A Weekend in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Zanzibar is seriously the most beautiful place I’ve seen to date.  The ocean was absolutely breathtaking.  I was so overwhelmed, I literally took a deep breath when we turned the corner. Simply gorgeous.

Since I only had a few days to explore, I did most of the typical Zanzibar tours…Stone Town (including the former slave market), Prison Island and a Spice Farm.  You can find those pictures and descriptions below.  But what a lot of tourists don’t get to do is swim with wild dolphins.  It doesn’t sound that exciting because dolphins are not the most exotic animal and you can see Flipper at any local Aquarium.  I’ve done that and he looks so nice and friendly in his medium sized, man-made tank.   But seeing them in their natural habitat was a different story.

Imagine riding a small motorboat out to the ocean (not that far from the shore) and immediately seeing a family of dolphins swim next to you!  I was nervous at first, but our guides kept urging us to jump in.  I kept wondering if our tour guides knew what they were talking about.  These were wild animals.  But I put on my big girl pants and jumped in.  The first time Flipper swam by me, I had a small heart attack and swam for my life (cue RuPaul) back to the boat.  No, really.

Me having a panic attack

Underwater and through my goggles, they looked like a combination of whale and shark, and I went straight into panic mode.  But once one of our local tour guides swam with them and came back to the boat unscathed, I decided to just go for it and I’m so glad I did.  They paid us no attention and kept swimming about their merry way.  As a side note, can you imagine if we had actually seen whale sharks in Mafia Island?  If I panicked after seeing a dolphin, I’m not sure my heart could have survived swimming next to the mammoth whale shark.

Aside from wild dolphin watching, I recommend traveling Zanzibar, especially if you’re already in Tanzania.  It was a $40 and 1.5 hour ferry ride (45 minute flight) from the mainland to Zanzibar.  It has a rich cultural history and was breathtakingly gorgeous.  See more of my pictures below.

Getting off the ferry

View from my hotel room

Legendary Zanzibar Doors. As the story goes, because Indians used to hunt elephants for their tusks, elephants would retaliate by killing them in their homes. Indians began putting brass knobs on their doors to prevent the elephants from intruding. When Indians came to Zanzibar, they kept the tradition alive. Zanzibari doors are still made and used today.

Stone Town Market

Typical Stone Town Street. It’s called Stone Town because the buildings were all made of stone when it was first colonized. Buildings are not built with stone today, but they must have the same look and feel.

Slave Market

Slave Chambers

Slave Chambers. Up to 70 people could be kept in this room at one time.

A church was built on the site of the slave market. The tree pictured is the type of tree people were tied to and beaten against.

Altar inside the church, which is the site of the old whipping post. While a little dusty due to renovations, the red tile in front of the altar represents the blood of the slaves that were beaten here.

Slave Monument 

Panoramic View of the Indian Ocean

Two Aldabra Tortoises, one male and one female, were given to the Sultan of Zanzibar by Seychelles hundreds of years ago. Since then, they’ve reproduced and there are over 100 tortoises living on Prison Island today. The one pictured here is 101 years old.

The tortoise with the cracked shell is the oldest on the island at 190 years old.

View from the pier on Prison Island. It’s called Prison Island because the Sultan of Zanzibar used the island to house prisoners from the mainland. After a few years, the island was then converted to an infirmary, as this was the place where people with malaria and other infectious diseases were sent.

Swimming with wild dolphins

Zanzibar Red Colobus monkey. It’s an endangered species and Zanzibar is the only place in the world you can find them. We were lucky enough to catch one on the ride home.

On the Spice Tour

Lipstick Fruit. Women ground the insides and use it for nail polish, lipstick and eye shadow.

Quinine tree. It’s bark is used to treat malaria.

Cocoa fruit from a cocoa plant

Cocoa Seed

Coffee Beans

Unripened Pineapple

Pepper seeds. They are picked and then left in the sun. After they blacken, they are ground up and used as a spice.

Vanilla Plant

List of spices we saw during the tour

After the Spice Tour

Traditional Biliani (different than regular pilau) with beef…delicious!

My shorts were a little too short for conservative Stone Town, so our tour guide made me cover up. Shrugs.

Until next time Zanzibar…

The REAL Dar Es Salaam: Afri Roots Bike Tour

When it rains, the neighborhood pictured above and the houses within have the potential to flood.  Standing water can cause many issues, including attracting pesky and sometimes malaria-carrying mosquitoes.  Thus, the population living in this area has a high chance of becoming infected with malaria and cholera (which is caused by drinking water or eating food contaminated by feces).  This picture is just one of the many harsh realities that I was faced with during my bike tour on Saturday.  By the way, it only rained for a few hours Friday night.  Can you imagine how this road will look during the rainy season when it rains all day for months?

