Zanzibar!

So I spent last weekend with two fellow interns in Zanzibar; it was a wonderful trip, marred only by a few transportation mishaps.

Mishap #1 occurred after we boarded the plane from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam and the pilot announced that there was a "minor problem" with the plane -- they couldn't start the engine. Now, I'm not an expert on airplanes, but I'd say that an inability to start a plane's engine would qualify as a bit more than a "minor problem." It did turn out to be more than a minor problem, but luckily, there was a spare plane at the airport, so they unloaded us from the first plane and onto the second, and two and a half hours later, we were off to Dar.
We only stayed in Dar for the night and caught the first ferry out to Zanzibar early the next morning. The island of Zanzibar is part of the United Republic of Tanzania, but has its own president and House of Representatives. One of my friends told me that the relationship between Zanzibar and Tanzania is similar to that between Scotland and the UK or Wales and the UK. (And it meant that I got two stamps in my passport instead of just one!) There are basically three main reasons for visiting Zanzibar -- visiting Stone Town, touring the spice plantations, and going to the beach. Being the conscientious interns that we are, we only had enough time to do the first two before heading back to Nairobi early Monday morning to go back to work.

Stone Town is the old part of the capital of Zanzibar, and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, partially because it’s a great example of the fusion of many different cultures -- Swahili, Arab, African, Indian, and European. The architecture really reflected this mix and the city was truly beautiful -- not in a pristine picture-perfect sort of way, but rather in a lived-in, history-filled, slightly dilapidated sort of way. It’s full of tiny winding streets, great old buildings with intricately carved wooden doors, beautiful mosques, and lots and lots of shops.
We also just happened to be in Zanzibar for the Zanzibar International Film Festival, so on Saturday night we sat in an outdoor amphitheatre inside the old Arab fort to watch a documentary about a Ugandan dentist who is also an Elvis impersonator (apparently, he makes more money as an Elvis impersonator and enjoys performing a lot more than dentistry, but his parents don’t want him to quit his day job) and another one about female prosecutors and judges in Cameroon.

On Sunday we took a tour of the spice plantations and our very knowledgeable guide took us to see (and taste) ginger, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cassava, vanilla, pepper, turmeric, neem, coffee, cocoa, lemongrass, and a couple others I can’t remember off the top of my head. Here are a couple of things I learned about spices this weekend: almost none of the many spices grown in Zanzibar are native -- they’ve been introduced from all over the world, and the island just seems to have a great climate for growing them); neem, although it can be used for just about everything under the sun -- insect repellent, soap, treatment of malaria (if brewed into a tea), etc. -- is one of the most bitter things I’ve ever tasted; and too much nutmeg will make you horny -- we didn’t actually find this one out for ourselves, we just took our guide’s word for it.
Other than not making it over to the east coast of the island to go lie on a beach for a day or so, I really only have one complaint about Zanzibar. I had said earlier that it’s hard to walk around Nairobi without constantly being asked if I want a taxi, but it was even worse in Zanzibar. As we got off the ferry in the port, we were immediately pounced upon by a hoard of taxi drivers and guides, all offering their services. One even followed us for a while as we walked to our hotel, trying to get us to take his taxi instead. and all weekend there was the ever-present “Jambo, sister! Taxi? I’ll give you a good price, hakuna matata!”
As we walked to the ferry on Sunday afternoon to head back to Dar for the night, I began to anticipate transportation mishap #2. I get pretty motion sick on just about anything that moves -- planes, buses, cars, subways, boats, roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, anything -- and although I felt a tad queasy on the ferryboat from Dar to Zanzibar, I was mostly ok. Since we were leaving at a different time of day than we had arrived, I started to worry that we had come over at low tide and that we’d therefore be leaving at high tide, which can mean rougher seas.
The second we pulled out of the harbor and started towards Dar, my worst fears were realized. I have never, ever been on a choppier sea, and I’ve never been so seasick in my life. At first, I thought it was just me -- I do have quite a history of motion sickness -- but then I heard the rustling of plastic which turned out to be the crew passing out little plastic barf bags to every passenger. My two friends (neither of them have a history of motion sickness, and one of them did research for her master's thesis in meteorology by going up in a small plane and flying around storms to collect data, never once getting sick) spent the two and a half hour trip puking into the barf bags and off the side of the boat. I spent the whole ride curled up in the fetal position, literally paralysed with motion sickness -- I felt so sick I couldn’t even move my arm to reach into my purse to find my phone to see what time it was (and therefore how much longer it would be until we reached Dar) or to take another Dramamine. You know that Adam Sandler song from the Wedding Singer that has a chorus that goes something like, “somebody kill me please, I want to die”? Yeah, that was going through my head for a good portion of the trip.

We finally got off the boat, found our way back to our hostel, went to a restaurant to slowly sip some sodas, and laughed hysterically about the voyage from hell. The next morning, our flight back to Nairobi was about an hour late, but I didn’t care. I’m generally a pretty impatient person (and I wanted to get to work, see conscientious intern, above), but I was just so happy to be on solid ground that I really didn’t mind. And once we were finally in the air, we even got a great view of Kilimanjaro from the plane! Even with the voyage from hell, it was a wonderful weekend and we had such a great time. But I’m never, ever getting on another boat as long as I live.