From Land to Sea, Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar

After the train ride from Mbeya to Dar Es Salaam (it took 25 hours for those wondering), spending a few days exploring this very impressive city, and hopping on the ferry, Paul and I are now in Zanzibar!   

For those who read my precious post and are wondering about the “18 hour express train”, here’s the reality. The train left Mbeya 9 hours late, and it took us 25 hours to arrive in Dar. However, the views really are incredible if you have the time see spend in transport. Also, despite the popular opinion of most azungu, 3rd class wasn’t the worst public transport we’d ever been on. Yes, it was pretty packed, but we made some friends and learned a few more Kswahili words and phrases to help us communicate during our time in Tanzania.

We only had a couple days in Dar Es Salaam once we arrived, but I think we did a pretty good job enjoying the time we had. Paul has been to Dar before so he was able to show me some of his favorite spots. Coming from Malawi, and specifically the city of Lilongwe, Dar Es Salaam seemed like a very impressive city. There was skyscrapers everywhere, a road just for a bus line, and roof top bars! I have a feeling if we were coming from New York or Chicago, Dar may have not seemed as cool for us as it did coming from Lilongwe, and we took this as a blessing. Having a much different perspective and appreciation for such a big city felt refreshing and like a big adventure.

We each enjoyed a nice beer (that was much too expensive comparatively) on the roof of Hyatt Hotel.

From Dar Es Salaam we took the ferry to Zanzibar. We were even bumped up to the VIP section for free! Lucky us!

Our first stop in Zanzibar was Stone Town, where we spent three days walking around exploring, learning about the history of the slave trade, and eating delicious food!

In Zanzibar there is a bed tax of eight dollars a night so we opted to stay at the AirBnB Big Breeze in the center of Stone Town. The price and location were perfect for us and we enjoyed our stay. The picture below is the view from our patio!

We took a trip to Prison Island which was also pretty neat. The prison on the island was never actually used to hold prisoners, but as a hospital to treat patients with cholera and yellow fever. It is also where the Sultan of Zanzibar put four tortoises that were given to him as a gift from the Seychelles. Almost 100 years later there are more 150 tortoises on the small island!

As I mentioned before, the island of Zanzibar has an extensive history for being involved with the East African slave trade that stems back from the early 1500s (as well as the trading of other goods like ivory and spices).

During our stay in Stone Town we were able to take part in a walking tour with a local guide, as well as visit the Slave Trade Museum (two things that I would highly recommend) to learn more about the history of the island. I tried to take some notes during both our walking tour and at the museum (and take some pictures of the signs) because I think it’s so important that this history is learned about and remembered. The slave trade really grew on Zanzibar in the early 1800s and was first abolished in 1873, but not truly over until the early 1900s. The movement for the abolition of slavery in the Indian Ocean was ironically led by Britain, the same nation who initiated the Atlantic slave-trading system 250 years prior.

A quote that stood out to me in the museum talked about how slavery was a state that was almost impossible to escape from, even after abolition. It read, “In reality becoming free was more of a transition than transformation in most people’s lives.” Slavery still exists illegally today, and actually has increased globally since the time is was abolished in Eastern Africa. This is a statistic that I think many people are unaware of, but is certainly information that should be talked about.

On a more positive note, Stone Town was only the first destination for us on Zanzibar. After meeting our Peace Corps Malawi Country Director, who was also in Stone Town for holiday, she offered us a private ride to Nungwi where we would be staying for the next few days. On the way to Nungwi (although it is really in the opposite direction) we first stopped at Jozani Forest, which is home to the red colobus monkey. The red colobus monkey is only found on Zanzibar, and is one of the rarest monkeys in Africa (with a population of 2,907). We were lucky to have seen them during our walk through the forest, and when I say see them I mean they were only a few feet away from my face!

We arrived in Nungwi later that afternoon and met our next AirBnB host, Jerry at Swahili House. Jerry was incredibly awesome during our stay in Nungwi and really became a friend during our time here. He helped us organize a snorkel trip, showed us the local places to eat, and made us traditional Zanzibari breakfast each morning. We stayed in Nungwi five nights, which was plenty of time for us to see what we wanted, do what we wanted, and relax. We spent a lot of time on the beach and also exploring. One of our favorite things was visiting Mnarani Aquarium, a green sea turtle conversation project that helps sea turtles survive when they hatch and then releases them into the ocean once they are strong a ready.

From what we read online, there are two different turtle aquariums in Nungwi. The reason we choose Mnarani is that the lagoon the turtles live in is natural and realistic to how they’d be living in the ocean. At the other place, you are allowed to swim and touch the turtles, and although that may sound like a lot of fun (who doesn’t want to play with a sea turtle all day), it doesn’t help these turtles prepare for the life they will be living in the ocean.

We also went on a snorkeling trip to a nearby island called Memba - well we never actually went to the island, but just snorkeled around it. I must say though, this was pretty disappointing. The majority of the coral was dead, which makes me so sad because I know 15-20 years ago it was not this way. We did see a few pretty cool fish and Paul saw a lobster, but overall the bit of snorkeling we did around Prison Island was much better! When I sent my Malawian friend David this picture of Paul snorkeling his response was, “Wow, that water is so blue. Is that a swimming pool?” Hahahahaha. 

For the rest of our time we relaxed on the beach, build shade structures for Paul to stay out of the sun (see picture below), read our books, and played cards. It was just what we needed after so much go go go this past week!

Tomorrow we are off to Stone Town to catch the ferry back to Dar Es Salaam. We plan to stop by a spice farm on the way and pick up some famous mango tea. Then, we are making our way to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe! Until then, much love. 

#costrip