Intrepid (sissy) expat Aussie traveler, Socrates, steps back in time to review his journey from the capital of Tanzania, Dar Es Salaam to the extraordinary island of Zanzibar.
I say my goodbyes to Hanneke on the doorstep of the dilapidated guest house where we were staying while in Dar Es Salaam.
“I’m going to Zanzibar,” I tell her.
“I might come to Zanzibar,” she replies.
“Come, Hanneke,” I respond, trying not to sound desperate.
“No. I want to go to Mozambique. But I might come to Zanzibar.”
I met Hanneke when I first arrived in Kenya. A family rented me a room in their house on the outskirts of Nairobi while I got into the swing of being in an unfamiliar East African country. There was another guest already there. This Dutch girl was tall and slender, and her style choices were basic. Zero makeup. Cargo trousers and t-shirts. Long blonde hair that could do with a wash. Her sartorial inelegance, in combination with her abrupt manner, prevented me from appreciating how attractive Hanneke was, initially.
Adventures with lions
Over the next three months, though we were travelling separately, we bumped into each other in such exotic places as Lamu, Malindi, Kisumu, Lake Naivasha and Mombasa. By the time we had crossed into Tanzania together and travelled on to Arusha to explore nearby game parks, we had become friends and I had woken up to the fact that I liked her a lot. Now, finally, and disappointingly, after adventures with lions, wildebeest, leopards, and elephants, we were about to separate. She, off to Mozambique and, me, to the extraordinary island of Zanzibar.
I heaved my backpack over my shoulder, waved goodbye to my Dutch friend, and wandered slowly, by myself, down the crumbling sidewalk towards the bus station. As I passed the front door of a house, a blind leprosy sufferer, who was sitting on a bench by the door, heard me passing. He rattled a tin cup that he was holding with his scarred, fingerless, hands to ask for a donation. I grabbed a handful of shillings from the pocket of my jeans and dropped them into the cup with a clatter. He quickly retrieved the coins and placed them into a hessian bag.
Forty minutes later, I am standing at the ticket counter of a budget charter flight operator at the Dar Es Salaam International Airport. While the word “International” may have been intended to give the place an air of significance, that was not reflected in the small concrete and glass soviet-era terminal buildings adjoining the runway. Ticket to Zanzibar purchased, I am soon strolling out onto the tarmac to board an ancient twin propeller aircraft that looks like it seats around twenty.
Liable to sink mid-journey
It had occurred to me that travelling to the island by aircraft was a safer option than taking a sailing dhow (which had a possibly unfair reputation among travelers as being liable to sink mid-journey), but now that I am looking at the tarnished metal vehicle before me, I wonder if, perhaps, I have gotten that wrong. Soon I am strapped into a seat next to a porthole-like window near the rear of the plane. Around ten other passengers are with me on the short flight. I can’t help wishing that one of them is Hanneke. Within what seems like an inordinately short period of preparation, including the absence of any safety demonstration, the captain taxies away from the terminal, and we are soon rattling down the runway.
Soon after take-off the Captain turns his head towards his passengers and, in an attempt to be heard above the screaming of the engines, yells at the top of his voice a welcoming message that might be, “Thank you for flying with us. Today we will be flying at an altitude of one hundred feet to the beautiful Island of Zanzibar. We should be disembarking at Zanzibar Airport in twenty minutes.” If the aircraft had, at one time, been fitted with a pilot intercom system, it was not working on the flight that I took.
Checking to see if I had heard correctly, I peer out my window and, sure enough, the wings of the aircraft are barely clearing the tops of the masts of the sailing-dhow fishing boats that I can see below us. It occurs to me that an unusually large wave might be enough to swat us out of the sky.
I’m nervous…
As promised by the Captain, not many minutes later I am navigating the noisy harbourside market, dodging the smoking old taxis and motor-bikes on the one large road in town, approaching the cluster of archaic pink coral stone buildings that make up the Stonetown, wandering down an alley just large enough to allow the progress of humans or donkeys, and checking into an immaculately presented, Arabic-style guest-house next to the harbour. Despite having survived the flight and being in a pristine private room with a gorgeous view of the beach I am nervous. I am already missing Hanneke. In the short time I have been on the island I have not seen a single mzungu (white person) fellow traveler.
From my window I can see shirtless, heavily muscled, locals (the Muslim East Africans are modest – shirtless only happens at the beach when there is heavy and wet lifting work to be done) glistening with sweat and salt water. As they haul nets in from the ocean and from loaded fishing boats, they are beating the sharks and larger fish, (that are tangled in the nets), to death with cricket bat sized clubs. With stories swirling around my head about fishermen in the nearby ports who sometimes moon-light as pirates, I make a firm decision to not get into any rows with locals.
Despite the beautiful beach, the lovely guest house, and being surrounded by an exhilarating town that makes one feel like they have stepped into a tale from the Arabian Nights I am feeling glum for the first time in months. I am lonely… a bit scared… and I miss the Dutch girl.
While I am staring through the window at an enormous man carrying a seven-foot-long shark across his shoulders to a waiting donkey cart I hear a knock. I open the door, wondering who in this unfamiliar place, could be visiting me.
Standing in the door is a tall woman with unkempt blonde hair, no make-up, a scruffy t-shirt and worn cargo trousers.
“I think I come to Zanzibar,” she said.
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