Slushies, Vespas, and other madness

Right, time for another attempted entry. I left you last time as we arrived in Dar. Well, actually, in the beach suburbs south of Dar, across the aforementioned ferry. Our home for the night was the Mikadi Beach campsite. Plus points: decent toilets, hot showers. Minus points: all water is salt-water, sandflies. Super-extra-plus point: Slushies. Known in some places as slush-puppies, slurpies or Mr Frosties, these are basically crushed ice with some form of flavouring added. In the case of the Mikadi Slushies, this includes a few slightly more potent additions. No real anarchy resulted, but, after the horrors of the day earlier, they were incredibly refreshing and contributed to a pretty mellow atmosphere.

The next day dawned bright and early, in what has been an uncomfortably common occurrence (why, when I am supposedly on holiday, am I getting up often at least two hours before I ever would for work...?). And we got one of our occasional truly African experiences, as we were using a local contractor to get us from Mikadi to the Zanzibar ferry terminal. Meaning that we piled 26 of us (including Paul and Valdy), plus 10 full packs and 16 day packs onto a bus that might hope to hold 18 people, without luggage, if they were all quite happy to get cosy. And then, when there seemed to be no other room, our 3 Tanzanian guides hopped in and squeezed the door closed. It was at the point where, when we stopped at the docks to wait for the ferry to pull in, nobody even thought about trying to get out (well, apart from Jeff, another of our Canadian mature overlanders, who hopped out the window). With people sitting literally on top of one another, this wasn't terribly surprising.

Luckily no further problems with the ferry, so we headed over to central Dar and the ferry port for Zanzibar, where we boarded a surprisingly modern catamaran for the 2 hours or so crossing to Zanzibar Town (also known as Stone Town), the capital of Unguja (also known as Zanzibar Island). All these multiple names - most confusing. Our entertainment on the way consisted of an episode of Mr Bean (no, I'm not joking) and a truly terrible Jean-Claude van Damme film. The latter was definitely not family entertainment, and was a bit surprising given that many Tanzanians are pretty devout Muslims and quite conservative. I also got started on Su Doku puzzles, which Jon has introduced me to - a kind of logical number puzzle, and not a bad way to pass the time on long journeys.

On arrival at Stone Town port, Jon and I were persuaded by our lovely quintet of medical students (Amy, Vicky, Anna, Sarita and Amy) to help carry their exceedingly heavy bag of medical supplies off the boat (they're all doing their electives at Stone Town hospital). We were then slightly surprised to discover that said supplies included a hair dryer and an epilator (sp?). The things required by modern medicine today... We then temporarily took our leave of the girls who, along with Jane, Vicky, Jacqueline, Joanne and a visibly grinning Valdy, were headed straight up to Nungwi, at the northern tip of Zanzibar. The rest of us were staying a night in Stone Town, and went off down some exceedingly dodgy-looking alleyways, eventually landing up at our distinctly non-dodgy lodgings, the Safari Lodge.

We then went off for an afternoon Spice Tour, including a curry lunch at a local restaurant and a visit to a couple of the spice farms on the island. This was done in the care of the inestimable Ali T, a truly extraordinary local with some amazing vocal mannerisms, some of which were derived from Staines' finest, Ali G. If any of you ever head out to Zanzi, I can definitely recommend doing the spice tour. We saw a whole load of the spice plants, as well as some of the tropical fruits that are grown alongside them, and tasted a whole bunch of them (including some divine Spice Tea). Really fun afternoon. We then topped this off by going for some dinner at Foradhani Gardens, a seaside hawker market, where you can wander around, picking out a bit of this and a bit of that. I had a delightful barracuda kebab and a "Zanzibar Pizza", which is actually more like a kind of crossbreed of an omelette and a pastry, washed down with Stoney Tangawizi, one of the things I now miss about East Africa - mmm, ginger beer....

After that we had a relatively early night, before heading out the next morning to hire scooters to go around the island. Now, I know what quite a few of you may be thinking here: Pat doesn't actually know how to ride a motorbike or anything, nor does he have a license for one. This, slightly worryingly, isn't an issue really on Zanzibar. The latter was taken care of by handing over my (car) driver's license and paying the princely sum of 6 US dollars for a temporary permit, and the former by about half an hour or so's worth of instruction on a local football pitch. And no, I'm not joking about this either.

Having demonstrated sufficient proficiency on out trusty steeds to satisfy the guys from the bike-hire agency, we were driven off by them (our training was not adjudged sufficient to handle Stone Town traffic), first to the old slave market (now underneath a mission and hostel), then to a petrol station to fill up, then far enough out of town for the traffic to have died down. In this I was slightly unfortunate, as I appeared to have inherited a rider (Eddie) who was the reincarnated spirit of Evil Knievl. Perched on the back of the Vespa, I could only hang on to the strap in the saddle for dear life as we swooped through the traffic, dodging cyclists, other scooters, a few 4WDs and the deadly dala-dalas, the Zanzibari minibuses. I swear, that has to be one of the scariest things I've done so far on this trip. Still, eventually he stopped to let me take over and, once the others caught up, our little flotilla of Vespas (with Paul riding herd on a trail bike, Leonie perched on the pillion) sped off south-east towards the only stand of forest on Zanzibar, Jozani.

After what must have been the most shambolic lunch we have had (after two hours, 3 dishes still hadn't arrived, and they then promptly got the bill wrong...), not to mention the efforts of a forest guide to charge us 80 USD each to go and see the monkeys, we decided to cut our losses and start the long journey up to join our friends in Nungwi. The intersting point there is that, despite what our map might indicate, the main road up the east coast is not all sealed. This, plus a shortcut that we took, meant that we were taking Vespas where Vespas weren't really meant to go, down dirt tracks, through mud and puddles, around tree roots... This came to a head when we reached the point that the puddles straddled the whole track, and we had to see how well-adapted to aquatic ventures they were. And promptly lost Jon's mount, which tipped over in the middle of the largest puddle. Cue flooded carburetor (sp?), doused sparkplugs, and about half an hour's worth of tinkering to get the machine running again.

And this continued, with at least three more scooters breaking down in some way or other as we headed north. Our grand plan to arrive in Nungwi by nightfall was in tatters, but we eventually made it back to the sealed road, and buzzed north like a swarm of anxious hornets under darkening skies, cheered on by locals as we passed through villages, desperately searching for the turning for Nungwi. The road to Nungwi itself was only sealed for part of the distance, though at least it was drier than the east coast road. Still, we ended up slaloming around potholes in the dark, creeping our way northwards. My Vespa (which had survived throwing a hubcap amongst others) nearly gave up the ghost as we reached Nungwi itself (possibly in protest at trail-blazing through puddles earlier) and I limped into the car-park of the Amaan Bungalows in 1st gear. But I'd made it. As eventually did we all.

And here I must leave you. Until the next time mes amis, adieu!