If it wouldn't have been for the yawning morning emptiness and instead filled with the afternoon/evening excitement of countless tourists, locals and shop owners trying to entice the prior two to do some business with them I would have felt right like in a James Bond movie. Or maybe the one I saw with my nephew on his birthday. It was so bad I have already forgotten the title, but it played out in some similar setting. However, no chance in hell of wild chases and dudes falling 20 metres down with only as much as a trickle of blood as a consequence. Zanzibar is, as everyone had told me, very safe. Even using those narrow paths back at night posed no problems.
After a nice breakfast at the Riverman Hotel I wandered off again, aimlessly walking around and accidentally ending up at the fish market. I hadn't seen it mentioned in the LP guide and I didn't see any other white people (which is really hard to do anywhere in Zanzibar, I think). The scene was amazing. There were tons of bicycles parked with big baskets strapped across the racks, waiting for something to deliver. People were cutting up fish everywhere, trying to get me to buy the local catch of the day. What would I do with it? Eat 3,000 rolls of sushi? I stumbled on, past the shipyard, where intense hammering took place relentlessly.
I listened in to some of the auctions. That was a lot of fun. One guy yelled out the prices and the bidders chimed in when they were ready to offer more. "Nane. Nane na mia tano. Tisa. Tisa. Tisa. Tisa. Tisa na tano. Tisa na tano. Tisa na tano. Tisa na tano. Kumi. Kumi. Kumi." Aha, fish sold for ten thousand. They didn't say the thousand parts, so the literal translation is "Eight. Eight five hundred. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine and five hundred. Nine and five hundred. Nine and five hundred. Ten. Ten. Ten."
Even my undeveloped mzungu ears could clearly hear the prices announced, so it came to a surprise that some tried to pay 500 less, claiming they didn't hear the "mia tano" part. But since this was usually resolved under much laughter and all the guys seemed to know each other it may have well been just put on show for me...Thanks guys!
I went on towards the shoreline, where I saw some fishermen on their boats, dealing with maintenance etc. One guy was wading in the low waters. I couldn't tell if he was looking for fish or maybe just doing a "Kneipp-Bad." Strolling off into some less populated area, I saw some of the boats that hadn't survived the last storm or maybe just died a slow death of old age. The sand was pretty black and dirty here. I left the beach, declined one offer to go for a spice tour ("or anything else you need") and came by a local market, where men and women were busy frying up all kinds of things for a little (unhealthy) breakfast. The diets of Tanzanians aren't actually too healthy, in my opinion. They put a lot of sugar and salt into everything (well, not at the same time, of course) and also drink an unprecedented amount of soft drinks, sold in 300ml bottles. They are all from the Coca-Cola company. Coke, Sprite, Mirinda, Bitter Lemon and a battery of other flavours.
Stone Town had a gigantic power outage that morning and it was nice to see all the shops in the dark. Given the already narrow, dark pathways, the power outage gave the whole scenery an even more dramatic darkness to it, which was a lot of fun. After stocking up on some food for the rest of the day in the extremely narrow and busy Darajani market I got my bags out of the hotel and headed to the bus stop, waiting for #309 to take me to the East Coast.
I made my first real encounter (when I first arrived I had a brief one, but easily outran the dude...) with a tick. That is how they are apparently known in Zanzibar (Papasi in Swahili, according to LP). I had asked a bus driver (more reputable to ask employed people rather than random street dudes) where the bus would leave. After getting there (no bus yet) a dude approached me and started talking to me. I quickly realized what he was up to. But it's really hard to get rid of them (hence the term papasi, I guess...) He started asking silly questions (like where I would like to sit in the bus - front or center, left or right). I had walked away to get rid of him for a while, but when I checked back the bus had arrived and I tried to get my luggage on top. The dude (actually now three of them) were there and asking about the fare turned out to be difficult. One said 5,000, one a said 4,000 and one would settle for 3,500. However, I asked a French guy with the same destination and he only paid 1,500. The ticks claimed this was due to the luggage. I mistakenly thought the one for 3,500 was actually the conductor and didn't realize he also was just a pest. Anyway, the whole situation was easily resolved as the bus (really a truck with simple benches on its platform) was deemed broken and we had to switch to a more comfortable looking model. I walked over, found the conductor, who told me it was 2,000 (and it was confirmed later that is the real price for that kind of bus). I was about to fetch my bag when magically the two ticks appeared with it. They had already gotten it off the roof of the other bus. It was put to the front seat and the conductor told me to get in the bus. But as one of the ticks was in the way I told him if he gets off I can get in. He didn't want to listen as he was still hoping to get some money out of the whole thing. After a few discussions I finally got in and sat down on the front seat. The tick sat down behind me and started talking about how I had to pay 3,000 to him now. Since I didn't react he started talking faster, hectically, really, and louder. The other tick had come up to the window and hammered with his fist against the window, to get my attention.
I ignored them both and told the driver to make the one behind me shut up. So after a little war of words in Swahili the papasi (notice the closeness to paparazzi!!!) finally left, pretty disgusted. I don't feel bad for not having paid them, even though they carried my heavy bag over. As LP indicates, they are usually dudes from the local drug scene, and I am not about to support that. Additionally, I had told them a few times to buzz off so it's there waste of time, not mine.
The bus ride over was extremely pretty. First, an endless street (well, maybe two to three kilometres) that was the longest market I had seen so far. I have never encountered so many shoes, mangos and all kinds of other useful (and many useless) things in one spot. After that miles of palm trees before the vegetation became more bush-like.
OH MY GOSH
Eventually I arrived at the Blue Oyster hotel. OH MY GOSH. I had never been to a hotel that scenic. Walking through the white sand (and I mean white like teeth in a tooth paste commercial) towards the gate was stunning. The hotel with palm leave-thatched roofs looked like in a postcard (a few lucky ones will receive one :)
There were places to lie down, each with a similar cocos leave-thatched "umbrella" style shade tree. The beach was equally white as the driveway and ocean had all kinds of blue, green and turquoise shades of colours. Another 007 moment and I expected some Bond girls at the bar (but only encountered the same clientèle as on Mt. Meru - mostly German and Austrians). After getting to my room, which was extremely nice and even the shared bathroom was spotless I could finally relax and forget about two months of dust. All for $35 a night.
The only disappointment was that cooling down proved to be harder than expected. With the air temp at around 30C it is always a disappointment if you hop into the ocean and the water temp is like 32. Even the shower did only provide some "non-hot" water, but you certainly couldn't call it cold. You guys in the Northern Hemisphere don't know how lucky you are :)
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