days in the life of a
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Tanzania Safari - Part 11
February/March 2010
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April 11, 2010
THE DAYS OF SWEAT
Pay no attention to the tangle of electrical wires crisscrossing the narrow streets of Stonetown, Zanzibar. It's deceiving.
No electricity. For over 3 months now.
Zanzibar normally gets electricity via an undersea cable from mainland Africa that was put down in the 1960s. As one of our guides put it, the cable "got tired" and now no longer works. While the Tanzanian government is supposedly replacing it, so far there's been no electricity.
Generators like this supply the only electricity on the island. Most bigger businesses and hotels have them, but they can't run them 24/7 and they have understandably had to severely limit their use of electricity for non-essentials.
Unfortunately, their definition of non-essentials includes air conditioning and even fans...both of which I consider essential when it's 95 degrees with high humidity!
When Kim and I arrived around 1 pm at our Stonetown hotel, called 236 Hurumzi, we were already sweaty. Not only was it very hot and humid, Stonetown is an extremely conservative Muslim town and in keeping with the culture we were wearing conservative clothes, Kim in long pants and me in a long skirt. Our driver parked us about a block away from the hotel entrance (very narrow streets in Stonetown, as you will see in later photos) and we walked to the hotel.
Getting hotter...but we hadn't seen anything yet!
As we checked in, the hotel manager, a sleezy-looking Canadian, explained the electricity situation to us but assured us the hotel had 2 generators, a large one and a smaller one, and there would be no problems. During the afternoon (the hottest time of the day, for crying out loud!) only the small one would be running, so no lights or air conditioning would work during that time, only the ceiling fans. But be assured, at 4 pm the big generator would kick on and all would be normal.
Whatever "normal" means in Zanzibar...
(I decided that "normal" means "hotter than the dickens" in Zanzibar!)
So the hotel porters grabbed our bags and began leading us to our room.
I'll try to describe 236 Hurumzi for you, but there's just no way to really do it justice. It is so unlike any building I have ever been in...a labyrinth of staircases and walkways twisting every which direction, beautiful in its own way but very confusing! We felt like rats in a maze most of the time.
The hotel was originally an Arabian Sultan's palace which has now been restored and made into a hotel. We were lucky enough (lucky?...top floor, no elevators, 95 degrees in the shade) to have the premier suite on the very top floor of this section of the building, so we followed our porters up and down several narrow staircases, across many little walkways, and through seemingly endless halls and doorways to our room...getting sweatier and sweatier by the second!
We were stunned by our suite...I don't know what we expected, but we both were stunned. Guess I've never stayed in a sultan's palace before...
One of the porters, a smiley boy named Ali, moved us into our accommodations and explained (again!) about the electricity, but switched one of the ceiling fans on and back off (this detail is important in a few minutes!) to show us how everything worked. Then they left us alone in our palace bedroom.
To say the room was hot would be an understatement. It was stifling, like an oven, and stuffy and musty-smelling from not being opened up in awhile. Kim and I were both drenched in sweat by this time, and we had to get some air moving before we both collapsed from heat exhaustion.
I may be a little over-dramatic there, but we were sweltering!!!
So after Ali left, Kim walked over to turn on the ceiling fan...nothing.
We both tried to turn on both fans and there was no power in our room at all (even though our cute little porter Ali had showed us how it worked, when we tried it didn't work at all!).
I called down to the front desk and she sent up someone to check it out. Ali was with him and the maintenance man brought in his big toolbox, took off the switch coverplate and looked inside, then declared there would be no power until 4:00 when the big generator would come back on.
Thanks for nothing!!! The gal at the front desk called to see if everything had been taken care of, I told her it still wasn't working, she replied, "So sorry, ma'am...at 4:00 the power will come back on."
I only wish I had taken a photo of Kim's expression as he looked over at me. It was a combination of "I'm-so-stinking-hot-I-can't-stand-it-another-second" and "why-in-the-world-did-you-drag-me-here?!" Bless his heart, he didn't say a word but began stripping off his sopping-wet clothes down to his undies and plopped down on the bed.
I opened a couple of windows in a vain attempt to get some air flowing through the room, stripped out of my sweat-drenched clothes too, and laid down beside him...both of us with our arms and legs spread out, not daring to touch each other's hot sweaty bodies. We laid there not moving a muscle for the next 3 hours, just trying to survive until the promised time of 4:00.
