21 June - Zanzibar & Smiles
Once again the sunset car ride to another part of the island (up north to Nungwi) is tantalisingly promising. We’re sorry to leave the lap of luxury but we want real life. It’s dry, the sun is out, our road has at least a few miles without giant potholes. I’m not complaining, they’re much worse on the Vietnam south border into Cambodia route (don’t hate me for dropping in my ‘been there/done that’ moments). Tomorrow will be a great day we think, but oh no. This time we arrive in a hotel where we are the only guests (another couple we run into will leave in the morning). We go look next door at the much more expensive one – we wouldn’t mind some more luxury, but it’s for ‘newly weds and nearly deads’ as someone will tell us later. No vibe. And all this thatched roofs and natural materials seem old fashioned compared to our Kempinksi 21st century. So after a few chats with the manager - seems the hotel is owned by some British woman who came here and married a fisherman from nearby Pemba Island but it all soured and she’s back in Britain, next day we transfer to one in town. We subsequently encounter more people with tales of Shirely Valentines expanding the Zanzibarian tourist industry. And when I finally lay eyes on a fisherman from Pemba I can see why. Not bad!
As soon as the sun is out, and it’s pretty fierce and offers dramatic light, Toph takes zillions of photos and I’m in most of them. I’m liking the attention….in this extraordinary light you can’t take a bad photo and I feel justified in having brought an array of different outfits and bikinis that stand out against sea/sand/sky. But mostly it pours. Though we have a hug and decide not to blame one another for having brought us here and hey, make the most of it. Back to reading novels and watching World Cup.
We work out later when we get to Nungwi central and there’s still nothing to do, not even a funky happening bar, that Muslims have a real shit time as they can’t have fun, do the basic things in life that are almost free, like dance and have a drink. They can play football on the beach though. I wonder if that’s enough of a diversion.
I’m used to travelling, so is Toph but here even the local village is sad. It’s a collection of breeze block huts. So is the Caribbean perhaps but there they paint them some bright colour and it helps . here it’s all grey. I guess importing paint is costly but boy do you notice what the absence of a bit of pink, blue, green and yellow does. Depressing.
The roads don’t get fixed until the rains truly stop ie maybe next month, so no question of going anywhere when i takes this long. Somehow no one has brought motorbikes over. Sturdy ones would help, like the ones that allow you to travel across India or go Vietnam to China and Russia (there I go again) But no… The only people who can make any money are the minivan /jeep drivers who ferry tourists at a rate of dollar per km.. A trip is someone’s monthly wage, though petrol is not cheap.
All in all we fail to have a good time in Nungwi as we never muster the desire to go diving, the main advertised activity here. Me because it’s a tad cold and I’m not that keen, Toph because he’s never done it and doing his Padi here right now seems too much of an effort. Plus he gets sick and like a true bloke refuses to heed my plan for cure ie.boiled rice or boiled pasta only. He even has some fruit on day 2 and the acid plays more havoc with his upset stomach. I’m worried if he doesn’t get better we won’t have a repeat of what is now in our personal folklore as the snoop dog adventure. You picture it… secluded part of a beach, low tide getting higher but enough pedestrians walking along it with an unpredictable regularity. You, however, are getting horny after feeding ants to the tiny crabs… all that death… and as missionary means you can’t keep watch on the beach walkers and we’re not in Spain where they may not be that easily offended, the only position that remains is … Anyway enough said. Later on the same day, whilst Toph is getting massaged by Marian and can’t get over how come these muslim women are all wrapped up but can touch a man’s body so intimately, I go off to have a henna tattoo. Thank god it’s only henna as having decided to have it done on my back and having written down what I want (something along the lines of Toph’s Bitch), when five minutes later I examine the work, I notice she’s misread my writing and I’m someone else’s bitch, not Toph’s. Oh dear! Take a friend if you ever think of having something permanent tattooed to your back. Still, it’s worth hearing his laugh later. And also, henna doesn’t last anything like a week. I paid top dollar for that.
One evening we meet some Italians, one is from Florence. He’s comical in his despair that having added on a few days on the beach from their Kenyan safari, he will have to spend them in a small room (they are on a cheap kind of group tour) and without escaping the people he’s been with for days already. They are all much older than him so can’t be that fun. He teaches us a very complicated card game that involves keeping track of points. It takes longer to learn it than we spend time playing, but concentration blocks out the sound of the rain.
A walk on the beach reveals another top hotel, Gem of the East, which I’d been recommended but had been unable to find on the web because its name bears no relation to the actual name of the holding company website. Doh, congrats to the marketing manager. Maybe they want to keep it a secret. It’s fab, owned by the Italian Murdoch cum ex PM Berlusconi and has another incredible pier. Only here they’ve illuminated its underbelly and at night you see Grand Central for fish. Thousands come flocking. However, we’re too fucked off to want to make the effort to move which is perhaps a mistake as am tiring of hearing waves splashing under my balcony at night. They’re too violent. The receptionist tells us that next week Elton john and Eddie Murphy are checking in. Not together… What a shame. Could have done with witnessing some histrionics.
