Two Arabian Nights

Traveling alone is a situation that vacillates between quite lonely and quite empowering.  It's growing on me!  While it would be great to have someone to turn to when a thought or a new sight enters the picture, it's also great to be able to follow my own agenda.  I've met some very nice people from all over the world and have very much enjoyed that aspect of my situation.

In Arusha, I met Susanne, a German woman also traveling solo.  We spent the day together wandering the frenetic and far from attractive streets of Arusha with Daniel from Ireland.  After dinner that night, Susanne and I made plans to meet when we she arrived in Zanzibar, one day after myself.  I can't say that I wasn't thrilled to leave the relative freezing cold north and fly south to the tropical island on Saturday.

Zanzibar is so very unique.  It has been used as a strategic port along East African trade routes for a thousand years and has seen its share of invasion, occupation, and rebirth.  The largest city on the largest island of the archipelago is Stone Town, which comprises of narrow labyrinthine streets around centuries-old buildings, churches, temples, and mosques.  The culture is a blend of African and of the Middle East, with a dash of Indian. The place simply oozes with romance, intrigue, and seems like it stepped out of 1,001 Arabian Nights. The population is 95% muslim, and I'm here during the month of Ramadan.  Because it's a sought-after tourist destination and the place is crawling with Europeans, locals welcome our presence and even tolerate the cultural insensitivity of some barely-clad visitors.  It is strange, though.  Most restaurants are closed during the day and, at my hotel, if I want anything after breakfast, I have to take it in my room.  I've become adjusted to the frequent calls to prayer from nearby mosques.  After sunset and a brief quiet time when locals pray and then break their fast, the street food market and restaurants come alive again.

I have spent the last two days wandering through the streets and seeing some of the historical sites.  I went to the Anglican Church, a place built over an old slave market.  Zanzibar was the final African stop after leaving the coastal stop of Bagamoyo.  From here, slaves were shipped to French-controlled Mauritius and other islands to work on sugar and spice plantations, or to Southeastern Europe.  Inside the Anglican Church are markers where the well of the market, as well as the post to which human beings were chained before being sold once stood.  It's beautifully done without being ostentatious and is moving to see.  Underneath the church's neighboring building are dark stone rooms where, it is said, that slaves were kept prior to sale.  The rooms are small with a raised stone floor.  Being in them, one can only imagine the anguish and fear  the walls once contained.  Outside, there now stands a monument to remind visitors of Zanzibar's dark past.  Stone statues of slaves are chained together with actual chain and neck manacles that were found in Bagamoyo.  The place is silent, as it should be.

Zanzibar was also one of the first spice islands and a trip to a spice farm is another tourist highlight.  I was able to see nearly every spice imaginable, including an iodine tree (I had no idea that the stuff is the sap of a tree), and ylang ylang (the stuff used in perfume), and ate fruits that I'd never heard of, let alone eaten!  I had met a former volunteer for the tour and we stopped at the market on the way to buy a fish, which then was prepared for us for lunch after the tour.  Incredible.

When I returned to Stone Town, I spent hours shopping down tiny streets, most too narrow for a car.  I watched the sunset for the second time from the famous Sunset Bar, only seven kilometers as the crow flies from Bagamoyo, but entirely a world away with its luxurious middle-eastern fabrics draped on the walls and hookah pipes at every table.  Last night, after Susanne had arrived, we decided to walk through the night market for dinner.  Hundreds of stalls, all lit up by gas lamps and laden with fresh fish, fruits, breads, and meat skewers beckoned.  Probably the best meal I've eaten so far in Africa...and all at a cost of about 4,000 shillings...or about $2.60.

My hotel in Stone Town, the Dhow Palace, is a former mansion and is ornate in every sense of the world.  While not a luxurious hotel, the carved furniture and antiques in the room and the open-air courtyard help to complete the experience.  I'll be spending a few more hours here this morning before heading north to Matemwe, a quiet fishing village on the eastern coast of the island for my last nights in Tanzania.  I'm hoping to hone my "do nothing" skills and finish my African adventure on a quiet note.