DAY 99
Still dreaming of wildlife, we have little to do today but book our hotel in Zanzibar and start thinking about Chile. It's our last day in Moshi and finally the Kilimanjaro shed its cloud cover!!!
DAY 100
With all the Kili climbing, safari business and much needed rest, we've been in Moshi for close to two weeks... it's time to leave! We have one last long bus ride in Tanzania and we'll take the ferry to Zanzibar tomorrow. The bus we chose is not leaving from the bus station so for once, we don't have to deal with the insanity that seems to live there. We're a bit worried though when we see people showing up with chickens, bags of coffee and even an iron and glass table! It feels like we're back in Madagascar ;) The bus is a bit late but we have the seats we bough for once (yeah!). It briefly looks like we'll have a movie but our hopes are dashes and we get yet another serving of the very very bad music video they had everywhere. With a twist here, they are all "religious" video. Once we're done with them we continue with a very very crappy soap opera and at some point...Celine Dion of course. You know you spent too much time in buses in a country when you recognize most of the music videos... sadly it's our case :( We make decent time until we reach the outskirt of Dar. Our express bus then turns into a dala-dala and stops every other minute to drop off someone. So instead of the 9 hours advertised, it takes us 11h20 to cover the 550km (48 km/h...)
The hotel we booked is another disaster. There is no hot water because it was cloudy they tell us. I'm all for using solar power to heat water but you need a backup plan for when it's not sunny. They end up giving us a different room and in that one the water is a bit warmer which does not fit with the rest of their story...
DAY 101
Unsurprisingly the breakfast is terrible and before leaving we have a big fight with the reception to get a refund. Customer service is definitely not a concept they understand in this country but after leaving a lot of energy in this fight, we leave with the coordinates of the owner. Meanwhile we missed the 9:30am ferry and have to wait for the next one. To keep us happy, the price for the ferry is in USD and as a foreigner, you have to pay twice as much. Icing on the cake, if you dare trying to pay in local currency, they use an outrageous exchange rate. Did I already complain about being milked by the Tanzanian government?
From the sea Zanzibar is nothing special, the waterfront is not particularly beautiful. The water is turquoise however. Tanganyika and Zanzibar are supposed to be one country but in reality you're welcomed in Zanzibar by immigration agents and a baggage check. We play dumb and skip the baggage check by looking as innocent and lost as a tourist can be. In the terminal, there's a bunch of adds for hotels with yet again price discrimination against tourists. We can't stand it anymore, it's good this is our last stop in Tanzania. We plan on visiting Stone Town at the end of our stay so we look for a taxi and haggle the price aggressively to get to the other side of the island. The roads here are much better than on the continent and the scenery is very nice; Tall and slender palm trees, white sand. One section of road is especially beautiful. It's a tunnel of vegetation with big trees on either side of the road. It's amazing the soothing effect of beauty ;) When we arrive in Paje we're already in a much better mood, much more relaxed after the very trying last few days. We'll have 4 more days to become completely zen!
DAY 102-105
4 days at the beach is what we needed. We were able to catch Andreas for one last drink before he had to go back to work but the rest of the stay was very lazy :D The chef at our hotel was really good so we had even less reasons to move. Zanzibar is big on Reggae strangely and we though we would be listening to Reggae for 4 days but the staff's taste are much more eclectic. One of them fell in love with Ethiopia and listening to Ethiopian music brought back lots of nice memories of the country. It's not the high season so we pretty much had the beach for ourselves. And the few tourists present in the area were south of our hotels on top of that. There's a coral reef a few hundreds meters ashore and all the way there the sea is very shallow. It makes it perfect to kite surf and it's a renown spot. We were not alone on the beach either. They look completely out of place but a bunch of guys were posing as Masai (a fat Masai is not very credible) and selling tourist goodies. Saturday and Sunday, the beach was turning into a kindergarten with Mar and I having to satisfy their curiosity.
To add a touch of nature to the picture add some wandering dogs and caw. The dogs were friendly just like in Mozambique. The caws were a strange sight on the beach ;) The only annoying thing was the mosquitoes. They were hungry and could not care less whether you put mosquito repellent or not. If it was time to eat, they just fed off of you. We walked a lot on the beach and in what felt like abandoned villages along the coast, enjoying the nice colors of the place. We had rain once, while walking on the beach but the sea took enchanting colors so we didn't even mind. Too soon it was time to leave. Before we did that though Mar subscribed to a local tradition and had her hands done with Hannah!
