Zanzibar

--journal excerpts from our recent trip to the spice island--

07\09\12

Our first trip to Zanzibar.  Six weeks in Dar has left us looking for an escape.  We've booked tickets on a Coastal Aviation flight to Stone Town.  Fifteen minutes in the air but a world away.  We're hoping to follow our noses through the labyrinthian streets.  We have no other plans.

Dinner of pwanza (octopus) and peli-peli perch before touring the Forodhani Park nightly open-air food market.  Tasted grilled casava (dry, caked entire esophagus) and falafel (also dry) before moving on to the beef simosas and Zanzibar pizza (crepe-like dough filled with beef and a fresh egg, grilled on both sides) before retiring to the Khole House for the night.  First impressions - this is going to be fun.

08\09\12

Narrow streets, incredible, intricately carved wooden doors adorn many houses.  We weaved around scooters, bicycles and small children, as well as women displaying the full spectrum of arabic attire: from merely a hijab (head scarf), to the full body covering leaving only eye slits.  Men uniformly wear billowing thawbs that blow and ruffle as the breeze whistles around the corners.  Locals are very encouraging once they see that we can speak a small amount of kiswahili, but most still initiate conversations with the somewhat less than sincere and never actually used "hakuna matata," as that is what most tourists expect.

We made our way to the Africa House for rooftop sundowners, looking west towards the mainland.  The sun was blisteringly hot and we were thankful when it finally set.  Termites hatched in the billions, driving almost all of our fellow patrons indoors or elsewhere.  We took the prime seats and endured the harmless flying insects as we listened to the bats feast and looked for the first stars.

Soon, a huge bird flew directly between our heads, having just crossed the channel from the mainland.  The first place to land for it happens to be down the hallway of the hotel.  I chase it with my camera, and photographed an Africa Barn Owl just before it finds a back door and flies out into the night.
We walked to the Forodhani Market again and ate more Zanzibar pizza, falafel (better this time), octopus and lobster before hot grease burned Stacy's foot and I got ripped off by a man who took my money without brining me a bottle of water that I thought I was paying for.  We regrouped as we watched locals diving off of the dock into the dark sea before retiring again to Khole House.

09\09\12

Slept in a bit.  Headed to the fruit and veggie market and the spice market.  Colors are indescribable in these places.  Every shade of every color is represented, and it's all seen through sunlight filtered by a hundred tattered plastic tarps of many different faded colors themselves.  Occasionally a beam of pure sunlight will illuminate a mound of fruit or a pile of beans, highlighting them above everything else.  

Stace refused to cross the threshold of the meat market doorway, as the buzz of a million flies found its way to our ears above the constant sound of cleavers hacking away at innumerable carcasses.  The fish market was less frightening, but the live animal market was enough to have us thinking of becoming vegetarian.  We purchased saffron, a few coffee varieties, dried vanilla pods, cloves and a few curry powders from the most persistent of the vendors before continuing west through the town.

We spoke with some carvers, painters, cobblers and clothiers.  Anything can be made for you upon request for reasonable prices.  We picked up a watercolor painting of a streetscape, and few kitenges to make dresses out of later, as well as a carved wooden picture frame.

Stone Town is uniquely beautiful and very quaint.  We may not return to this part of the island until we've seen the rest, but it was a perfect weekend escape.