no cheese burgers in paradise: Zanzibar Part 2

Happy Andrew in a DalaDala

I should start off by saying Andrew is fine. His bruises were gone by Thursday morning, the skin on his head is slowly healing, and I am realizing the personality changes, i.e. being chatty and a little forgetful, can be explained by the quantity of beer he drank Wednesday evening.

View from our lunch table Saturday

I have also discovered I like it here a whole lot more than when we first arrived. We have adapted a bit. I have two new cool dresses that make everything better. We changed rooms so that the fan blows on both of us at night. And, we have made friends. As it happens, much to my surprise, I am sad we are leaving tomorrow.

Happy Kate on the drive to Stonetown

Like my henna tattoo?

We had so much fun searching for dolphins on Friday morning we decided to do it again on Saturday morning. Folks thought we were pretty silly for doing it twice, but they were wrong. It is awesome, truly awesome, and worth repeating.

Before we could commune with nature we had a few adventures. We went to be early on Friday night since we had to wake up at 5am. We were in bed when we heard the sound of our neighbor eating chips. That was strange. Who stands by our wall eating chips? That is when it hit us; there was a rat or maybe a mouse in our wall eating the wall. This place is outside. It is going to have vermin. That is why it has cats. So we did what other guests have done in a similar situation We got one of the cats. We welcomed him into our room. (I am crazy allergic to cats, but I love them, it was really fun to be able to say, hey kitty, do you want to come in? come on in) the cat stood by the wall with the mouse. The mouse moved, the cat moved. Eventually I didn’t hear the mouse anymore. Then the cat curled up on a pile of my dirty clothes on the extra bed. She snoozed and purred. We pet her. When she was very relaxed Andrew moved her to the chair in front of our banda. She seemed happy. I picked up my now cat hair covered clothes and hung them from the walls near where we had heard the mouse. I took off the clothes I had been wearing and hung them from the bed where a mouse would be likely to come in. Our banda was officially mouse unfriendly. We fell asleep. Alas, a hostel is not a place to try to sleep on the weekends. We were woken up by thumping music. Some of the music came from our hostel and we could complain. Most came from a party down the beach. Then we just heard the Thump Thump Thump until the wee hours of the morning. We were up at 5 very sleep deprived. This time it was Andrew’s turn to be cranky. (note, the next morning all the clothes were washed, by someone else. We have now had cat love time before bed for 3 nights. I haven’t had any allergy problems.) When I woke up in the middle of the night, the cat was still standing guard outside our banda. In the morning, she walked me to the bathroom. Then she walked me back and again took up her post on our chair. She didn’t leave her post until afternoon.

Beach in front of our hostel

The early morning drive was once again beautiful. We watched as communities slowly woke up. When we got to the dolphin peer it was buzzing with activity and the sun was up. We waited for about 30 minutes for our boat. In that time I saw fishermen bringing in Marlin from the morning catch. They were happy to talk to me about them. Marlin are impressive fish.

Fishing boat at low tide

We enjoyed watching the early morning routine and decided even if we didn’t see any dolphins this was still pretty darn cool. Finally we got in a boat, picked up a group of Chilean tourists at a hotel and motored out to dolphin land. We found dolphins right away, and got to swim pretty darn close to them. In fact, at one point I felt like I needed to move so that I didn’t get hit by a dolphin trying to surface. Andrew pointed out that the dolphins know what they were doing and how to avoid me, but I just felt it would be rude to stay in the way. The first dolphin we followed was talking up a storm. He was making amazing squeaking noises through the water. Andrew insists he was talking to the tourists. Sine there were no other dolphins near by, it is, I guess, a logical conclusion.

A few minutes later I pulled away from the large group of tourists for awhile. I was following a pair when I felt someone swimming up behind me very fast. I was impressed someone could go that fast. Then that someone passed me, cutting me off a bit. That someone was a third dolphin joining his friends. He kind of buzzed me. I was buzzed and cut off by a dolphin. A little later one surfaced and swam to each of the tourists watching him. He didn’t get close enough to touch, but close enough to look them in the eye and well, I may be projecting when I say this, but say hi. Again, I may be projecting, but it sure looked like he has a smile on his face.