A colleague recommended the Afri Roots Bike Tour as a way to see the city in a different way. According to their website:

Beyond the city center, peninsula and highways there is another face of Dar es Salaam – back roads with vibrant community and street life keeping the city in motion. This tour takes you to the “real” Dar es Salaam accessible by bike or on foot.

Gain first hand experience of the social issues facing Dar es Salaam – living conditions of families, rapid urbanization, infrastructure issues and the urban environment. You will visit markets and meet the people who work and innovate in the informal economy, and hear about the struggles they face.

I must admit, I didn’t really think the tour would show me anything that I hadn’t already seen. But I was completely and ignorantly wrong.  Let me try to paint a picture for you.  Dar es Salaam is divided into three districts: Ilala, Kinondoni, and Temeke.  Ilala and Temeke are where the lower and middle class populations live, while Kinondoni is more of a wealthy area.  It is where most ex-pats and other foreign diplomats reside because it has a peninsula, which means there’s beachfront property.  While it may seem like the districts are far apart, they are actually only within 10 minutes of each other.  I had no idea what has literally been down the street from me for the past month.  I could go on, but I think it’s better you see for yourself.

Our guide explained to us that in the 1960’s, many people came to Dar es Salaam from more rural areas such as Arusha and Morogoro to find work.  Due to the city’s overcrowding, however, the Tanzanian government made people return home unless they could prove they were employed.  People got creative and started making coffee to sell on the street.  One of the first stops on the tour was visiting a man making coffee from scratch.  In the picture below, he is grinding the coffee beans in a traditional mortar and pestle (a typical gift given to a woman before she is married).  If grinding quickly and steadily, it takes about 30 minutes for the beans to be ground fine enough for water to be added…no cream or sugar necessary.  You are supposed to drink the coffee with a homemade peanut brittle, giving the coffee a sweeter taste.  I don’t like black coffee, but it was surprisingly delicious.  Starbucks could learn a lesson or two.

Me grinding coffee like a typical Tanzanian woman. Ha!

The next stop on our tour was visiting Mama Amina (mother of Amina, her first born daughter), who was making fresh chapati.  Chapati is similar to Mediterranean roti.  Water is added to wheat, which makes dough.  Then the dough is kneaded and fried in a pan with cooking oil.  We were also served Tanzanian tea to accompany our fresh chapati.

Mama Amina making chapati

Tea and chapati being served

Around the corner from Mama Amina lived Mama Yasmin.  She is from a tribe in Tanzania (I forget the name) where the women own the property.  She was born in this house and it was passed down to her by her father.

Swahili Home

This is a typical “Swahili culture house.”  It is sectioned off into 6 bedrooms with one main hallway.  The rooms are very small, but an entire family can live in one room.  Mama Yasmin rents out some of the rooms in her home.

The picture above is a tad blurry, but an entire family of 8 lives in this one room.  Below is a poster on the wall in the room that says, “Love is Love.”  Our guide explained that one of the important aspects of Swahili culture is loving yourself, your family and your neighbors.  While they may not have a lot, love is very important to them.

As we continued on the tour, we ended up in the lowest neighborhood in the city.  As I mentioned above, the area floods during heavy rain.  There is a river that flows through the neighborhood that originates in a wealthier part of the city.  The river flows down into this neighborhood and because it stops here, the stagnant water is polluted and attracts mosquitoes, as well as causing other health-related problems.  We continued our tour and ended up in a neighborhood that was preparing for a celebration.

Baby Mohammed was turning 40 days old.  In Muslim culture, babies are not allowed to leave the house until the 40th day after birth.  Lucky for us, we were able to help celebrate Mohammed’s 40th day alive.

Baby Mohammed’s grandmother was the town’s herbalist.  She showed us her garden, where she grows basil, mint and other herbs that are supposed to cure illnesses such as malaria, epilepsy and yellow fever.

Found this man wearing a Steerlers hat. While he didn’t understand what I was saying, I let him know he was reppin’ the wrong team. Go RAVENS!

As we continued the tour, we ended up in a kanga shop.  Remember I talked about kitenge and kanga?  (If not, read here)  I learned that the sayings on kanga are written to be subliminal messages.  If a woman has a problem with another woman, she will go to the store looking for a kanga with a specific message.  She wears the kanga in front of her adversary to get her point across.  Talk about passive aggressive!

We also stumbled upon a “ghetto movie theater” (their words, not mine).  If there is a special event on TV, the neighborhood will gather here to watch if the electricity is working. Next, we ended up in one of the city’s larger markets.  People go here to buy anything from food and clothing to toiletries and children’s toys.

Three days later, I am still trying to digest everything that I experienced during the bike tour.  I’m so glad I was able to see how some people in Dar es Salaam live.  While the conditions are not the greatest, everyone we encountered were friendly and welcoming.  Mama Yasmin told us that if we’re ever in Dar without a place to stay, come find her and she will make room for us. You won’t find that kind of hospitality everywhere.