theirs, same laughter. And so on... It was refreshing and reminded me a bit of being back in Ethiopia, which was arguably the last time I was in some small villages off the beaten path.
The moped adventure around the island wasn't quite what I had originally planned. At first, I wanted to rent a moped to go back to visit some of the villages that we stopped at on the spice tour, but instead I just started heading east towards the coast, figuring that I wouldn't visit those beaches otherwise since my plan was to head to the northern beaches instead. After some lessons on the soccer field on how to drive a moped, and some paperwork to get the required "Zanzibar Driving License" (read: money scam) I was off. Call them geeky, but I think mopeds are super fun to blast around on. They are but simple to drive, even when you have to drive on the other side of the road and they move along at more then a decent pace. I arrived at the east coast, but ran into some light rain so I didn't stay long and headed back to Stones Town.
As the weather improved, I decided to head north and check out where I was planning on going. I missed a few turns, which is surprisingly since there aren't many roads, and ended up on a dirt road that took me to a small fishing village off the main road. Needless to say, a white tourist riding a moped up the dirt road turned a few heads. A got back on the main path and made it up to Kendwa, the town I was planning on going to later that week. The road to the beach is terrible. It's not even really a road, but rather an extremely rocky trail. 10 meters into it and I was already cursing. But, you start playing that mind game of "It can't be that much further...", followed by "Well, I've already gone this far...". As the moped started to stall and sputter, I was worried that maybe I had ran out of gas, even though the moped-guy swore that I'd have enough to "cover the entire island". The fuel gauge, and speedometer, were broken so I didn't really have much to go on. At one of the hotels, I had someone look at the level by looking right into the tank, but I couldn't get a straight answer to the question "Is that enough gas to get back to Stones Town?" I was instead told where Stones Town was, where I could get gas, where this guy was going, etc... So, with a few more stalls, I doubled back to the main road and continued north to the town of Nungwi, which is the "tourist capital" of northern Zanzibar, thinking that they'd have a gas station up there. They didn't, but someone offered to ride on the back of the moped to show me someone who would at least sell me some gas. From behind a shed, 2 liters and 2$ later, I was heading back to Stones Town. I made a few more stops along the way to check out why people were gathered where they were and other then a small fish market at one stop, I couldn't figure out the others. Sometimes, people just gather because that's what others are doing... I guess.
Every night in Stones Town was spent down at Foradhani Gardens, a small park along the waterfront where around a dozen or so tables are setup every night and you can purchase fresh seafood by the skewer. Tuna, shark, king fish and barracuda come up just about every night, along with prawns, calamari, octopus and lobster. Chicken, meat and liver are also available. Pick your skewers, negotiate a price and they'll grill it all up for you. Definitely the place to go for dinner in Stones Town, even if you have to deal with dozens of touts vying for your business.
After around a week of this, I decided it was time to head up north to Kendwa, famous for it's picture perfect beaches and bathtub warm waters. With me, were two English sisters on vacation whom I'd met the other night down by the gardens. Throwing caution to the wind, we all decided to take "local transport" from Stones Town instead of the "foreigners shuttle". The local transport is basically like taking the bus, only it's not a bus but rather a pick-up truck converted with benches in the back and a roof over head. It randomly stops along the route and will pick-up and drop-off people anywhere, anytime, even if the stops are just meters apart. It takes awhile, but it's cheap and way more fun then the foreigner shuttle, which is filled with a bunch of other tourists, picks you up at your hotel and goes non-stop all the way to the beach. It costs 3.5x as much and you won't find a local on it.
Up at Kendwa, I met up with a British traveler named Rich and two Swedish travelers, all of whom I had hung out with in Stones Town. I had a solo bungalow to myself for the first two nights, but because of some apparent scheduling screw-up by the reception, I had to move to another, more expensive double bungalow. Rich and I decided to share the bungalow, which was about 50 steps away from the sand. Granted we never really spent much time there, but it was still a nice setup.
