March 2011

We started our safari—which means “The Journey” in Swahili several months ago in the Bay Area and yes we are now starting to get a little travel weary—not enough to stop us from continuing our trip though! After breakfast, our first stop was a safari company next door to the hotel, then one across the road, then a few more around town. I think we talked to just about every building with a TOURS sign on the window! This was great because we collected a lot of great info on where to go and what we would see. After a lot of shopping around and talking we decided to go with Sunny Safaris—with no camping! It’s the rainy season and as you all know, Ruby needs hot water daily We also stopped to look at some tanzanite (a type of gem that’s mined only in Tanzania). Needless to say, it was a little out of our price range (especially the one Ruby really liked).
Over the last few months of travel some of our clothes have started to fall apart so we dropped a few off to get stitched. While waiting for our clothes to get finished we noticed that there are a lot of used shoes on the side of the road around town. We later found out (from Sheryl) that most of them are left by people that come to hike or go on safari and abandon them at the hotel. We got a recommendation for an outdoor BBQ chicken spot just down the road and after a little walking we found Khan’s Car Parts/Chicken (an auto parts store by day and a chicken restaurant by night). LOL—only in Tanzania. We met some new friends from North Carolina and started swapping stories. Sheryl aka “Buske” lived in Tanzania for years and gave us the inside scoop. Sheryl and Rebecca are teachers with four students from their law school—they generously offered us a ride to Moshi with them (1 ½ hrs away) in the morning. Back at the hotel Ruby finally broke down and gave herself a home pedicure. She’s missing the days in Southeast Asia when you could get a great mani/pedi for around $5 US!

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We’ve been traveling for a long time now so taking a ferry boat all night was no big deal. The ride from Zanzibar to Dar is only 4 hours but the boat can’t dock until 6am. We don’t know why this is but it’s cheaper than the day ferry and we saved on a hotel. If you plan on doing this please remember to book the VIP area so you have more room and A/C. Tony was saying that the lower area (not VIP) looked like a shoebox with too many army men spilled inside. We actually had a great nights sleep even with Ruby lying across a row of seats and Tony on a thin plastic mat on the floor. Quickly we made our way to a local “dhala dhala” to take us to the bus station in Dar. Ruby was looking for an air-conditioned bus to Arusha and some of the touts were saying “there’s no such thing as an A/C bus to Arusha”--probably because they wanted us to book with them but Ruby kept looking until she found Dar Express. We quickly bought our tickets ($20 usd) and were on our way at 7:30am. We had the seats furthest in the back and little did we know that the bus would be hurtling down the road out of control slowing only for speed bumps on the front tires! WOW, in Tanzania, be sure to sit in middle of bus--- you may not die in a head on collision and will avoid being thrown around over bumpy roads. Of course, Ruby’s bladder started to act up after about two hours and she asked for a bathroom stop. When the bus stops, the guy asks “washroom?” Ruby says yes, and he points to the side of road behind some bushes . . . LOL. This is when we learned that you must drink sparingly and tinkle fast! We did our fair share of staring out of a window as we made the long and arduous drive to Arusha (11 hours due to some bus malfunction). We did get glimpses of Tanzanian villages but didn’t have time to explore them. We also met Marie Claude and Jean from Montreal. Marie Claude is also on her own around the world trip and gave us some tips for Jordan if we decide to go. She had pre-booked a safari trip so we compared notes on that as well. As we approached Moshi we did catch a quick glimpse of Mt. Kilimanjaro peeking out from behind the clouds. Mt. Meru was easy to see on our way to Arusha. We booked a room at the Golden Rose for $25/night and were in love with the hot water and Discovery channel

