The coast and Zanzibar are HOT and Humid and pretty frickin awesome! After my day off from Traveling in Moshi, I headed here. In Moshi the power went out around noon and was out until maybe 10pm. It flickered on here and there. Some places had generators, but mostly that was it for the power. They say it’s rationing. They say sometimes its 30 minutes, sometimes it’s more. They say “It’s Africa!”. :)
The bus ride was hot and sticky as we passed mountains on our way to the coastal plain. We had to RUSH out of the bus and into a taxi in order to get to the ferry in time. We ended up getting ripped off for about $8 each, and I knew it was happening, I called them on it, but we barely made the ferry in time, so I guess it was the “Don’t get stuck in Dar es Salaam” tax.
So here I am in Stone Town, Zanzibar. Home of a maze of city streets, tiny alleyways, wonderfully illogical buildings, a fresh fish market every night lit by lanterns, old palaces of the Sultan (they ruled here for many hundreds of years), and the site of the last Legal Slave Market in Africa. A site shut down in the 1870’s by the works and efforts of a Doctor Livingston, I Presume. I had no idea that that famous line was about the man who rallied the Church and the English government to shut down the slave trade. (though it continued illegally for a many more years). There are old slave chambers under the church… the ceilings are not even 5 feet tall. For such a dark part of history it’s amazing how casual most African’s are about it. As if it is just some fact in a book and not reality. I guess it’s been 130 years, so maybe that’s why.
Craig Ouellette is a world traveling, independent filmmaker, and karaoke fiend. He has been to dozens of countries, made dozens of films, and sung more karaoke songs than he can count. He hopes the tales of adventure will entertain.
