Zanzibar City buying snow

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Zanzibar City buying snow

As I already wrote in one of my previous posts — Zanzibar is a definitely a destination that chose me, not me choosing destination. I had a time of my life on this island which is located in Indian ocean, so I decided to write a few tips and tricks for those who are planing to travel to Zanzibar , or will maybe decide to go after this post! Regardless, I have collected all the necessary information for those who decide to go on a trip to Zanzibar in their own arrangement. Zanzibar is an independent territory that still falls under Tanzania, so you also have to pay for a visa at the airport. For a visa, it is necessary to pay 50 dollars and bring two photos of size 3. A visa can also be purchased in advance online, also this has been proven to be the best practice because it saves time and money. I am putting here some useful links where you can check up-to-date information for traveling to Zanzibar, as the information is constantly changing. High fines are paid for bringing plastic bags into the country. In Zanzibar, the majority of the population is Muslim. Accordingly, their culture and customs should be respected. This means covering the knees and shoulders. Also, drinking alcohol in public areas is a great insult to them. Zantel is their best service provider and has excellent coverage on the entire island and coast. Activate coal, dramina, something for diarrhea, probiotic, something for pain and cold as well as to relieve high fever, band-aids, gauze, disinfectant spray, mosquito spray , sun creams with a high factor are absolutely mandatory. The sun is strong throughout the year, and the temperature is always around 28 degrees. It is not necessary to take malaria tablets. It is enough to bring mosquito spray, which you must use when the sun goes down. Given that it is located almost on the equator, the weather there is degrees throughout the year. The only difference is the seasons depending on whether they are dry or rainy. They are dry when we have summer and winter, and rainy when we have autumn and spring. The price is about 30 dollars. It is best to research this information in detail before renting a car. Search available car rental offers directly in the search engine or on the LINK :. The water in Zanzibar is not good or clean. Drink only water from the bottle with which you brush your teeth as well. Personally, I would avoid drinks with ice because you never know. Seafood is the predominant. I highly recommend the choice of seafood and fish during your stay in Zanzibar. Tuna steaks and lobsters are exquisite and super cheap. I write about the prices of food and drinks below. It is best to bring dollars to Zanzibar. You can pay in dollars, but then you will also have to pay a bit extra, so it is best to change dollars to shillings. Dollars must not be older than At the aerodrome in Stone Town there is an okay exchange rate on arrival. What people are often unaware of is the fact that Zanzibar is not a cheap destination. The prices are roughly the same as in Europe. Meals in a restaurant are dollars, cocktails are dollars, 2 L of water is about shillings in the shop. Souvenirs depends on how much you manage to bargain, but the fact is that most people overpay to souvenirs. Buy something from Maasai warriors and girls if you want to support their work. They went far away from home to earn something and bring the money back to their tribes. The real price is 10, shillings for 2 parts. On average, for 10 days in Zanzibar you will need around dollars without excursions. Of course, the consumption depends on the person. Maasai warriors are members of one of the oldest African tribes. Usually they live in the area of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, mainly around Kilimanjaro National Park. They come to Zanzibar to earn money and buy cows when they return to their villages, because cows are their currency of value. Those who own less than 50 cows are considered poor. Maasai warriors and girls stay there in Zanzibar and work in tourism. For me, hanging out with them was super fun experience and I would recommend everyone to give them the opportunity to get to know them. You will often see them in nightclubs where they definitely fill the atmosphere of African nights. If he wants reliable transportation, you can always book a transfer. Zanzibar actually consists of two islands. The larger one, which we often call Zanzibar, is called Unguja, and the smaller, less well-known one is called Pemba. It got its name from the fact that it is built entirely of coral stone. Stone Town is also the center of trade. You will probably spend less money if you decide to go shopping. Of course, it is not the only choice for shopping, for me it was much better to shop in Nungwi and on the beaches than Maasai warriors. I will write about those that I personally visited, in the order in which we visited. It was brilliant for me there. If you like good timez, I highly recommend a trip. Prison Island is home of giant turtles. The largest weighs kg, and the oldest is years old. It is truly a unique experience to see these turtles. This island is also located about 30 minutes away from Stone Town. Paje beach and Paje village are ideal places to spend the afternoon. They are located on the opposite side of the island from Stone Town, and there you can see cows walking