Africa 2023:
Day 36-37 - Zanzibar

	Tuesday, November 14, 2023: Welcome to Tanzania. As we neared Zanzibar, and we passed a few coral islands as we approached our anchorage, ...
	... and there is Zanzibar, off to our right. It is a large island about 20 miles to the east of mainland Africa.
	There's no pier large enough for a boat our size in Zanzibar, so we would be tendering ashore while we were here. Aren't our tenders cute?
	For today's LEGO Daily Calendar, LEGO Debbie and Tom can be seen drinking beverages and looking out eagerly for ocean creatures aboard a dhow, a traditional wooden sailing ship with a triangular sail.
	We met our tour group at 8:00 AM in the Ocean Bar, and then went to the Rolling Stone Lounge to get our tender tickets. Several of our group were Holland America 4-star Mariners, and we were Neptune Suite guests, which means we were able to get priority tender tickets for our entire group.
	It took a while for the ship to be cleared by Tanzanian Customs, but by 8:30 AM, tender operations were in full swing. Fifteen minutes later, we were aboard our tender, ...
	... headed toward shore. We sat in the very back of the tender, ...
	... and this emergency cleanup box was on the seat next to us. The tender can hold more than 100 people, so we were a little concerned to see that there were only four vomit bags in this kit. Luckily, none were needed today as the sea were quite calm.
	A ferry named Kilimanjaro VII passed by. We'd seen Mount Kilimanjaro when we were last in Tanzania in 2014.
	Maersk!
	The tender brought us to the ferry pier which had been split in half for our visit.
	Welcome to Zanzibar!
	There was a group of folk dancers to welcome us. This was the first of nearly one million times we heard the Jambo Bwana song while we were here.
	We walked through the deserted VIP lounge area, ...
	... and out into the port arrivals area to look for our tour guide, ...
	... who we found just outside of the port. This was a private tour, organized by Ross and Midge, and the port authorities were only allowing buses for the tours affiliated with Holland America into the arrivals area, so we had to walk a way to get to our bus.
	We passed the Old Dispensary building which is now a cultural center and World Heritage Site.
	We walked right past Mercury's Bar, a blatant attempt to get tourists to stop there by associating it legendary Queen front-man and Zanzibar native Freddy Mercury.
	We walked past a beach that appeared to be dedicated to fishing craft. It had this great basket for collecting plastic bottles for recycling.
	Just across from the Mizingani Seafront Hotel, ...
	... we met up with our bus that would take us to Fumba to board our dhow. We had ten people in our tour, and the bus was only licensed to carry nine, so we had to jam four people in the backseat that was only designed for three.
	As we drove through Stone Town, we passed the house where Freddie Mercury grew up and which has since been turned into a museum.
	As we reached the outskirts of Stone Town, we started to see more ramshackle buildings along the side of the road. This, for example, is a lumber yard. We saw those round poles used everywhere from several supporing the roof of a home to thousands being used to make scaffolding at a building construction site.
	Almost all of the women that we saw were covered from head to toe. Not in the burqas that we'd seen in the Islamic countries on this trip, but with more colorful dresses and scarves.
	Some of the houses along the road had a cow or two grazing nearby.
	After about 40 minutes, we arrived at the drop off point for our boat right. We walked down this narrow lane, ...
	... along a rocky ledge, ...
	... and down to the shore line where we met up with six more people from our ship who had booked the same tour for the same day with our guide. Ross, who had arranged our ten, apparently knew from our guide that he double booked today's tour, but the people that joined us were just finding out. Some took it in stride, while others were none too happy that their dhow cruise for six had now become sixteen.
	We were only one of several groups waiting to board their boats, and after waiting for ten or fifteen minutes, we were finally ready to walk out to our boat. It was currently low tide, which meant that we needed to walk about a hundred meters or so across the beach to where the dhows were anchored.
	It was an interesting walk, with lots of sea life that just a few hours ago had been covered by the ocean. There were sea urchins, ...
	... a cowrie shell, ...
	... and a craw with big claws, er, claw.
	Each group waited at the tide line as rowboats were brought to tender the people to the dhows. The water was still very shallow, so some supplies were carried out to the dhows by crew members.
	Soon it was our turn and we carefully boarded the small boat, trying to keep it balanced so that it didn't capsize.
	Tino, up in the bow, moved from side to side as first one side would have too many people and then the other. The crew threw bags of pineapples, bananas, and other fruit into the ship to be ferried out with us.
	We pulled up alongside our dhow, ...
	... and all squeezed aboard.
	Let's go there! We were going to the Kwale sandbar, a large sandy island that is only above water at low tide.