Another moment of full discloser: In our relationship Andrew is usually worrying about me. However, on this morning there was a role reversal. Before our trip to Sardinia Andrew had never snorkeled. Our first day of dolphin searching he swallowed a lot of sea water. I forgot to show him how to pick a good mask. He had never snorkeled in water with waves. He found himself waterlogged a lot of that trip. (umm, is it wrong I tried to convince him he would pee fish because he drank so much ocean water?) Part of doing the dolphin adventure over again was so he could try it with a bit more snorkeling experience under his belt. This time we got a mask that really fit him, and a snorkel that stood up straight. He also had been practicing his calm breathing. Shortly after getting into the water and findings dolphins I realized I couldn’t find Andrew. The group had spread out a bit, and there were a lot of people. I started to worry. Then I had to tell myself, he was fine, he wasn’t on the ocean floor, he was just off having fun. As it turned out Andrew had figured out the whole snorkel thing with gusto. He has also figured out how to swim really fast, and he was testing himself against the dolphins. I didn’t need to worry.

Snorkeling equipment at the dolphin port

Andrew saw the dolphin catch an octopus and tear it to bits. Guess it was breakfast. We both saw a dolphin mama nursing her baby. At one point I was following three of them when they turned around and started to swim my way. I think other people would have put out their hand to touch them, but I felt it would be rude, so I pulled my hands in and just watched as they passed me.

Swimming with dolphins is close to a spiritual experience, if you are the type to have spiritual experiences. First off, you are underwater, so there is very little noise except for the occasional dolphin sentence and your breathing. Secondly, you are floating in the water, looking down, but you can breath because of your snorkel. So it is a little like being weightless. The light pierces the water not unlike the light in a cathedral. Finally, there are these creatures swimming with you. Even when they are tearing the shit out of a octopus they seem serene and playful. On this morning there were so many dolphins we didn’t have to climb in and out of the boat too much. We just floated, occasionally swimming to follow them.

We had so much time with the dolphins, and they were so near, that eventually I was tired, and came up onto the boat, even though the dolphins were still nearby. I thought we would going soon. Then I saw 3 dolphins, swimming at the surface. They were cresting, over and over. I found enough energy to jump off the boat one last time and say hi.

We motored back to the dock with big, big smiles on our face. Andrew’s grumpiness was long gone. I found myself thinking about the movie Cocoon. In that movie a group of elderly people find a pool that makes them feel young again. It takes away their aches and pains and gives them energy. That is how I feel about the dolphins. Just swimming near them is tonic. It takes away my aches and pains and gives me very happy energy.

A little bit of Stonetown

Yesterday, we went back to Stonetown to, once again, get cash. Ahh, the never ending quest. We also walked though the warren of back streets, bought sunscreen made in Dubai and checked out the food market. It was really hot again. Neither of us could face the idea of walking through the meat market with its giant un-refrigerated carcasses hanging from the ceiling. Our buddy at the hostel, Andrew (I have named him, The Andrew, to differentiate him from my Andrew. It seems to have stuck) is a chef at the Four Seasons in Cairo. He was there during the revolution. He has great stories. He is also obsessed with food. (we have found a friend….) He toured the whole food market a few days earlier. He confirmed what we suspected -- there is no amount of time that it is safe for that meat to be hanging out in that heat. I keep telling myself that the meat they get at the hostel comes from a different source.

Stonetown was much more beautiful and easy the second time. To start with I had on appropriate clothes. Also, Andrew seems to have stopped looking so approachable. The back streets really do feel like Marrakech, but without people bugging you all the time.

Our daladala after we got off

We returned home once again on a Dala Dala. This time for the longest stretch of our drive there were 18 adults, 5 children and 1 baby + a lot of cargo. It was horribly uncomfortable. We were in a less desirable position then before and I began to think I might actually get a bruise from the knee of a fellow passenger. Once again a man just picked up a child, without talking to the mother, and held her for most of the ride. Once again that child fell deeply asleep in his arms. This time instead of loading potatoes on top they loaded a refrigerator. Not a small European Refrigerator, but a big, full sized fridge. They also loaded 100 lb sacks of flour and 4 mattresses. While it is interesting, and it is authentic, I do not want to ride in another one for a very long time.

This afternoon we are going snorkeling. Then tomorrow we say good bye to the beach and fly off to Johannesburg for one night. From there it is time for a new, less beach-y adventure.