Our Visit to Zanzibar

Dear Family and Friends,

For a long time Jean and I have hoped that we would be able to visit exotic Zanzibar while in Tanzania. This is the weekend it happened. We were permitted to miss work on Friday (Feb 4), so we were able to fly on Tanzania’s airline (very ironically named Precision Airways) from Kilimanjaro Airport to Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar. Zanzibar, 52 miles by 12 miles, is an island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Tanzania. It is home for 900,000 people, 95% of whom are Muslim.

Around noon we were met at the Stone Town Airport by our guide Mr. Hussan (also known as Mr. Google since he seems to know so much!) who took us to our hotel. We are on the third floor of the 236 Hurumzi Hotel in a very spacious and nicely decorated suite. We have a large bed, a separate bathroom with a huge stone tub in the shape of a valentine and lots of hot water. Best of all, the room is air conditioned!! We are finding Tanzania’s heat and humidity to be relentless and very debilitating. Being able to sleep in an air conditioned room is a huge treat.

We have had two visits with Tom Green, the hotel’s owner, who in 1990 moved from Wichita, Kansas to Stone Town, bought the rundown hotel, and proceeded to renovate it with a mix of Persian, Indian and Arab influences. The 236 Hurumzi Hotel is considered to be one of the most distinctive place to stay in Zanzibar. We find it very pleasant and comfortable, possessing a special charm, and enjoy talking to Mr. Green about the trials, tribulations and rewards of operating a hotel in this environment.

After settling in at the Hurumzi, and enjoying a lunch of samosas and Fatush salad at the hotel’s roof top restaurant overlooking the Indian Ocean, we were ready for an orientation walk-about. Mr. Hussan walked us through the winding and very narrow walkways of Stone Town’s compact central district (all too narrow for motor vehicles to navigate).
We dodged bikes, human pulled delivery carts, fully covered Muslim women, and motorcycles with entire families, all in a passage way of 6 feet or so… while walking to the colorful and largest outdoors market in Zanzibar. We especially enjoyed the spice and fresh fish sections. We spent quite a bit of time at the place where slaves were tortured (to judge their strength and endurance) and auctioned from 1840-77 (600,000 slaves were sold to buyers in Britain and the Middle East during these years). We enjoyed visiting the Episcopal cathedral where Dr. David Livingstone is memorialized and viewed a wooden cross made out of wood from the tree under which his heart was buried in Tanzania before his body was returned to England in 1877. We also walked through the former British consulate and an ancient Old Fort, before we returned to our hotel to bathe, rest, and prepare for dinner. It’s a tough life, but we were happy to take on these challenges.

At 6:00 in the evening we were again at the roof-top restaurant for beverages and snacks as we watched the sun set over the Indian Ocean. It was a magnificent sight. For 2 ½ hours we drank and ate (a really wonderful Tanzanian grilled red snapper that we had probably seen hours earlier in the market) and viewed night time descending upon Stone Town. While dining we listened to a small ensemble play and dance Tanzanian folk songs. Their energy made us tired, so retired at 9:00 to our very hospitable room for a night of wonderful sleep.

On Saturday morning we went to the hotel’s roof-top restaurant for a fabulous breakfast and conversation with two other couples from London and Brussels. The Brussels couple are actually French but had lived in Connecticut and Rochester, New York (because he worked with Kodak) before moving to Brussels. They knew where Greece and Hilton was and had enjoyed Rochester! It was fun to talk to them.

We hired a car and driver, along with Mr. Hussan, to take us to the northern part of Zanzibar where we toured a Spice Farm. We spent two hours walking among a very great assortment of spice and fruit trees. With us in a group was a couple from Germany and a man from Japan. Very interesting people. Zanzibar’s soil and climate make it an optimal place for growing a variety of spices that are commonly used in most of our kitchens. Tanzania exports spices in huge quantities. We enjoyed picking spice nuts off trees and smelling/eating them on the spot. After the walk-about, we enjoyed a lunch of rice and several of the spices that had been formed into sauces. Nothing else. Just rice and spices. The meal was enjoyable and very tasty.

