2/13/14: ZANZIBAR: SAUTI ZA BUSARA DAY 1

 2/13/14: ZANZIBAR: BUSARA DAY 1

Here are photos from the Vaudeville act, Capoera, traditional masked dancing and an umbrella dance at a park by the water before they created a parade to begin Busara:

Capoera Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was beginning to look a bit like the Oregon Country Faire with the mix of costumed crazies rousing the audience. A bunch of Europeans had instruments, fire dancing stuff, a stilt walker who spun a bicycle wheel on his head, you name it.  One African group had men slicked up with black  charcoal and Vaseline plus a group in voodoo-like garb.  They started off the festivities at the Old Fort, after which the music began.

 

 

We are sitting in this bandstand in the back of the amphitheater up high with plastic chairs, and, acoustically it is good to be as far as possible away from the blaring sound system. The venue, the Old Fort, which was built on the foundation laid by the Portuguese hundreds of years ago, is small enough to feel intimate. All 4 nights we have sat in the front row with a couple from Australia saving seats for each other.  After the Festival, they have booked a balloon ride in the Serengeti as part of their safari. He has a sheep ranch and we got quite friendly with one another. They are staying in a nearby hotel with a restaurant on the top floor (quite common here) from which they can see down into the Old Fort. They're up in our age bracket and also chose to pay a bit more and get seats. Everyone else will be standing for most of the concert. 

Opening Act of Busara Day 1

 

 

               Baladna Tarab from Zanzibar 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first night the music was pretty good.  Each band plays for 45 minutes with a 15 minute break for set up except a longer break at Muslim prayer times. The breaks began stretching out and the concert was soon running 2-3 hours behind schedule as it would every night except the last one.

It started raining around 11 pm, and many people just left.  Others, including us, stood under shelters - tarps - thinking the rain might stop.  No way!  The rain increased into a storm, with winds and torrential downpour.  After an hour we finally walked out into the street to get drenched as we made our way back to the hotel.

We both slept very well and everything dried by morning.

2/13/14: ZANZIBAR: OLD TOWN

2/13/14: ZANZIBAR: STONE TOWN

The evening before we went to the Hilton Doubletree Resort where many, many tourists stay and which has a package deal that includes all meals, drinks, etc. Though it took over two hours with their wifi, we finally managed to upload all of our blogs, so we are current!  There was a great band, lots of dancing.  I got up for a salsa.  There were some fabulous dancers on the floor of different nationalities, so I gave it my all and stayed dancing for as long as my stammer lasted. Consequently, I, Joanie, slept well, even though my body itched from the sun, whatever small bites from sand flees, etc. and woke up refreshed.

the delighted cook requested I take this photo!

The cook had promised us pancakes "with eggs" and mangoes, plus some oranges, tea and coffee.  He delivered, proudly, in a fancy blue shirt.  We wrapped the mangoes in the two large pancakes, which looked like large chapattis with more egg in them, and they were delicious.

Walked to the daladala stand and got on the one leaving.  Cost was $1.25 each for the two hour ride into Stone Town, which, by taxi, had cost us at least ten times more, $25, but only lasted one hour.  Felt like we were back in the swing of things.  Many police stops harass the drivers but keep the passenger count lower, so the vehicles aren't so crowded and everyone has a seat.  Three women from Canada we walked with waited for the traditional daladala which is just a flatbed truck with a low roof and  has open steel window grates and people sit facing each other on long benches.  We saw one in particular speeding along and were happy we weren't on that one.

back of traditional dala dala

 

We are now at our hotel in Stone Town, 1001 Nights, in a room with two single beds, sharing two bathrooms among four rooms, so, not bad.  Very clean, with wifi, good fan, really kind, pregnant, young receptionist, for $40 per night for the room, which includes breakfast.  Yo went off to get money at an ATM, and water while I showered and did laundry, putting the stuff on a ladder on the roof.  Stuff will dry in an hour.  

She recommended a restaurant next door, Passing Show (named after a brand of cigarettes that are no longer sold), which turned out to be listed as the #1 place for locals in the Rough Guide to Zanzibar, for some lunch. Then we explored the waterfront buildings, museums and parks of Stone Town and arrived early at the Old Fort for the first night of the concert, which goes from 4 pm to 2 am.  We shall see how crazy it is!  We have tickets for just one night Yo got in advance, of 4 nights, but we have heard that there's music everywhere, so tomorrow night we will see about that.  Tickets are much more expensive for muzungus than locals, like $15 for the whole weekend for locals and $125 in advance for tourists. What a surprise we got, when the woman looked at our printout and put "All Festival" Bracelets on our wrists, a $400 value!  We then walked down Kenyatta St., checking out the numerous souvenir shops, to the park in front of the newly restored African House Hotel for the opening activities of the festival. This consisted of numerous performances by small groups before they would lead a parade to the Old Fort. 

We watched for awhile then went ahead of them to get some good seats at the Festival. 

