Heaven on Earth...Jambiani, Zanzibar

Amber and Rama on dhow
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March 19–22 2008

Jambiani (village on the east coast of Zanzibar)

(Amber)

After two nights in Stone Town, we arranged for a van (which we shared with four other tourists and an assortment of other locals) to pick us up and take us to the east coast of the island on our third day. The ride was only about two hours, and it was really awesome to watch the world go by. We passed through several areas that were populated, although I don't think you could really call them villages, and it looked like the same drill on a smaller scale.....women carrying stuff on their heads, mud huts, oxen pulling carts, motorcycles and bicycles, an open air meat stall, etc....

Anemone
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(Matt)

Along the road to Jambiani, every community of any size was hectic and bustling with the rhythm of commerce. Deals were being negotiated in an animated fashion. Friends yelled out greetings to one another as they passed. Vehicles sped along, honked and avoided each collision as nearly as their skillful drivers could allow. To me, the market place that can be seen throughout a developing economy such as Tanzania is an anthropological textbook elucidating us to that which sets our species apart from all others.

Hassan leaving us
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(Amber)

After the easy ride, we pulled into Jambiani, found a room (which we would only stay in for one night), and hit the beach. We arrived at low tide and were able to wander along the beach watching the women gather seaweed and the children dig for what we think must be crabs or clams. You can see in the photos the vast difference between low and high tide. The tide recedes probably half a mile every night and comes back in at about 1pm. Based upon the tide, the fishermen and women and children gatherers plan their day, which has a well-determined cadence. By high tide, the work in the ocean moves to the land. The sand is bright, brilliant white throughout, and the water is crystal clear and the most beautiful shades of turquoise you can imagine. Palm trees line the entire coast. As Matt wrote, it is paradise. While I hope that something in my life compares, I can't imagine anything beating it.

Matt having lunch
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And unlike places in the world that may have the water and the sand but the local cultures have been decimated in the process of "development," this place is authentic and full of rich culture. The people go about their days of fishing, gathering, washing, baby having and raising....although with some air of a lighter load maybe because the kids gather on the beach and play at night, maybe the fresh air and sea, maybe the abundance of fish and tropical fruit???...I don't know. But I do know that while they are struggling, the people here seem happy, if incredibly overworked.

Amber on white sands at low tide
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(Matt)

Amber described it very well, but I would like to reiterate the reasons why I think this is such a wonderful place. First of all, I love fishing villages. And I really love subsistence fishing villages that are comfortably feeding their families every day on fresh fish pulled right out the ocean. How comfortably? Well, we made a young friend in Jambiani named Hassan, who was about 21 years old. With the help of his friend Rama, probably about 18, Hassan sailed Amber and me on Hassan's brother's dhow to a reef where we snorkeled for a few hours on our second day.

Boys hamming for Amber
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The next day, we saw Hassan walking out on the half-mile stretch of white sand at low tide heading to the water's edge with only one small bait fish on a medium-sized hook at the end of a handline wrapped around a piece of wood. It was about one hour until the tide came in. We asked what he hoped to catch, and he assured us that he would catch a barracuda. I commented to Amber as we walked away that one bait fish seemed inadequate and that he only had an hour. We saw Hasssan, who by the way is a really sweet kid, about 45 minutes later walking back to shore with a barracuda. We took some pictures of him with his fish. He said his family would eat the barracuda that evening or the next day.

Beautiful little girl playing on the beach
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The point here is that Hassan had one piece of bait and was confident enough in his people's established relationship with the ocean and its bounty that he believed that one bait fish and one hour was enough to land a barracuda, and he was right.

Second, the people of Jambiani are nice and polite but, at the same time, go about their business, which is primarily comprised of fishing (men) and harvesting seaweed (women and children), in a disinterested manner. They pretty much ignore us, even though we are studying them as they live their lives and are photographing them much of time.

