Zanzibar

I arrived in Zanzibar angrily, having felt duped and hoodwinked at every turn in Dar es Salaam. The taxi driver from the Dar bus station to the city center charged 2000 more T shillings than the one I’d gotten for the reverse trip, the hotel said they’d lost my single booking, but they could give me a double room (for a higher rate), and when I instead went to the port to get a ferry to the island of Zanzibar, I was greeted by a host of hustlers waiting for a hit. They pointed me toward the 4:00 ferry office. It was already 3:45. The man staffing the desk disinterestedly told me that the ferry was full for the day. I could go in the morning or, “if you can pay a little more you can take the plane.”

The twenty-minute flight turned out to be only about $20 more than the one and a half hour ferry trip, so after unsuccessfully inquiring about the next day’s ferries and accommodation for the evening, I said I’d fly. The man behind the desk made a call, assured me the plane would be waiting at the airport, and slowly moved out from behind his desk. I followed him across the street to a cab, we both got in, and the driver began speeding toward the airport. The engine was throbbing erratically, causing the driver to throw the cab into neutral and rev the gas every few miles. He shot for a tight passage between a high curb and stopped SUV, and slammed the brakes right before crashing. The SUV driver yelled; they argued for a minute in Swahili. The taxi driver gestured madly and charged down a side road that soon turned to potholes and continuous rut.

My ferry/flight hustler even encouraged him to slow down. Then, on the right, a car-wide dirt path led up a small high to a sidewalk. We charged up it, along the side walk, and then down another trail back to the main road. Then, right outside the airport, we stopped for gas. Lack of gas, apparently, had precipitated the engine revving. How, I’m not sure.

At the airport I grabbed my bags out and paid the taxi driver. Again, my ferry/flight man said, “the plane is waiting for you.” My bags quickly passed through security and, as I arrived at the single gate, the flight company representative stood next to me and pointed to my plane, taxiing down the runway. A high taxi charge, a lost hotel reservation, a ferry I’d thought I could make, and an exaggerated suggestion that I could make a 4:30 flight. While the Coastal Flights representative explained, quite calmly, that I could get on the 5:30 flight, I’d lost any calm and could only growl, “So many fucking liars.”

From there though, things got much easier. I’d been on a bus for the first three-quarters of the day, so I hadn’t eaten. I bought a box of chocolate chip cookies from the airport store and waited comfortably. When the plane returned we loaded immediately. We being the Indian woman on my right, the English couple sitting facing us, and the pilot and 5th passenger at their backs. I’d never flown in a six-person plane before. Our luggage was behind me. Our small bags went quite literally under the hood. The pilot turned around to say, “All right folks, be sure to buckle your safety belts. It’s about twenty minutes to Zanzibar,” and with that we rolled out on to the runway and took off. I watched the instruments on the pilot’s panel and read one of the stickers, “this plane not intended for icing conditions.” Pretty safe on that score.

And then we were above Dar es Salaam. We looped Westward over the city before heading directly away from the setting sun and over the Indian Ocean. The island was soon visible, and as we flew over the deep blue punctuated with lighter sandbars and dark reefs, I looked down to realize we were passing the ferry I’d missed. The plane landed with a wobble and a hop, as if it was too light to stay long on the runway, and I was soon in a taxi heading toward a hostel I’d booked in Stone Town.

Zanzibar has been a tropical center of commerce, intrigue, and strategic military positioning for several centuries. Because of comparably hospitable winds, Indian Ocean trade was fully kicking a half millennium before the Atlantic trade got rolling. Zanzibar has been central to spice trading among Arabs, Bantu from Central Africa, Indians, and Chinese. It was a key port in the slave trade, and was once the center of the Omani Empire. The British took it late in the 19th century, and the Soviets used it as a strategic outpost during the Cold War.

And at 10-12 US Dollars per night for an adequate room with a shared bath supplying exclusively cold water (and including breakfast in the morning), it’s a great place to study for comprehensive exams, which is something immensely important for me to fit in this summer. But, before I sign off for that – Stone Town is alleyways too narrow for cars, bright shutters opening from centuries-old stone buildings housing authentic Indian restaurants, Arabic coffee shops, local stores and tourist craft shops.

For the last two nights I’ve eaten dinner at Forodhani Gardens, a collection of outdoor stalls where the day’s catch goes directly on the grill. For three dollars two nights ago I had octopus, barracuda, and fried banana. And splurging last night got calamari, marlin, kingfish, two thick pieces of nan, and another friend banana for under $5.

Perhaps some days the island will entice… I’d like to go on a spice tour, and see the East Coast, and watch the World Cup in a bar filled with cursing, screaming, beer-guzzling Germans, but for most of the coming days here I hope to review the hundreds of pages of notes I’ve brought along, run, and eat. Work can’t be escaped forever you know, so I’ll mix it with paradise.