Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Zanzibar




As some of you may know, I arrived back in the U.S. last Tuesday, May 5, 2008. I flew out of Dar es Salaam, through Dubai, and into the Boston airport. The events that precipitated my departure from Dar took a little while to put down onto paper, but I will share some of our adventures with you. I also have some updates on Orian and the Three Musketeers.

When last I updated the blog, Orian and I were planning on taking a ferry to Zanzibar, then from Zanzibar to Pemba, then from Pemba to Tanga. The map we had showed that a ferry went from Pemba to Tanga, and we'd heard from various people that there were no ferries but there were boats. After Orian's experience taking boats in South America, he was pretty sure that once we got to Pemba we would find something.

The day left Dar es Salaam it was rainy. I waited at a cafe while Orian went to pick up our visas from the Egyptian embassy (although I had been thinking that I would go home in Nairobi, I had no ticket home, and we didn't want to discount the possibility that I might change my mind, which happens, so we had both gotten visas). When he got back, it was time to pick up my clothes from the tailor, and then we rushed over to the ferry booking office; it was 11:30a.m., and the schedule departure was noon. When we got near the office, the locals recognized us as mzungus (foreigners, white guys) and led us to a ferry booking office, and then surrounded us and took my bike from me to help put it on the boat. They wore uniform-type looking things, and the gangplanks were narrow and steep, or stairs, so I didn't complain. One guy helped Orian lift his bike up to keep it up over the railings. With their help we and our things were loaded on. It was a passenger ferry. We thought it would be a passenger-car ferry, like I've taken out to Block Island, and as Orian has been on in South America, or like we rode on in other parts of Africa. But it wasn't; it was for passengers only, which may be why it was so hard to get our bikes onboard. Once we had boarded, the guys wanted money for their services. Apparently they didn't work for the boat company. Whoops. We should have known; we'd been in Africa long enough. No one does anything for "free". Still, their services weren't worth the 10,000 shillings (~$10) that they had demanded, especially because we hadn't asked, and would have handled loading the bikes by ourselves, as we ended up doing on the way down. We gave them 2,000 shillings each. We had 4,000 shillings left. We sat in first class. It was fairly nice and clean, of Japanese manufacture probably, or at least made for a Japanese market, as there was Japanese lettering all over the ship. Foreigners are only sold first-class tickets. Actually, sometimes they just have to pay a higher price without improved accommodation, as our tickets from Zanzibar to Pemba were twice as expensive and we slept outside on the walkway getting wet. More on that later.

The ride took about three hours, and was fairly unremarkable. I got a little bit of motion sickness and went to sleep. The sky showered a bit, turning parts of the sky a dirty grey color. Soon, we saw an island peeking up above the waterline, green, low land.

We disembarked on a loading dock, surrounded by cargo containers. The sky had cleared up and it was nice. There was such a crowd, and the gangplank was so narrow and steep and gangly that even I, carrying nothing, had to watch my step going down. So the unloading of the passengers was slow. Orian managed to find enough gaps to carry our loaded bikes down and we hopped on. We were stopped a little ways away, near the exit; we had to go through customs, even though it is the same country. I have a Zanzibar stamp and a Pemba stamp in my passport (no exit stamps, though; the offices were always closed when we left). We left the gate and were immediately surrounded by men of all ages and health, trying to sell us hotels and ferry rides. We rode past them. We had not eaten since the morning and it was near dinner time. We found a street with a market, where we were again besieged by people wanting to find us restaurants and little market stands and spices. We drank some juice and escaped.

We needed a place to camp. We figured it would be difficult, especially since it was obviously a very tourist-y place, even more than Dar es Salaam had been. We tried talking to police; they did not speak very good English. The guys wanting to sell us stuff did speak decent English and many of them wanted to walk us to the 'cheapest hotel in town'. They all named the same place; we figured that hotel was giving them the biggest commission and decided to strike out on our own.

Throughout our stay on Dar I was impressed with the variety of languages these sellers were conversational in (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese), and their persistence, as persistent as a mosquito attracted to blood. They would do their very best to find a service they could sell you: they would try to bring you to a 'cheap' hotel, where they would get a commission; they would try to get you to buy spices from someone in the market (from whom they would also get a commission); they would pull out a cd of 'Zanzibari' tunes and would start singing them. I enjoyed this part. "What does this one sound like?" I would ask. "How about this one?" I would get serenaded in the street. We were not looking for one of these guys; we hoped that asking a policeman would get us a spot near a police checkpoint or something. So after we drank our juice we began asking.