Following the spice farm tour, we drove another hour to the northeast coast of Zanzibar. Matemwe is considered the best place to snorkel. So our guide rented a boat (an old, rickety dhow), a captain, a helper, and a snorkel guide. It was quite a sight as we ploughed through 30 minutes of a gorgeous deep blue Indian Ocean to find the coral reef that the guide had in mind for us to explore. We snorkelled along the edge of a coral reef that was teeming with sealife: needle fish, parrot fish, octopus, sea urchins, eels, and on and on and on.
When the sea became choppy, we thought it best to stop. But we thoroughly enjoyed our hour and a half in the water.

The white sand on the beach was remarkable.

It is surely the finest, whitest sand we’ve ever experienced. Just like powdered sugar or corn starch. Amazing! We know that we will be taking some of that sand back to Home Base with us in our clothes and shoes.

As the boat returned to shore, we had the first of two encounters with police during the afternoon’s trip. An aluminum boat approached us with two men in it. Of course we couldn’t understand the argument that took place but Mr. Hussan later told us that the men who approached were police who were checking to be sure that our boat had the correct permit to be able to snorkel out on the reef. However, they also were trying to be intimidating. According to Mr. Hussan, they didn’t identify themselves as police, they merely demanded to see the permit. Mr. Hussan argued with them and said that they should properly identify themselves before making demands.

The later confrontation was more energetic. As we returned to Stone Town from the beach, we passed through a police checkpoint. Mr. Hussan explained that our taxi needed a permit to take us to the beach. They had the permit, and had shown the police the permit on the way out to the beach. However, the police are not in charge of the permits. That is the responsibility of the Department of Tourism. The police can check licenses of both the tour guide and the driver, but often ask to see the license and then confiscate them until a ransom (for the license) is paid. Mr. Hussan and the driver claimed that they had forgotten their licenses and will show them at the police station in Stone Town within 24 hours. It is clear that police in Zanzibar are like those in many countries around the world! That reminds me that our taxi almost hit a goat that was crossing a country road. Mr. Hussan said that Zanzibar was just like the Philippines that we remember: if a driver hits a goat or any other animal, he has to stop and pay the owner for the animal. And, of course, the animal immediately becomes the very best example of its species in the entire world… and thus very, very expensive!

By the way, the highway we traveled on for much of the day is named the Bububu Highway. That’s because the highway parallels a major train track and in Zanzibar the sound of trains is “bububu” and not “choo-choo-choo!” Be that as it may, after a delightful journey into the countryside and an enjoyable snorkeling excursion, we returned to our hotel, and enjoyed a welcome shower and a walk to the Silk Route Restaurant where we enjoyed a dinner of prawns, dal, nan, and coconut and pineapple lassis. The young people next to us were students from Norway who were in Tanzania for a month on a study trip. At the end, they were required to write a 30 paper based on their experiences. While an employee from our hotel led us through winding, narrow alleys to the restaurant, we found our way back to the hotel on our own. We were proud of ourselves! Along the way, groups of men (don’t forget that this is an Islamic society) were gathered around several TVs to watch a football (soccer) game. At first, Kirk thought they might be watching the Super Bowl! In fact, no one in the entire country of Tanzania knows about America’s Super Bowl or cares. At one of the gatherings in a park near our hotel, a buffet was available to the thirty some men and boys who were gathered. Sorta like Buffalo Wild Wings places!

After a good night’s sleep, we slowly awoke this morning and eased into the day. Sunday is pretty much another day in Zanzibar, so stores were open and we did some shopping for grandchildren. After enjoying a Zanzibar prawn pizza for lunch,
we walked to the water front and watched several ferries being loaded. Not a machine in sight. 50-100 kilo bags of grain were all transferred from trucks to ships on the backs of not so young men. In incredibly sweltering hot sun and heat. To avoid the sun, we eventually found the shade of several palm trees, and there met a very gregarious couple from the Netherlands. Stories of their adventures entertained us until we needed to meet Mr. Hussan who guided us through the National Museum, took us to the airport, and sent us on our way back to Moshi after a fabulous weekend in Zanzibar.

We’ve showered, are enjoying our nightly allocation of M&M’s, and will soon be in bed… and then ready to go to work in the morning. The Super Bowl should be ending about the time we wake up on Monday. I’m hoping that the Packers win, but it’s not a big deal. After all, there are billions of people in Asia and Africa who don’t know that it’s going on!

Lala Salama… fo fo fo (“sleep well and don’t let the bed bugs or mosquitos bite!”)

Love you very much,
Babu and Mama Jean