African Adventure Part 3, Play by Play

Play by play, the last leg of my adventure.

-          Went to Ibo Island. A beautiful, old, slightly abandoned colonial port.

-          Explored the ruins at night under a full moon.

-          Found where the locals eat despite everyone telling me that the only places to eat were really expensive tourist hotels.

-          Discovered that there was no market in town as it was not worth the cost to transport fruit and veg onto the island. So people mostly just eat seafood with tomato paste and onion broth.

-          Explored some old Portuguese forts and a Hindu crematorium. One of the forts has stacks and stacks of old colonial documents just sitting around in disarray for anyone to look at.

-          Saw the wares of the silver smiths that continue to work in one of the forts and make amazing jewelry.

-          There are pieces of broken china all over the island. I picked up a few choice pieces and had one wrapped in silver and turned into a necklace.

-          Went on a Kayaking trip with my buddy.

-          The water we were in was the most striking blue color I have ever seen in water. It was both deep blue and extremely bright.

-          We were told to go out away from the island as the waves would push us towards the stone cliffs on one of the points.

-          We successfully avoided that point and continued.

-          We then decided that instead of going around that point again (a lot of work the first time) we would just circle the Island as we were almost half way around anyways.

-          We continued for a bit before some strong waves pushed us into a shallow rocky area and got our Kayaks stuck. We tried to physically move them for a time with little success.

-          We moved the kayaks as close to shore as possible.

-          It was decided that my fried would stay behind with the kayaks and I would go get help.

-          I was to walk along the coast of the island until I got to the town. On themap it did not look that far.

-          The map did not show that the section of the Island I was entering was covered in Mangroves. 

-          I thought I was walking the coast of the Island. In actuality, I was walking south along the Mngroves.

-          It was all mud and sharp Mangrove sprouts, and sharp coral rocks. The mud made it so I had to take off my sandals as they were just getting stuck in the mud. So I hadto walk barefood  and occasionally cut my feet and legs on coral rock.

-          At one point I was half swimming along the mangroves and all the branches were covered in sharp mollusks that cut y hands. Holding onto the branches to keep my balance was like sticking my arm in tangled razor wire.  (I remember at this point thinking “A year from now when I am working a desk job, I will look back on this as some crazy shit, real adventurer stuff. But right now is really sucks.”

-          Eventually I came across as small fishing village. I talked with some people and discovered that I had followed the mangroves all the way down to the next island.

-          A family gave me some food and water.

-          Some people said the spirits had brought  me there.

-          I tried to see if we could get a boat to go get my friend, but it was getting dark so instead I asked for a phone to call the hotel we were staying at.

-          The people said that I had to meet with the head of the neighborhood first.

-          I sat down with him and explained who I was and the situation I was in. He called the hotel and I told them where my buddy was.

-          I needed a place to stay. No one would let me stay at their house. I am a rich white tourist in their, even when stranded on a desert island. The guy that ran the only guest hose on the island insisted that I had to stay at his hotel and no one would rob him of this opportunity to charge the white guy. I did not have any money so I had to promise to pay him once I got back to Ibo.

-          The next day I woke up really early to see if I could get back. The tide was really low so there were no boats going out. Some people told me that they could show me the way to walk back to the town on Ibo at low tide but I had to pay them 200 MTZ.

Me: That is a lot of money. I need help. I need to help my friend. I don’t have money with me. I am lost.

Them: Yes, but all the white people pay 200 for guided walks through the Mangroves. So you have to pay the same price. You can pay when we get to the town.

Me: I am not doing this for fun. Right now I am not a tourist, I am a person with a big problem and I need help. I can pay you a little bit of money but 200 is way too much.

Them: You are a tourist and the price for anyone to show you the way is 200.

-          I left them because they were being ass holes and had no sense of helping an individual in need.

-          I went back to sleep for an hour or two.

-          The tide had risen a bit and there were a few guys with small boats out that they were pushing with long bamboo polls.

-          I flagged one down, he was going to take some people and things to Ibo and he said he would take me with him. I still had to pay 100 MTZ but at least it was the same price the Mozambicans were paying.

-          It was a really cool ride through the channels for the mangroves. Like the Wild African version on Venice.

-          We got to the edge of the island but still had to walk a bunch through the mangroves and the mud and the coral.

-          I finally made it back to the town and the Hotel. My friend was there and safe. They had found him sleeping on the beach at 6 in the morning.

-          Then we just relaxed that day and ate a really nice meal at the Hotel. Nothing like celebrating being alive and ok like a plate of Lobster Pasta in Cream Sauce.

-          The next day my friend and I traveled down to Pemba to celebrate Christmas with everyone from the group of volunteers we entered Moz with. It took two car rides that both tried to charge us more than they charged the Mozambicans sitting right next to us (we eventually got the fair prices).