Three policemen, a quarter-kilometre, and a threat to go off and find our own lodgings, and one of the men who was hanging out with the third policemen serendipitously remembered that there was 'a very cheap one just there, I will take you." It turned out the be 15,000 shillings (less expensive than the one being hawked at the market) and quite decent--clean, large room with space to put our bikes, a television, and complimentary breakfast. We left our stuff at the hotel and wandered down to the wharf.

"Let's go to the market," I said, "I don't think there's anything down by the docks." I would have though there was, but earlier, had seen nothing to suggest that there was. So we went to the market and then started walking from there to where we thought the shore was. We picked up a few guys along the way, including one who stuck. He asked us what we were looking for, and at first we said "nothing, just wandering", but eventually got it out of us that we were looking for a restaurant. After he promised to not ask us for money I slowed down my step and stopped trying to lose him. He took us wandering through picturesque little alley ways that were very much in the style of colonial neighborhoods: white stone, multiple stories (no traditional African style that we came across had multiple stories), narrow alleys.

Eventually we found a nice Italian place where my tongue met the delectable tanginess of real cheese for the first time in a month. We sat watching a soccer game on the beach; there must have been at least 40 players. I marveled at how playing soccer 40 people could all feel a part of a single game.

We relaxed and talked. By the time we finished, it was nearing dark, and we hoped we would not get too lost in the winding alleys. But we decided to take the main road back, which took us by construction and some old buildings that looked like forts but were covered in construction barriers. The main road was not a main road as such; it was just a road that went along the coast of the bay and was not an alley. It plopped us out right in front of the exit to the dock, in very little time, very painless, and it took us past all sorts of fancy, well-lit tourist lodgings, including some very posh and luxurious looking halls. We came from exactly the area that earlier I had looked down and thought led nowhere.

The hotel was nice and screened so we had no mosquitoes. We awoke in the dark to the sound of a muezzin calling prayer at 4a.m. (I always sleep after the muezzin call, and during it. Do Muslims go back to sleep or stay awake?). After breakfast (complimentary fruit and toast at the hotel), we checked out of the hotel, went down to the dock to buy tickets for a night ferry from Zanzibar to Pemba Island, scheduled to leave that night at 10p.m. Boarding would begin at 7p.m. Until then, we had all day to explore the island.

We set off. The island is long in the north-south proportion and short in the east-west direction. We decided to take the road from Zanzibar, on the west coast of the island, to a beach town on the other side. We hoped to see spice plantations and avoid the busy traffic that most likely plagued the main road on the coast. After some false starts, we found the road that took us that way. It was the narrowest road we'd been on yet, a real single lane. But the traffic was slow and sparse, the weather beautiful, and the terrain was not tough. In fact, Zanzibar, at least the parts of it we saw from the water and from our bike, was flat. A lot of lowland. I pictured the island flooding 'during the wrong season'. Palm trees that reached up to the sun and little communities boarding the road, like we've been seeing throughout Africa, but closer together, one house visible from the next. The riding was easy. The area seemed poor, poorer than the other little communities we'd passed by in Tanzania, judging by what was not in the stores, but rich in produce, coconuts, fruit trees, soil.


We rode and did not see spice plantations, just small houses with fruit trees. We also did not go all the way to the other side of the island because the road (on the map, one of the main roads of the island) disappeared into a wide but terrible dirt track. We rode aways on the dirt. The little rocks stuck up at the worst possible angle in the soil, which was rock hard, and held them there. Imagine large size gravel pieces, the pointiest parts sticking up. The wheels went over them alright, and it was a bit hard steering, but we'd done that kind of thing before. But we were just doing a circle, and earlier in the day I had looked at my wheels and noticed that the tire had peeled away, and I was worried what the sun and the rocks would do. We rode aways and then gave up, doubling back and taking a well-paved side road that even had shoulders and less traffic. It was really beautiful, very green, shady when we turned off the main road, and fewer houses. We saw people out on the road, walking and riding, and to me it felt like a Sunday morning outing, though it was a Friday.

