Zanzibar

While many of our friends are fighting their way up the Red Sea or around the Cape of good Hope, we were fighting the ever-evolving, mercurial Covid rules while trying to travel via air. So far we have prevailed mainly due to the dogged perseverance of Marce. It seems that traveling by sailing yacht gives one lots of time to work things out, while you have to work well ahead when jet airliners are involved. And that brings us to todays topic, Zanzibar.

We found accommodations at a stately old hotel, well preserved, out of the way, but near the ocean in Stone Town. Just the kind of place I like.

You couldn’t have planned a more disorienting circuitous route through the catacomb like alleyways that make up a cab ride through Stone Town. We haven’t a clue how to navigate this place and GPS was really having trouble. There is not one 90 degree turn in the entire place. Just down the street I noticed a seaside cafe so I thought we’d start there. Couldn’t get lost with this one.

It might’ve been me that said let’s go up a block and then return to our hotel on a parallel alley. There are no parallel alleys. As darkness settles over the town we turned a corner, tail dragging the gravy, expecting another disappointment but there she was the old Beyt Al Salaam.

To this day I have no idea how we managed that.
Getting lost and found would be the official plan of our days.

I’ve always taken photos of doorways all over the world, and I find these an amazing similarity to the doors of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

I guess you’d be remiss to pass on buying spices at Spice Island but Bandaneira in Indonesia was better where you’d find a yard full of cloves or cinnamon bark drying on a tarp in somebody’s front yard. That’s the perfume of Spice Island.

Mr. Mango’s claim to fame is that Anthony Bourdain ate here and pronounced the Zanzibar Pizza as ‘weird, wonderful.” Marce agreed.

We had a tip from a friend for this one, four flights of rickety stairs and the view of Stone Town was wonderful, and so was the food.

Wandering these ancient alleyways was endlessly fascinating. The key is to find yourself perpetually lost but with no particular place to go and just let it all wash over you.