	We were just one of a flotilla of dhows headed there.
	As we approached the sandbar, the water shallowed up remarkably. It was crystal clear and we could see lots of sea grasses.
	Our boat pulled up as close as it could get, and we waded ashore. At low tide, it was a large island, and each group set up an awning to use for their home base.
	We walked along the shore, checking out the colorful sea stars that were hanging out in the grasses. There were red ones, ...
	... and green ones with yellow dots, ...
	... and more green ones, ...
	... and this not-so-colorful one, ...
	... and more red ones.
	There was a hermit crab living in this large cone-shaped shell.
	As we stood under our group's awning, Debbie would see couples trying to take selfies and would go down to ask if they'd like her to take a photo. She's so nice!
	After about an hour on the sandbar, our crew brought by a tray of fruit that they had chopped for us, ...
	... that included banana, pineapple, watermelon, and coconut. Yum!
	As each group's time end, their dhow would come in close to shore, they would load up, and head off to the next stop. At first it appeared to be chaos, but as we watched, we realized it was all very carefully choreographed.
	When our time was up, our boat, named Full Moon, came in for us, ...
	... and the crew treated us to bottles of ice cold orange Fanta, Coke, and water.
	We motored a short way to our next stop, a spot not far from the sandbar where we could snorkel.
	It's time to snorkel!
	We weren't expecting much, so we were blown away by the colorful coral as soon as we were underwater.
	There were also tons of fish in the water, ...
	... including this one, ...
	... this one, ...
	... a Red Sea clownfish, ...
	... and a whole family of them living in an anemone nearby.
	Pretty.
	Something in this area was feasting on urchins.
	We saw lots of urchin bodies with their needles removed.
	The dhows had wicked looking anchors.
	Starfish.
	Pretty green algae on the coral.
	We see you.
	Check out the dorsal fins on this one, ...
	... and the cute baby versions.
	Nothin' to see here. Move along.
	Those shell-shaped things were moving.
	Ooooh.
	Aaaaah.
	Pretty dots.
	Fish.
	Fish.
	We saw two Moorish idols away under the boat next to us.
	After about thirty minutes, we reboarded the boat, ...
	... collected all of the other snorkelers, ...
	... and headed to Kwale Island for lunch.
	Dolphin! Someone on board spotted a dolphin just off to the side of the boat.
	It was a humpback dolphin, named for the large hump under its dorsal fin. After chasing the dolphins for a few minutes, ...
	... we proceeded to the island. As we approached, two of the crew got out and pulled the boat toward shore until it was shallow enough for us to wade onto land. The water was about waist deep when we got out, and it was bath-water warm.
	There were vendor stalls lining the beach, but we walked right past them on our way to our lunch pavillion.
	The food was amazing, with fish, octopus, calamari, ...
	... lobster, ...
	... and prawns ...
	... served with French fries and coconut rice. It was all delicious, and they kept coming back and offering us more.
	We'd also gotten a pint bottle of Kilimanjaro beer for five US dollars. Ross said that the slogan for the beer was "if you can't climb it, drink it."
	During lunch, someone brought two coconut crabs by and let them climb the tent pole. They were huge, ...
	... but very docile, content to climb the pole each time the guy pulled them off and put them back on for our amusement.
	After lunch, we had some free time to stroll among the shops or to swim in the shallow bay. We looked through a few stalls trying to find Amarula, but didn't have any luck.
	One of our fellow tourmates modeled her newly purchased cover-up for us.
	Someone on one of the other tour boats had a drone, and we heard it overhead as it flew down the beach. We'd also seen it when we were on the sandbar earlier in the day.
	With everyone back on the boat, we headed to the eastern tip of the island, ...
	... to a sheltered lagoon known as Kwale Lagoon or the Blue Lagoon.
	The crew rolled up the awning over the back of the boat, and started to untie the sail that we'd be using on the way back.
	The odd mushroom shape of the coral islands is due to the tide, which can vary as much as 15 or 20 feet in the course of a day.
	The water was very calm in the lagoon, ...
	... and many of us got out for a swim. Once Debbie was in the water, ...
	... most of the other women aboard joined her.
	After a refreshing twenty or thirty minutes in the lagoon, we were all back on board, and the crew was hoisting the sail, ...
	... and trimming it up to get plenty of speed.
	After a few minutes, we passed the sand bar where we were in the morning. The tide was rising, being about an hour from high tide, and most of the sandbar was no longer visible.
	Just as we had motored in a convoy out to the sandbar in the morning, there was a group of all sailing back to our pick-up points. The sail was very effective, getting the dhow up to about seven knots. That's more than three times faster than we'd been with the motor on the way to the sandbar.
