Hakuna Matata

Note to Readers: Did you know that if you click on a picture it will open up full screen? It really helps because these photos are so small. Don't you want to see for yourself that the crew really was chiseled?
The Journey to Zanzibar- Part Deux.
When we last left our heroes, Tim, Katrien and Lisa (hey, that’s me!), we had survived the Tazara train ride through Tanzania and had boarded the ferry to Zanzibar. It felt like when Dorothy woke up in Oz, shifting from the dismal grey of depression-era, dust-bowl Kansas to the bright sunshine and brilliant colors of a fantasy paradise. Remember watching that as a kid? You thought you were watching a black and white movie and then – wham – technicolor! Whoa… trippy. And there were singing flowers and munchkin punks with lollipops and flying monkeys. That’s what the ferry ride and arrival on Zanzibar felt like.

We sat on the top deck of the ferry and shielded our eyes against the diamond sunshine bouncing off the toilet-bowl-blue waters. Dar Es Salaam looked exotic and mysterious as we pulled away from the dock. We sucked in deep lungfuls of fresh sea air after the confinement of the train for 56 hours. There weren’t any singing flowers but the deck did have big bean bag chairs as a seating option. And a Boston-accented family each wearing one big letter on their chest so that when they lined up along the railing, they spelled out their last name. Whoa…trippy.

Zanzibar is also known as the Spice Island, having plantations that grow clove, nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper that once made the island a busy stop for merchants bringing flavor to the Middle East and India. It was also East Africa’s main slave trading port. Slaves from all over inland Africa were funneled here and sold to ships on their way to the palaces of Arabia, Persia and all parts of the world. I did not have the cajones to visit the slave market museum – I knew my heart was not up to the task, having been broken too many times by what I had seen in present day Africa to withstand the horrors of its past.

Zanzibar is no Oz mixture of munchkins, witches, and Kansans, but it is an equally fascinating mix of cultures. It has a Caribbean island feel with swaying palm trees and Rastafarian African beach boys whose mantra is Hakuna Matata – Swahili for “no worries”. Then there is the conservative Muslim culture with the Burqa-clad women and Persian style architecture of Stone Town. Throw in a spattering of Christians around the island and the clear presence of tribal Maasai warriors as the security system at all the beach front hotels and you got yourself the makings of one interesting vacation.

Stone Town, a World Heritage Site, is the ancient city that greets you upon your arrival at the dock. Karibu – that is welcome in Swahili. The city doesn’t exactly greet you, but a pack of touts and cons and shouting/grabbing taxi drivers make it known you are quite welcome. We chose Akbar to help us navigate the maze of narrow cobblestone streets to get to the Zanzibar Coffee House, our hotel for the night. We followed the peppery little man in flowing white robes through the maze - twisting and turning, every new alley looking the same, no visible street names. We tried to keep track of our path with landmarks, 2 lefts and one right after the blue turret then 3 rights and a left after the spice stand. But there were too many turrets, too many mosques, too many spice stands. We were like rats in a lab maze, but then we realized we were probably more like the cheese because this shady looking guy has been behind us all the way from the ferry dock and our money belts are the reward at the end of the dead end alley.

“Akbar, we are stopping right here and we are not paying you anything until that guy is gone.” Not sure what we expected him to do, some kind of Indiana Jones move where he whips out a pistol in the face of a pack of robed assassins.“Trust me, I will get you there.” “We don’t know you. We will find it ourselves.” Which we would not have. Akbar went and spoke to the guy and poof he was gone. True to his word, Akbar got us there.

Zanzibar Coffee House – what an oasis. Fresh fruit smoothies free upon arrival. Gorgeous lush courtyard. Beautiful carved wooden beds with white netting. Balconies overlooking the city of Stone Town. A colorful rooftop pillow room where our morning heart-shaped waffles and fresh squeezed tropical juices were served. At sunset and sunrise, many deep voices singing the call to prayer found their way upward from different parts of the city and joined to echo from the rooftops and ricochet down the alleys.

It is Ramadan so there is no drinking and no food may be served until the sun goes down. But it was worth the wait. The place to be at sunset is the Forodhoni Gardens where the public square is magically transformed. Tables appeared under the trees, candles and torches flickered against the backdrop of the pink and lavender haze of the sky. Vendors lay out long skewers with octopus, prawns, lobster claws straight from the boats, I swear they are still twitching. There is fresh baked naan bread crusted with Zanzibarian spices. The bright colors of juicy red watermelon and sweet yellow pineapple make your mouth water just looking at it. Green sugar cane is cranked through rolling steel bars to drip juice into glasses. It is surreal with soft light, soft air, soft music - a sensory symphony of savory smells and fresh fresh flavors.

The next day we were off to Kendwa Rocks – a small beach town on the northwest side of the island, though you couldn’t really call it a town. It is just what that strip of beach with a few hotels on it is called, famous for its full moon parties. Sunset Bungalows was just the ticket - hammocks on the beach, beach volleyball court - what more could an ex-Santa Cruzan pining for home ask for? Besides sharing it with all my wonderful amazing friends back home that is…

We purchased a cheapo snorkel trip from a smooth-talker wandering on the beach with a laminated picture of a boat and hoped a boat would actually appear the next morning to pick us up. It did! This “trust” thing was working for us. An old rickety wooden boat called a dhow scraped up and we hopped on for our adventure. We got stuck on the rocks, stuck in some fishermen’s nets, stuck on a beach at low tide. But our crew was chiseled with great white smiles and made our repeated snagging seem a part of the charm of the experience. When we got to our promised “exclusive destination” for snorkeling off a private marine reserve island, about a dozen other boats had beat us there.
The snorkeling was okay – schools of fish, schools of tourists. It was like being in one of those shimmering walls of silver fish, only less fluid and pretty. The fish don’t whap you in the face with their fins like Gordy from Texas does.