As Kim laid there, he broke the tense silence and caused us both to giggle as he said, "I've died and gone to Hell." He added another comment that I dare not post because it's very politically incorrect, but we both laughed and managed to catnap until 4:00, when the lights and fans all came on.
We jumped up (leaving an imprint of our sweaty bodies on the sheets...that's how hot we were!), turned on the air conditioning, and (Praise God!) COLD air began blowing out of the vent! Kim and I sat there for a little while right in front of the vent, reveling in the joy of coolness.
As stifling, big, and high-ceilinged as the room was, it took several hours for it to cool down to 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees F!), and it never got cooler than that.
But hey, who's complaining?!
Over the next 24 hours, we would continue to fight the extreme heat and humidity the moment we stepped foot out of our room...in fact, we'd have to psyche each other up to leave its relative comfort! And I can honestly say that for the 36 hours of our lives that we spent in Stonetown, we never really cooled off and in fact sweated more than we ever have in our lives.
Which is why Kim dubbed our days in Stonetown as "The Days of Sweat."
And why I promised never to complain about being cold again.
Anyway, enough about the heat...a few more photos of our palace accommodations.
The tub and shower, carved out of marble and stone. Very elegant in its day, but I just felt like it needed a good, old-fashioned scrubbing!
Ditto with the sink and mirror. And all the red silk drapes and buntings were dusty... I'm not sure they've been cleaned since the Sultan himself lived here!
The sitting area.
Our window view.
The inside of our room door. Total security...
The outside of our room door. Instead of a room key, we had a padlock.
This is the rooftop hotel restaurant where we ate our meals. After we finally figured out how to get to it, it was the coolest spot in Stonetown. We had the ocean breezes and it was really quite pleasant up there, very friendly staff, and delicious food. It is said to be one of the best restaurants in Stonetown.
This is the entire dining room area...6 tables.
And those poor waitresses! The food is cooked downstairs and they have to carry everything up and down those narrow, rickety staircases!
Paintings in one of the many hallways that lead to who-knows-where.
Really a charming place to stay once we got past the heat and the centuries-old grime.
The hotel staff loved us, or love KIM to be exact. That's Ali on the right and another porter on the left.
We came to Zanzibar expecting to have to exchange some of our money for Tanzanian shillings to use for tips and purchases. That was not the case...in fact, by law citizens of the US and Europe must pay for things with the US dollar or euro. I had brought quite a few one-dollar and five-dollar bills to exchange, but not really enough to cover all of the tipping we ended up having to do.
Kim is generous, giving each porter a couple of dollars per bag (these fellows only make about $100 a month, so a couple of dollars is a lot to them!) and tipping well in restaurants, for tours, to our drivers, etc. It didn't take long for him to blow through his single dollar bill supply, and he soon found himself handing out $5 tips. You can only imagine how EAGER the porters were to carry our bags and just generally hung around smiling in our vicinity in case we needed something. I'm sure they passed along the word about the American with the deep pockets, and by the time we left we had people falling all over themselves to carry our bags and help us out. It was quite comical, but I was afraid our $5 bills would run out and we'd have to resort to $10! It all worked out and we can only look at it from the perspective that we helped out some Zanzibaran families and funneled some extra American dollars into the Stonetown economy.
But it was kind of nice having people fighting to wait on our every need!
Kind of the feeling the Sultan must have had when he lived in this very same palace!
April 13, 2010
STONETOWN
Our last day on Zanzibar, we hired a guide to give us a walking tour of Stonetown.
To say that the streets of Stonetown are narrow would be a huge understatement. Not only are they extremely narrow, more like alleys than streets, and they wind around like maze. Plus there are no street signs to mark the few streets that are actually named.
Kim and I were a bit leery to start wandering too far on our own because, as you can see, it would be very easy to get lost in Stonetown.
So we asked the hotel receptionist to set up a guided tour for us, and this is the guide who took us around town...a teenager who couldn't have been more than 16 or so. But he was a very nice kid, very streetwise to the nuances of Stonetown, and he did a nice job giving us a 3-hour walking tour.
In the heat. I don't want you to forget that the heat factor was a constant in Stonetown.
Kim was a sweetie and carried my bag while I took photos. He referred to himself as the Pack Mule, which he was for me much of the time. Not to belabor the fact that it was hot, but notice how dark the strap of my bag is. That is sweat, people...and Kim's shirt didn't have a dry thread in it.
But never mind, he was determined that we go on a 3-hour WALKING tour of Stonetown.
