When stepping off the ferry, Ewa and I were immediately preyed upon by hotel touts, taxi drivers and guys, who would forcefully take our bags, carry them a few metres without being asked to and then try to charge us a fortune for their “valuable services”. Fortunately, Kai was there to save us from this nightmare and took us to dinner at a wonderful restaurant: The tables were spread out over the entire beach and lit by candlelight only. It felt like there was no one else around at all! One of the tables was even shielded by palm leaves and I don’t think I have ever seen a spot more suitable for a proposal – it really was so romantic! So it only took Zanzibar a few hours to win me over and things only got better from here onwards.
Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar, with “narrow streets, whitewashed Arab houses and fragrant spice markets” (Lonely Planet) has a mystical atmosphere. An air of secrets hidden behind big beautifully carved wooden doors, of a cruel history of thousands of slaves sailing into an uncertain future, of timelessness with markets still functioning the same way they did hundred years ago and of long-gone glory as one of the most important towns in Eastern Africa. Stone Town sounds impressive and it certainly lives up to expectations!
I was told that the best way to explore Stone Town is to get lost in the maze of tiny little streets and to get carried away by the atmosphere of the place! And this is exactly what I did! Ewa and I took a walk through town, explored the little alleys, peeked into backyards, listened to the sound of laughter coming out of a classroom and discovered lots of little treasuries well hidden by the high walls. Stone Town really does have a magical atmosphere about it! The air is filled with the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, the scent of cardamom, cinnamon and cloves, and the saltiness of the ocean. Artists sit in the streets and paint Tinga Tinga’s, women sell coffee and little peanut butter brittles to sweeten it and in tiny little shops old men sew beautiful dresses or skilfully repaired shoes. It’s like walking through another world and you never know what is waiting for you around the next corner! 
At lunch time we chose one of the little market stalls over the Café’s normally frequented by tourists and joined the locals on plastic chairs and wooden benches under a palm tree. Pointing at random pieces of food behind a dirty plastic screen, we ended up having some sort of a soup with salad and random but yummy meat (or veg?) balls. It wasn’t bad and it was certainly a nice experience eating with the locals, realising just how deep their love for French fries and tons of ketch-up is and watching the proud Massai warriors make jewellery while chatting on their mobile phones. 
The owner, who had been incredibly friendly to us, turned out to be rather unfriendly after all when he assumed that we were stupid and charged us $5 for our lunch. I clearly expressed my disapproval, probably embarrassed him in front of all his customers and ended up paying $1, which was probably still too much. Even though this annoyed me – if you wanna rip me off, at least make it somewhat credible – Stone Town soon made me forget about it as Ewa and I dived back into the magical city for more explorations and completely lost track of time. Exploring the city on a “Let’s see where this road takes us!” basis, unfortunately meant that we were late for meeting Kai at Amore Mio, a little bar serving ice cream and waffles under palm trees overlooking the ocean. 
Kai had invited a few people round for a BBQ and since there are no supermarkets on Zanzibar (well, maybe two – one of them apparently sells all sorts of dodgy sex toys made out of plastic) we had to go to the market! Fruits and vegetables were quickly bought and having Kai, who speaks Kiswahili, with us meant that the vendors didn’t rip us off, but wanted to become our friends and husbands and know all about us! The real exciting stuff, however, was buying the meat for the BBQ, which also came fresh from the market – and fresh just got a whole new meaning! On one side of the market were all the vendors selling cows – and when I say cows, I mean cows! The poor creatures were slaughtered on the spot and butchers with sharp knives were took their skin off and their bowels out on the spot. There was lots of blood everywhere: running over tables, onto the floor, stuck on people’s hands – picture Sweeney Todd with smell effects! 
The fish section on the other side of the building was a lot less bloody. We decided to buy tuna and the monger took a whole fish and chopped it up right in front of us! It was fascinating to see how he took the skin off, the bones out and cut it beautifully into little fillets! I don’t think I have ever had fish that fresh before and it certainly tasted amazing! The kingfish was also divine and in general seafood did not let me down in Zanzibar. A few days later I had shark from a beautiful sunset market, where all the chefs wore white uniforms and hats and were serving all kinds of seafood, which they prepared and grilled on the spot! It was beautiful and exotic and completely out of this world!In Dar tourists are a rather rare sight, but Zanzibar is a major tourist destination and the streets are “packed” with backpackers and posh hotel guests, who dared to leave their posh five star resorts. Now while this has certain advantages (lots of charming beach bars), it also means that the locals have discovered tourists as easy targets! While “Karibu” was just annoying, “Mambo” and “Jambo” soon lost their initial cuteness and became incredibly nerve-racking! Every little kid in the street would shout “Mambo” until they got a response, every vendor would say it as you walked past (and if you’re lucky followed by “Karibu”) and every stranger in the street would consider it incredibly impolite to walk past you without saying “Jambo”. Initially I replied to the friendly greetings, but soon realised that people considered this an invitation to start a conversation and a friendly “Jambo” would turn into “How are you?”, “Where are you from?” and “What is your name?”. So rather than tell everyone in Zanzibar the story of my life, I decided to be rude and just respond with a friendly nod or smile. But some people, especially young and middle-aged men, didn’t give up that easy and even though I did not respond in any way (looking, smiling, swearing), they would start to walk next to me for a good five minutes and have a conversation about me with themselves! So they would start of with “Jambo”, then move on to “Yeah, you are from Europe”, express some invitations along the line of “Come and stay with me” and then finish it off with Zanzibar’s ultimate chat-up line: “I like the way you walk!” Now imagine someone saying that to you in a rather dodgy voice after they’ve just followed you through half the town… annoying turns into irritating turns into intimidating! Being verbally abused (and it did really feel like that) was clearly one of the downsides of being in a tourist hot spot, but then again – I could always rescue myself to one of the beach bars, order a cold drink and calm myself down while looking at the ocean!