We got up, checked out of our hotel and started our dive north. We had been a little concerned about navigating the windy roads but they really weren’t that bad and we couldn’t get lost because it’s an island! We only stopped to get a coke and it took a little over an hour to arrive at Kendwa Beach. After a little shopping around we decided to do one dive with Scuba Do. We split up and Tony was shopping for a dive trip while Ruby was looking at snorkeling trips. Ruby talked to a guy on the beach about a trip but told him “let me talk to Tony”. We decided to do a one day dive trip to a small island with Scuba Do Diving. Walking around the beach we heard a yell from the bar. When we looked over, the Germans Hans and Jonas were sitting having a drink. It didn’t take much for them to talk us into having a drink with them. As we sat with them the guy that Ruby was talking to came over asking about the snorkel trip. LOL the guy wanted money for talking to her about snorkel trips---yeah right, give us a break! We chilled at the beach and went for a dip before our 2pm dive trip. It did rain for about an hour so we were a little worried about the visibility of our dive but it wasn't an issue. We geared up and hopped on a zodiac boat going out to a divesite called Mwana Mwana (baby of the baby in Swahili) just off of another island called Mwana. The divesite was unexpectedly phenomenal! Originally we were worried because the visibility wasn’t that great—maybe 10 meters? However, once we got down deeper the visibility got closer to 20meters! The soft corals were so beautiful—a mixture of pinks, tans, violets and greens. We saw lots of cool critters down there including a yellow leaf fish, a pink rock fish, and a green sea turtle that swam right by us. After a long day of diving and driving we arrived back to Stone Town and returned the rental car. We booked a night ferry and grabbed a brown bag of chicken at our new favorite restaurant Healtho’s. The boat was busy but lucky for us we booked the VIP section and got in early enough to grab 3 connected seats and a mat to sleep on. After we finished making everyone on the boat jealous with our delicious chicken dinner we settled into our mat and chairs. Not as romantic as the last boat we slept on but we’re on a budget and it saves on a hotel.

When you’re on the road for as long as we are and you have the opportunity to use FREE internet that actually works you sit down, order a coffee, and stop the sightseeing. We had a great dinner last night at Healtho’s Restaurant so Tony decided to grab some chicken and bring it over to the coffee shop for lunch and it was sooo good today that we have to give Healtho’s Restaurant in Zanzibar a FOODIE Alert! After the amazing lunch and a few hours on the internet Tony managed to pry Ruby away from the cafe kicking and screaming. So you can blame Tony for the blog being a few more days off! We walked around aimlessly exploring the mixed architecture of Stone Town—some Indian, Islamic and Asian influences can easily be seen. We had talked to a few people about diving in Zanzibar and everyone was saying the north side was the place to go. The cheapest way was the local bus but we didn’t exactly know how to do that so we rented a car after some bargaining with a local (it may have been his car but it worked). After a quick stop at the gas station we were stopped by the local police and told we need an international driver’s license. The guy who rented the car to us told us that he could get us a permit but we would have to “go with his friend to get it”. After about 30 min of driving around dirt roads though the city we arrived at a random house and he told us he would be back. We sat around talking to the kids until he came back with a signed piece of paper that looked legit, but who knows if it was? The streets in Zanzibar are crazy; they zig and zag with no real signs to say what you’re on or what direction you’re going! We got a little lost but did make it back to Stone Town just as the sun was going down. We had dinner at a great Chinese food restaurant called Pagoda with some of the freshest ginger and chili crab ever. We went back to our hotel, packed our bags and prepped for the drive north tomorrow.

Little Miss Sunshine was up bright and early today—while Tony hid under the covers. Tony was still sleeping until Ruby woke him up saying “get up, our bus is waiting” for the spice tour! (We’ll try to use that as an excuse for the appearance of his hair!) We ran out the door and joined the others. The spice tour is a MUST in Zanzibar and we were really excited to do this with a local company. The tour is run by Mr. Mitu and it was amazing (barring the fact that Ruby got hit by a killer coconut we’ll explain later). We drove north of Stone Town through the jungle until we arrived at a rickety old sign saying ‘spice tour this way”. All we can say is WOW! Our guide Fuad was amazing and gave us the full rundown on spices and fruits grown on the island. In addition we actually got to see them growing in nature, smell them, touch them and best of all taste them! We got to see everything from turmeric (a root), cocoa plant, vanilla beans (which grow on vines), and lemongrass (which actually is a grass). Tony HATED the jackfruit—it’s kind of like pineapple combined with durian fruit (Hong and Tony need to try it). Near the end, one of the guys climbed up a tall coconut tree and threw us down each a coconut so that we could have the juice and meat---everything was great until a football sized one bounced off a tree stump and came hurtling through the air at Ruby’s face! Luckily she’s got reflexes like a cat and put her hand up in front of her face just in time! Then they took us to a little hut where we all shared a delicious lunch of vegetable curry, pilau and spinach while sitting on the floor on traditional Tanzanian palm mats. If that wasn’t enough, they took us to Mangapani Beach on the northwest side of island—there were gorgeous cliffs, caves, and turquoise water—pure paradise as far as we were concerned. The only downside is that in our haste in the morning we forgot to bring bathing suits! When we finally got home late in the afternoon we were ready to relax in the air-conditioned room (did we mention how HOT Zanzibar is)!!! We talked to a local and he told us that one of the best places to eat is a small chicken stand just across the road from our hotel called Healtho’s. Let us tell you that this guy knows what he’s talking about when it comes to chicken! That was some of the best chicken and chips EVER. It was served with a spicy sauce and mango chutney YUM! We will definitely be coming back tomorrow.

