Zanzibar is paradise. It is literally the most beautiful place I have ever been, and pictures don’t do it justice.


The journey started out a little rough, what with the 5 a.m. scramble to pack and clown car all 10 of us + Dr. Leedy + 4 others (I still don’t really know why they were there) into the dala dala to take us to the ferry. Then they packed 4000 people onto what felt like a 12-person ferry, and everyone spent the next two hours concentrating really hard on not hurling. Fortunately I immediately befriended Sisso, a native Zanzibari who ran a spice tour and provided enough distraction to keep my breakfast down. He told me that he liked going to the disco too much to start a family, and patiently explained that if I had a lover I would like to turn into a husband all I had to do was tattoo his name on my inner thigh, but to make sure I had the right name or else it wouldn’t turn out well. He also said that Zanzibari are much better people than mainlanders, because if one of them tries to pickpocket you then you can tell everyone and they’ll have him killed. This was good to know.

We landed in Stonetown, famous for birthing Freddie Mercury among other things, and dropped our stuff off at a cute little hotel whose main advantage was HOT WATER. Then we took a spice tour, in which I kept shrilly screaming out incorrect answers to the which-spice-is-in-my-mouth game, and a historical one, which killed my whole day because it was mostly about slavery and I predictably flipped out and cried a lot. This is why:

Here is where the Arabs kept the women and children for 48+ hours before taking them to the market to be sold. It was stuffy and hot and claustrophobic and you felt it. I accidentally got Mariah crying in this picture, but it captures the sentiment well.

The next morning we drove across the island to Jambiyani, which was straight out of a travel magazine. I cleverly wore my Halo shirt since we were on ZANZIBAR, but since I’m with a bunch of mountain men and hippies, my genius (which was actually Alex Good’s genius) was lost on them. I was a little pouty about that for a while, but it turns out I was just cranky from not being fed. As soon as I realized that we basically had a gorgeous beach all to ourselves, I cheered up and we splashed around and laid out and ate and drank and some of us even had our “lovers’ names” henna-ed onto our inner thighs.

It was amazing, and a welcome break from Friday’s hectic schedule, when I kept getting yelled at the whole trip for falling behind and creepily trying to take pictures of Swahili children:


Leaving Jambiyani was hard, but not really, since I was sleeping the whole way back to Stonetown. Everyone chilled, and bought scarves, and I ran around taking more pictures of Swahili children, but paid zero attention to my surroundings, eventually realizing I was late for the dinghy that was to take us to some tiny private resort island. I found a compass on my backpack and naturally overestimated my ability to master such a basic skill set as navigation. Sure that I was on the right track, I expected to have my A-ha! moment as I turned this one corner, but found myself in the middle of a really vile-smelling fish market, where everyone was at least really nice and pointed me in the right direction. I met up with everyone at the dinghy, but immediately switched from apologetic to skeptical because I had seen enough of those boats in National Geographic, normally packed to the hilt with Vietnamese refugees. By the grace of god I made it to Chungaa safely, and the island was a dream. They had this giant tortoise exhibit which I adamantly refused to enter because I wanted to go float in the pool, but our guides made me and thank God, because it was a heaven like I‘ve never known before or since. I was up to my waist in tortoises, and having so much fun that I didn‘t notice when one charged and put all of its 100 kilos squarely on my foot. Perhaps I was too focused on maintaining consciousness, but it was then that my English grammar first started slipping (“Look at small turtle, it wiggles like human baby!”), so please be on the lookout for my slow decline.

That night we ate at this hopping waterfront seafood bazaar. Unbeknownst to me I’ve developed some kind of food allergy, so after inhaling a tuna kabob I immediately felt my skin starting to tingle and swell until I ended up with cucumber lips and about 7 extra eyelids on both sides. Without a mirror to get me down, I took my new face out and spoke to a lot of startled vendors, met some cool guys from the Peace Corps who were willing to overlook my physical deformity, and finally found ice cream. It was a really good note to leave on, but after another nauseating ferry ride this morning I could not wait to crawl back home and Dear Diary a little bit and then nap. Which I would be doing, were it not for an incredibly loud killer bee hovering over my head. Very lame, Africa!