You don't go to Kendwa unless you like doing nothing. There's not much to do other then enjoy the beach. Sure, you can go snorkeling and diving, maybe take a dhow to some island, but for the most part you just lounge on the beach. However, since it was so hot and the sun was so intense, Rich and I spent most of our time in some sweet beach chairs under the shade of the restaurant/bar no more then 20 meters from the water. The routine for each day was simple: breakfast by 10am, quick swim, grab our "spots", lots of reading till lunch time, more food, another swim, more reading, late afternoon walk down the beach to get chocolate chip cookies, back for some more reading and drinks, meet up with the girls for dinner, drinks and conversation with all till bedtime. It went like that for an entire week. And yes, the water was incredibly warm, the sun ridiculously intense and the sand about as perfect as you can get it. Kendwa is indeed the place to be.
I did take a few walks up and down the beach. During low tide, you can walk north along the beach up to Nungwi. Nungwi has many more hotels and places to stay, along with a much larger selection of restaurants, shops and amenities. Most people heading to Zanzibar seem to head to Nungwi, but sadly, the beaches up there are nowhere near as good as the ones just slightly south in Kendwa. When the tide goes out, you really can't swin at Nungwi and the entire beach area just because a huge seaweed swamp. And, as much as everyone warns you to make sure you start returning to Kendwa before the tide comes in, you still make the mistake of waiting too long. Rich and I ended up wading through chest-deep water at one point in order to get back to Kendwa. 10-20 minutes later and we'd have been walking through the forest, which is definitely not recommended by those who've have to do it.
On Friday, Kendwa Rocks, the place Rich and I were staying, hosted an almost full-moon party. The real full-moon was on Thursday, but I guess Friday made for a better day to party. Full-moon parties are famous in Thailand and I suspect that what I experienced was much tamer then those in Thailand. What was amazing was how many people showed up. Before the party, I think we counted maybe a maximum of 20 people at Kendwa Rocks and on the beach out front. It was dead quiet, being low season and all. There were some people at the hotels beside us, but with only three main hotels in Kendwa, you could pretty much park yourself anywhere you wanted on the beach. Come party night, a few hundred people showed up out of nowhere. It was crazy to see so many people, I still have no idea where they all came from.
The party itself was ok, nothing amazing, but then again, partying under a full-moon, on a beach in Zanzibar till 5 in the morning isn't something you get to do very often. Rich and I pretty much parked ourselves by the fire pit and just chilled out as the dance music went on behind us.
After a week of that it was time to return to Stones Town. Sadly, I took the foreigner shuttle back as I spent all of my last day reading on the beach and didn't feel like making the 30 minute walk out to the main road to catch the local "dala dala" shuttle. It was as boring as I feared it would be riding around in a white mini-van. Note to self, local transport is always more fun... Two things that remain unanswered from Kendwa are how come I can purchase five 100ml packets of alcohol for 5,000 Shillings, but a 500ml bottle goes for 7,000 Shillings. Even the bar tender seemed confused by that. Second, what's with the 90's love ballads each morning during breakfast? Same songs, all from the 90's, mostly boy bands, every day. Strange... Oh, and if you're looking for business opportunities then here's one... Sell money. That's right, sell money for more then it's face value. How you ask? Simple, go to the back in Stones Town and get 10,000 Shillings in 500 Shilling notes. Then drive up to Kendwa and sell those 20 500 Shilling notes for like 11,000 Shillings. You see, like many parts of Africa, no one has change and the bill of choice among tourists is the 10,000 Shilling note, since that's what the ATM's dispense. Had a 10,000 TSH note to a waiter to pay for a 5,000 TSH meal and it's very likely that they will look at you as if you've just given them a million dollars. Change might come, or it might not. So, I think you could make money by selling smaller bills to the resorts. It's worth a try...
Back in Stones Town, I returned to the same hotel I had stayed at earlier. They still weren't serving pancakes for breakfast if less then 4 people were staying at there, which was annoying because I liked the pancakes (free) and yet there wasn't enough people to have them. Bread and jam just aren't the same... After two more nights down at the BBQ gardens I caught the "fast" ferry back to Dar Es Salaam on Tuesday.