By sheer virtue of being in the same place for a few days, we get talking to the owners of the hotel complex we’re in and the lovely café Namaste and the tour agency, the gift shop and the restaurant. They have a monopoly. He’s Zanzibarian emigrated to Canada when the revolution came in ’69. And she’s a top chef from Toronto with plenty of stories about customers of fine western establishments who go to great lengths to get something for nothing. At least they’re not boring and they see how close to breaking point I may be. I also meet an older woman from the UK who’s in property blah blah who’s here with a beetroot faced South African man in the oil industry who used to be married to some top actress, not Barbara Hershey bus similar! She’s not into him though and thinks he’s selfish for not wanting to do this or that with her on account of having already done it so she moves on. It seems you can find yourself at 60 in similar situations to when you were 30. Am not sure if this is enlightening but at 60 and with property, she can walk off and not have to rely on a man. It seems many people come here form SA or from the interior of Africa, aid workers especially, for a bit of a break. Even in the rain it must be a relief from.. relief work.
As soon as the sun is out, and it’s pretty fierce and offers dramatic light, Toph takes zillions of photos and I’m in most of them. I’m liking the attention….in this extraordinary light you can’t take a bad photo and I feel justified in having brought an array of different outfits and bikinis that stand out against sea/sand/sky. But mostly it pours. Though we have a hug and decide not to blame one another for having brought us here and hey, make the most of it. Back to reading novels and watching World Cup.
We work out later when we get to Nungwi central and there’s still nothing to do, not even a funky happening bar, that Muslims have a real shit time as they can’t have fun, do the basic things in life that are almost free, like dance and have a drink. They can play football on the beach though. I wonder if that’s enough of a diversion.
I’m used to travelling, so is Toph but here even the local village is sad. It’s a collection of breeze block huts. So is the Caribbean perhaps but there they paint them some bright colour and it helps . here it’s all grey. I guess importing paint is costly but boy do you notice what the absence of a bit of pink, blue, green and yellow does. Depressing.
The roads don’t get fixed until the rains truly stop ie maybe next month, so no question of going anywhere when i takes this long. Somehow no one has brought motorbikes over. Sturdy ones would help, like the ones that allow you to travel across India or go Vietnam to China and Russia (there I go again) But no… The only people who can make any money are the minivan /jeep drivers who ferry tourists at a rate of dollar per km.. A trip is someone’s monthly wage, though petrol is not cheap.
All in all we fail to have a good time in Nungwi as we never muster the desire to go diving, the main advertised activity here. Me because it’s a tad cold and I’m not that keen, Toph because he’s never done it and doing his Padi here right now seems too much of an effort. Plus he gets sick and like a true bloke refuses to heed my plan for cure ie.boiled rice or boiled pasta only. He even has some fruit on day 2 and the acid plays more havoc with his upset stomach. I’m worried if he doesn’t get better we won’t have a repeat of what is now in our personal folklore as the snoop dog adventure. You picture it… secluded part of a beach, low tide getting higher but enough pedestrians walking along it with an unpredictable regularity. You, however, are getting horny after feeding ants to the tiny crabs… all that death… and as missionary means you can’t keep watch on the beach walkers and we’re not in Spain where they may not be that easily offended, the only position that remains is … Anyway enough said. Later on the same day, whilst Toph is getting massaged by Marian and can’t get over how come these muslim women are all wrapped up but can touch a man’s body so intimately, I go off to have a henna tattoo. Thank god it’s only henna as having decided to have it done on my back and having written down what I want (something along the lines of Toph’s Bitch), when five minutes later I examine the work, I notice she’s misread my writing and I’m someone else’s bitch, not Toph’s. Oh dear! Take a friend if you ever think of having something permanent tattooed to your back. Still, it’s worth hearing his laugh later. And also, henna doesn’t last anything like a week. I paid top dollar for that.
One evening we meet some Italians, one is from Florence. He’s comical in his despair that having added on a few days on the beach from their Kenyan safari, he will have to spend them in a small room (they are on a cheap kind of group tour) and without escaping the people he’s been with for days already. They are all much older than him so can’t be that fun. He teaches us a very complicated card game that involves keeping track of points. It takes longer to learn it than we spend time playing, but concentration blocks out the sound of the rain.
A walk on the beach reveals another top hotel, Gem of the East, which I’d been recommended but had been unable to find on the web because its name bears no relation to the actual name of the holding company website. Doh, congrats to the marketing manager. Maybe they want to keep it a secret. It’s fab, owned by the Italian Murdoch cum ex PM Berlusconi and has another incredible pier. Only here they’ve illuminated its underbelly and at night you see Grand Central for fish. Thousands come flocking. However, we’re too fucked off to want to make the effort to move which is perhaps a mistake as am tiring of hearing waves splashing under my balcony at night. They’re too violent. The receptionist tells us that next week Elton john and Eddie Murphy are checking in. Not together… What a shame. Could have done with witnessing some histrionics.
By sheer virtue of being in the same place for a few days, we get talking to the owners of the hotel complex we’re in and the lovely café Namaste and the tour agency, the gift shop and the restaurant. They have a monopoly. He’s Zanzibarian emigrated to Canada when the revolution came in ’69. And she’s a top chef from Toronto with plenty of stories about customers of fine western establishments who go to great lengths to get something for nothing. At least they’re not boring and they see how close to breaking point I may be. I also meet an older woman from the UK who’s in property blah blah who’s here with a beetroot faced South African man in the oil industry who used to be married to some top actress, not Barbara Hershey bus similar! She’s not into him though and thinks he’s selfish for not wanting to do this or that with her on account of having already done it so she moves on. It seems you can find yourself at 60 in similar situations to when you were 30. Am not sure if this is enlightening but at 60 and with property, she can walk off and not have to rely on a man. It seems many people come here form SA or from the interior of Africa, aid workers especially, for a bit of a break. Even in the rain it must be a relief from.. relief work.
Labels: travel
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