One more thing about the heat (and then I PROMISE I'll let it go!)...I read that the reason the streets in Stonetown are so narrow is in an effort to keep it cooler. There is extra shade, that is true. But what the Arabian builders of this town centuries ago failed to consider is that stone, once it gets hot, will hold heat forever...which has proven to be the case in Stonetown. These stones got heated up many centuries ago and have held that ancient heat ever since!
Anyway, on to the sights of Stonetown...
Stonetown is famous for its ornately carved wooden doors, with architectural influences from around the world. This one has many metal spikes protruding from the doors...an effort to prevent elephants from battering their way into the building. Interesting...
Although Stonetown is 95% Muslim, there are a few Hindus and Christians as well.
The Hindu temple was filled with pigeons, but we didn't see any Hindu worshipers.
Although very sobering, the most interesting historic site we saw in Stonetown was the former slave market.
Zanzibar was the center of the African slave trade in the 1700 and 1800s. Slave traders would go into mainland Africa and capture black villagers and bring them to Zanzibar where they would be auctioned off. We went down into the chambers where the captured people would be crammed together in tight, dark quarters and kept for 3 days, without food or water (or ventilation...it was very hot down there too!).
Those who survived that would be taken to the whipping post outside and beaten in front of the slave buyers. They tried to be stoic and not cry out, for the braver blacks brought higher prices and the hope that they would be bought by wealthier bidders and eventually taken to better homes.
When the slave trade was officially outlawed, the Church of England built this cathedral on the site of the former slave market.
It's a marvelous old building, said to have been visited by many famous African explorers such as Livingstone and Stanley.
And the circle on the floor in front of the altar is the exact spot where the whipping post was, as a constant reminder of the human tragedies that once occurred there.
It was a reminder of a very sad chapter in the history of humanity, but interesting nonetheless.
The "happening" spot in Stonetown was the market.
All sorts of food items to buy.
Check out what's in this fellow's bicycle basket. Yes, that's a fish, a whole fish.
Stinking too...in 95 degree heat with no refrigeration....ugh!
A busy, bustling place!
The House of Wonders was originally built by an Arabian Sultan for ceremonial purposes, but now is home to the National Museum of Zanzibar.
Trust me, not much to see on the inside...
...but we did walk up to the top floor for some gorgeous views of Stonetown.
The old fort is now a cultural center with an amphitheater for concerts and such.
A different sort of skyline than I'm used to...
...and I'm always partial to a view that has an ocean and palm trees in it!
And, just walking through town, a few random photos of Stonetown...
After our tour, we packed up our bags, (which were quickly snatched up by some nearby porters looking for a tip!), and headed out of Stonetown to Dar es Salaam and our flight back to the United States.
It was an amazing, incredible journey with memories to last a lifetime!
April 15, 2010
FINAL TANZANIAN TIDBITS, MWISHO
Just a few final tidbits from our Tanzanian vacation before I bring what has become a lengthy travelogue to an end...
Tanzanians are crazy over Obama. His face is everywhere.
Not only do the Tanzanian people love him, they were eager to talk to us about him.
Not being a huge Obama fan, I was not the right person to ask.
But as we talked with them, we realize the Tanzanian people neither know nor care a whit about Obama's politics. They love him because he has family in Africa, he's one of them, and his election to the highest position in the world legitimizes their own status on the world stage.
One of our TseTse Warrior friends, Norm, brought several Obama t-shirts which he passed out to camp and village leaders as gifts...
...which they loved!
It's nice to know that our American President is well-loved in Africa...in fact, I'm pretty sure the Africans like him better right now that most Americans do...
We had the most awesome guides/drivers you can even imagine. Not only did they know their stuff, but they also shared some wise survival tips they were taught as children growing up in rural villages where such knowledge may save your life.
Some things you might keep in mind, just in case...
...Just in case you find yourself being chased by a hyena.
Do not run and flap your arms wildly. Walk as quickly and calmly as possible, and keep your arms tight to your sides. Apparently running, flapping victims excite hyenas.
Children in Africa are often killed by hyenas, so it's good to know how to react when one starts stalking you.
And, just in case...
...Just in case you find yourself face to face with one of these bad boys.
Cape buffalo are said to be the meanest animals in Africa, attacking people without reason or provocation. Its tongue is so rough that it will lick off your top layer of skin, after it brings you down and gores you with those horns.
So, if you ever meet a cape buffalo, run for your life, as fast as you can. And then just as he is about to overtake you, throw yourself on the ground crosswise just in front of him and he will jump over you and keep on running, giving you a chance to escape.
Some helpful survival tips, just in case...
