The Zanzibar Cataclysm

Zanzibar.  

It is reputed as one of the most beautiful places in the World, and I wouldn't disagree for a moment. Would I ever go back?  No, probably not.  My time on Zanzibar was intended to be an incredibly relaxing time we would spend enjoying the beach and the ocean.  Instead, the following happened.

We woke up early to catch our 7 a.m. ferry to Zanzibar, and that was probably one of the only things that went smoothly with our trip to the island.

When we got to the island, we had to go through customs, as Zanzibar is accessible from other places besides Tanzania.  Moreover, Zanzibar is fighting to become an independent state, which would mean their own customs offices.  Well, being 9 a.m., with little sleep, and asked the direct question, "What were you doing in Moshi?" a teammate said "volunteering."  An honest enough response, but we're supposed to say "tourism" to avoid the incredible fees associated with different visas.  Because we had a tourism visa and not a volunteer visa, this was a serious problem.  When it became clear that we were with a Christian organization, all Hell broke loose.

You see, it was the during Ramadan, a pillar of the Islamic faith, and our customs officer was an Islamic woman.  We were detained and "interrogated" (her words) on the cusp of enjoying our time in Zanzibar, after all "volunteering" was concluded in Tanzania, but she was set on punishment.  She threatened us with fines and taking us to court because we were trying to "get away with" paying less than we should.  She was going to charge each of us $600 in fines, on top of the $200 a person it would require to purchase the right visa.

In the end, Paul and Katrina (our finance leader) had to go to an ATM, withdraw $1000 in Tanzania shillings (which was millions), and get it converted to USD.  When we finally paid the woman and got the right stamps, we had to go to another office to get a receipt and records of what we had purchased.  When we were there, they asked me what they should put on the receipt.  I was incredulous.  "The amount we paid and what we paid for??"   They said "okay, that sounds good," wrote us a receipt for the wrong amount, which I had to correct them about, and then proceeded to put the money in their pocket while pretending to put it in a drawer. 

A glimmer of light met us after that insanity.  An Islamic taxi driver saw what we had gone through, and took sympathy on us.  He became our driver for the week, and offered us rates that were about half what normal tourists paid (we checked and double-checked).  Moreover, he offered us a trip to swim with dolphins for $25 a person instead of the usual $35.

The hostel we stayed at was simple and secluded.  There were two couples on their honeymoon, one from France and the other from Belgium, along with a younger couple from Britain who we became friends with.  The waters of Zanzibar were beautiful, but it turned out that there was a knee-high sandbar that extended about 1km out into the ocean.  Basically, it made it impossible to do any swimming, but the water was at least pretty.

Our dolphin trip was interesting.  We would be swimming with wild dolphins, which sounded cool.  We finally found some dolphins after about an hour of enduring 10 foot seas in a small wooden craft.  I jumped into the water and started swimming as hard as I could.  Most of you know my history with swimming, and I wasn't even keeping pace with them.  I dove down in front of them (about 25 feet) and stayed there until they passed. It was cool, but with swimming as hard as possible, getting back into the boat, and repeating the process three or four times, I was beat.  Moreover, three of my teammates got sea sick, which made for a very quiet trip back to land, with Wade Carlton (Leader) actually kissing the sandy beach when we returned.

The best part about Zanzibar was a restaurant called The Rock.  Even that was a struggle to get there, as there were transportation confusions.  We were set on going; we needed something to put a good seal on Zanzibar, and for many of us, The Rock was our last hope.

When we got there, the restaurant was literally upon a rock island about 100 feet off the beach.  In actuality, it was more like a small house, but the interior was a nice, candlelit restaurant with an balcony that looked over the brilliant blue waters of Zanzibar.  It seemed like an amazing place for a proposal.  The food was expensive, and Dan and I got an expensive meal that was worth every penny.  It was 2 whole lobsters, a whole crab, 3 jumbo (8 inches long) shrimp, a huge portion of calamari, and french fries.  Needless to say, we had found our gem.

Our final day in Zanzibar was spent in Stone Town (the same area where we were detained by customs) and we ate at an incredible restaurant called Amore Mio.  I got a pizza and chocolate ice cream, and we caught the ferry back to Dar Es Salaam to meet up with the squad and proceed on to Malawi.

It was a beautiful island, but our experience of it was so stressful that it pretty much spoiled any plan to have a relaxing couple days there.  Luckily, our contact in Malawi is incredible, but more on that later!