It was hot, and sunny. We came upon a group of men sitting around and a couple of buildings with a porch, that looked like they might have some things, and in particular, sodas. We'd been drinking a lot of soda since the first time we got bottled Cokes way back in Botswana on Orian's birthday. Sodas were cheap (the ones with returnable bottles anyway), and sometimes cold, refreshing, with some sugar to keep us going. Although my teeth were starting to complain. Now that I am back in the U.S. I have not had any soda for awhile; it is nice to not have that sweetness sitting on my teeth all the time. But that day I wanted one and we stopped. One young man, a student, spoke decent English. He spoke to Orian; I waited to see whether they would have a cold drink or not. But an old man with bad teeth (not that old, maybe his 50s, but looked older, and old for Africa) came up grinning and engaging me in conversation. I didn't really understand what he said; he didn't understand what I said. We passed on conversational niceties. Then he moved closer to me. I was with Orian, no need to be too uncomfortable I thought. The man was nodding and grinning, then pointed at me, then poked each breast, right in the nipple. "Okay, keep smiling and grinning," I thought, "maybe this is some local greeting or something." Later on, another incident, on Pemba Island, put this in perspective: while we were in the warehouse, staying dry while waiting for a ferry, two men to whom I had spoken briefly before, came up and said to me, "Girlie, boyie?" They couldn't tell if I was a man or a woman! Because I have short hair, because I wear pants, because I have little breasts, because I ride my bike?

Anyway, with that taste in my mouth, I drank my Coke as quickly as I could and wanted to ride.
We took a different road, one that would take us back towards Zanzibar in a little circle. The foliage here was even a little different; the trees not quite as tall and shady. It was a dustier green color, with vines. But no spices yet! We rode through some lowlands, where the trees opened up and we could see coconut plantations. Just schoolgirls of all ages in light blue skirts and white blouses, light blue head coverings, coming home from school or just for lunch. Some men on the right side of the road. I mistrust these groups of men, sitting around, not doing anything. We have had no really negative experiences, but someone often comes to ask us for money. One walked out; Orian slowed and stopped and I kept going, more slowly. But Orian called and waved me back. It was a spice plantation. We had talked about buying some spices, so we went in. They had some black pepper, white pepper, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, chile. Fresh nutmegs.
Nutmeg
Ylang-ylang
Turmeric

They talked us into letting them take us on a spice tour. It was fun; we walked around, O and I and the pair of tourist guides, looking at vanilla and black pepper vines, shoots of cardamom and turmeric, orange groves, rambutan (like a lychee), and a lipstick tree (native to the Americas, according to wikipedia).

We spent some time there, we rode some more in the sun and rode back into the busy, dirty, smelly area of Zanzibar (Stone Town). We had time; we checked internet and ate dinner. I had a lot of fun. It was relaxing, fun. Orian and I were both in a good mood getting ready to board the boat, excited to be moving on. We were planning on boarding a boat immediately from Pemba to Tanga, not spending a day on the island as we'd done on Zanzibar.

The time to board was 7p.m.; it was dark. We had all our stuff on our bikes, all prepared, but the place was a zoo. So many people, pushing and shoving. It was not like the first boat we took. It was a big cargo ship--half passengers, half cargo (local cargo). There was no easy way to load the cargo; it was handed over the side of the ship. We had to pay extra to load our bikes, which we put on one of the walkways. The boat was packed. Deck passengers were cramped, sitting with their luggage between them; the lower decks were just as bad. We should have boarded even earlier; all we could find was a space on a walkway. It was nice at first: though a little sticky, it was slow and quiet. But then people started filling in the walkway as well, and when the boat got going, the water dripping from the upper deck splashed inwards towards to cabin, onto us and our things. Sometimes we could smell the bathroom just around the corner; one of the most foul smelling bathrooms I've smelled in Africa, the smell would waft around the corner.

We pulled away from the dock; it was magical, despite the discomforts, the gently rocking waves and the lights way off on the dock. Going on a sea adventure. Off to Pemba...off to the mainland...

Well, I started off the post by saying I would tell of my adventures and give some updates. But I had more to say than I thought, and will split the story up into parts.

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