Do not travel to Africa without some citronella-based insect repellant.
Oh, we had plenty of Deet and soaked our clothes in repellant, but the tsetse flies are not fazed in the least by Deet.
I killed dozens of these blood-sucking critters in the back seat (yes, that is blood smeared on the window and swatter!), but they still bit me a few times...
...and they practically ate my Kimmie's poor legs up!
No, I will not be visiting Tanzania again without my citronella, thank you very much!
We did briefly visit another famous spot that I haven't mentioned in previous posts. Famous to everyone on the trip except me...I don't know where I was when we studied world geography/ancient world history in school because I don't remember learning about the Great Rift Valley or the Oldupai (mistakenly called "Olduvai" by westerners) Gorge.
Or maybe, growing up in the Bible Belt, we didn't study such things associated with evolution.
The Oldupai Gorge is a ravine in Tanzania's Great Rift Valley, often referred to as "The Cradle of Mankind" because archaeological types believe that this is where the human species originated millions of years ago.
I don't believe mankind existed millions of years ago and I don't believe in Darwin's Theory of Evolution. I've done a lot of reading and pondering myself, and yet it is all still a lot of theory and supposition, a lot of filling in huge blanks with big maybes. And I know that even our sophisticated science community cannot accurately date ancient artifacts past a few thousand years of age, so I'm not buying into complicated web of theories that have been created by scientists to try to explain it all.
I believe that God created humans, just as the Bible tells us. And if going on the safari proved anything at all, it reinforced the fact that this intricately complex and interconnected natural world we live in couldn't possibly have just "happened" accidentally.
But Oldupai Gorge is a famous archaeological dig site. And they've found a lot of old bones and artifacts that they can't really explain.
I loved the way our head guide John put it when mapping out our itinerary for the day: "We will stop at Oldupai Gorge, where someone will 'blah-blah-blah' about a long time ago."
Right on, John...I couldn't have said it better myself!
The only bad part of the trip was the toilet situation.
It's been my experience when traveling to less developed countries that the toilets are often nasty.
We had these in our nyumbas, which actually weren't too horrible.
And once in a great while we had decent, even nice, facilities.
But mostly, not.
Many were like this one.
Only this one is relatively nice, with the tile and such. Most were cement and some cement blocks to stand on. And more often than not, no toilet paper. I carried toilet paper and hand wipes constantly in my pockets.
I think it must take some practice to efficiently and neatly use one of these. It's a trick to pull everything down without letting it touch the nasty floor, squat and balance in just the right spot, and hit the hole to avoid splashing.
Several times on safari, we did our thing in the bush. We held it as long as we could, but finally we'd have to ask our driver to stop (usually the others in the Land Rover were also in need of relief!). He'd find a suitable place, get out and search for danger around the vehicle, then it was men in front of the Land Rover (they always joked they were checking the tires!) and the women in back.
It's also a trick out there in the open to pull everything down, squat and balance, all the time watching for a lion or hyena or elephant to come walking through the bush. Talk about feeling vulnerable...
But I have to say I'd rather do it in the bush than in many of the "facilities" we used. At least the bush doesn't stink!
Something else I lived without for 3 weeks was electricity.
No hairdryers or flat iron to deal with, no way to fix my hair. Sure made for a lighter duffle bag, and it was freeing not to have to mess with that every day.
So in the evening I would wash my hair, comb it out, and let it air-dry as much as possible before bedtime. My hair is so thick, it would still be damp in the morning, so I'd pull it back and sometimes braid it, stick on my safari hat, and I'm good for the day.
But then, that evening when I'd come home and take off my hat and comb out my hair...wow! A BIG WOW!!!
The first time I did this, I brushed it all out and came out of the bathroom to show Kim.
"What should I do now?" I asked him.
Kim looked at me and grinned, and without skipping a beat he said, "I think you should ROAR!"
For the rest of the safari, he nicknamed me "Simba!"
We were in Tanzania for 3 weeks, and I never got used to this.
Driving down a main highway between towns and looking out the window to see...
...a herd of giraffes, wild and peacefully grazing along the road.
Surprise encounters at every turn. It never ceased to amaze me.
I had lots of Africa moments like this...when I suddenly realized once again how far away from home I really was!!!
Tanzania is a treasure, and I really hope someday we will get to return to Africa to experience more of its wild beauty.
I hope you've enjoyed reading about our adventures as much as I've enjoyed sharing them with you.
That's it, all done.
MWISHO.
Swahili for "The End."