Now the plan is to head south, towards Mozambique, which is good because I'm hoping it will get me off the main tourist trail. Sadly, my biggest complaint with Zanzibar is that it's very touristy. In low-season, the problem is only exasperated. Up till now, I haven't gotten annoyed by all the attention that a foreigner gets in a Africa, but Stones Town did start to get to me by the end. The usual hawkers of taxi rides, sunglasses, cashes and souvenirs are pretty easy to deal with and in most cases a friendly smile and a "No Thank You" are more then enough, and at times welcomed. (Most people just blindly ignore the locals trying to sell something.) The people that get a little tiring are the street hustlers. You'll see them everywhere, all day and someone you'll bump into them over and over during your stay.
I just don't have it in me to completely ignore someone who is clearly calling out to me, so I almost always at least turn around, smile and say "Hello" or "Thank You". In Stones Town, that's like saying "Sure, I'd love for you to follow me, attempt to sell me everything under the moon, not listen to me and pretend like we're the best of friends." Popular opening lines are "Hello my friend, how are you today?", "Hello my friend, do you remember me from yesterday?", "Where are you from, where are you going, how long in Zanzibar, etc..."
Sadly, and I realize this is a massive generalization, all these encounters end the same way... With a request for money. No matter how much it looks like this guy might be different, in the end, he's not. You will get asked for some money and much to my surprise, in many cases I was personally degraded when I politely said that I wouldn't extend a line of credit to the person in question. Zanzibar was by far the worst that I've come across in my travels, which shouldn't really come as a surprise as it's by far the most touristy place I've visited. The income gap between the "Mzungo" (white foreigner) and a poor local is so enormous it defies comprehension. I pulled more money out of the ATM in one visit then my taxi driver probably makes in a year (and he's actually got a real job).
What stops me from completely blowing up after the 20th "Taxi?", "Sunglasses, good price...?" or "Where are you going?" question is the reality that at least these people are trying to make money, even if it annoys me. I'd much rather see someone doing something, anything, to earn a dollar rather then just sitting around doing nothing. It's that humanity that makes me feel that each and every person that tries to get my attention deserves at least a "Hello" and a "No Thank You" from me, it seems more civil then just pretending to not hear, which is what the majority of people to. You've got to respect someone who only makes a living if they actually sell a good or a service. Unlike me, I don't think any of these street vendors get a bi-weekly pay check automatically deposited in their bank account, no matter how hard they worked those two weeks. At the end of the day, I'll keep smiling and saying "Hello" and "No Thank You" to every taxi driver, sun glass salesman, cashew vendor, boat owner, shuttle driver, restaurant owner and souvenir vendor, because all they are really trying to do is to earn a living.
All that said, it will be nice to get back off the beaten path, which is what southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique promise.... Should be interesting.
Kenny
Well I'm now back in Dar Es Salaam after over 2 weeks in Zanzibar. It was a great time, though I'm ready to move on. I spent the entire first week just exploring the narrow streets of Stones Town itself. Few people actually spend much more then a day or two in Stones Town, preferring instead to quickly head north to the beaches, and I think that's a mistake. The streets are too narrow for cars, so mostly they are filled with pedestrians, bicycles and crazy moped drivers constantly honking their horn and every corner. I suspect many of the alleys haven't changed at all over the last few decades. Stones Town, and Zanzibar for that matter, is noticeably more Muslim then the mainland which adds so much to it's character and charm. It also makes it a bit harder to stroll around snapping photos at will, but for the most part, the average person was ok being in a photo. Though like in just about every Muslim country I've visited, few women wanted to be seen in a photo and many went so far as to it quite clear that they did not want their photo taken, even if my camera wasn't even pointing anywhere near them. I duly obliged to every call of "no photo" and while I missed hundreds of "great shots", it's probably better to leave those then to cause some stupid incident.