DAY 106
The break is over and it's time to wrap up Africa (the small piece we saw at least). We're now facing a 15000 km journey (with 6 legs) that will last 5 days and take us to Rapa Nui. The first leg is an easy one to Stone Town and our taxi is waiting for us outside of the hotel so we hop in a start driving away. That's when we received a call from our taxi saying he's waiting for us at the hotel... Unknowingly we were stealing another couple's taxi. We all have a good laugh about it and head back to the hotel to do the switch.
In Stone Town we first buy our ferry ticket for tomorrow and then walk a bit along the shore. The old dispensary is one of the iconic building and it's high enough to have a good view of the town. Sadly towards the sea, they build some ugly modern building for the port that are blocking the view. We can't complain too much though because Stone Town is the first real city we see in Tanzania. The rest of them are just ugly modern assemblies of buildings without any soul. Here they even have parks!!! and free WiFi in some of them!!! In the bay, offshore the main plaza, there's a floating bar and a guy in the water, swimming. It's unclear whether he's going there or coming back. Maybe he fell overboard after one too many drinks :D
We end our stroll along the sea at the Serena Inn. The sun is setting in front of us and we have a cocktail in hand as we are waiting for the taarab (Zanzibar traditional music) to start. The group is composed of an accordion, a violin (played terribly...), drums and a qanum (weird mix between a guitar and a piano... google it!). The melancholic music fits well with the sunset and the place. We're in a big hotel so no one pays much attention to the music but us.
We finish the day with a must-do attraction of Stone Town, its night market. At night the main plaza by the sea is overrun by stalls. They sell skewers of everything (sea products) at tourist prices of course. The atmosphere is very nice though, it's once again a first for us in Africa to have a public activity at night. The food is good but if you don't like it, there's a gazillion cat hoping for a chance to clean your plate.
DAY 107
The muezzin is super pumped up for the early morning prayer but it still fails to get us up. Since one religion failed, another one tries to get us up but the bells of the nearby church are not successful either. Eventually we do get up though and get ready for a short day of tourism. The first stop is the Anglican cathedral. It's build on the former slave market. We visit the two remaining slave pits and it's really horrible. Zanzibar was the last place to abolish slavery so until 150 years ago, these very small caves were use to store 50 to 75 people. There's no air down there, people were stacked on top of each other. The market was taking place once a week so they had to wait in there up to a week (or more if they were not bought) without food or water. A trench for the filth in the middle of the cave was cleaned automatically by the tide. After so many years, this place still carry an horrendous feeling... what humans can do to humans is beyond words. The cathedral is under repairs so we can only get a glimpse inside. The altar is where the whipping tree was. Before being sold, all the slaves were whipped. To increase their chances of being sold (and avoid going back to the pits with almost certain death as a prospect), they had to stay quiet during the whole process.
A lot of fresh air is needed after such an emotionally charged visit. We go from the darkest place of the human soul to sophistication by visiting the Hamamni bath. They are not in use anymore but enough remains to have a good idea of how awesome it must have been. There's however a plan to restore them (with the help of France) and maybe even reopen them to the public. That would be such a such a great experience! Our guide even takes us to the roof for a quick visit. Then we stop by St Joseph church. It looks much nicer than the other churches.. from the outside. We can't say anything about the inside since it's closed. The old fort is meh, just four walls in bad state with merchants inside selling the usual things. And the House of wonders is being restored and therefore closed to the public... Even with all these things closed, it's very nice to walk in Stone Town small streets and stumble upon the magnificent doors they have all over the place.
Our half-day of intense tourism is already over and we head to the port to catch our ferry back to the continent (2nd leg of the journey). The sea is not that quiet and the ferry is a catamaran going at 50km/h... thankfully it only takes 1h30 to cross over to Dar. I test the front row seats and at that speed, it feels like flying over the water; impressive is an understatement. That's maybe one of the very few moments where Celine Dion's My heart will go on would have been appropriate... ;)
DAY 108
The 3rd, 4th and 5th leg is by plane from Dar to Santiago with stops in Johannesburg and Sao Paulo. Our fear is that they “loose” our luggage along the way so we siege the airline counter at each stop to make sure our luggage stays with us all the way to Santiago. We'll have a scare in Sao Paulo because we're switching airlines but we get the confirmation they got transferred properly minutes before boarding... intense relief :D
Voila! That was it for Africa. If you wonder what it did to us, have a look a the following video to see the real-time evolution ;)