freely on the beach. In addition to cows, there is a famous palm tree where everyone likes to take pictures. The Blue Safari consists of 3 points, the Lingua di sabbia di Kwale sandbar, diving above the corals and the island of Kwale where there is an old baobab tree. My favorite excursion was diving with wild dolphins. Somewhere near the private island of Mnemba supposedly belonging to Bill Gates , you can take a boat to the part where there are dolphins. There you wait on the boat, and when you see dolphins you jump after them! Swimming next to wild dolphins is a wonderful feeling. Those who are a little more lucky can also see humpback whales. Nearby is Kae Funk, which every evening has a show with acrobats in which guests can also participate , and a campfire that gives a special experience. In Nungwi there is a party in one of the clubs every night. Every night different club. Kendwa is probably the best place to spend a day at the beach. There is a lot of content and there is always something going on. Some of the tours include meals and drinks, most include hotel pick up. In addition, some prices are per group, not per person. Bring a three-prong power adapter for your travel to Zanzibar. The language spoken by the locals is called Swahili. Everyone uses the English language more or less well. If you want to photograph someone, ask for permission. Mostly they have nothing against it. For clothes, bring summer and light cloths, and something longer for colder nights and a tour of the city. Take care of your belongings, there is a lot of theft in Zanzibar, despite what the guides tell you to the contrary. If you want to know more about the culture and history of Zanzibar, you can read the book Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar — the autobiographical work of a princess who was expelled from the island because she fell in love with a German. If you want to follow my travel adventures, follow me on Instagram and Facebook! Take a look at my eternal travel inspiration Pinterest. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Your e-mail contact. Your message. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. 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Stone Town, Zanzibar

Zanzibar City buying snow

Here in Zanzibar, two decades on, the revolution has preserved some things; others have been irrevocably destroyed. When the Arab elites fled in they left their coral-stone houses to the mercy of the new rulers; the new rulers left them to the mercy of the tropical rain. The rain was not kind. Twenty years later the narrowest alleys of the stone town are blocked with crumbling masonry, the nesting place of rats and spiders. Nothing is left of some old buildings except massive, intricately carved wooden doors, now thresholds of vacancy; many similar doors have been illegally exported. But as of the mids Zanzibar has been saved by its nominally socialist regime from the depredations of tourism; civic life survives; its streets are clean. The island even has a television station, while the mainland has none. The TV was turned up high in the Africa House Hotel the night I arrived, broadcasting the shimmering cross-rhythms of Zairean guitars into the darkness. The manager of the hotel was closeted in his office with a spiky-haired fille de joie. In the bar two government employees were drinking a toast to the television. One was a translator, he told me, working in the Foreign Ministry; the other had something to do with fisheries. There was a Chinese doctor from the V. Lenin Memorial Hospital out cold in a wicker chair alongside them. Kittens played round his splayed feet; their mother was pregnant again. Out on the reef the lamps of the fishermen came and went like fireflies. Archival research was not on my agenda in Zanzibar. He found it excessively hot; drops of sweat blurred the notes he took on local history in the library. He had no appetite, and sought relief from the heat of the day by covering his head with eau de quinine and putting it under an electric fan. On the first two counts he was right enough. But when it came to the library he was mistaken. There are not many libraries in Zanzibar, and the contents of this one, unprotected by any government ministry or institution of learning, did not seem likely to have survived. But the desire to touch old books—to open them and sniff and riffle through their pages—waxes strong. So I lingered in the bar, with the slow waves of the bay, the Zairean guitars, and the gush of a broken tap merging in my ears. Towards midnight, when the manager emerged uncertainly from his office, I was waiting for him. Key is lost. Go sleep now. Either he meant that I should go and sleep, or that he was about to do so himself. Or both. In any case he turned off the lights in the bar, though he omitted to switch off the television, leaving it broadcasting snow and white noise. I gave him five minutes, then sidled up to the library door with my Swiss Army knife, the one with a gadget that can be used when needed, among other purposes, for forcing locks. The padlock on the library door was the low-spec Chinese kind that you can buy in markets and bazaars across the developing world. It was no match for Swiss steel. The bolt was stiff and cracked as it gave. The doors swung open into must and darkness. I pulled them to behind me, A faint bluish light from a street lamp outside filtered through louvred windows, deep-set