Tuesday, June 30, 2015

ZaaAAAanzibar!

Over term break, Kris and I got the chance to meet up with our friend Quinn (who I've known for over two decades now) in amazing, magical Zanzibar! Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in 1964 to become the United Republic of Tanzania and is also known, justifiably so, as the Spice Islands. It's a fascinating place with a complex history - Persian, Omani, Arab, Portuguese, and Indian influences can be seen everywhere, side by side. Its Bantu-speaking people are mostly Muslim, with about 98% of the population practicing Islam, and while there are a decent amount of Muslims in Uganda, it was fascinating and enlightening to visit our first Muslim country.

The architecture, food, and markets were beyond phenomenal and like nothing any of us had ever experienced before. The call for prayer from a minaret outside of our Stone Town apartment marked the rhythm of our days as we explored the narrow alleyways and small shops tucked into every corner.

The view from the balcony of our Stone Town apartment.



Relaxing on our porch while the smell of cooking and spices wafted up around us.

Heading out...with a vampire!

"Sundowners" at a nearby restaurant overlooking Stone Town.



Stone Town's gorgeously carved doors are famous for their intricate detail.


Cheetah's Rock was without a doubt one of the highlights of our experience. It is a sanctuary in Zanzibar founded by a woman who rescues both wild animals and unwanted zoo animals (apparently, when baby animals get older, they are often killed by zoos which don't have the space or money to keep them). She uses only positive reinforcement to train the animals - she has never once hit, punished, or drugged them in any way. Even when she shipped her animals from Spain to Zanziber, she spent months training with them, having the animals practice entering shipping crates so they would remain calm on the flight. We got to enter the cage of every animal, except the hyena, and feed and/or touch all of them while we heard their incredible stories of survival. I felt like a kid in the coolest dream ever the entire time.













My heart was absolutely racing as I fed Aslan, the white lion. It was an incredible feeling!

And to top off the amazing afternoon - champagne with a cheetah!


Tyson, just like all the other animals, loved Kris.

We also got the opportunity to go on a spice tour to see the locally-grown crops, ending with lunch at a local woman's house.


Nutmeg - apparently the outer red part that you can see here is used to make things like pepper spray!




Everyone thought that Quinn's name was Queen, so the crown our guide made her worked perfectly!

Quinn brought champagne from the U.S. and we had a refrigerator in our apartment, so we celebrated her birthday in style! Just look at the condensation on those glasses...








Birthdays are for embarrassing, no?

The owner of the restaurant near our apartment was nice enough to make and surprise Quinn with this cake on her birthday - for free!

The next night we had dinner at the night market, a local market full of fresh-caught seafood.



A delicious dinner topped off with a glass of sugarcane juice.

And ending with a Snickers, Mars, and chocolate pizza!

For the second half of our trip, we headed to the east coast of Zanzibar to stay on the edge of a coral reef. Quinn, Kris, and I all voted the Indian Ocean our favorite ocean by far - clear, beautifully blue, and somehow scented with a delicate, gentle floral aroma.



Many of the locals were harvesting seawood when we arrived - a friend we met at the hotel told us that this time of the year was exciting and busy for mother, grandmothers, and children.


Behind us is The Rock Restaurant - balanced on a rock in the ocean!


While there, Kris and I went snorkeling - Quinn, unfortunately, was feeling too sick to join us that day. We went with a local man who called himself "Captain Chicken," who has been sailing in these waters for decades. Kris and I walked about a mile out to the ocean to reach his dhow at low tide. He took us to the clearest water I've ever seen and I taught Kris how to snorkel for the first time (sorry, he would like me to point out that he's snorkeled in a pool before. I would like to point out that doesn't count). We saw some incredible fish; it felt like a scene out of Finding Nemo! An underwater one, that is, not one of the ones at the dentist's office.






Relaxing with a good book later in the day - some parts of our friendship just haven't changed.

While we were reading, a monkey came by and literally jumped on our bed!

It was a red colobus monkey, and a curious one at that! Red colobus monkeys can only be found in the archipelago of Zanzibar.


Trying to figure out how to eat our seafood.


After bidding Quinn a teary goodbye, Kris and I head up the coast to spend a few more days of vacation together before heading back to work in Uganda. We stayed at a small, Italian-run hotel that was incredibly cheap because we were there during rainy season. The chef was incredible and the beach right in front of our door; we holed up there for the rest of our time.




Haggling for souvenirs with some actual Maasai on the beach. One of them drew a box in the sand and he and I sat down on either side of it. He would write a number, then I would laugh and write a much lower number. He would look offended, then we would repeat the process.

On our last afternoon, Kris and I went for one final swim in the Indian Ocean. The sun was setting and a quintessential rainbow arched over a dhow moored not too far from land. I held Kris's hand in the water and watched as a combination of the sun's last rays and happiness made his face glow. I basked in the scene, with the rocking dhow illuminated gently behind him and the rainbow spread out breathtakingly above it. I didn't take a picture, but it was a memory I will never forget for I knew, as the warm water cradled us and the breezy, floral scent of Zanzibar caught my nose, that it was a perfect moment. It was silly and happy and open and beautiful. Then we went and ate a mountain of sushi. Good day.



On our way to the airport to head back to Uganda, we stopped by Stone Town one more time and stumbled upon this incredible antique store. It had scimitars, gorgeous glass lamps, old mariner's equipment, and even (though you can't really see Kris holding it) genie lamps!


I'm not sure, but it seems like the purpose of this airplane safety card is to point out how flexible ballerinas are. 

When we arrived in Entebbe Airport, we had to wait in line to get our temperatures taken. As I handed my health card and my passport to a motherly woman at one of the tables, she glanced at my work permit and welcomed me home in local language. I beamed and replied in the same language; it was an amazing end to a magical vacation, and it was good to be home.

"I walk out, I see something, some event that would otherwise have been utterly missed or lost; or something sees me, some enormous power brushes me with its clean wing, and I resound like a beaten bell."
- Annie Dillard

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