Trip to Zanzibar! (finally)

So sorry to keep you waiting so long – I have been wanting really badly to get a blog off about our trip, but since we got back it has been a bit of a whirlwind!
Jules and I both submitted concept papers for an EU call for proposal and were both shortlisted to submit full proposals (with a 50 – 60% chance of full funding). Unfortunately due to the legal status of CADECOM, we were subsequently dis-invited, saving me a lot of work, but unfortunately missing the opportunity for funding. Jules, however, did get to do his whole proposal, and it took pretty much all of our time to try and finish it for the deadline of 4:30 yesterday (I drove him to hand it in at 4:25 and took him directly out for beer afterwards). CONGRATULATIONS JULES!
So, back to our trip; on December 19, backpacks on, we left our house in Lilongwe and boarded the (bathroomless!) bus to Tanzania. The bus was pretty rough, I’m not gonna lie. It was incredibly bumpy (we had chosen seats in the back so all three of us could sit together – NEVER again!), my seat kept falling apart, we had an inexplicable 2 ½ hour wait at the border and it was way slower than expected. We pulled into a city at 10pm (the time people told me the bus would arrive in Dar despite being scheduled to arrive at 7pm) and grabbed all our stuff, only to have the guy beside us explain that we were in Morogoro, 200km and 3 hours away from Dar…I almost cried. Actually, I did well up. Anyways, at 1am (Dec. 21 by that point) we finally hopped of the bus and into a taxi to our hotel. Our stay was brief as we wanted to get to Stone Town on Zanzibar Island as early as possible, so we ate breakfast at 8 and headed down to the Ferry terminal.
At the Ferry terminal, we were overcome by touts trying to sell tickets – haven’t seen anything that bad since Egypt. Apparently they are also really bad in Arusha. The 1 ½ hour ferry took just over two hours – it was pretty rocky and I was a little uncomfortable as the cabin was sealed in and I felt some of my flight anxiety surfacing…then Regan felt a bit seasick, so we headed to the outside front deck and both of us felt immediately better.
Arriving in Stone Town, again accompanied by several touts, we made our way to Bandari Lodge, where we planned to spend the next three nights. Bandari was nice, the staff were good and there was even a TV with DSTV (shared) on the top floor! Stone town is really nice – narrow little alleys you can wander around in for hours/days. We did a lot of wandering and eventually ended up at the night fish market, where Jules ate spiced lobster on a stick and I had calamari. Regan had Zanzibari pizza, which would become our Stone Town staple from that point forward. Zanzibari pizza is a piece of dough, in which veggies are placed and then an egg is mixed in, along with a bit of mayo and cheese. The whole concoction is then fried. It is like an omelette with bread wrapped around it and it totally delicious (and at about $1.20, VERY affordable).

The next day, we did exactly that – wandered around, drank spiced coffee (delicious!) and met our friend Vi, who we hung out with on and off (our travel plans were slightly different but there were lots of places we crossed paths) for the rest of the trip. The next day we went on a spice tour and saw vanilla beans (and bought some – yum!), pepper, nutmeg, cardamom, and more.
After Stone Town, we headed to Jambiani for Christmas. Jambiani is on the east coast of Zanzibar, about a 1 ½ hour dalla dalla (the Zanzibar equivalent of the minibus) ride away. We arrived at Blue Oyster and our room looked gorgeous for Christmas eve. Swimming is only possible at high tide and isn’t the best, honestly – very seaweedy and a bit mushy on the ground, but the water is beautiful and the breeze comes off the Indian Ocean, so it is an amazing spot for beach reading and strolls.

Our hotel hosted a BBQ on Christmas eve and although it wasn’t exactly ‘Christmassy’, it was pretty magical. There were fires started in holes dug into the beach (so they didn’t blow out in the breeze), seafood on the BBQ as well as potatoes with garlic sour cream. The hotel had invited local villagers to come and sing and dance…tons of children from the village came and they were so excited! It really was an amazing night. After the BBQ, we headed back to our room for the traditional opening of the Christmas eve pyjamas. Regan was surprised to find custom made pyjamas made from Bingu chitenge fabric (Bingu is the current president and whenever he makes an appearance, women dressed in chitenges with his face all over them come out and dance for him).
While in Jambiani, we took a dolphin tour. In retrospect, the tour wasn’t really the most ecologically friendly so we feel a little bad about taking it. We went out into the ocean in a small motor boat to find the dolphins. We joined about four other boats in hot pursuit of a few pods of dolphins, with our captain yelling at us to get out of the boat when we got close (so we could swim with them). If we missed them or they turned unexpectedly, the captain would yell get back in, back in! Then Go! Go! Go! as soon as we were near the dolphins again…hardly relaxing and magical. But it was neat to swim with the dolphins. By the end there were about 9 boats all driving around (Regan got knocked by one and our boat hit another swimmer. We called it quits and headed back to the beach.

After Jambiani, we went back to Stone Town for one night before heading to Nungwi for New Years.
When we arrived in Nungwi, unfortunately our hotel had lost our reservation, but luckily a guy from the dalla dalla took us to a new place (in fact, the place wasn’t finished yet but they told us the beds would be finished by the evening) where we were able to secure a room. The beach was GORGEOUS (especially after we the poor swimming in Jambiani). We met up with a few more friends from Lilongwe and went for drinks at the beach bar that night. The next day we wandered down to Kendwa to hang out with Vi – the beach is just as gorgeous, but also WAY bigger than Nungwi. Great beach day!

(Jules, our friend Christine from Blantyre and Regan on the way to Kendwa)

On New Years eve, unfortunately I ate some bad fish at lunch and was sick. However, everyone else had a great time – we attended a big party at Kendwa Rocks (where Vi was staying). There were tons of people (and by this time we had met up with MORE people from Lilongwe as Patrick and Ellene had arrived) and it was a great party – there were pretty amazing fireworks at midnight also.
January 1 found us back on the ferry (which was fine for me, but a bit rough for all the other people around who had been drinking on New Years eve) back to Dar Es Salaam. We found a Thai restaurant (no Thai food in Lilongwe) so that was pretty exciting, and then we went to an Irish pub. It wasn’t all that Irish-y, but it was a pub and it was on the water so we really enjoyed it.
Rather than taking the bus back, Patrick and Ellene kindly offered to drive us back. Initially we were a bit worried that the back of their Rav4 mini (meant for 2 people) would be uncomfortable, but after the bus experience, we were pretty sure that ANYTHING would be better. And it was. We were squished together, but the bumps were DEFINITELY more comfortable and it was nice to stop where and when we wanted to. We made it all the way to Mbeya (about 2 hours from the Malawi border) on the first day, then back to Lilongwe by 8pm on the second day.
We were exhausted, but also exhilarated by such a great trip. I can’t believe we will be on the road again in two more weeks!