Hassan and his barracude
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(Amber)

We do try to be very unobtrusive when photographing though. Our camera is small, and I do it on the DL. My hope is that they don't even know they're being shot. And I definitely try not to do anything that would make people uncomfortable. Now back to Matt....

(Matt)

Third, this is easily one of the most beautiful beaches on the whole planet Earth. You just can't beat that.

Matt in the village
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(Amber)

On night one, in search of food, we wandered about 10 minutes up the beach and found a place that we can't seem to leave. We have a beach bungalow....complete with a bed on the veranda, water and sand less than 10 meters from our door, chapati with honey and fruit in the morning, and fresh seafood at night. We are in heaven.

Our days here have consisted of eating, snorkeling, walking on the beach, showering, reading, snorkeling, showering, eating, walking on the beach, reading......It's a really tough life. When we get tired of the sand and sea life, we walk on the back side of our bungalow through the tiny village. We were wandering through town on the day that potable water was delivered. See photos for that. It was a rush and about as animated as things get in Jambiani.

Colobus monkey who we finally made mad
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We paid $10 each and the two young guys (Hassan and Rama, who are both in lots of photos), took us out to the reef on the dhow. They spear fished and just lounged on the boat while we snorkeled. Hassan got in once to show us a ray. That's also in the photos.

While walking on the beach on day three, we came upon a family of Colobus monkeys, an endangered species that is only known to exist here in Zanzibar. We watched them play for a while and got amazingly close to one before it screeched at us and chased us off.

Rama sailing
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While snorkeling, which we have done some everyday here, we saw beautiful reefs....and tons of fish including angel fish, clown fish, the most beautiful starfish I've ever seen, a ray, a white venomous coral snake, a sea horse, tons of spiny urchins, grouper, and many many more that I can't identify. I couldn't stop singing Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid...sure I had seen a "hot crustacean band" without even knowing it.

(Matt)

We have walked through the road that runs through the one kilometer-long village of Jambiani and seen most everyone who lives here, and they usually wave or yell out "Jambo!," which essentially means, "What's up?" or "How's it going?" I have adopted the greeting of "Salama" because it can be used universally as a response to any inquiry about how you are or as an initial greeting to someone else. When we walk down the beach, no one asks us to buy anything. People either say nothing at all and continue what they were doing before we walked up or, as is more common, they greet us warmly. Children, who are inherently curious, often come up to us and touch us...I guess just to make sure that we are real.

Starfish
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We don't usually take the time to promote hotels, hostels, or guesthouses because we just don't have time usually because we move around quite a bit. We made that decision early on in the trip, but I have to make an exception regarding our accommodations in Jambiani, the Red Monkey Bungalows, because we almost left the beach before we had discovered it. If you are coming to Jambiani anytime soon, you should head straight for the Red Monkey Bungalows now because, based upon its prime location on the beach and its overall charm, it will not be a budget place for long.

The water
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The Red Monkey Bungalows are at the far Southern end of the village. In other words, they are the last bungalows on the Jambiani beach and are a cute as a button with a garden (with lounge chairs and umbrellas) sitting between the bungalows and the ocean. The bungalows (with double bed, private bath, and a private covered porch) are $35 per night and are very clean inside. The price of the room includes breakfast, which is good and filling (includes eggs, chapati, fruit, and coffee), and lunch, which is only a homemade donut and coffee.

Amber's friend
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The Red Monkey offers a good dinner, which is a buffet, for an additional $7 per plate. The first night this included a grilled lobster and various other fish and curry. It was generally good, though it was less good when the electricity went out. The manager of the Red Monkey, Soloman, is a really good guy. He speaks English very well and runs a pretty tight ship. The beaches in front collect very little debris, and overall the stretch of beach between the Red Monkey and the Red Coral's restaurant, is the most scenic of all of Jambiani. The ownership are apparently planning on putting in A/C in a few months. The place formerly called Gomani Bungalows, now called Red Coral, which was $35 per night as well, added A/C and an infinity pool and is now $75 per night. I fear that Red Monkey may go this route. Bottom line, get to the Red Monkey and enjoy it before the people on Nungwi figure it out.