Other then just randomly wandering down unnamed streets and alleys, I went on the required "Spice Tour" on day two, and rented a moped to get around the island later that same week. The Spice Tour is something every tourist pretty much goes on, it's almost a rite-of-passage when going to Zanzibar. Personally, I didn't care all that much for it because I haven't a cool about spices to begin with. Getting all excited about, say, nutmeg, when you don't really know when or how to use nutmeg, is kind of difficult. However, the best part of the spice tour is that it takes you out of Stones Town and into some of the small villages that you otherwise wouldn't have visited. I had more fun playing with the local kids and wandering around the villages then I did following our guide. At one stop, I had about a half dozen local kids, who where either experiencing a crazy sugar high or just get really excited when the tour goes through, all following me in a game of Simon-Says, or more like Simon-Does. I raise my arm, they raised theirs, then burst out laughing. I raised my leg, they raised theirs, same laughter. And so on... It was refreshing and reminded me a bit of being back in Ethiopia, which was arguably the last time I was in some small villages off the beaten path.
The moped adventure around the island wasn't quite what I had originally planned. At first, I wanted to rent a moped to go back to visit some of the villages that we stopped at on the spice tour, but instead I just started heading east towards the coast, figuring that I wouldn't visit those beaches otherwise since my plan was to head to the northern beaches instead. After some lessons on the soccer field on how to drive a moped, and some paperwork to get the required "Zanzibar Driving License" (read: money scam) I was off. Call them geeky, but I think mopeds are super fun to blast around on. They are but simple to drive, even when you have to drive on the other side of the road and they move along at more then a decent pace. I arrived at the east coast, but ran into some light rain so I didn't stay long and headed back to Stones Town.
As the weather improved, I decided to head north and check out where I was planning on going. I missed a few turns, which is surprisingly since there aren't many roads, and ended up on a dirt road that took me to a small fishing village off the main road. Needless to say, a white tourist riding a moped up the dirt road turned a few heads. A got back on the main path and made it up to Kendwa, the town I was planning on going to later that week. The road to the beach is terrible. It's not even really a road, but rather an extremely rocky trail. 10 meters into it and I was already cursing. But, you start playing that mind game of "It can't be that much further...", followed by "Well, I've already gone this far...". As the moped started to stall and sputter, I was worried that maybe I had ran out of gas, even though the moped-guy swore that I'd have enough to "cover the entire island". The fuel gauge, and speedometer, were broken so I didn't really have much to go on. At one of the hotels, I had someone look at the level by looking right into the tank, but I couldn't get a straight answer to the question "Is that enough gas to get back to Stones Town?" I was instead told where Stones Town was, where I could get gas, where this guy was going, etc... So, with a few more stalls, I doubled back to the main road and continued north to the town of Nungwi, which is the "tourist capital" of northern Zanzibar, thinking that they'd have a gas station up there. They didn't, but someone offered to ride on the back of the moped to show me someone who would at least sell me some gas. From behind a shed, 2 liters and 2$ later, I was heading back to Stones Town. I made a few more stops along the way to check out why people were gathered where they were and other then a small fish market at one stop, I couldn't figure out the others. Sometimes, people just gather because that's what others are doing... I guess.
Every night in Stones Town was spent down at Foradhani Gardens, a small park along the waterfront where around a dozen or so tables are setup every night and you can purchase fresh seafood by the skewer. Tuna, shark, king fish and barracuda come up just about every night, along with prawns, calamari, octopus and lobster. Chicken, meat and liver are also available. Pick your skewers, negotiate a price and they'll grill it all up for you. Definitely the place to go for dinner in Stones Town, even if you have to deal with dozens of touts vying for your business.
