We left our spoon-fed tours behind and continued on our itinerary with a flight to Zanzibar. I've never done so many inter-regional flights on a trip before but we had been forced to fly instead of go overland because of time constraints. Another indication of how Africa is not very backpacker friendly: long distances with slow buses. So instead of a 24 hour marathon to get to Zanzibar by bus and ferry, we did the 1 hour flight for brevity. Our flight was delayed 3 hours but it still beat a full day on a bus.
Our introduction to Zanzibar was jarring. We were driving from Zanzibar Town (also called Stone Town) to our planned beach holiday on the eastern side of the island at Matemwe Beach. Our taxi driver was a jovial and talkative fellow who went by the name Mr. Jomba Jomba. It was sunny. Palm trees were swaying. We'd caught our first glimpse of the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. Paradise. Bliss. And then we hit a cow.
Yep. A cow. Jumped out into the road and Mr. Jomba Jomba hit the brakes. Tires squealed and we were greeted to a Zanzibari thud as the cow hit the front of the car. Dust flew everywhere. Marya and I had been thrown forward but no injuries. The front of the car was pretty crumpled and the cow lay on the road, struggling to breath. A small crowd gathered around the car. Mr. Jomba Jomba was shaking. It was a fairly traumatic introduction to the island and we were very lucky that the car did not spin or flip or that the cow did not come up through the windshield. All in all it was an experience I would not wish to repeat. And it made me thankful that cows are kept in fields constrained by fences in Canada. Unfortunately the cow was killed to put it out of its misery. I felt so bad for the cow owner because cows are such an important investment in Africa and to lose one could be devastating. I also felt bad for our driver since his taxi is his livelihood. The car was still running and we were, of course, only a few minutes from Matemwe. The car managed to limp into town.
Underwater safari
After a lengthy search for a hotel which included me hiking an hour and a half in the midday equatorial sun, we finally arrived at Seles Bungalows. The bungalows are beautiful and there's a chill restaurant which serves some of the most incredible food I've ever eaten. Reasonable price (for Africa) and way, way better than our original accommodation plans: the overpriced dump known as Ally Keys Bungalows. Overpriced, mildew-laden thatched huts with unbearably large spider webs and a concrete cave called a bathroom with a shower head over the toilet. If you ever plan a vacation to Zanzibar, avoid Ally Keys Bungalows.
Now we were in paradise. Remote, white sand beaches and palm trees lining a turquoise ocean. This is the stuff post cards are made of. I didn't even think places like this existed anymore. I thought any stretch of white sand this nice would've long ago been engulfed by Mexican-style high rises and resorts.
Our main reason for being here, beyond doing mandatory sun-laying and surf-splashing, was to attempt to do our PADI scuba diving course to become certified to scuba dive anywhere. Based on my awful experiences snorkelling I was pretty nervous. But using scuba equipment the last four days, I will say that scuba diving is about a thousand times better than snorkelling (Mom, even you could do it, though you say you can't snorkel!). I hate snorkelling primarily because water always splashes into your tube and you end up choking and hacking after inhaling salt water. Its also tough because you are forced to swim on the surface, battling waves that constantly dunk you under the water and push you everywhere. You end up wasting so much time battling waves and currents that you can't enjoy the fish party beneath your feet. Scuba diving eliminates both these problems. First, you can breathe all the time and never have to worry about water rushing into your tube. I was skeptical at first of this "regulator" contraption that supposedly allowed you to breathe underwater. But over the course of four days, the small black mouthpiece slowly earned my trust. Second, you go below the chaos of the surface into a much calmer and serene world below. A serene world full of hustle and bustle. So many fish! So much life beneath the waves! I'm totally clueless about fish and underwater life because Calgary was not a place to grow up learning about coral reefs. Looking around in the water, I'm sure I saw more species of fish in 4 minutes than all those animals I listed that I saw on my safari in 4 days. It truly is a fish party. It looked like a reef straight out of Finding Nemo.
Breathing underwater made me feel invincible in the water because, let's face it, the main problem people have with swimming is that they can't breathe with water in their lungs. They have to struggle to stay afloat to reach that sweet, sweet oxygen on the surface. This limitation of mere mortals is eliminated upon donning scuba gear! You don't even need to TRY to stay afloat any longer! Just breathe and waves, splashing, bad weather and your friend dunking you are no longer concerns....assuming you have air in your tank.
One aspect of scuba diving that I never considered before was the experience of weightlessness in water. It's probably the most challenging aspect (because, if everything is functioning properly, then the only other skill you need is...breathing). Trying to stay weightless is hard because you constantly fill your lungs with air and then start floating away or you exhale and then drop like a stone. It's also hard because everything in water has such a huge delay that you need to start deciding if you're going to run into that piece of coral way earlier than you would on land. This is made more difficult because things appear 30% larger underwater, thus throwing off your depth perception and making you look drunk and foolish. Despite the challenges and initial fears, we completed our PADI Open Water training and are now certified to dive up to 18 meters depth!
In a week, I'll be boarding a flight in Nairobi to go back to a familiar world: Canada. Home. It feels like I've been gone a long time. Long enough that, while not homesick per se, Marya and I definitely have a list of things we want to do and will appreciate when we get home (most of them involve food haha). And, as undoubtedly happens as you near the end of a trip, thoughts of home come back to mind. And, at this time, certain things are calling me back home more than usual. It's raining here today, somewhat fitting for the events back home.
It has been a wonderful and amazing trip that has been so long and with such varied experiences that I don't think I have as yet fully digested the whole set of sights, smells, sounds, tastes and feelings. East Africa is certainly a region of the world that I hope to visit again. So many of my irrational fears about Sub-Saharan Africa were completely unfounded. Problems abound as I've talked about in great depth and experienced first hand volunteering for Ainembabazi, but that certainly wouldn't stop me from visiting.
Thanks for reading.
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