Exploring Zanzibar, Tanzania

After leaving the suffocating structured safari in Kenya, it was off to Zanzibar for a week (Aug 30-Sep 5) on our own - without structure and guides telling us where we could or could not shop. We spent the first two nights at the Clove Hotel and exploring Stonetown. I enjoyed staying at the Clove Hotel. The owner was very helpful, the location behind the House of Wonders was great, the roof top balcony was a great place to catch the breeze and relax, and the rooms were comfortable (and matched the pictures on their website). The only downside was the proximity to this mosque.

Every morning, the call to prayer (and the full prayer that followed) would wake us up. I'm not sure it would be quieter anywhere else in the area.

We decided to get our bearings by taking a tour of the city. We learned about the different types of carvings on the door, and how the different decorations provided information about the origin and religion of the original owner. The details on some of the doors were quite amazing.

The main market was a bustling place with lots of spices, grains,
fresh fruits and vegetables,
meats, and fish. Lots of fish!

Zanzibar is predominantly muslim and most of the women covered their heads, usually with brightly colored scarves. Some of them wore full burkas, including the face mask (ninja).

The Angelican Cathedral is built on top of Zanzibar's former slave market.
As a remembrance of the slave trade, the courtyard of the church contains a memorial sculpture.It contains five figures of various ages, sizes, and ethnicities chained together in a pit.

St. Joseph's Catholic Cathedral

Old Fort

Stowntown sunset

We had fun wandering around the streets of Zanzibar and buying reasonably priced souvenirs. However, there were quite a few men who were rather pesty and difficult to shake. They followed us around, and then demanded money for "helping" us. Several people said hello to me and then demanded a tip for saying hi. It was very draining to think somebody was being friendly only to find out that they were just trying to scam you for money.

On the last night in Stonetown, we headed to the evening food market for dinner (Forodhani Gardens is under renovations, so the market was held behind the House of Wonders). The food was very tasty but Crystal got pick pocketed. From the way she carried on, I think that might have been the highlight of her trip! I've never seen somebody so deliriously happy to be robbed before (she was delighted that they found her "decoy" stash, rather than her real stash).

The next morning, we were off to the beach for the rest of the trip.

Paje Beach, Zanzibar

As we were arranging a taxi to leave Stonetown, the owner of the Clove Hotel informed us that our next destination Paje Beach Bungalows had a fire a few days before, and she didn't know if the hotel was still open. We decided to head to Paje to see for ourselves, and hope there was some place that had room if the bungalows were no longer available. The fire was extensive and the place was completely burned down. Too bad - it looked like it had been a nice place. We looked around the area and negotiated the price down a bit at Kitete Beach Bungalows and booked that for our stay. This is Paje beach. The tall building in the background is Kitete Beach Bungalows' restaurant. The owner of Kitete Beach was really nice and she had a bonfire lit on the beach a couple of the nights that we were there.
At Kitete's restaurant you can relax in a cool breeze and avoid being harassed by the beach boys.
Many of the hotels hired Maasai men to chase away the beach boys. Some of them were just as annoying, constantly trying to sell things or hanging out and talking with the beach boys. I think the one at our hotel had limited knowledge of English. His conversations with me consisted of greetings and counting to 10 in Kiswahili and his tribal language.

There were also lots of local woman who hung around the hotels trying to sell massages and paint henna on your skin. If you weren't interested in buying something, they weren't interested in talking to you.


Heading home at the end of the day
Early in the morning, the women went out to farm seaweed, and the children collected clams on the beach.
Here are two posing for pictures, before they started begging for pens and sweets.
A local woman is tending to her seaweed farm.

Here is a seaweed farm during low tide.
At the end of the day, it was common to see women carrying the collected seaweed.During low tide, the water would go out about a half kilometer. This widened the beach during this time so you could walk around these rocky outcroppings to the sections of the beach further south. During high tide, you would be tossed against these rocks by the waves. It was nice to take a morning walk to the areas south of the rocky outcroppings. Here I am taking a break from the sun (and the beach boys) at Hakuna Majiwe Lodge. This looked like a nice place to stay, but it was pretty isolated during high tide, and had expensive cokes!
A beautiful starfish left behind by the tide
along with a neat looking shell.

We found a big pile of sharp pointy sticks left behind when the tide went out. We weren't sure if they were somebody's stash for late night vampire slaying or if they were used to keep away the beach boys. We later realized they were unused stakes for seaweed farms.
During low tide, these boats just sit on the sand. As soon as the tide comes in, local boys and men all run to them and head out to fish.
Paje Beach had some beautiful spots that should have been a nice place to relax or read a book.
Instead of having a nice relaxing end to my vacation, I left very stressed and crabby. The persistent nature of the beach boys and the general attitude of locals that I experienced (you are white...therefore you are rich...therefore you need to give me anything I want) left a really bad impression of Zanzibar. Too bad. It was such a beautiful looking island and has so much potential, but it isn't someplace that I would ever return to again, nor would I recommend it to anyone.

The Safari Begins at Samburu (August 23-29, 2008)

What better way to celebrate being 42 than to go on an African Safari!

