We were able to go to the Diwali festival on Wednesday
night. It was insane!! I now know what it must sound like to be in the middle
of war! Basically, everyone came to the street that had all the Hindu temples.
There were babies and seniors and everyone in between. Most people brought
their own fire works and lit them off in the streets. And when I say everyone,
I mean everyone! There were constant shots going off, I hardly knew where to
look because everything was being lit up. They had all sorts of fireworks and
firecrackers. Some of them only made noise sounding like gun shots. One gave
off such a deep, low, loud noise that I could feel it! Others flew up in the
air, or spun on the ground, or sent up a gyser of sparks. They also had some
legit fireworks that went off from another street! It was a really neat
experience, but I wish I had brought earplugs! One firework landed in the tree
we were standing beside and lit it on fire. Another went off balance and
straight for the crowd lining the streets. Amazingly, I didn’t see one single
person get hurt. I was glad that I was there in the middle of it. If I had been
at the hotel I’m not sure what I would have thought hearing all that noise!!
The next day we traveled up to Bagamoyo on a dalla dalla
(Tanzania’s equivalent to the matatu). They are a bit bigger, more like a bus
at home with standing and sitting room. Our plan was to take a night boat over
to Zanzibar that evening. Unfortunately we arrived to Bagamoyo after dark. NOT
what we were planning on doing. It was a pretty sketchy walk to the harbor at
that point so a cab driver took us there and made sure we were able to connect
with a captain at the harbor. We were told that we could take a Dhow, a
traditional boat, but it would not be leaving until midnight so we would have
to wait until then. Luckily there was a super nice hotel only 100m away from
the harbor! We went there for dinner and then hung around until midnight, at
which point we were told that we could not leave then because the boss wasn’t
there. We first needed to sign some papers and give our passport numbers. He
would be coming at 2am. We waited again in the hotel lobby, dozing in and out
of sleep until 2am. Derek went out and was told that the office was closed and
we would have to wait until morning. I am pretty sure that God put this nice
hotel there specifically for us on this night! We were able to sleep in the
lobby with the receptionist for the whole night without having to pay anything!
The next morning we woke up and signed our lives away for a
trip on a Dhow. It was anchored about 8m off shore in the water. To get there a
man came and stooped down between my legs, lifting me, and my bags onto his
shoulders!! I must have weighed close to 200 lbs with everything and he lifted
me like it was no problem and carried me to the boat! Impressive. The boat was
carrying tomatoes to Zanzibar, so we spent the next 7 hours lying on top of
crates of tomatoes, sleeping a bit, singing a bit, and lots of it in the direct
sun! It was hot. The crew, consisting of 5 men who spoke very, very little
English, hoisted the sail as we sang ‘higher, higher, higher’. It was all very
manual. Definitely an amazing experience, but I will take the ferry back to the
mainland.
Zanzibar has been fantastic so far! We are staying in a
hostel with free, delicious, breakfasts really close to the harbor and the Old
Town. We spent some time walking through the market and the streets looking
into small shops. We also got incredibly lost searching for a café that was
supposed to have the best spiced coffee in town! When asking people they kept
saying ‘just down that street’, ‘right then left then you’re there’, ‘just a
tiny bit further’! It was such a maze but we made it. I was really impressed
with the spiced coffee, all the spices are grown right here on the island. I’m
not sure exactly what was in it but I think it was a mix of cardamom, cinnamon,
vanilla and something else. We also had some really delicious crepes. It had
started to drizzle a little bit as we went inside so we though we were escaping
the rain. As we left however, it started to pour!!!! We ended up running from
shop to shop, hiding under the canopies of the building. The doors are all up
two steps from the road, and today we found out why. When it rains, and I’m
sure during the rainy season it becomes much worse, the streets become more
like a river. You would not want that
water rushing under your door and into the house!
At night there is the place in the Forodhani Gardens that
becomes a night market for dinner. A bunch of different vendors set up booths
and sell different foods. They have all sorts of seafood on skewers, as well as
something they call Zanzibar pizza which is amazing!! I’ve tried the beef and
the banana nutella. It is kind of like a pizza pop in that they are totally
covered but they are still round like a pizza, and they are fried in a huge
frying pan and are just oh so good.
Last night we went to a restaurant that played traditional
taarab music. There was a man playing the violin, another on a djembe drum and
another on a mandolin. We got to sit on pillows on the floor, eating delicious
seafood while listening to them play and sing. It was fantastic.
The sunset here is really stunning. It is pretty wild to see
the change in atmosphere along the beach as it happens though. The time when
the sun starts to sink down towards the horizon must correlate with the time
when school lets out for the kids. The beach becomes crowded with kids doing
handsprings and backflips in the sand, playing football, playing in the water
or jumping off the seawall into the water. Yesterday I saw one kid who could
not swim very well, with two used bottles tied together by a string. He wrapped
them around his stomach and had his very own personal flotation device. The
water is not very deep just beyond the seawall which I think explains the
reason for how the kids throw themselves off the wall. Some take a big run at
it, others just jump from the side, but they all seem to land in a belly flop.
It doesn’t seem like any of them look down before launching themselves off the
edge either. It is pretty amusing to watch! After the sun sets they all
disappear and it is time for Zanzibar pizza!
This morning we took a small dhow to Prison Island. It is
only 30 minutes away. They built a jail on the island in the 1800s but it was
never used for prisoners. Instead, they used it to quarantine people who were
sick during a cholera epidemic. Now it has a resort on it. There are a whole
bunch of giant tortoises that we arrived just in time to feed! The oldest one
was 185 years old!! They are crazy looking things that don’t feel real.
Watching them move is pretty crazy, but man can they eat! We also got to go
snorkeling just off the island. It was quite different from Mombasa. There was
a lot of really different, beautiful coral. We also saw a lot of brightly
colored fish, many of which I recognized from ‘Finding Nemo’. It is amazing the
education you can get from a children’s cartoon movie, that and ‘The Lion King’
have proved well worth my watching!!