When we got back to Sunset Bungalows, I took a night off from my third wheel duties and left Tim and Katrien to have a romantic dinner at our beachfront restaurant. I played beach volleyball with the locals and some young men from Canada, Italy, and Holland. We played until the sun went down and we struggled to see the ball. We finally had to give up when the starving Zanzibarians who hadn’t eaten all day rushed off to their Ramadan dinner. Under the moonlight, I went swimming in the clear, silky, bath-water-warm Indian ocean. Heaven.

I was sad to leave Sunset Bungalows, my beach volleyball fix not yet met, but we had more of the island to explore. Our three hour taxi ride to the other side of the island became an all day fiasco with the following obstacles: empty gas tank, dead battery, 3 taxi switches, fellow passengers who couldn’t pay for the ride so we went from bank to bank looking for a functioning ATM in ancient Stone Town, and a driver who forgot where we were going. By now Tim and Katrien have gotten the hang of TIA and Hakuna Matata so we got as comfortable as we could in our wedged-in back seat and went with the flow.

Twisted Palms Lodge is on the southeast side of the island, completely different than Stone Town and Kendwa Rocks. There are no people, no strips of hotels, no real activities. No swimming, no snorkeling. We are forced to relax, read, nap, do nothing. It is beautiful and quiet and there is just the three of us at Twisted Palms - on the beach and in the restaurant. This was the view from the front door of my cabana, just steps from the water and only $27 per person including a real breakfast. I splurged on a one hour massage for $10.

We went for a walk down the beach and found a stand selling African crafts. We were eager to buy some souvenirs to bring home but there was no one manning the store. We looked down the beach aways and saw a soccer game in progress with an unusual spin on the team designation of shirts v. skins. It was shuka vs. Speedo. Maasai warriors were taking on a group of Italian tourists.
Sorry for the blurry pictures of the game but I really don’t like to get too close to Speedos unless they are being worn by Olympic swimmers.
Shuka is the red fabric that the Maasai wear around their neck as their only garment. A few Maasai broke off and came running over when they saw us standing in front of their hut. I bought some jewelry for my niece and Tim bought some carved animals and they ran back to their game.

I mentioned earlier that many of the hotels use Maasai warriors as their security and Twisted Palms was no exception. The Maasai are tall and thin and always have a tall thin stick in their hand. The shuka is tied around their neck and hangs to about knee level. They wear beadwork going up their neck and sometimes connected to beadwork hanging from their ears. They also wear beadwork on their wrists and ankles, but it is not in any way feminine. They are a quiet presence and exude pride and confidence and centuries of tradition.

My last morning at Twisted Palms I woke up at sunrise intending to go for a swim. This is the only time you can swim at Twisted Palms due to the tide charts. I looked out the window of my cabana to check the tide and had another one of those perfect African images seared into my memory. Framed by palm fronds and in front of a glowing red sun rising from a perfectly flat Indian ocean was the silhouette of a Maasai warrior on duty guarding my cabana.

Completely relaxed, refreshed, renewed, we headed back to Stone Town. Tim and Katrien were staying a few days more on Zanzibar then flying to Morocco. I guess they hadn’t had enough adventure yet. I was heading back to Mansa to open a new daily orphan program and was eager to start the work. But first I had to get back to Dar Es Salaam and figure out how to get back to Lusaka. No Tazara train this time!

The ferry dock in Stone Town was not as organized as it was on the Dar side. There were no announcements of arrivals or departures. No signs, no numbered docks, no designated lines, no body in charge. A boat would arrive and hundreds of people would surge forward trying to load the boat, battling against the hundreds of people surging the opposite direction trying to get off the boat. The crowd simultaneously surging in both directions included men carrying refrigerators on their shoulders, women with huge bundles on their heads, children, livestock, and really large unidentifiable fruits. At least I think they were fruits, they looked like lumpy, spiky, brownish watermelons. Not wanting to miss the boat, I joined the surge. We would surge down the dock, find out it’s not our boat then turn and surge back the other way yelling, “it’s not our boat, it’s not our boat.” Because after doing this a couple of times, you knew who was waiting for the same boat you were. Ohhhhhhh, that’s where that saying comes from, “we’re all in the same boat.”

When I finally battled my way onto the right ferry, my seat was in the bowels of the boat, instead of on the sunny top deck with the quirky bean bag chairs. It was a rough crossing and I was surrounded by crinkling brown paper bags being filled with vomit, little Muslim girls with live chickens, and a large bundle of lychees under my feet. Right in front of me was a window that looked onto the front deck. Outside, staring back in the window directly at me, was a man in a perfectly pressed three piece suit sitting on a full branch from a banana tree, swaying side to side turning green and periodically puking over the rail. Somehow I didn’t get sick and even got through two chapters of the book I was reading. I was back in Dar Es Salaam, vacation over.

It was all smooth sailing from there – God delivered me safely, quickly and cheaply back to Mansa. He had some children there He wanted to hear laughing again…