After around a week of this, I decided it was time to head up north to Kendwa, famous for it's picture perfect beaches and bathtub warm waters. With me, were two English sisters on vacation whom I'd met the other night down by the gardens. Throwing caution to the wind, we all decided to take "local transport" from Stones Town instead of the "foreigners shuttle". The local transport is basically like taking the bus, only it's not a bus but rather a pick-up truck converted with benches in the back and a roof over head. It randomly stops along the route and will pick-up and drop-off people anywhere, anytime, even if the stops are just meters apart. It takes awhile, but it's cheap and way more fun then the foreigner shuttle, which is filled with a bunch of other tourists, picks you up at your hotel and goes non-stop all the way to the beach. It costs 3.5x as much and you won't find a local on it.
Up at Kendwa, I met up with a British traveler named Rich and two Swedish travelers, all of whom I had hung out with in Stones Town. I had a solo bungalow to myself for the first two nights, but because of some apparent scheduling screw-up by the reception, I had to move to another, more expensive double bungalow. Rich and I decided to share the bungalow, which was about 50 steps away from the sand. Granted we never really spent much time there, but it was still a nice setup.
You don't go to Kendwa unless you like doing nothing. There's not much to do other then enjoy the beach. Sure, you can go snorkeling and diving, maybe take a dhow to some island, but for the most part you just lounge on the beach. However, since it was so hot and the sun was so intense, Rich and I spent most of our time in some sweet beach chairs under the shade of the restaurant/bar no more then 20 meters from the water. The routine for each day was simple: breakfast by 10am, quick swim, grab our "spots", lots of reading till lunch time, more food, another swim, more reading, late afternoon walk down the beach to get chocolate chip cookies, back for some more reading and drinks, meet up with the girls for dinner, drinks and conversation with all till bedtime. It went like that for an entire week. And yes, the water was incredibly warm, the sun ridiculously intense and the sand about as perfect as you can get it. Kendwa is indeed the place to be.
I did take a few walks up and down the beach. During low tide, you can walk north along the beach up to Nungwi. Nungwi has many more hotels and places to stay, along with a much larger selection of restaurants, shops and amenities. Most people heading to Zanzibar seem to head to Nungwi, but sadly, the beaches up there are nowhere near as good as the ones just slightly south in Kendwa. When the tide goes out, you really can't swin at Nungwi and the entire beach area just because a huge seaweed swamp. And, as much as everyone warns you to make sure you start returning to Kendwa before the tide comes in, you still make the mistake of waiting too long. Rich and I ended up wading through chest-deep water at one point in order to get back to Kendwa. 10-20 minutes later and we'd have been walking through the forest, which is definitely not recommended by those who've have to do it.
On Friday, Kendwa Rocks, the place Rich and I were staying, hosted an almost full-moon party. The real full-moon was on Thursday, but I guess Friday made for a better day to party. Full-moon parties are famous in Thailand and I suspect that what I experienced was much tamer then those in Thailand. What was amazing was how many people showed up. Before the party, I think we counted maybe a maximum of 20 people at Kendwa Rocks and on the beach out front. It was dead quiet, being low season and all. There were some people at the hotels beside us, but with only three main hotels in Kendwa, you could pretty much park yourself anywhere you wanted on the beach. Come party night, a few hundred people showed up out of nowhere. It was crazy to see so many people, I still have no idea where they all came from.
The party itself was ok, nothing amazing, but then again, partying under a full-moon, on a beach in Zanzibar till 5 in the morning isn't something you get to do very often. Rich and I pretty much parked ourselves by the fire pit and just chilled out as the dance music went on behind us.
