Sunday, July 21 and Monday, July 22

Stonetown, Zanzibar:   Emerson & Green Hotel

    We spend our last week in Zanzibar, essentially taking a vacation from our vacation.  To save time, we fly from Arusha airport to Zanzibar on Precision Air.  From the plane, we have one last glimpse of the summit on Kili, and as the pilot tells us that we're cruising at 21,000 feet, I realize that a just a week before, we had climbed to almost the same height. 

    As we approach Zanzibar, we see a number of small islands and coral reefs sitting in the brilliant blue Indian Ocean.  We land and clear immigration and customs, which is a little strange because Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, not a separate country.  Yet Zanzibar maintains an ambiguous semi-autonomous state.

    We get our bags, go outside, and find that a taxi ride for the a 15 minute ride costs $10.  I'm incensed at paying tourist prices and keep asking until I find a driver who will go for $9.  Feeling slightly vindicated, we go with him, and ride in his 1950's vintage auto with most of the upholstery missing.

    We had heard a lots of warnings about touts in Stonetown, and how aggressive they are.  While Stonetown by far the most touristy place we've been so far, it's still not too bad.  Once we drop off our bags at the hotel, we are much less of an obvious target, and we're not bothered too much.  We're staying at Emerson & Green's, an old Omani palace that's been converted into a hotel.  The hotel is beautiful and full of character, each room different and charming in its own way.  We stay in the South room.  It's small, but we chose it because it is on the roof, separated from the rest of the hotel by a wooden footbridge.  It also has an open air bathroom with views of the city below, and when we arrive, we find very fragrant fresh jasmine on our pillows.  My mom stays in the huge Crystal room, which has two double beds, stained glass on the windows, and brass knobs on the door.  An Indian influence, these knobs were to keep elephants from crashing into the doors.  Even the cribs, stored on the landings, are elegant with ornate trim, and colorful mosquito net canopies. 

    We've made plans to have dinner on the rooftop restaurant.  (We'd actually made the reservations when we booked the room, which turned out to be a good move as the place was filled to capacity.)  We go up around 6:00 for drinks before dinner and watch the sun set over the city.  We sit on pillows around low tables, and the next morning at breakfast, when we sit at regular tables with regular chairs, we realize that they change the furniture for each meal, carrying it up and down some very steep, narrow stairs.  We have six or seven courses for dinner, one tastier than the next:  seafood soup, prawn salad, stuffed kingfish with a variety of vegetables, dessert, and then after dessert, sorbet.  There's a band playing traditional taarab music and a woman singing.  Sure it's touristy, but there's a reason lots of people come here -- the atmosphere, the food, the service, and the view.  And, at $25 per person, it's really not a bad deal.

We walked down to the market, and wandered among the vendors, buying some spices and admiring the fruit, particularly the soccer ball-size grapefruits.  We saw a vendor making juice by squeezing sugar cane through a press, and passing the juice over ice.  We were a little concerned about drinking something made with fresh water, but it looked so good, and it was so hot, that we had to try it.  We were glad we did.  The cane juice mixed with lime juice and a little ginger was quite possibly the most refreshing drink we'd ever had.  Randy even commented that he might even prefer it over beer.  After the market, we had lunch at Sweet Eazy, a restaurant that serves both Thai and African food, and does both very well.

   After some souvenir shopping and a nap, we head over to Blues restaurant for a drink and to watch the sunset, a big activity for us on Zanzibar.  Blues is very touristy and part of a South African chain, but it sits in a prime location and has a deck that sits out over the water.  For dinner, we go to Forodhani Gardens, a park set on the waterfront where vendors sell all manner of seafood, meats, potatoes, and Indian breads, which they put on the charcoal grills and then serve with salad (cabbage and tomatoes) and hot sauce.  Dinner turns into a feeding frenzy:  we have fish kabobs (marlin and tuna), crab claws, lobster, squid, shellfish of an unspecified variety, samosas, chapati, naan bread, and a fried mashed potato ball.  We wash everything down with several glasses of sugar cane juice.  For dessert, we have a Zanzibar pizza:  basically a crepe filled with bananas and chocolate and covered in chocolate syrup.

Bargain of the day:  Dinner for three at Forodhani Gardens -- about $12

Copyright © Mimi Samuel 2002
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