Tales of The Carry-On Kid: Tanzania Travel Log Vol. 9 – Zanzibar, finally!
Yes, we have made it – finally the fabled spice island of Zanzibar. Before arriving to Tanzania, I remember hearing snippets about Zanzibar. I knew it existed, but I didn’t know where it was, what they did there or why I knew about it. Right after I hit the ground in Tanzania, it was a topic of discussion and I decided that I was going to go. There is no point in being this close to a place Zanzibar and not going to see it. On one trip to Mali, my co-workers were about to go to Timbuktu and even after many flat tires and many hours of driving, it was worth their efforts and that trip created memories they will never forget. I was hoping – minus the epic journey and flat tires – that Zanzibar would be the same for me. It was. Sort of.
Getting off of the ferry that I have described in detail, involving dealing with another scrum, our small group of four navigated it with minimal fuss and with no loss of limb or valuables. We actually had to fill out immigration paperwork, but I did get my passport stamped so it was totally worth it, after all how else can you prove you were there? After clearing the impressing area. We passed through a chain link fence and were greeted with the normal slew of people who were willing to act as tour guides and people waiting for guided tours that were already paid for. Our guide was waiting for us and took us to his van. We had pre-arranged a tour of one of the spice farms. I know Zanzibar was famous for its spices only because I had heard it called the Spice Island. As we drove to the farm tour we were giving a brief history of the island and shown a few of the sights.
The spice farm wasn’t much to look at; in fact, to call it a farm was almost an insult to the farms that surround me in Kansas. Our guide proceeded to link up with one of the workers at the farm and started our tour. He took us to a plant that looked like most of the plants surrounding it and explained that most spices come from plant that do not look like we would expect, no kidding. The guy he linked up with proceeded to cut a few of the ends of some of the leaves off, shred them, then handed some of the shredded bits to each of us. This is where the guessing game began for the rest of the tour we had to guess the spices we were holding and smelling. I got a lucky guess at the first one as lemon grass, I was right, however most of the rest of the spices smelled like lemon grass, a few like the cloves were different, but most just smelled like a variation on lemon grass. The tour was interesting but got a bit old after the first hour. I do have to compliment our guide and the guy who worked at the farm, they knew their stuff!
After the spice tour ended we were whisked away to the central part of the city to look at the old Arabic fort. It was interesting and of course old. As we entered we encountered our first glimpse at one of the famed doors of Zanzibar. I had seen an art print that depicted about twelve of them many years ago, but this was the real deal. These doors are interesting because they reflect the culture of the people who built them and give you and idea of who was in charge when they were built. Some of the doors were in great shape while others had had brass handles or spikes removed and sold for scrap. It was actually sad to encounter doors that feel into the later category. The fort was interesting and in typical tourist trap fashion there were shops dotting the insides of the walls. I was lucky, the owner of one of the shops was interested in my iPad so we got to talk for a few minutes. He gave me the usual story about needing to make his first sale of the day and that he wanted me to be that first sale (What an honor…)
I looked around and noticed he was selling the three knotted elephant hair style bracelets. I love these and while I know they are not all made from elephant hair they are still cool. We went through the normal bargaining and I told him I’d buy it if he would let me confirm it was actually hair instead of plastic. He seemed mildly impressed as I borrowed a lighter from one of my buddies and set a strand of the bracelet on fire. It did smell of burning hair so I figured it was at least made of real hair.
The time to return to the ferry was rapidly approaching so we toured the fort some more then hit the streets to see a few more sites and of course walk by about a hundred shops in the process. Seeing more doors and the mix of old colonial style buildings with some of the more Middle Eastern influenced buildings, created an interesting mix that was worth seeing. Many of the shops were located in streets that were more like alleyways. This created an almost Indiana Jones like feel to moving down the streets. As per normal the shops held all of the normal African crafts and some interesting T-shirts. My favorite of the T-shirts was one that had the cover from the graphic novel Tin-Tin in Zanzibar. Tin Tin might have been that long forgotten reason why knew about Zanzibar in the first place.
We arrived about ten minutes before the ferry boarded, filled out our paperwork and hit the scrum. The trip back was uneventful and sadly instead of a Chinese sub-titled movie we were treated to a nature documentary that looped about four times during the return trip. I kind of felt sorry for that pregnant Sloth that got eaten at the end, but only the first time or two that I saw it, after that I was rooting for the crocodile who did the eating!
Zanzibar will not make my top ten list of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my life, but I will never forget it. Life is truly about the journey and Zanzibar was a pleasant scenic route in my journey. There are many things to do on Zanzibar other than Spice tours. They have fishing expeditions, camping trips, snorkeling and even scuba diving. If you do find yourself in Zanzibar grab me on of those Tin Tin shirts, but ask for it in Bongaa size, they’ll know what you mean.
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