Wrapping Up in Stone Town

Our return to Stone Town on Wednesday marked the beginning of the end, so to speak. TC would head to Dar on Thursday before flying home on Friday. I was staying in Stone Town until Saturday when I would commence a couple of marathon travel days. (I'm writing this during one of my layovers. By the time I get home, it will have been 36 hours of travel from departing from Zanzibar airport to arriving at the Victoria airport.) To celebrate our last night together, TC and I headed to Traveller's Cafe for beautiful views of the sunset.

Once it was dark, we wandered around Stone Town to work up an appetite and then headed to a little Indian restaurant that TC liked. We were the only people in there and the proprietor sat down with us and chatted about what it was like to live in Zanzibar Town. Still a little sore from our Tuesday night at Gerry's Bar in Nungwi, we called it an early night. It was a low-key but very enjoyable last night together.

The next morning, TC and I said our goodbyes and I headed out on a tour of Stone Town. Through the magic of Instagram, I had befriended a local tour company a few years ago. It just seemed rude to not hire them for something while I was in Zanzibar. Despite repeated visits to Stone Town, I ended up being really happy with my choice to do a tour. Because the streets of Stone Town are so twisting and confusing, you get into the habit of only walking the ones you know. With a guide, they know all the shortcuts so you end up seeing a lot of smaller side streets you wouldn't normally take.

We visited the Anglican Church and the site of the old Slave Market. Always an uplifting way to start the day.

These were believed to be the holding cells for slaves before being shown at market.
(There are a few historians who dispute this.)

This memorial stands roughly where the market was located.

We then headed to the Fish, Spice, and Chicken markets for a wander.

One section of the fish market is an auction. This was fish waiting to be auctioned.

Fish Market auction: all the pride of showing the fish you caught without actually having to catch it.

The other section of the market was vendors with their fish to sell.

There may have been a few cats hanging around. I can't think why!

Thanks to an overly aggressive tout, I got distracted in the Spice Market and realised after that I didn't get any pictures. (Just a reason to go back... again.)

Every street in Stone Town is picture worthy.

Cats the world over are exactly the same when it comes to sunbeams!

The spikes on a Zanzibari door. Once upon a time, these helped repel invaders.
Now they're just pretty.

An Indian-style Zanzibari door.
(The persian style ones have a rectangle instead of arch at the top.)

All the doors on this street were being refurbished. (You can see
water damage on the lower left of the door.) The worker was trying
to clean up the doorway for me. He became part of my pictures.

Like any good tour of Stone Town, we ended up at Mercury House. Freddy Mercury was born in Stone Town to Indian parents. Freddy didn't live in Mercury House - it's pretty much just a cash grab on the name because it was built on or near the site of his home which was demolished  - but when standing in front of Mercury House...

Friday was souvenir shopping and lazy day. After I picked up a few items for the few people on the list (the handy thing about almost all of your family have visited at one point or another is that you don't need to get them squat!), and headed to a waterfront cafe I liked for one last fruit smoothie and the gorgeous view.

The last time I left Tanzania, the morning started with a massive downpour and Justin, our gatekeeper at Cradle of Love said that it was Mother Africa crying because I was leaving and she didn't want me to go. Well, she cried this time as well. In fact, she cried for over 2 hours and with thunder and lightening, I started to get a little worried about flight cancellations. Instead, I spent three hours hanging out in Traveller's Cafe drinking coffee and chatting with Suleiman about life, politics, and religion in Zanzibar. If you have to wait out a storm, it's the way to do it.

This little guy decided that my table and chair was the perfect spot to hide from the rain.

I had a great time, Tanzania. I'll see you again!

Island Life at Nungwi Beach

I arrived in Stone Town to a downpour to which I ended up having to sacrificing my runners.

*sigh*

I really should have stayed on Pemba!

Also, so many white people! More than I had seen the entire trip and it freaked me out a little.

TC and I reunited with overpriced non-alcoholic drinks at Mercury's (where the picture above was taken) before heading back to the hotel, avoiding two more downpours, and then heading out for dinner, drinks, and English Premier League soccer.

Obviously, we have our priorities straight on this trip,

We headed to Forodhani Gardens for dinner. It did not disappoint.

The next morning, we headed to Nungwi for a couple of days of beach time.

That's our bungalow on the right, hotel restaurant on the left.
This did not suck at all.

I had stayed in Kendwa (5km south) and Nungwi on my previous trip. To say things had changed was an understatement. What used to be a backpackers hide-away with cheap accommodation has become overrun with resorts. I ran into a guy that I knew from my last trip and we ran through the list of changes. It was long. Like, we're-still-texting-each-other-the-changes long.

Don't get me wrong, I still loved my time in Nungwi (and as long as Jambo Brother's doesn't change too much, I'd gladly go back there because the village is lovely), but every once and awhile I'd trip over a memory from last time and marvel at how different it now was.

Still, it hadn't gone so upscale Mr. Moo and his family couldn't enjoy a day at the beach

But enough about my nostalgia.

We stayed in Nungwi for three nights and did almost nothing. It was glorious. We'd get up, eat breakfast looking at the Indian Ocean and then... one of us might wander down the beach, one of us might read, one of us might go for a swim, one of us might sleep an entire day away. Not me on that last one, by the way.

Morning traffic in Nungwi is crazy!

We did wander to Kendwa one day - a walk that can only be down at low-tide - for lunch and we walked to Gerry's Bar and back twice which was a bit of a jaunt, so it's not like we never moved. We were just very, very selective about when we did.

I mentioned that I ran into a guy I knew from my last trip, King. (Yes, that's actually his name. It was his mother's maiden name.) At that time, he was a tout who I found annoying, to be honest. (I didn't remind him of this, but I distinctly remember him annoying me to the point of swearing.) Now, older and wiser, he's a fisherman, and we had a couple of good chats about his trips up and down the coast following the fish amongst many other topics.

If these were the waters I got to sail in every day, I'd probably become a fisherman too

On Wednesday morning, we packed up our bags and headed back to Stone Town.

*sigh* At least I'll always have the memories... and about 400 pictures.

Prepping the fishing net for easy casting

Dhow at sunset

Helping the fishermen bring in their supplies after a day at sea