Well, we finally arrived into Tanzania and wouldn’t you know it? The credit card machine is “not working”. They told us that we could use one of the two ATMs in the airport but they were both out of service too! This was our welcome to the real Africa! Funny thing about the credit card machine. . . when we came back without cash it started working? We walked out and grabbed a cab going to our hotel in Dar. After a short and very hot nap (no A/C room) we walked out and said “wait, are we back in India”? It’s a little confusing because of the crazy conversion rate USD vs. Tanzanian Shillings (1,500 = $1) but you do feel really cool taking out 150,000 from an ATM. We decided not to hangout in Dar and just take the ferry over to Zanzibar today ($25 each). It was a little hard to get motivated but we took a cab over to the docks and got totally bombarded by touts, ticket agents, and a few dozen other people we didn’t understand! We once again felt like newbie travelers as we chased the guys who grabbed our bags and carried them onto the ferry (for a hefty tip of course). They then told us that “they” moved us into the VIP section and that is an upgrade requiring another tip---all we had to do was show them the VIP printed on our tickets and they left us alone After about 3 hours the water started a beautiful turquoise color as we approached Stone Town on the west side of Zanzibar. When the boat stopped we started our way to the door but what we didn’t know is that the ferry exit is only one 3 foot doorway with all 2000 people trying their hardest to be the next ones out! They also take fridges, TVs, and farm animals out this same door and let’s just say that some Tanzanians aren’t as hygienic as we are! The touts and ticket agents at the dock in Zanzibar weren’t much better than in Dar but this time we had a plan. We walked up the road (trying our best to ignore everyone around) and into a hotel we found in a Jonas and Hans’s travel book on the ferry. Stone Town’s markets spin with bicycles and brilliant colors. Our noses were teased with cardamom, wreathes of cloves, star anise, and fresh coriander and then assaulted by the salty stink of the fish market nearby. Narrow winding alleys lead to mosques and chic shops in between elaborate doorways. We met up again with the two crazy Germans from the ferry at Livingstone, a beachside bar for some drinks on at sunset. It was a great way to forget all the crazy stuff that happened today. We had a few drinks and watched kids doing acrobatics and jumping into the water until dark. We decided to try the food at the Forodhani night market, the lobster was pretty good. . the corn was not! It was maize and was like what we feed the cattle in the U.S.!? The four of us walked over to Mercury’s (named after Freddy Mercury who was born in Zanzibar) for a live band, drinks and the electric slide ‘til late!

Tony says that when the alarm clock rang at 3am Ruby turned around and tried to crawl so deep under the covers so that Tony couldn’t see her and continue to bother her. YIKES! Not a good way to start the day. Regardless, we were out of the house by 330am but not before waking up poor Ian (Sven’s dad) on accident. No one else should ever have to get up that early! We were so lucky to have met them. Off we went to Cape Town to catch our 6am flight, which by the way happens to be the cheapest time to fly! We had a little fiasco with Avis rental car trying to charge us double but as you all know by now—Ruby knows how to handle that sort of thing. We quickly checked in and both fell asleep before the plane even took off. In Johannesburg we were burning up because we were wearing our Cape Town cold-ish weather clothes. Of course we also made the mistake of skipping the A/C in our rental car for the day (saved US $5) and totally regretted it! Between dodging street vendors on every corner coming up to our open windows and worrying about getting car-jacked in Joburg it was not easy! We picked up our camera today yay! However, it’s not fixed because they didn’t have the right parts and we paid $25 to have them tell us what was wrong with it (which we told them when we dropped it off). We did a little bit of shopping and Tony finally gets to get rid of his HIDEOUS, hole-ridden, smelly, dusty sneakers that he’s been wearing like a homeless bum for the last 2-3 months. Someone please, send him another pair of shoes for his birthday! These ones may not last long. . they only cost $7 USD. Now we find ourselves at another airport getting ready to head to Tanzania. Luckily we found a power outlet so we can work on the laptop for a bit and get caught up BTW, if you ever come to South Africa, remember to save ALL your shopping receipts because they’ll refund the 14% VAT you pay on all goods purchased here. . of course all the wine we bought doesn’t count because we drank it all already!! Just be sure that you’ve spent a large amount, otherwise it’s not worth your time.

Posted by Tony.Ruby 07:18 Archived in South Africa Comments (0)