White water
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(Amber)

It's night three in Jambiani, and there hasn't been electricity since about noon. During the day, it affects us very little. How much electricity do you need to read and snorkel in the sun? But at night, it means we lose....gasp....our fan. To try this out, wait until August in Texas, go into the closet in your garage, and try to catch some Zs. Do it with and without a fan. Oh yeah...throw in about 100 vicious and possibly disease-carrying mosquitoes. Only then will you understand how heartbreaking this story really is.

Woman gathering seaweed
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Dinner was by the light of a few tea lights and included fish curry and shrimp and veggie on a skewer...along with rice and chopped veggies. We decided to hang our mosquito net and set up shop on the veranda to sleep outside tonight. It is still hot and muggy but less so than inside the room. I can't complain though. My soundtrack is of the children singing and drumming sweet sounding Swahili songs in the hut and on the beach next to mine, and my view is of a full moon reflecting on perfectly still ocean.

March 23, 2008

Jambiani (to Nungwi)

(Amber)

OK, it's now morning in Jambiani. I take back all that about it's okay that there's no power and we have no fan because the children are singing, moon is bright, ocean is still nonsense. It was the hottest, stillest, sweatiest, most mosquito-infested (and remember...this is malaria country) night we've ever had. And I just talked to the South Africans in the bungalow next to us, who had the exact same experience. No one here slept a wink last night.

We started under our mosquito net on the porch. Matt worked and worked to prevent any gaps in the net, but somehow, like Houdini, mosquitoes kept getting in and biting us. At about midnight, when we found at least three more mosquitoes in our net, we moved back inside. It was just as miserably hot, but not worse than outside because there was not even a hint of a breeze. You really can't imagine. I'm not sure that my closet in the garage in the summer experiment would even do it justice. Maybe the trunk of a car? And the electricity is still off.

Well.....there is the amazing view. When the heat and mosquitoes invade your psyche, you can always just look straight ahead for some perspective.

Zanzibar is as close to our version of paradise as you can get. As we travel, we keep a list of places we must come back to...and others that we're missing but would like to someday see. Zanzibar is #1 on the list of places that we will return. It is beautiful and deep and rich and warm, and I really can't say enough about it. Bring a little bit of patience, an open mind and spirit, an enthusiasm for learning and looking different than anyone around you (if you look anything like me that is), a flashlight, and lots of repellent. I promise that you will find something as close to heaven as you can get on Earth.

P.S. I won't have time to label the photos. I'll be lucky to get them all uploaded. We're taking so many, and Internet is hard to find and connections sporadic. Know that sometimes you see low tide and sometimes high. You also see women working in low tide gathering seaweed (which Hassan told us they exported to the Philippines), children playing on the beach, and men coming in with fish at high tide. Those are the main things you see here...other than the turquoise water and white sand. The potable water truck is there, along with a few shots of the goats that wander through the village. In the underwater shots, the orange anemone and the bright starfish are my favorites. One shot just looks white. If you look closely, you'll see the camouflaged white coral snake (venomous) in the sand.

P.S.S. I promised a list of books we've read, and I've fallen behind. We get books in book exchanges, which brings some random choices, and we also loaded up on used books in NYC. So far, we've read...The Time Traveler's Wife, Anna Karenina, Blow Fly, Gone With the Wind, The Freemasons, The White Nile, The Good Earth by Pearl Buck....and we're now working on The Last Juror by Grisham and Alaska by James Michener. Basic comments are....White Nile was great history before coming to Zanzibar, Freemasons had good info but was painful to read, Gone With The Wind was amazing, Anna Karenina was beautiful and philosophical, and Blow Fly was absurd. Send any suggestions our way. Since NY, we basically carry a library on our backs....with seven Lonely Planets and five books for pleasure. But we blow through them and are always up for suggestions to keep our eyes out for.