	The crew sang the Jambo Bwana song for us, and then our tour guide insisted on teaching all of us the words and leading us in singing it at least six times until he thought we all had it down. We both hoped to never hear the phrase "hakuna matata" ever again.
	As we neared land, the crew took down the sail, ...
	... and very rapidly had it rolled up and stowed away.
	With it being high tide, we were able to pull right up to the landing, disembark in calf-deep water, and wade ashore.
	Viv got a nice picture of us as we were leaving the boat.
	Our bus was there fifteen minutes later, and we were more prepared to put four people in the back seat this time.
	On the drive back toward Stone Town, we passed a brick factory, ...
	... and shack place selling bedframes. Next to it was one of the biggest and most modern houses we'd yet seen in Zanzibar, ...
	... next to a group of houses with tin roofs and plywood window coverings. It was a stark display of the disparity of wealth here.
	We passed a lot of shops like these, with their wares on display to anyone passing by. There were fruit vendors were every few blocks.
	This is Takwimu House, home to the Office of the Chief Government Statistician Zanzibar.
	Nearby was a building housing the Zanzibar Revenue Authority and the People's Bank of Zanzibar.
	These buildings comprise the Consulate General of the Sultanate of Oman.
	As we neared Stone Town, we passed these three modern restaurants that had a furniture design shop in the middle of them.
	Debbie really liked these spiral-like green trees and this fuzzy palm tree.
	This was entrance to the State Univeristy of Zanzibar School of Computing Communication and Media, ...
	... and next door was the Al Rahma Hospital.
	This pretty white building is a mosque, the Maisara Masjid.
	This pretty building is Zura House which contains the Ministry of Land, Housing, and Energy, ...
	... and nearby was the Corporation of Government Newspapers building.
	When we had left earlier in the day, there had been kids playing baseball on this field. Now, there was an organized soccer match happening, with one team in blue uniforms and the other in red.
	Traffic slowed down as we passed the Darajani Souk, the largest market in Zanzibar.
	Outside, there was a dude was pushing a cart of fish.
	There was a barber shop on the second floor of this building. Every one of the sample style photos in the windows had a dude with a beard which was interesting to see.
	Right at 5:30 PM, we entered the chaos that was the port of Zanzibar. This time, the driver was able to drop us off at the terminal building, ...
	... where we walked through the VIP lounge with its plush leather seating, ...
	... and its photo of Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of Tanzania (left), and Hussein Ali Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar.
	Ooh. The Falcon of the Sea has to be the best name for a ferry. Ever.
	We showed our NavPass cards to security at the pier, ...
	... and boarded the waiting tender for the short trip back to the lovely Zuiderdam.
	There were two tender platforms in operation, with one for loading new passengers to go ashore and one for unloading returning passengers.
	One of our fellow tourmates, Valerie, had been injured on the tour. She had very thin skin and received two frightful tears on our tour when one of the crew, trying to be helpful, grabbed her as she was getting off the dhow at the sandbar. She'd made makeshift bandages out of her socks, and we'd promised to bring our extra Tegaderm bandages to her cabin as soon as we got back to the ship.
	At the sandbar, we'd helped clean her wounds and in return, she gave us these pins as a thank you gift. The bigger pin says "Town of Comox" which is the town they are from. It is on Vancouver Island in Canada. Interestingly, this isn't the first time we've been given Canadian flag pins. The first time was on a trip to Gibraltar in 2011.
	We got cleaned up and went on deck to check out the sunset, ...
	... before going to the Lido pool for ...
	... the Burgers and Beer event. Debbie ordered the cornflake crusted cajun chicken burger, and Tom ordered the Big Jonathan burger, named after a former Food and Beverage manager.
	The retractable roof over the pool area was completely open, letting in a refreshing breeze and keeping everything at a nice temperature.
	They were having a sale on beer, so we ordered two each of three different beers: Aeon, KEO, and Stella Artois. Our server brought us three Aeon and one KEO, which was actually better since Tom preferred the Aeon to the KEO. Interestingly, one of the Stella was a bottle and the other was a can. During one of our beer tastings, the bartender had mentioned that they were running out of bottled beer in some brands.
	The pool area looked very festive as the twilight turned to full darkness.
	Almost an hour after we'd ordered, our burgers arrived.
	Here's Debbie's cajun chicken burger, ...
	... and here's the big Jonathan. Both burgers were so large that we had to deconstruct them to be able to eat them. Debbie ate hers as chicken fingers, while Tom removed the fried egg and top burger and ate them with a fork, and then had the bottom burger and all of the fixings as a separate burger. Everything was very good though, and worth the wait. We drank two of the beers at the table and brought the remaining four back to the cabin to save for a future sail out.
