Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The ferry across from Dar took about two hours, and we'd been approached on the way by a guy who said he could drive us to our hostel for 2000Ts (less than 1 pound), but we were understandably dubious. When we arrived at Stone Town, the capital, immigration advised us that it should cost 3000Ts - we'd got ourselves a bargain - but to go with a lisenced driver, many of whom were crowding around the dock. When our supposed 'friend' from the boat asked what we were going to do, we pointed to the other drivers and said 'maybe we should go with them instead'. This immediatly caused a bit of a ruccus between him and the drivers, voices raised and fists waiving, with us - rather bemused - slowly backing away!! Suddenly they turned to follow us with big smiles on their faces, seems that in fact they all knew each other really and were just having us on. Hilarious.
So we found a reasonable place to stay in the Stone Town, a place you'd imagine Ali Baba and Aladin to be right at home. The narrow streets are surrounded by decaying white washed walls and distinctly middle eastern style buildings. It was really different to anything we'd seen and we spent most of the day weaving in and out of random passages heading in the general direction of the coast (maps here were useless). The beach itself was nothing special but it was a beach all the same, and the sunset was absolutely stunning.
Not quite thinking it through, we started to head back towards our hostle whilst the sun was going down, but quite obviously ended up completely lost in the dark in those narrow streets with few street lamps and absolutely no hope of making it back. Seeing us looking just a wee bit worried, an old man came over to offer directions. In fact we started to attract a bit too much attention, and the next thing I know is te old man is chasing another guy down the street trying to give his ear a good boxing. Turns our punishments in Zanzibar come straight from the 1950s and it was pretty funny to watch. The fleeing assailant was apparently a drug dealer and the old man had proclaimed himself 'protector of all tourists', I guess quick fingers and a steadfast grip were all the superpowers he needed! Needless to say he very kindly escorted us home and we were incredibly grateful - people here are in general incredibly friendly and kind.
The next day we headed up to Nungwi at the north of the island for some serious chillaxing, and the next two days were filled with sunbathing, swimming and cold showers to relieve the sunburn! One notable event was finding a preying mantis tangled up in my hair after I'd fallen asleep on the beach. After the initial shock on both our accounts, I put him in a tree and he happily crawled away whilst I went and invested in a hair brush.
After the tropical paradise that was Zanzibar, we got the ferry back to Dar and booked our tickets to Kenya...
- comments