2008-02-16 – 2008-02-17
Summary
- Transfer to Kilimanjaro Airport
- Delayed flight to Zanzibar
- Stone Town markets
- Transfer to Paje Beach
On Saturday morning we had to be up for breakfast at 5am, too early for me! It’s a pain in the ass to disassemble a tent at the best of times, let alone in the dark. We were dropped off in Arusha and caught a taxi to the Masai Campsite since our airport transfer had been booked to pick us up from there. We arrived at the Masai Campsite just after 7am and had to wait until 8:30am to be picked up and transferred to Kilimanjaro Airport. The airport was pretty much empty when we got there just after 9am. Our flight wasn’t scheduled until 11:45am and there was nobody at the check-in counters until about 10:45am, so we had to wait with our luggage for almost 2 hours before we could check it in. Having been the one of the first ones at the airport, we still had to queue to check our luggage then as in the meantime everyone else had already arrived. Then we had to wait about 30 minutes before we could go through the metal detectors, with our carry-on luggage, to the boarding gates. It turns out that perhaps my shoes were setting it off. 11:45 came by, with no plane visible on the tarmac. The plane didn’t get in until after 12, so we didn’t board until after 12:15. All this waiting wouldn’t have been such a problem had we not thrown out our water bottles before going through the screening at the entrance to the airport. I was so thirsty and it was very hot in the airport.
The flight was very cramped and our carry-on wouldn’t fit in the miniature overhead lockers so had to slide under the seats. When we got to Zanzibar we had our first successful arrival transfer! The drivers over here are equally as nuts if not more so. Overtaking is cut to the finest line with the general rule seeming to be that oncoming traffic will probably slow down while I’m overtaking. And the speed at which these guys drive through the narrow streets of Stone Town… let’s just say I’m glad I’m not driving here. We were transferred to our Stone Town accommodation which was very basic! We were on the top floor, so had to carry all our gear in backpacks up 3 flights of stairs… Skye struggled with that. So did I actually, as we still had the backpacks in a duffle bag style enclosure for in the aircraft hold (so the straps don’t end up catching on something), so it was like carrying an awkward 20kg suitcase up the stairs. The bed was very uncomfortable, with springs digging into my ribs and I found myself longing for a tent and sleeping mat, something I would never have imagined I would be wishing for. We hand-washed our clothes, often requiring 3 washings for an article as they were so dusty. We met up with Gemma, who had done the Tanzania tour with us and was also in Zanzibar, and went to the nearby markets to get some tea. Most of the food was seafood, which were told to avoid as tropical fish can have toxins that will make you very sick, potentially for a couple of years duration. This limited our food options immensely. Chances are if we had the seafood, we’d be fine, but we’d rather be on the safe side. On our East Africa trip, 2 people ended up with TD (traveler’s diarrhea), another with a burnt hand and another quite sunburnt… and no this time it wasn’t me in any of the cases. Joel (the Adelaidian from our Tanzania tour) thought we were doing quite well thus far to have remained healthy for this long on our first trip to a third world country. We have been really careful about things, always going by the ‘cook it, peel it, boil it’ otherwise: if in doubt, throw it out. We still only use bottled water on our toothbrushes, but have now resorted to using cutlery and crockery washed in local water and have had no troubles yet. We also swear by hand sanitiser before eating anything with our fingers, although on occasions when I am concentrating I might bring a hand of finger to my mouth without thinking about it. Anyway, back on track; we went with beef and some vegetarian food from the markets, then followed it up with banana and chocolate pizza at the market. We had two sellers fighting over who was going to sell us water and in the end we ended up with no water… good job guys, so we walked to another street vendor and brought some water from then.
The following morning (Sunday) we headed down for breakfast and then repacked ready for our transfer to the beach at 10am. Breakfast was pretty ordinary and the serving size was very small… a small banana (half the size of the ones we are used to in Australia), a piece of toast, and a fried egg.
