Friends of mine decided to move their company to Zanzibar for three months (November 2009 – January 2010). This did of course mean that, being the good friend that I am, I had to visit.
So, on January first, not very much after I had gotten back from the New Year’s celebration I was at, me and M boarded a plane (in -15 degrees C) that first took us to Amsterdam, then Nairobi (+30) and finally, in something than more resembled a bus than a plane, we landed at the airport just outside of Stone Town on the beatiful island of Zanzibar (+35).
Standing on the tarmac it finally hit us that we were there. Next step for me was to get my visa, M had already gotten his back in Sweden. Surprisingly (or perhaps not so), security was minimal. Haven gotten my visa we went for our luggage only to find it in the hands of “helpful” cab drivers as the baggage retrieval hall was on the other side of (the unmanned) passport controls. In the taxi, M realized his passport had not been checked, and stamped by officials. So back we went, through the non-existen security controls, into the arrival hall and to the visa personnel to get a proper entry stamp. At this point, we could have just as easily walked back out to the tarmac, as back to the arrival hall.
But, back to the taxi we went. The funny thing about Zanzibar: no addresses. Or as M2 put it when we were asking for the SLX-crews address: “Zanzibar hasn’t started with addresses and other modern stuff”. We simply asked to be taken to the police station in Malindi outside of which we found M2 waiting for us and a couple of minutes later we were in the Stone Town house they were renting.
As an added bonus, we were told that the electricity (which had been cut off for the last 5-6 weeks) had still no been restored. Actually, all of Zanzibar was without electricity for some months from the end of 2009 to the beginning of 2010. No electricity of course meant no water. In 40+ degree heat. This made the Africa experience a little more genuine.
Having changed into clothes a little more suitable for 40+ degrees we explored Stone Town, went swimming and spent the evening on the roof top of the Malindi house looking at the skyline.
Day 2 we walked around in Stone Town a bit more as M had some work to do before we’d leave the city. Stone Town is a vibrant, colorful, chaotic and very nice town. In parts, especially around Malindi, it reminds of Venice, with all the narrow alleys and shops everywhere. Although it does have a completely different atmosphere.
We had not intended to stay in Stone Town particularly long, so on day 3 we (me, M, M2, and H) took a Dalladalla to Jambiani on the east coast of Zanzibar. We found a couple of bungalows to rent, left our bags and headed out to the ocean. I’ve had coffee colder than the water we swam in. We went in just as the high tide was coming in, thus all the shallow water up to the reef that had been heated up during the day was flowing in.
We spent the next couple of days hopping between villages on the east coast, mingling with the locals and tourists, where there were any. Heading north we spent nights in Jambiani, Paje, Bweju, Matemwe and Nungwi, heading back to Stone Town once as the only (currently working) ATM’s on the island were there.
Whilst in Zanzibar, eating anything else than seafood is just a waste. However, when uttering a comment like “The food’s great, could have been a bit warmer though” when having a grilled tuna you should rethink if you really want to finish your food. As M found out, it wasn’t. So while me, M2, and H where having the time of our lives in Nungwi and the Kendwa Rocks party, M was having the most non-cooperative stomach of his life. In hindsight, he probably felt better than we did the day after the party as we spent amounts of money on Konyagi drinks comparable to what a night out in Sweden costs.
Next, we were heading for a safari in Mikumi National Park, which meant we had to get ourselves to the mainland, i.e. Dar es-Salaam, but, knowing that Stone Town did not offer neither electricity nor water, we opted for staying one last night in our bungalow (which from time to time had diesel powered electricity and water in the pipes). This in turn lead to us missing our desired overning ferry to Dar, which lead to us taking a ferry at ungodly 5 in the morning the following day. Surprisingly, security checks before boarding the boats were more rigorous than those at Zanzibar Airport (i.e. people actually asked to see our papers).
Post ferry trip and breakfast in Dar, we had another 5 hours to Mikumi in our private safari minivan whith a driver/guide. Mainland Tanzania is a bit different from the Hakuna Matata mentality everyone on Zanzibar has. Still beautiful.
After a couple of hours of driving, we passed into Mikumi and the animals started to appear, elephants, zebras, giraffes and baboons crossing the street as if we weren’t there, quite a sight. And this wasn’t even the cotrnolled part of the park. Another hour or so, we drove off of the main road and into the maintained part of the park. We’d booked an all-inclusive bungalow at the Mikumi Wild Life Camp lodge, which turned out to be fantastic. From our porch we were looking at African buffalos, baboons, elephants and giraffes grazing close by.
The two following days, we drove around in the park looking for animals. This turned out to be quite easy as on our first day we saw all four of the big five they have in the park, i.e. lions, leopards, elephants, and african buffalos. Since Mikumi does not have any rhinos we did not get to see any. More than that we saw wildebeests, zebras, hippos, etc. Truly fantastic experience, would recommend to everyone. Day two we started out early morning and went to the farther parts of the park, needless to say, the scenes were beautiful. Sometimes we’d see big herds of giraffes (40-50) walking past graciously as if they’d walk in slow motion. Five minutes later we’d drive by a herd of impalas or elands.
All in all, the safari was an experience that suspassed the expectations I had for it.