-          One of the drivers was talking to us about how he admired white people and Chinese people because the “get things done” and how he does not like the way black people act because they “don’t want to work.” That’s right , a Black African, racist against other Black Africans. It’s not that rare. On several occasions I have heard one person disapproving of another person’s actions in some way by saying “Estas Negros!” (These Black People)

-          After several houses in a hot car with my big bag on my lap we arrived I Pemba. Then We had to walk two kilometers to the hostle everyone was staying at. All of that combines gave me heat exhaustion. (This was the middle of the African summer.) So I said hi to everyone, drank a bunch of water, ate a pizza, and went to sleep early when everyone else went out to party.

-          For the next couple days I just spent some solid time with my friends and celebrated christmass. It was good and relaxing time.

-          Then My travel buddy and I flew to Dar es Salam, Tanzania to begin our trip to Zanzibar.

-          Dar is a cool city. More developed than Maputo (though they had not had energy for a week when I was there so everything was run off of generators) and a mix of European, African, Indian, and Arab cultures and races. All the Arabic women were in very elaborate garm. They were fully covered or had only the face showing. They were in black and purple with silver designs. Their hair was wrapped in cloth, in a tight, thick tube sticking out from the back of their heads. This gave their heads an elongated look. They almost looked like characters from a sci-fi movie.  (Ironic, the whole reason the Koran gives women the option to veil themselves is to cover ornamentation, yet they do everything they can to add ornamentation to the veils.) 

-          One group of teenage girls had the words “Va Husain”(or maybe Ya Husain)  stitched into the front of their forehead veil. The text was red and made to look as if it were dripping blood. What ever the message (for or against Sadam Husain), I thought it strange for a group of pretty teenage girls in elaborate space age garb to be projecting such a violent message.  

-          Dar has a street filled with Big Hindu temples and a bunch of Indian restaurants. Given my affinity for Indian food and Hanuman, I hung outthere.

-          The next day we took the boat to Zanzibar. It was air conditioned and I had a nice comfortable seat, and a Jacky Chan movie was playing. It was possibly the best travel experience of the past two years.

-          The next few days were spent in stone town (the whole reason I had come to Zanzibar). Simply, it was great. Layer of history, amazing food, beautiful buildings, a Medieval Arabic Fort, views of the ocean A maze of homes and shops, Masai warriors, Arabs, Indians, European tourists, the most beautiful Muslim call to prayer I have ever heard (I did not even mind getting waken up at sunrise). I could write about it for ever. So instead I will just say: Look it up. (The one down side, the average person in Tanzania speaks very little English. The average Mozambican speaks much better Portuguese. Thankfully one of the guys that worked at our guest house had lived in Mozambique for three years so we could ask him for advice in Portuguese whenever we needed help with something. Winning.)

-          The rest of my time in Zanzibar was at Nungwe and Jambiani. Both were beach side spots. Nungwe was the beach with lots of stuff to do and a few big resorts. That was a lot of fun. There was a full moon party on the beach and then New Years was two nights later. It was an excellent time.

-          Jambiani was way quieter and ironically more expensive as it was essentially a tourist trap.

-          Spent one more day in Stone Town. Hung out on the second floor of an Indian restaurant overlooking the town and the ocean. Also spent some time at a Bar called “Livingston’s.” it was about the last place the English explorer Alexander Livingston was seen before disappearing into the African Interior. About a hundred years ago this was a watering hole for traders, explorers, and general adventurers. It was where men drank whiskey and smoked cigars before risking everything on glorious quests… I was a little disappointed when I walked inside to find that the whole thing had been gutted and now looked like a Starbucks.  There was no old time colonial authenticity left. So I snuck upstairs where they were planning some construction work and found a back room area and some old wooden stairs with elaborate carvings. In that spot I could see a little peek of what this place used to be. That was good. That was what I came for. Then I scrounged up some gin (cheap gin that is sold in plastic bags) and tonic water with my buddy and some friends we made. It was night so most the places were closed. It is a Muslim island so it is tough to just pick up some alcohol at the corner store. We were able to find someone, who took us to his friends house (a hole in the wall in the maze of stone town), who had some of this cheap gin he was willing to sell us. I felt a little bad about waking up the baby. So then we all were:  myself, my Peace Corps Moz travel buddy, a young English businessman on vacation, his English friend who works in Uganda, a girl from Peace Corps Botswana, A friend of hers who was visiting from the US, and a Korean guy who was riding his bike from Cape Town to Nairobi.  We sat down on the beach in front of Stone Town at night and drank our gin and tonic. My African Adventure was over.