in the Arab style. It gave off dark reflections from glass-fronted bookcases. Fumbling for the light switch, I managed to turn on the ceiling fan. Something rustled in the draught. When I found the light, I saw there was a set of index cards from the library catalogue, inscribed in copperplate and fanned out across a green baize table as though from a hurriedly abandoned game of vingt-et-un. Also on the table was a disconnected bakelite telephone and a single china egg-cup, and notices instructing users to replace borrowed books in alphabetical order, ordaining a five-rupee fine for those overdue. The period ambience of the room was immaculate, as though expensively recreated for a feature film set in the colonial era. And there were the books, nailed-up in teak bookcases and classified on ivory plaques—like the plaques that marked the functional divisions of the Africa House—into seven bibliographical categories: Biography, Fine and Recreative Arts, Philosophy, Natural Science, Religion, Literature and—last and clearly least—Poetry. There were three-decker biographies of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington and Chateaubriand. Benson, Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Hope. Chesterton, and the complete works of the Belgian poet and dramatist Maurice Maeterlinck. There were travel books: On Horseback Through Asia Minor —and others, on foot, through various places. There was a nod to the dominant religion of the island in the form of an English translation of the Koran. The moral, though, is clear: be sure to wear your sola topi at all times in the day. The effect of tropical light on books, by contrast, is unambiguous: it darkens pages and fades bindings. Some of the more popular titles in the library bore signs of having been left too long out on the verandah a decade or two earlier. On the shelves, meanwhile, the dust of decades had gathered. The smell of old books—that hurtles the habitual reader back to childhood and the first, heady steps on the path of bibliomania—surged forth and lingered in the room, as ubiquitous as the sweet reek of cloves in the town outside. Some books showed evidence of wear; most were intact, pristine, pre-war. There were no paperbacks—no perfect binding to impugn the subtle curves of sewn canvas and leather lined up on the shelves. The books here had been selected for recreation rather than study. They formed a period piece, a transplanted circulating library, innocent both of the classics and of the modern book with its short shelf-life. More than a movie set, perhaps, being in the library was like wandering into a diorama, into a display at a museum. On exhibit: the modestly-furnished late imperial mind, circa These solid volumes, ready to be signed out, evoked the spectral presence of a restless middle-brow colonial offcial in search of diversion for the long afternoons on an uneventful island, one of the imperial caste of just, well-informed, soap-loving young men, as they were mockingly characterised by Waugh in Remote People. In this sense Waugh had written himself into the library. But none of his own books had made it there, despite his sweat-ridden days under the fan. Or perhaps they had been purloined. There was hardly anything of local interest left in the collection. Examination of the catalogue revealed that all the books about Zanzibar had vanished. They could have strayed on board a passing Union Castle liner, or into some private house in town. All that remained of local interest was a carefully rolled-up portrait of the last sultan, Sir Jamshid bin Abdullah Al Said—deposed in the violent revolution of and living, to this day, quietly in England, in Portsmouth. It is a portrait that it would nevertheless still be tactless to display publicly in Zanzibar. There were a few works of relevance to tropical islands remaining in the Natural History section. One such was Frank T. Earlier in the day I had been talking to Mr Wong, a courteous Chinese trader, and long-time resident of the island, about such animals as these. In Frank T. In the cult of turtle soup we are following. That it should be the pursuit of gelatinousness that brought the Chinese across the Indian Ocean—rather than lust for territorial dominion, or slaves, or ivory—seemed touchingly heroic, the stuff of mock epic. My heart warmed to Mr Wong, and to the Chinese doctor in the bar. The Chinese, after all, had come to the Swahili coast before the Portuguese, before the slavers, before the American whalers, before Britain did the deal that gave her hegemony over Zanzibar in exchange for ceding Heligoland to Germany and the Sahara to France. The Chinese had taken only sea-slugs and left crockery behind. And, later, padlocks. Was that not a fair exchange? The British may have halted the slave-trade in Zanzibar, but they perpetuated the historical power of the Arabs over the soi-disant Shirazis, the black descendants of the earlier inhabitants of island, who comprise the great majority of its population. In , a month after independence, these indigenous—or comparatively indigenous—inhabitants ousted their Arab rulers in a bloody uprising. Following this, Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika, becoming part of a new, independent country, Tanzania. Since then the Shirazi Zanzibaris have been, more or less, in charge of their own destiny. At this point the government also owns all the hotels in Zanzibar, including