	Wednesday, November 15, 2023: We promised no more breakfast shots, but come on, look at these omelets. They're gorgeous!
	We had a Holland America shore excursion this morning, so after gathering in the World Stage and getting our stickers, we boarded a tender with our group at 8:30 AM. We noticed that they were operating two tenders at a time this morning, one for the shore excursions through the ship, and a second one for passengers going ashore on their own. Nice!
	There were storm clouds over Stone Town this morning, so we might see some rain today.
	Oooh. There's a pilot boat at the end of the pier. That's exciting!
	Just as we reached the exit from the VIP lounge and saw our tour guide holding the number 29 sign for our group, ...
	... the sky opened up and a downpour started. Luckily, we were on a Holland America excursion this morning and our bus was under a shelter less than thirty feet from the building.
	As we drove away from the port, the rainwater ran through the streets.
	Twenty minutes later, it had stopped raining, and people were walking along the streets again rather than huddling under awnings or standing crammed into doorways.
	Motorcyles and scooters were everywhere. Women on the back road sidesaddle.
	We were taking a different route out of the city than we had yesterday, and we drove along a new road being built. There were big rocks spread across the road every so often to deter people from driving on it.
	Like yesterday, we passed small houses with laundry hanging up outside and fruit for sale along the road.
	Zanzibar University has a great motto: Spring of Knowledge and Virtue.
	Cows.
	Kids everywhere are the same. A good stick will distract them for hours.
	We passed this cow, one of many we saw. Several days later in Madagascar, we learned that this was actually a zebu, not a cow, but pretty close.
	During our drive, the driver has been playing music, and has been choosing specific tracks from a video touchscreen to his left. The passenger in the seat behind him is actively watching the music video that goes with the current song. Meanwhile, there is a car heading toward us on our side of the road as it passes a truck that has stopped on their side of the road. It's a good thing that the speed limit in this country is only 40 kilometers per hour.
	After an hour on the bus, we arrived at our destination, the Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park.
	While we were waiting for our guide to do the paperwork to let us into the park, we saw this red colobus monkey on the railing near the snack bar. We realized it was there when we heard a shriek from that direction, and we thought it was the monkey. It turned out to be an adorable little girl who was chasing the monkey and was very excited about it.
	When we got to the snack bar, aptly named the Colobus Cafe, there was no sign of the monkey.
	Our guide, Said, showed us where the toilets were, ...
	... and then led us into the forest.
	This was a rain forest, with plenty of ferns and fungi growing everywhere.
	The park had good signs, and the trails were clearly marked with these stone and concrete pillars.
	It was green and lush, and we could here birds singing from high up in the trees.
	We were walking through this part of the park to see mahogany trees, and Said stopped our group to educate us on every single one of the thousands of uses of the mahogany seeds that were scattered around the forest floor.
	There were surprisingly few bugs for it being a rain forest. We hadn't put on any bug repellent, figuring we would do that when we got here, but so far, we hadn't been bothered by any mosquitos or even any flies.
	We learned all about the Fonix tree (phoenix reclinata), and all of the ways to use its leaves.
	Another group had disturbed this giant millipede and it was slowly making its way across the path toward safety. It was probably between five and six inches long.
	We changed trails, and headed in a loop back toward the entrance. This path wasn't quite as well tended as the first one we were on, but that just meant that we got to see some cool plants growing out of old tree stumps along this route.
	When Said pointed out this eucalyptus tree, one of our fellow tourmates helpfully told him that they were from Australia. Why he didn't murder all of us at this point is a mystery that may never be solved.
	Aww. Baby fern.
	After our 45 minutes stroll through the forest, we were back at the Colobus Cafe, taking another toilet break, ...
	... before walking back toward the entrance to the park, ...
	... along the main road, and to an area where we found ...
	... monkeys! These are red colobus monkeys, identifiable by the bright red fur on their backs.
	You can just make out the red fur on this one.
	Across the clearing, there was a blue monkey just sitting on top of a bush watching all of the tourists take pictures of the monkeys in the trees.
	All of these monkeys. There were at least a dozen of them, running along the branches up in the trees like it was a highway.
	So ...
	... many ...
	... monkeys. After fifteen minutes, everyone was monkey'ed out, and we headed back to the bus.
	Our next stop was the mangrove swamp, but it was down a very narrow road that was barely suitable for one lane traffic, but unfortunately was being heavily used in two directions. We spent so much time navigating the oncoming traffic that it took us almost thirty minutes to drive the three-quarters of a mile from one part of the park to the other. We probably could have walked there faster.
