A little place we call Zanzibar

It somewhat amazing to write this, but last weekend was my last working in Africa. To cap off our time together, seven of us went off to Zanzibar for a final weekend of sun, dhows and full moon parties.

We spent Thursday night in Stone Town which used to be the epicenter for the East African slave trade, though now it is little more than some narrow alley ways, interesting old doors (mom) and Queen tributes (Freddy Mercury was born there). Friday we did a spice tour to the center of the island (the island is actually called Unguja) which was pretty interesting, its cool to see that the little jars of cinnamon you buy at Teeter actually come from the bark of a tree and to watch a dude scale a palm tree to pick coconuts. We also had the most delicious fresh pineapple I've ever tasted.

We lounged around Stone Town for a bit and then headed up north to Kendwa beach and the Sunset Beach Bungalows getting there just before sunset. The beach is a really nice long swath with super fine white sand and turquoise blue waters you can swim in regardless of the tides. It reminded me a lot of Thailand, except with African dhows instead of long tail boats. We hung out, had the fist of many good seafood meals on the beach, made s'mores (thanks department of state kids!), got a hookah from a nice rastafarian fellow and relaxed the night away.

The next day was absolutely gorgeous and we spent most of it relaxing in hammocks, eating seafood and playing the water. In the late afternoon we took out a dhow, did some snorkeling, did some drinking and sailed up and down the coast watching the sun set. That night we went to Kendwa Rocks for their full moon party which is a drastically calmed down version of Koh Phangnan's. It was alright, nothing phenomenal and the highlight was probably a musical set that went from Iron Lion Zion to Dragonstein Dintei to Call On Me. There wasn't the tower of speakers or fire dancers of Thailand, but there also weren't the potentially dead people lying in the gutter the next morning either.

Speaking of the next morning, it was a bit of a late start for most of us. But we quickly picked up where we left off the previous day, doing absolutely nothing on the beach. I got cornrows put in my hair (true story) then we hung out till about four and pretty sadly left Kendwa for the airport, a two hour delay (during which we played frisbee on the runway) and the flight back to Nairobi. All in all Zanzibar was wonderful and while I wouldn't rush back to the full moon party, I would definitely head back just for Kendwa.