Even though I did not respond too well to the communication efforts by the locals, some women did. At the weekend a big group of us went to Kendwa in northern Zanzibar to go to a Full Moon Party. After a lovely pancake breakfast (for me, it’s only a holiday if I’ve had pancakes. We had lots of them during our time in Tanzania and the trip was fantastic, so clearly there’s a strong causal relationship between the amount of pancakes eaten and the quality of the holiday! No arguing on that one!), we hit the road and soon arrived in Kendwa. And oh my god – what a beach! – it was incredibly beautiful!!! I have no idea what “pristine” actually means, but they always use it in travel brochures to describe the world’s most amazing beaches and this one was clearly “pristine”. Soft white sands, hammocks under palm trees, little colourful boats in the turquoise waters and sand banks and little islands shimmering in the distance – stunning!
Ewa and I took a walk along the beach collecting shells and watching kids play in the waves. Unfortunately, even in this tropical paradise we were not even safe from unwanted Mambo’s and somehow ended up having a rather strange conversation with the “Resident Pro” and someone, who turned out to be the stoned, arrogant son of the president. While the resident pro thought it appropriate to ask me if he could look at my belly button, the president’s son only wanted to know if I had ever had sex with a black guy. Needless to say we didn’t stay very long and fortunately the Norwegian rastafari Kiswahili –studying girlfriend of the son distracted their attention away from us! This was my first encounter with European girls falling for “I like the way you walk” and the Full Moon Party would provide me with many more! By the time we got there, the party had started and a beautifully random combination of people was dancing on the beach. There were five kind of people: normal tourists in flip-flops like us and those with backpacks in front of their tummies, who had read somewhere that the Full Moon Party was a Must for every traveller, but who felt and clearly were out of place; locals, hoping to pick up Western girls (who were called “ticketa” … surely I don’t have to explain why!) and Western girls, who had already been picked up (some on the evening receiving just enough attention to keep them satisfied while the guy was checking out the other options; others who had already given in and up to the charm of Rastafarians and were now married to and pregnant by one). And then there were the Massai in their traditional clothes with big necklaces and swords, having a drink and a dance and looking totally out of place! In my imagination, the Massai are this impressive warrior nation, who defy modern culture and customs and defend their nomadic way of living. They are not drunken sleazy man moving awkwardly on the dance floor trying to pick up white girls. 
To survive this random yet incredibly entertaining and fascinating mix of people, Kai had brought his little friend “Mr Konyagi” – the local gin (ingredients: fine spirit, Konyagi flavour, whatever that might be, and de-ionised water), conveniently pre-packed in 200ml plastic sachets, easy to smuggle, highly effective and surprisingly head-ache free, Mr Konyagi certainly was the real star of our night! 
After an epic night, we spent the next day recovering on Kendwa beach, reading, talking and once again watching boats peacefully sail across the ocean. In the afternoon Kai took us to the east coast of Zanzibar. It took us under an hour to get there and apparently there is no place on the island that is further away than 60km and cannot be reached within sixty minutes! While this might be annoying in the long run, it clearly worked out well for us as we got to see another beautiful yet totally different beach. Matemwe was even more stunning than Kendwa with powder soft white sands, palm trees stretching for miles along the beach line only punctuated by the occasional seaweed farmer and kite surfers cruising across the ocean. We took a long walk along the beach, had a drink in a beautifully remote hotel and watched the kids play football on the beach! There were hardly any tourists around, which probably made this place so wonderful and special! 
Time flew by and before I knew it, it was the last day of our holiday in Tanzania! Initially I had wanted to go on an island-hopping trip, but was easily convinced to abandon that plan for one last day of total relaxation and shopping! In the morning, Ewa and I went to a lovely hotel with a private beach, spa and a pier reaching hundred metres into the sea. In this beautiful setting I relaxed reading my book, soaking up the sun and taking a long walk on the deserted beach with only John Mayer keeping me company – perfect! Once it got too hot for sunbathing, Ewa and I took a Dalla Dalla to Stone Town for some last minute shopping and I may well have gotten carried away buying all sorts of beautiful things. Later on, I collapsed in a state of total happiness on the terrace of Stone Town’s best hotel for sun downers and an amazing dinner. It was the perfect end to a perfect holiday…
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