	This stone marks the dedication of this mangrove boardwalk in 1997.
	It was low tide, ...
	... and the roots of the mangrove trees were visible.
	The boardwalk was well constructed, with railings made from the same trees that were in the swamp.
	There was a lively and humorous discussion about the need for stairs down to the swamp with two fun women on another tour. We ended up meeting them again in December and really hitting it off, and only discovered after we got home that they were the same women in this picture. That's Theresa on the left and Vanessa on the right.
	Crabs! This one blended in very well, but gave himself away when he moved across this orange leaf.
	You'd think that the bright red claws on this one would make it easy to spot, but you'd be wrong.
	What are the nubbies in the water? Tops of mangrove roots? We have no idea.
	We were so focused on the red crab in water that we didn't see the dark crab on the right side of the tree limb coming out of water until we were looking at the photos later. There must have been thousands of crabs that we didn't notice.
	After we completed the boardwalk loop, our guide took us to see a group of women dancing to the Jambo Bwana song, where some members of our group gladly joined in, seeming like they hadn't heard it quite as many times as we had. Once we realized that the bus was close by, we left the dancers and went aboard, revelling in the sweet, sweet air conditioning. The rest of our group joined us soon after, and we navigated the narrow road out of the park and headed back toward Stone Town.
	All of the rain from this morning was still pooled along the side of the road.
	Some of the women outside this stall had kicked their shoes off while they waited for customers to stop by.
	There were lots of school kids walking along the street. There were high school aged boys in blue shirts and tan pants, ...
	... and girls in black dresses and white head coverings.
	The younger kids seemed to be in blue uniforms, both for the girls ...
	... and the boys.
	This is so sweet! An older boy was walking with his younger sister along the side of the road.
	Check out the lettering and words around the window on the left of this school building. A - Apple, B - Ball, etc.
	Here's another school with the same sort of decorations on the outside. Letters, words, numbers. How cute!
	It's a Tanzanian housewares store. Bags, brooms, baskets, and buckets. Check.
	This butcher shop had the menu painted on the walls.
	We saw lots of bicycles and tuk-tuks on the streets. This tuk-tuk driver might have been trying a little too hard to get American tourists with the stars and stripes paint job.
	We wondered just how much business these little fruit stands do. That's a lot of fruit!
	This building stood out among all of the tin-roofed shacks in the surrounding neighborhood.
	This store had a hand chair, wheelchairs, what looked like a barber chair, and infant bouncy toy.
	This marble building was a primary school. It was nearly a block long, or what would have been a block if these streets had blocks.
	Mosque.
	Maersk.
	This Cine Afrique movie theater had been turned into the SAHL Bank.
	We finally managed to get a good picture of this sign on the roundabout near port that designates Stone Town as a World Heritage Site.
	Just after 1:30 PM, we were back at the pier, ...
	... looking at yet another ferry tied up across from our tender.
	The HAL crew were offering ice cold fruit flavor water for guests waiting for the tender back to the ship.
	Our tender had to wait while two others loaded and/or unloaded their passengers.
	Around the back of the ship, there was a banner warning boats to stay at least 50 meters away.
	We are almost always the last ones to leave the tender. What's the rush? Isn't everyone here on vacation?
	We went back to the cabin, dropped off our stuff, checked out the storm clouds on the horizon, ...
	... and headed up to the Lido for lunch.
	A little after 4:00 PM, Debbie went out on the balcony to photograph today's LEGO calendar display and caught this drone flying near the back of the ship. It was moving too fast for her to get a good shot so this one will have to do.
	Speaking of the LEGO daily calendar, Debbie really nailed it with LEGO Debbie and Tom checking out the monkey in the tree.
	At 4:30 PM, tender operations were wrapping up and they were stowing them on the side of the ship.
	The engines rumbled to life, and at 5:00 PM we were leaving port. The captain had early said that we'd used nearly 450 feet of chain when we'd dropped anchor, but there was still silt visible as we were departing. Maybe all of that came from pulling up the anchor.
	A man and his ocean.
	Buh, bye, Zanzibar.
	We went up to the Lido for dinner. They were serving mafungo, which we'd never had before. That's the pork and rice dish next to the roast chicken. It was delicious.
	We cruised by Dar es Salaam around 7:00 PM. Debbie took this great photo showing the lights of the city along the coast line, but she couldn't quite get the moon to be in focus, ...
	... so she switched to her zoomy camera instead and got this great shot of the cresent moon. You can make out craters and the mountains along the moon's limb.  Day 38 >