The first day of the safari began with a 5 hour drive from Nairobi to Samburu Namtional Reserve. On the way, we stopped at a curio shop. Before leaving home, I had decided to buy a few more souvenirs than I normally would - in order to support the local economy. What I wasn't prepared to do was pay extreme prices. I know bargaining is part of the deal, but when prices for something worth $25 start out at over $500, the process isn't even fun! I got the prices for a couple of batik "paintings" down to a reasonable amount (although still a bit overpriced) and bought those.

We stopped at a gas station to fill the tank at Isiolo, the last town on the main road before hitting the gravel road and driving north to Samburu. I got out of the van to stretch while Crystal ran off to find ice cream bars. A man started talking to me about Barack Obama: what a great leader he was; how Kenya was proud of him; what did the US citizens think of him; and if I was planning to vote for him. At first I thought he was just a friendly guy. Then his friend joined him, claiming he was from Obama's home town and was collecting money to support Obama. Then the original guy tried to sell (for $100 USD!!!) a crinkled old newspaper clipping of Obama that he had in his pocket. Crystal returned - without ice cream, but had a coke and popcorn - and suddenly the van was surrounded by people trying to sell us stuff - rusty looking bracelets, knives, newspaper clippings, etc. We were practically slamming doors and windows as people were reaching in the van all around us, shoving their wares at us. It was NOT FUN!!!!

After a long drive on bumpy gravel roads, we finally arrived at Samburu Game Reserve. As we entered, we were met by our first sighting of wildlife - the reticulated giraffe.

Our safari vehicle was a pop-top minivan.
This picture gives you an idea of how close we were to some of the wildlife.

A cluster of mutant conjoined twin giraffes?

We were also met by elephants grazing right off the side of the road.
It was an exciting feeling being so close to a wild elephant.

After a short drive to observe some of the wildlife, we arrived at Samburu Lodge for lunch and to check in. Throughout our lunch, a Samburu warrior in costume kept "informing" us that the cultural show was about to start. We were hungry, tired from driving, and just wanted to have a relaxing lunch. The last thing we wanted to do was to rush off to a show. We wanted to see it even less when he kept harassing us about it. Several times we had to ask him to let us eat in peace and that we would go to the show if we wanted once we finished lunch.

After lunch, we decided that we would rather watch the elephants in the river than head to the cultural show. He kept harassing us. Then we decided to take pictures of the vervet monkeys that were playing in the trees around the lodge.

Oh no! We couldn't actually enjoy ourselves. We HAD to go to the cultural show! It was a MUST! How else would they extract an additional 500 KSH (about $8 USD) out of our pocket?

So the Samburu warrior threw stones at the monkeys close to the lodge and pulled out his slingshot to hit the monkeys closer to the river. Needless to say, we were very upset by this behavior. We could understand keeping the monkeys out of the restaurant and the lobby of the lodge, but not hitting them when they were playing happily in the trees. We were at the point where you couldn't pay us to see the Samburu cultural show if this warrior represented their culture! We skipped the cultural show and went to our room to relax before the afternoon game drive.

Samburu National Park Game Drives

Later in the afternoon, we had another game drive. Samburu National Park is a very dry region, with scrubby, thorny vegetation.

In this picture, you can see an umbrella acacia tree, with lots of weaver nests hanging from it.

Samburu contained some very attractive birds, including this yellow-billed hornbill.

Red-billed hornbill

yellow-necked spur fowl

The gerenuk (giraffe-necked antelope) was very common at Samburu.
Here one is in the classic pose of standing on its hind legs to reach higher branches.

The dik-dik is a very small type of antelope. The tiny horns on its head are so cute.

There were quite a few impala

including this mother and her two young ones.

There were also other antelope present.

Another animal that was unique to the Samburu area was the Beisa Oryx.

Unfortunately, they weren't particularly cooperative for getting a picture from the front.

This jackal apparently took posing tips from the oryx. Every time I got her in focus, she would turn her back and walk away from me.
This hare was only slightly more cooperative.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we were losing daylight, but spotted this young male lion. He walked away, and crouched down at the perfect angle to the sun for a fabulous picture. I had him perfectly centered, and thought to myself "smile pretty".

He returned that thought with a giant roar and a lunge toward me. I let out a startled scream and Thomas - our driver - hit the gas! Then he told me to close my windows (but we could still keep the pop top open). The lion was not happy with all the paparazzi as he was surrounded by multiple safari vans. He kept trying to walk away, and was basically stalked by the vans. I expressed my concerns that I felt sorry for the lion and perhaps we should leave it alone, but it fell on deaf ears. I'm sure the lion was extremely happy a few minutes later when all the vans had to retreat because the park was closing for the night!

Later that evening, crocodiles climbed up the river banks near the lodge.
It was quite the thrill to look inside a croc's mouth!

The next morning, I took a short stroll around the lodge grounds before breakfast.
This colorful lizard was getting his start first thing in the morning.
I also spotted this waterbuck on the other side of the river.
And this hadada ibis enjoying a morning preen.

Before leaving, we had another short game drive. Right away, we saw two lions on the hillside.


They were quite a ways away and the Sun was behind them, which made it difficult to get a good picture.
At least this time, the herd of minivans was further away and stood still, rather than chasing them.
On the way out of Samburu, we finally got a close look at the Grevy's Zebras. The stripes on these zebras are narrower and closer together than the regular plains zebra. The ears are also larger and rounder.

This zebra decided to start the morning off with a nice dust bath.



Next Stop....Aberdare National Park