Scatterlings of Africa: The Enchanting Island of Zanzibar

A View of Zanzibar Harbor, with traditional fishing dhow (left) and Beit el-Ajaib (House of Wonders - right)

Okay: continuing the reportage on our Christmas vacation to Tanzania. (Sorry I've been so slow about that.)

After a relaxing and rejeuvenating five days on the mainland (see Molly's post, "A Sunny & Warm Christmas"), we took a ferry to the island of Zanzibar, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) off the coast. We took the "fast ferry," and so after about 2 1/2 hours, we arrived in the harbor of Zanzibar Town, on the southwestern side of the island. We had been expecting to meet my friend Carl (best buddy since age 8 and best man at our wedding), who was scheduled to land at the Zanzibar airport at 4pm that day. Unfortunately, Carl's journey to Africa didn't go exactly as planned. He had been scheduled to fly from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to Dulles International in Washington, DC. From there, he would fly to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from Addis to Dar es Salaam, and from Dar to Zanzibar. It didn't quite work that way. There were blizzards in New York (as you Madison Avenue Presbyterians know), so Carl's flight out of JFK was canceled. He managed to take the Amtrak train down to DC (which was itself delayed by 5 hours due to snow) and catch a few winks of sleep at his uncle's house before catching the next flight to Addis the following morning. Upon arriving at Dulles, he was informed that his flight would in fact be on a smaller plane than originally planned, which would necessitate a stopover for refueling in Rome, adding another 5 hours or so to the trip. Ethiopian Airlines did put him up in a hotel in Addis (half under construction) for his 7 hour layover there, and he managed to call our cell phone from the hotel to inform us of the delays. He couldn't say for sure, he told us, but he thought he'd arrive in Zanzibar on Thursday, a day later than scheduled.

So Molly and I had an afternoon and evening to ourselves as we awaited Carl's arrival. We decided to just take it easy, exploring a bit of the island on foot. We walked along the harborfront until we came to Forodhani Gardens, a beautiful little park in the center of town that had recently been refurbished by the Aga Khan Charitable Trust (the Aga Khan is the leader of the largest branch of the Ismaili sect of Shi'i Islam). We walked around the park a bit and grabbed some dinner--the day's catch, fresh from the sea, grilled upon purchase in the open air. Molly also sampled a local specialty, "Zanzibari Pizza," a thin piece of dough topped with meat or seafood (Molly had prawns), eggs, mayonnaise, and cheese, and folded like a crepe. We washed it all down with a glass of freshly-pressed sugar cane juice with lime and ginger. It was all quite delicious. Though some of the seafood I ate gave me the runs, Molly emerged unscathed.

Zanzibar harborfront at sunset

Forodhani Gardens from above

A pretty little gazebo/stupa thing in the middle of Forodhani Gardens

Dinnertime at Forodhani Gardens: freshly caught and grilled seafood

Chef making Molly a "Zanzibari Pizza"

For our first two nights in Stone Town (the historic center of Zanzibar Town), we stayed at Zenji Hotel, which we recommend very highly to anyone who may find her/himself in Zanzibar--it is inexpensive, clean, ecologically and socially responsible, and the service is excellent. Whenever the housekeepers make up the rooms, they leave colorful flower petals strewn across the beds and fresh home-made soaps in the bathroom. They have a charming little rooftop cafe, which serves a free continental breakfast to guests every morning, including fresh tropical fruit, juice, toast with delicious homemade jams (pineapple-vanilla, banana-spice, and mango-citrus), fresh baked chocolate cake (muffin-like), and eggs cooked to order. As well as the hotel, Zenji operates a gift and souvenir shop next door and a plethora of very inexpensively-priced tours and activities throughout the island. The hotel also has free high-speed wireless internet, so when we got home from our walk and dinner in Forodhani Gardens, we promptly checked our email to see if there was any more news on Carl's whereabouts. Sure enough there was an email which Carl sent to his dad, who forwarded it to my mom, who forwarded it to me! Carl would be catching the overnight flight from Addis, which would get him into the Zanzibar airport at 3:45am. Molly and I went to the front desk, reserved Carl a taxi from the airport, and I caught a few winks of sleep before waking up at 4am to welcome Carl to Zanzibar.

He arrived right on schedule so after lots of hugs and "So great to see you!"s, we all got some rest before breakfast. We spent the next couple of days exploring Stone Town, the historic center of Zanzibar Town, filled with twisting narrow streets and buildings of coral cement. We visited the Palace Museum and House of Wonders, discovering Zanzibar’s colorful history, replete with Omani sultans who stood at the center of a wealthy empire fueled by the trade of spices and slaves, the rebellious Princess Salme, the Swahili culture of East African coastal communities, British colonization, political independence, the bloody revolution in which African Zanzibaris wrested political control from their Arab rulers, and the island archipelago’s eventual incorporation into the United Republic of Tanzania. At the end of our first day with Carl, we took a sunset cruise on a traditional fishing dhow. Early the next morning, we explored the bustling Darajhani Market.