Zanzibar, Tanzania

Oh what a night. I ended up sleeping in before working up the courage to get up and face the glaring sun, as if our star had knowledge of my late night drinking and wished to punish me himself. I had woken up in time to enjoy breakfast at 10:00 and had a spinach omelet, chapati bread, banana, pineapple, orange juice, and coffee. After taking it easy most of the morning, I came to the conclusion that I had to go in to Stone Town today whether I wanted to or not in order to grab some much needed cash at an ATM (Stone Town had the nearest ATMs, fifty kilometers away). So I walked out to the road and waited for a dala-dala (a passenger vehicle, either a large van with many seats and not much standing room or a truck with covered benches in the back) to pass by; one finally did and I took it in to the edge of Stone Town. The ride was cramped and it took about ninety minutes to reach our final destination. Once out, I walked to a nearby bank and grabbed a fistful of shillings; then, since it was already past noon and I didn’t feel like rushing through Stone Town today to see the sites, I found a dala-dala to take me to Kwerekwe Market; from there, I found the dala-dala to take back to Paje, though instead of going back to Paje to chill by the beach (like a part of me wished to), I took it about halfway through the island to Jozani Forest. Upon reaching the forest, I exited the dala-dala and walked to the visitor center and ticket counter; I paid the entrance fee, which includes a guide, and joined up with an Australian couple. Our group then set out and we walked through a red mahogany forest with many ferns; next we passed through a screw pine forest (some were incredibly tall and parts of it reminded me of my grandfather’s back yard), which looked like a mix between Tarzan and Dr. Seuss, before coming to more of a scrub forest with guava trees, palms, and some others. Along the way we saw several Sykes monkeys, a green snake that slithered up a palm tree and then upward on a hanging frond, and several red colobus monkeys, an endangered species and the main draw for tourists in Jozani Forest. After walking around for about forty minutes through the woods, we reached the visitor center again and we each tipped our guide. I then walked south about two kilometers to the mangrove forest, which was okay – there was a boardwalk and the walk itself took about ten minutes; if you’ve seen mangroves before, it was hardly worth the two kilometer walk there. I then headed back to the main road that cuts through the island and waited for a dala-dala to pass by; once one did, I entered inside and rode it back to Paje and near to the hostel. After arriving back at the hostel, I paid the lodging costs and for the food and drinks from the two previous days with my freshly procured cash and then had an early dinner of a beef burger, French fries, and beer. After finishing my meal, I joined the South African architect, whom I had hung out with last night, on a walk to Paje, taking the beach during high tide (there wasn’t much beach left); we reached the town and walked past the varied limestone dwellings before reaching the main road and coming to a restaurant alongside it (also, on the way through town, I stopped for some frozen yogurt (“frogurt”) recommended by the South African; it was locally produced, served in a plastic cup with aluminum foil covering it, and it tasted like the sugar topped yogurt I had had in several gers while in Mongolia); the South African had his dinner of chicken skewers and French fries and then we returned to our hostel via the main road since by now, the high tide obscured almost all of the beach near the hostel. Once back at the hostel, I hung out at the bar and later on had another meal (beef burger and French fries again) since I was still hungry. Eventually, I tired of the day and decided to go to sleep – no late night partying for me this time.