2/12/14: ZANZIBAR, THE NORTH: BEACHES

2/12/14: ZANZIBAR, THE NORTH: BEACHES

The place we are staying is full of murals.  The photo above makes it look much more interesting than it really is, but, hey, it's the least expensive digs on this side of the island.  Service is very simple with no extras - no soap, toilet paper, changing linen, etc

They do provide breakfast and the guy cooking just got back with groceries from the store, with a big smile, as we wait.  There's a substantial hole in the screen across the window, so mosquitoes are numerous and they seem to like the inside edges of the mosquito net, which also has holes. Yehudah did a great mosquito killing job last night and this morning.  We discovered two outlets, both high up and needed to create clever ways of using them.  There are hooks, a shower, a current model toilet and a table for stuff.

Last night was the night of itches, thunder and lightening.  I was awake scratching all the small jellyfish stings and other bites and welts on my body while Yehudah slept, enjoying the very noisy fan at full speed.  I did finally fall asleep and feel fine this morning.

We will try to walk to another beach along the water which is supposed to be very wide and one can swim at any time.  The sky is overcast.

We walked about an hour along the water from Nungwe to the next beach over,  called           Kendwa, a very broad beach that in the past five years has grown to include an exclusive Italian hotel and restaurant with Masai who speak Italian, several other gorgeous bungalows and restaurants.  On the way we stopped to talk with some artists and are considering buying a large painting of three Masai jumping, the subject of one of my dream poems of the past.  I considered asking a guy and gal Masai to jump with me for a photo, but have been too shy.

We also past by some fisherman cutting up their catch of sting rays:

We took turns swimming in the gorgeous ocean, luxuriating in "just swimming".  I managed to have a conversation about Italy in my broken Italian with an older man who lives in Florence, of all places!   And Yehudah wound up scoring by finding a snorkle mask by the ocean line that belonged to a couple's children, using it to swim out to an area where there was a small coral area with small fish.

We found a good place to have Zanzibar pizza, relaxed some more, I gave Yehudah a massage, we walked up the road to find a ride back to Nungwe because the tide had risen and one couldn't walk along the beach anymore.

Kendwa Restaurant

We took showers, had dinner of aubergine curry and a tuna and coconut curry at a cheap, local spot, with great food.  We are now at the Internet cafe with air conditioning and hi speed internet.

We will see if the blog photos post.  Hope so.

We leave for Stone Town tomorrow and will take the matutu.  We are told the cook will make mango pancakes for breakfast!

No luck at wifi place.  We are now at DoubleTree Resort with a pistachio milkshake, a band and a few of the blog posts have uploaded.

2/10-11/14: ZANZIBAR, THE NORTH: SNORKELING

 2/10/14: ZANZIBAR 

We have spent our first day in Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania and 90 minutes from Dar es Salaam by the fast ferry. A big surprise came when we discovered the price of the tickets and the extremely low exchange rate. Can't get US dollars at the ATM, so paid as much as we did for flying from Lamu. 

 

     Looking back at the buildings on the waterfront 

 

The ferry was a big boat, with three levels, KILIMANJARO III. It was pouring buckets when we arrived, so we hung out in the port, partly because Marshad had said the wifi was strong at the terminal.

 

            Entering the Zanzibar ferry terminal

The ferry ride itself was uneventful, with no dolphin sitings or whales, just some wind and rain droplets.  

After the rain abated we walked into Stone Town to check out our rooms for Thursday eve, had some food, then bargained for a taxi to take us to the far northern part of the island, Nungwi. The price at the ferry terminal would have been $60, but we were immediately solicited outside by a driver who said he'd take the 2 of us for $30 and shortly lowered it to $25 when we showed no interest. 

The receptionist at the hotel got us the same price with a driver they work with. Yehudah has been trying to change our reservation to different dates. At first they just wanted us to send an email. Then they wanted him to go online to the booking company and pay for it so we wouldn't look like no-shows. It got too complicated and his blood sugar started to drop, so he asked the manager to just work it out himself. We'll see if he managed when we return in a few days. We are staying at a backpacker's place owned by Marshad's cousin, funky and hippy, with rooms painted with underwater scenes.

 

         White sand beaches, turquoise water

young girls gathering small mussels

      The men rally to right a boat and get it back in the water

We took a long walk on the beach.  The shallow areas are all deep turquoise, with boats dotting the shoreline.  We gathered some more shells, observed a bunch of girls gathering small mussels.  We walked in the water but there is currently no electricity or water in this area because yesterday there was a violent storm that took wires and trees down.  Hopefully this will be restored by tomorrow.

We found a great place for dinner right on the beach, and sat eating our fish dinners with rice pilau, French fries and carrots with great pleasure.  The sun set in dark pink and the moon rose as three quarter with Venus below.  Yehudah had a whole red snapper, very large and I had fillet of tuna, so we were both happy.  They brought us a bowl of warm water with lemon to wash our hands at the conclusion of the meal. Best service we had at a restaurant in quite awhile and deserving of a tip and compliments to the staff. One of the waitresses helped us find our hotel in the dark. 