After a week of that it was time to return to Stones Town. Sadly, I took the foreigner shuttle back as I spent all of my last day reading on the beach and didn't feel like making the 30 minute walk out to the main road to catch the local "dala dala" shuttle. It was as boring as I feared it would be riding around in a white mini-van. Note to self, local transport is always more fun... Two things that remain unanswered from Kendwa are how come I can purchase five 100ml packets of alcohol for 5,000 Shillings, but a 500ml bottle goes for 7,000 Shillings. Even the bar tender seemed confused by that. Second, what's with the 90's love ballads each morning during breakfast? Same songs, all from the 90's, mostly boy bands, every day. Strange... Oh, and if you're looking for business opportunities then here's one... Sell money. That's right, sell money for more then it's face value. How you ask? Simple, go to the back in Stones Town and get 10,000 Shillings in 500 Shilling notes. Then drive up to Kendwa and sell those 20 500 Shilling notes for like 11,000 Shillings. You see, like many parts of Africa, no one has change and the bill of choice among tourists is the 10,000 Shilling note, since that's what the ATM's dispense. Had a 10,000 TSH note to a waiter to pay for a 5,000 TSH meal and it's very likely that they will look at you as if you've just given them a million dollars. Change might come, or it might not. So, I think you could make money by selling smaller bills to the resorts. It's worth a try...
Back in Stones Town, I returned to the same hotel I had stayed at earlier. They still weren't serving pancakes for breakfast if less then 4 people were staying at there, which was annoying because I liked the pancakes (free) and yet there wasn't enough people to have them. Bread and jam just aren't the same... After two more nights down at the BBQ gardens I caught the "fast" ferry back to Dar Es Salaam on Tuesday.
Now the plan is to head south, towards Mozambique, which is good because I'm hoping it will get me off the main tourist trail. Sadly, my biggest complaint with Zanzibar is that it's very touristy. In low-season, the problem is only exasperated. Up till now, I haven't gotten annoyed by all the attention that a foreigner gets in a Africa, but Stones Town did start to get to me by the end. The usual hawkers of taxi rides, sunglasses, cashes and souvenirs are pretty easy to deal with and in most cases a friendly smile and a "No Thank You" are more then enough, and at times welcomed. (Most people just blindly ignore the locals trying to sell something.) The people that get a little tiring are the street hustlers. You'll see them everywhere, all day and someone you'll bump into them over and over during your stay.
I just don't have it in me to completely ignore someone who is clearly calling out to me, so I almost always at least turn around, smile and say "Hello" or "Thank You". In Stones Town, that's like saying "Sure, I'd love for you to follow me, attempt to sell me everything under the moon, not listen to me and pretend like we're the best of friends." Popular opening lines are "Hello my friend, how are you today?", "Hello my friend, do you remember me from yesterday?", "Where are you from, where are you going, how long in Zanzibar, etc..."
Sadly, and I realize this is a massive generalization, all these encounters end the same way... With a request for money. No matter how much it looks like this guy might be different, in the end, he's not. You will get asked for some money and much to my surprise, in many cases I was personally degraded when I politely said that I wouldn't extend a line of credit to the person in question. Zanzibar was by far the worst that I've come across in my travels, which shouldn't really come as a surprise as it's by far the most touristy place I've visited. The income gap between the "Mzungo" (white foreigner) and a poor local is so enormous it defies comprehension. I pulled more money out of the ATM in one visit then my taxi driver probably makes in a year (and he's actually got a real job).
What stops me from completely blowing up after the 20th "Taxi?", "Sunglasses, good price...?" or "Where are you going?" question is the reality that at least these people are trying to make money, even if it annoys me. I'd much rather see someone doing something, anything, to earn a dollar rather then just sitting around doing nothing. It's that humanity that makes me feel that each and every person that tries to get my attention deserves at least a "Hello" and a "No Thank You" from me, it seems more civil then just pretending to not hear, which is what the majority of people to. You've got to respect someone who only makes a living if they actually sell a good or a service. Unlike me, I don't think any of these street vendors get a bi-weekly pay check automatically deposited in their bank account, no matter how hard they worked those two weeks. At the end of the day, I'll keep smiling and saying "Hello" and "No Thank You" to every taxi driver, sun glass salesman, cashew vendor, boat owner, shuttle driver, restaurant owner and souvenir vendor, because all they are really trying to do is to earn a living.
All that said, it will be nice to get back off the beaten path, which is what southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique promise.... Should be interesting.
Kenny
posted by Kenny Carruthers at 4/19/2006 08:24:00 AM
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