the Africa House. It cannot be said that the spirit of enterprise has thrived. But it is slow decay rather than wilful destruction that has made Zanzibar what it is today. For outsiders of a certain sensibility, this gives it a subtle charm. As I was browsing the scattered books in the library I heard a sound outside. I turned toward the door with a flash of guilt. But it was not, as I had feared, the manager of the hotel, woken by the noise of the breaking lock and coming to rebuke me for my transgression. Before me, rather, stood one of the government officials from the bar. It was the translator. He had emerged from his slumber on the verandah and—deliberately or not—fallen against the door of the library on his way out. His eyes were red; but his hands were neatly manicured. He wore a western-style suit, and spoke in fits and starts. His English had traces of an American accent. I wanted to speak to you. You are from the States? I think you are of the lower class. You are a cockney. Not like they used to send here. You are from the Far East. He was dubbed, I tell you. Zanzibar is just like England. We are an offshore island. But who are you? But I have first class. First class. So the translator was giving me to understand that his father had been granted a knighthood by the colonial government. It was possible, though I wondered if it was any more accurate than his insights into my own social origins. What do you know of now? Now they are full of vermin. You could buy anything before. Now the shops are empty. Even the teachers cannot read. Holy Koran is forgotten by them. Men wear hats and call themselves Muslims and they do not know how to say their prayers. This is all there is. There is nothing left, nothing at all. Look at it. He could only mean us. Me, in particular. There was no one else remaining. The man from the Fisheries Department had left. The Chinese doctor had long gone to bed. There were no other guests. Outside, the first light of dawn was filtering down into the alley, revealing black mould on the cracked walls, a crest of jungle greenery on collapsed rafters. The translator and I, as though after a fight, sat silent and still, mesmerized by it. The sunlight gilded the shelved books, like honey sealed in the comb, enchanted, miraculously preserved from the trashing of history and the slow rot of the town. In tropical countries like Zanzibar remnants of empire are everywhere: Omani mosques, Chinese crockery, European libraries. After three centuries of foreign domination, these are the materials that are left to rebuild with. On the question of literacy, for example. The city is filled with the babble of schoolchildren. Rather than English or Arabic, however, the medium of instruction is Kiswahili, the language of the coast, which is also the national language of Tanzania and the lingua franca of most of East Africa. There is a Linguistic Institute in Zanzibar, where local students can study European languages and where foreigners come to learn Swahili. I found myself wondering idly if such a place would have any use for a British colonial library from the s like the one where I had just spent half the night. Probably not, though. It would be better for the library at the Africa House to remain sequestered where it was, as a period piece, a shrine, a memento of that time on the coast when the people of the gunboat and the liberal arts held sway. I did not say any of this to the translator, though. He was in a trance once more. And he did not seem to be bothered about the contents of the library. The source of his distress was the disappearance of the social distinctions it had once reflected, the vanished hierarchies of class and race from which he had derived his identity. The fact that the rows of books and the green baize table remained as they had always been appeared to calm him. Perhaps he had been in the habit of coming here in the evening. Perhaps it had been he who spilled the index cards in their casual arc across the baize table. Perhaps he had the key to the library, to the lock I had broken, and this was where he habitually slept off his drinking bouts. He and I were the Box and Cox of the Book Museum, characters from the long-forgotten Victorian farce in which two characters occupy the same lodgings unbeknownst to each other, alternating by day and night until, by accident, they finally meet. The translator was slumped in one of the leather chairs now, his head on the table. His trance, I saw, had turned to sleep. So I left him there in the library, as the sun rose, stifling an impulse to bolt the door on the outside. The manager scowled as I passed through the lobby. I decided not to confide in him my idea to make a shrine of the book room in his hotel. The Chinese doctor was shadow-boxing on the beach. He, I supposed, in his heart of hearts, thought we were all barbarians. The lost library of Zanzibar Since the revolution of the coral-stone houses of Zanzibar have fallen into decay; but a colonial-era library remains intact. Books in the library of the English Club, now the Africa House. Photograph by Martin Walsh. The Chinese had come to the Swahili coast before the Portuguese, before the Americans, before Britain. They had taken sea-slugs and left crockery behind. Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah al-Said. Social Media Tweets JohnRyle. 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Zanzibar City buying snow