Zanzibar

....only the name itself…

STONE TOWN

The moment you get of the ferry you enter into a different world.
Stone town looks and feels very Mediterranean/ Arabic with its narrow streets, alleyways (smaller then 1,5m) in which it is impossible to find your way but great to wander around and get lost. As we did a few times.

It is packed with Arabic style houses,, shops, balconies, mosques,… where old people just sit outside there homes and children run around, playing or on their way to school. it hosts a very conservative Muslim society where ancient traditions are still respected. We felt in love with the place immediately. We spend a night in stone town before heading towards the northern tip of the island.

NUNGWI

After hours for looking for an affordable beach bungalow (5$ government tax ppn makes everything more expensive on Zanzibar), but booked one for 7 nights for a very reasonable 10$ a person.
We spend our days here lazing on the beach, reading, diving, snorkellingtrip, swimming,… Nungwi is one of the main tourist destinations but its still very low key. Apart from beach bungalows, restaurants/bars and some shops, there is nothing. Not even a road, just a normal rural African village.

The white sand beach is amazing and the turquoise sea really is spectacular (picture perfect). Each evening we enjoyed a fresh seafood (the best I ever had)meal with tom and yoletta, a couple from London who we met on the ferry.

Tom and I went diving one day and between 2 dives I was swimming and suddenly 7 dolphins appeared from under me! But this would only prove to be an appetizer for our upcoming dolphin swimming trip later that week.

LAURA AND THE CAMERA, PT 2

One day the 4 of us walked to kendwa (a superb stretch of white sand 30’ walk if it was low tide, otherwise it involved some swimming). While we were looking for souvenirs at some beach stalls, Laura left the camera (again ;-)) in one of the stalls. When she realized it 30 min later, the 2 of us rushed back but of course nobody had seen or found anything. we had only been in 3 shops, so one of those three should know something. because we needed a police statement to claim it on our insurance, the owner of our bungalow contacted a policeman (the closest police station is a 30 min drive away). The next morning Laura, a police officer, the bungalow owner and a friend went back to the ‘crime scene’. Surprisingly, the police took the matter really serious. He took the 3 shopkeepers aside for an interrogation on the beach. Laura told him that she didn’t know in which shop she left it, and she didn’t want to accuse any of them directly. Anyway, the police suspected one guy, because he kept changing his story and he was known for stealing before.
But everybody had to go to the policestation for statements and further interrogation. So everybody (Laura and the accused) went in a minibus, for which the bungalow owner had to pay. Laura had no clue what was going on at the time (her Swahili is not that good). After het statement, Laura had her fingerprints taken and felt like a real criminal herself. She was told to come back on Monday, and bring me because they needed my statement as well, before we would get our paper.

So on Monday the of us and the bungalow owner and his friend who were very helpful and were really troubled with all this, hired a minibus and went back to the police station. After I wrote my statement, we were told to wait for the judge(!!) and he would hear our case in his courtroom. Whooooohhhh… we didn’t want all of this, just or piece of paper for the insurance, that’s all!! But the police told us that a judge should hear us before they could give us that paper. His honorable called in sick, so the whole delegation had to move again, to another court 30 min down the road… so all of us, together with the accused, some cops and I don’t know who crawled in our minibus and we headed off. By then it became clear to me that the police really wanted to blame it on that one shopkeeper (they still had him in custody!! over a camera he might have stolen, just unbelievable). They just wanted to solve the case, even if it meant twisting some arms and bending the truth a little.

The courthouse was smaller then my high school classroom with piles of paper and (old??) files scattered around the back, meters high. The judge, a women (an odd thing in a Muslim society I thought!!) sat in front while all other parties (accused, defendants, lawyers, witnesses, cops, and us) sat happily mixed together on benches. While the first case was being trailed in Swahili, the 2 of us were getting really uncomfortable. We just wanted a statement, not putting some poor fellow in jail over it. But apparently they took it very seriously. And to my great surprise justice is swift here (Friday camera stolen, Saturday to the police, Monday end of investigation and straight to court). I (who went through law school) was just dazzled by this. By the end of the first trial (which was about a guy who sold fake ferry tickets or so to some other guys we think) we were called outside to talk to the public prosecutors who was going to trial our case. By this time laura was sweating and getting very nervous about the fact she was about to have her first court case, let alone it was in Swahili and in Africa!!!! Again, We never wanted any of this!!!

I left my patience at the entrance and made it very clear to the prosecutor that we didn’t know who stole it, and even if we did, if didn’t want to see anybody getting into jail for it. We told him that the police made it seem, trough their statements and final conclusions, that laura pointed out one guy, which she didn’t. the police were a little to eager and all we wanted was……..when it finally dawned on him, he told us that we could go back to the police station and get our statement, which we finally got after 4!!!days. When I asked what was going to happen with the shopkeeper he and the police officer were very vague and quickly went back into his office.
F***** ass****

DOLPHINSWIMMING

Later that day, tom yoletta laura and I went back to stone town and booked a spicetour for the day after. It was a nice day with a very nicely spiced lunch, fruittasting (Zanzibar has the best fruit you can imagine. The mangos and pineapples just don’t come any bigger and juicer then there). It was interesting to see everyday life on the countryside.

When we got back, tom and I went out to make arrangements to go dolphin swimming off the southern tip of the island. We managed a great deal: just the 4 of us in a boat and we could leave stone town as early as we wanted. We got up at 5u30 and by 8 am (when normal trips leave stone town) we were in the boat looking for Flipper. 30 min later we saw a group and jumped in the deep blue. It was a family of more then 40 (tom counted them), including playing adolescents, babies and there mothers,…

It was just us and them, no one else. They came very close. If you stretched your arm you could easily touch them. At one point I free dived (breatholding) to the bottom (10-15m) and while looking up, I was surrounded by these beautiful and intelligent creatures. Later on I wanted to point out some playing dolphins at tom who I tought was next to me, but when I turned my head a dolphin was investigating me, 10 cm from my face. He scared the living crap out of me!! Laura her flippers were not flipping, so she had to swim hard. But she has never been so happy to be in the ocean!! All 4 of us were so full of joy, just smiling the whole time. It was one of the best things we ever did (and you know how much I love my diving)!!!

It was quite intense and exhausting because you jump in before the dolphins. You watch them approach and then you try to follow them for a while (if they don’t swim to fast). When they are out of sight, you crawl back in the baot and they drop you again in front of them and the whole process repeats itself. So after 60-90min we called it a day and headed back. More and more boats had already joined us or making their way to us. It is probably not that much fun for the dolphins when there are 30 people chasing them and jumping in (maybe they didn’t like just even the 4 of us), but if they are really fed up with it they just dive deep and swim away. And they have an incredible speed, not a change to follow them then.

That night we got on the night ferry and after a very noisy night we made it back to Dar es Salaam around 6 am. We said goodbye to tom and yoletta (going home), who were great company during the last 2 weeks!!

The rest will follow in week…
Take care !!

XXX
P&L