(Matt)

After getting up and eating chapati and mango with our instant coffee, we traveled by minivan, called a "sharing," back to Zanzibar Town. We arrived at about noon and were told to be back at the minivan company's office at 1pm for departure to Nungwi, a place that we had heard good things about (mainly regarding diving) from a Belgian citizen at the Red Monkey.

During our lunch our, we walked to Mercury's, a restaurant by the port named after Freddie Mercury (singer for Queen), who was born a few blocks away in Zanzibar Town...there is some trivia for you.

After lunch, our driver, Ali, drove like a maniac, making various unexplained stops, doing other business...maybe personal business, such as a 20-minute stop at the Stone Town market for bulk toilet paper and again along the road to Nungwi, in the county, to pick up a bag of charcoal. Ali was then stopped twice at police check points, which are seemingly set up every few miles. Ali had a mistake on his permit to transport us, and we were delayed for another 20 minutes while he yelled and argued with two cops. Ultimately he bribed them, and we were on our way. This is apparently common here. The nice South African couple, Audry and Andre, were stopped at one of these police check points yesterday while they drove a scooter rented to them by our guesthouse. They did not have the required permit, nor did they have an international driver's license, and they were arguing against their detention when Soloman, the manager of our guesthouse, happened to drive up and bribe the cops.

(Amber)

This scene was scary. When you travel here, you literally go through countless police blockades. We've been through this in many countries, but here they're scarier than most. Many times, the driver knows the cop, and they just shake hands, chat, and you're on your way. But this particular altercation, apparently not uncommon, seemed like it was headed for physical blows. I was more than happy when we pulled away from the checkpoint and continued on.

(Matt)

After the cop was paid off, we arrived in Nungwi. We hated it instantly and longed for our place back in Jambiani. We are leaving on the first bus out tomorrow morning to start heading for Arusha to arrange our safari.

(Amber)

A good thing about Matt and me is that we agree on what to do. We have the same taste. If we didn't, we could never do this. Nungwi doesn't fit the bill at all. But the bright side is that we really needed a kick in the pants to head inland and plan our safari. This was it.

A few random thoughts....

• Kids on this island almost never wear shoes. Their little feet must be tough as nails.
• All women and girls wear only dresses. We have not seen one women or little girl, regardless of obvious religious affiliation, in pants or shorts.
• The people are beautiful. Most have amazingly straight and healthy looking teeth and beautiful glowing skin. I am particularly in love with the little girls and really connected with some in Jambiani.
• The yolk in the eggs is just a very faint yellow. So the scrambled eggs, even though they include the yolk, look like just egg whites.
• Local beers are called Kilimanjaro and Safari. The bottled water is called Drop of Zanzibar. Coca Cola in glass bottles is abundant and very sweet, so that's usually my mid-day snack if I can swing it. Mixed drinks are available at the tourist places, although they are an astounding $8 to $12 each. We stick with water, coffee (which is like Nescafe but called Africafe), Matt has an occasional beer (he likes Safari better than Kilimanjaro), and I try to start angling for my Coke around 2pm every day.
• The bread on the island is very good. Somehow with very little, they make beautiful loaves of homemade bread. I haven't even mastered that in my state of the art kitchen, but I plan to...have been planning to since college actually.
• Where we've been, there's very little snack food. You eat whole foods at meals and don't snack in between. Closest you'll get is to buy a small sack of peanuts from a street vendor. In Nungwi, which is catering more to tourists, there was a hut with various snack foods. I did see some bite sized Twix. They were a ridiculous $8 for about 10.       
• We’ve seen only one dog. We have seen a few cats in Stone Town. By my count, 25% are missing one leg….probably thanks to the crazy drivers and small streets.
• Our rooms here have been very quiet, and I like the bathrooms better than South America. First, you can flush the paper, which makes it feel cleaner. Second, the shower is just a spout from the wall in the middle of the room, so you don’t have a dirty shower curtain touching you.
• It always smells like burning something….wood, coal, food, trash….and I love that.

Snorkeling photos here: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AatmbZk0ZtFHQc&notag=1