june 15-17, 2012
six other girls and i decided to make a weekend trip to zanzibar this
past weekend. i thought i'd visited a lot of beautiful beaches in my
lifetime, but i can honestly say zanzibar has to be one of the most
beautiful places in the world. i kept pinching myself to make sure i
wasn't dreaming.
we all finished work by about 11 am on friday morning and rented a dala dala to drive us to the ferry in dar es salaam. first class seats on the ferry are only $40, so since the ride is SUPPOSED to be only an hour and a half (and they advertised that they also had free wi-fi on the boat) we decided this option was much cheaper and faster than flying. but, as seems to be the case so often here, our ferry left at 3 pm and, thanks to an engine failure, did not reach zanzibar until about 6 pm (the wifi also didn't work). the usual response when things go wrong here though is always "hakuna matata." rather than getting upset, I've already gotten used to it and am pretty sure once i get back to work i won't even understand what it means to have a deadline. and you guys thought I was laid back before...
back to zanzibar - we enjoyed a delicious dinner in stone town on friday night and then a car picked us up ton drive us the 2 hours to our hotel on the northern part of the island. due to some miscommunication, we couldn't stay at the hotel where we thought we had rooms reserved, but again, hakuna matata, and we walked next door to the paradise beach hotel and i negotiated a rate of $40 a night for the weekend. though Zanzibar is definitely paradise, the paradise beach hotel is not. but for $40 a night split 4 ways (with a surprisingly delicious free breakfast and an amazing view), we couldn't exactly complain...
saturday we spent the day soaking up the sun on the very white beach, eating delicious food (lots of octopus and other freshly caught that day seafood), talking to the locals, and swimming in the clear blue Indian ocean. seriously heaven on earth.
sunday we enjoyed a beautiful drive back to stone town, a quick stop through the spice market, meat market, and fruit market, another amazing lunch of swordfish, and we caught our 315 ferry back to dar. unfortunately, the ferry ride back to dar is always much worse than the ride zanzibar, and not even 20 minutes into the trip i started throwing up from the seasickness. a miserable 2 hours later we made it to dar, hopped in our dala dala and got back to the house in bagamoyo by 730 pm.
It was such a beautiful, fun, cheap, heavenly weekend and I cannot wait to get back there again!
we all finished work by about 11 am on friday morning and rented a dala dala to drive us to the ferry in dar es salaam. first class seats on the ferry are only $40, so since the ride is SUPPOSED to be only an hour and a half (and they advertised that they also had free wi-fi on the boat) we decided this option was much cheaper and faster than flying. but, as seems to be the case so often here, our ferry left at 3 pm and, thanks to an engine failure, did not reach zanzibar until about 6 pm (the wifi also didn't work). the usual response when things go wrong here though is always "hakuna matata." rather than getting upset, I've already gotten used to it and am pretty sure once i get back to work i won't even understand what it means to have a deadline. and you guys thought I was laid back before...
back to zanzibar - we enjoyed a delicious dinner in stone town on friday night and then a car picked us up ton drive us the 2 hours to our hotel on the northern part of the island. due to some miscommunication, we couldn't stay at the hotel where we thought we had rooms reserved, but again, hakuna matata, and we walked next door to the paradise beach hotel and i negotiated a rate of $40 a night for the weekend. though Zanzibar is definitely paradise, the paradise beach hotel is not. but for $40 a night split 4 ways (with a surprisingly delicious free breakfast and an amazing view), we couldn't exactly complain...
saturday we spent the day soaking up the sun on the very white beach, eating delicious food (lots of octopus and other freshly caught that day seafood), talking to the locals, and swimming in the clear blue Indian ocean. seriously heaven on earth.
sunday we enjoyed a beautiful drive back to stone town, a quick stop through the spice market, meat market, and fruit market, another amazing lunch of swordfish, and we caught our 315 ferry back to dar. unfortunately, the ferry ride back to dar is always much worse than the ride zanzibar, and not even 20 minutes into the trip i started throwing up from the seasickness. a miserable 2 hours later we made it to dar, hopped in our dala dala and got back to the house in bagamoyo by 730 pm.
It was such a beautiful, fun, cheap, heavenly weekend and I cannot wait to get back there again!
Man, this is amazing and makes my heart ache a little. I'm so glad you're there to connect with these awesome kids! They'll remember you forever! xo
ReplyDeleteHey Meg, its Howie. I figured I would check out the blog you have here. Great stuff so far. I am particularly interested in the food you are eating (esp the fresh Octopus and other delicious seafood you had in the northern part of Zanzibar). Please post some pics of the food!
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