We are in bed at 9 pm and Yehudah is fast asleep.

Hopefully tomorrow we will go snorkeling if the weather cooperates!

2/11/14: ZANZIBAR, THE NORTH: SNORKELING

 

Yehudah woke at 3 am bathed in sweat. The electricity hasn't returned, so no fan, no air movement, and the dampness of the sea combined with a very big dinner no doubt contributed to his discomfort.. So he updated some of last night's entries and added to this one. No power means no water and there doesn't look like any back up water jugs to use for a "birdbath" type shower. 

The latter proved not to be true as when Joanie insisted on getting a bucket of water in the morning it came with a great pouring ladle.  Once we took the bucket showers everything felt better.  Yehudah went off to talk with the dive shop we had been introduced to by our driver yesterday, and he signed us up on a boat leaving in 45 minutes for a full day of 3 hrs of travel by boat to and from the island of Mnemba for diving and, for us, snorkeling for two 45 minute sessions plus a snack and light lunch - chapattis with cream cheese and veggies in a wrap plus fruit. This island is now entirely owned by none other than Bill Gates and, when he's not there, his six bedroom home rents for the modest price of $3000/night!

On the way back Yo took some photos of Muslim children in front of their school:

 

We had a quick breakfast of fruit, rolls and tea/coffee.  The French fellows had also had a bad night like Yehudah, too hot, with a bothersome mosquito, and hadn't requested any bucket of water and so looked unhappy.

Three couples were suited up for diving, plus four crew members on board.  It was an hour and a half very bumpy boat ride to the island, and, unfortunately, I, Joanie, got sea sick. Yuck!  Seems to be all about the stomach!  I learned later that one of the seasoned diver couples from Conn. always take Dramamine as a matter of course.  Good idea!  We have two motion sickness pills left, but they are back in the Dar luggage.

Anyway, we did two 45 minute snorkeling sessions in perhaps the most beautiful place I have snorkeled since Hawaii in my 20s.  The water was very clear, very blue.  Fishes galore, of all shapes, sizes and colors, swam around in their coral environment.  The first was in the midst of the shelf and the second on its edge, where many schools of fish congregated.  We will need to get a list of names from the owner.

After the first session, most everyone came out of the water with small welts on their arms which turned out to be stings from tiny jellyfish. We had felt the stings, but didn't realize where they were coming from until we went in again and could see, this time, tiny orange jellyfish in great numbers all over the place. The German woman broke out in a rash and the owner poured some vinegar on them which seemed to neutralize the swelling. She was a nurse, but, like Yehudah, didn't come equipped with what we were carrying in our suitcases. 

The couples were from: Shanghai, China - one guy from Switzerland and his friend from Germany who owns a home on Lamu - and the couple from Connecticut, who used to live in Seattle.  Two of the three had also gone on safaris.  We spoke primarily with the couple from Conn., Julie and Russ Wood, who spoke of seeing copulating lions and wildebeest giving birth on their safari.

Their kids are all doing wonderful things. One son, Brian, is an infectious disease doctor at
UW and has been to Africa four times. The middle daughter is a public interest attorney in Brooklyn and just married an Ecuadorean in Quito. And the youngest is a social worker in LA. Proud parents!

The owners of the Poseidon Dive Center are from Austria and bought the business two years ago and got all new equipment. Yehudah went with them because he had a lot more confidence in them than the locals. We think we got good value for the $35 pp we paid. 

 We also saw dolphins swimming on the trip to the island but no dolphins happened to be around the snorkeling place.  There were several other vessels with people diving and snorkeling, but not over the top like sometimes at the safari spotting sites, where 20 jeeps congregated to see, e.g. the leopard in the tree.

Just as we landed power was restored plus water pumping, so, when we got back to the room we put the fan on full force and took showers!

Then napped for a bit.  Now we are sitting outside in a large open area under a big awning. There are quite a crowd of sparrows near us in a flat basket so we think they are feeding them. 

Tomorrow Yehudah is thinking about exploring some other beaches.  We could rent bikes but we will investigate the cost. Right now, we are back at the same restaurant we enjoyed so much yesterday. We shared a fish curry dish with cashews plus a stuffed red snapper, both delicious, with chapattis, rice and veggies.  Here are some photos at sunset:

 

We were either going to search for good wifi or price stuff at shops, and, since the shops were closer we went over to look.  Prices are high here, but we wound up getting into good conversations.  The first was with a young Masai from Arusha, an artist, jewelry maker, about politics.  The second was an Ethiopian guy with octopus hair who sang a gorgeous song for us at the prompting of several Canadian women who had volunteered at an AIDS orphanage in Ethiopia with whom we had a conversation.  We found water at the local shop and returned to our room, only for the electricity to go out for a few minutes.  Now it is back on, it is 10 pm and we will go to sleep with the fan on full blast.

Our room has a large painting of a dolphin on the wall, so I will call it Dolphin Room.