Zanzibar Island Favorites

Favorite thing: congulatultion for choosing zanzibar as a place of your satisfactory.there are a lot of things to do cultural tours,natural tour in jozan forest there are endemic spicies of animals and trees.car hire is not too expensive not more than 50$ per day depend on the type of car you need.swimming and snorking is growing fast and are things you cant miss here.i realy welcome you to zanzibar even though am living in dar es salaam where is a half an hour to zanzibar with an express boat and 25min by charter fligtht.for help +255 022 2664198.roots safaris.or email safaris@vtmail.com

Favorite thing: During my stay in Jambiani Village I kept seeing kids playing with old bicycle tyres rims. They would use a good stick and propel the tyre along the road at great speed with the stick pushing along the groove. Not only is this not easy to do – these kids were amazing fast. If you think its easy – give it a try.

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Fondest memory:
When I was walking near St Joseph's Cathedral in Stone Town I came upon a small pet Blue Monkey. She was quite small and very curious. I had never been this close to a monkey in my life. She kept trying to get into my pockets and a nearby shopkeeper warned me that she liked to get money out of tourists’ pockets and rip it up. I kept a better watch on my pockets! I sat down and she immediately jumped up on my leg and began to groom me, as monkeys do socially. I started to stroke her like you would a cat. Big mistake. She was a wild animal and had no idea what I was doing. When I tried to act like a monkey and kind of pick at her coat, she took this much more calmly. Her owner had left her some fresh fruit that she would pick at from time to time, but then I thought – wait, something’s missing here. WATER! Zanzibar lies close to the Equator and its stays hot. The poor little monkey had no water. So I shared mine. She seemed to like that a lot. I saw here again over the next few days and always gave her some water. Whenever I would sit with her and share my water the local children would run past shouting CHIP! CHIP! CHIP! Meaning Monkey! They would come near me, but always seemed to run away from my friend the monkey.
It was definitely a Zanzibar experience!

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Favorite thing:

When I first arrived in the East Coast village of Jambiyani, I stayed inside the hotel compound the first afternoon. The next morning I ventured out to get some water from a store and see the village. Just about 100 meters down the road I ran right into a large knot of small children. One look at me and they broke out into absolute spasms of shouting and excited screaming! JAMBO! JAMBO! JAMBO! They were running in circles and several young boys had bicycle tire rims they had turned into a toy with the help of a straight stick. I felt like some sort of children’s entertainer at a birthday party. Wherever I went I was followed for a short period of time. Many tourists NEVER leave their vehicles or hotels. To see a full blown tourist walking on their road and going to their shops was an absolute sensation across the village.

Just have a walk around and you will be able to practice your basic Swahili phrases. Whenever I cam to a cluster of buildings I would here unseen children’s Jambos come at me from hidden sources. Many children actually shy away from the camera, but most want their photo taken! And if you can show them a digital display! Well they just jump up and down with all the excitement. Every once in a while a child will run up to you to touch your hand and run away giggling. They have never touched the skin of someone that looks so different than themselves. Its nice to be an endless source of entertainment and excitement for no real reason at all. It does make you feel great inside though and you feel like the whole village is welcoming you.

JAMBO!

Fondest memory:

WHY NOT VISIT JAMBIYANI YOURSELF?

Jambiyani Village welcomes you!

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Favorite thing: One of the things I loved most during my stay in Zanzibar, was that every afternoon, just before sunset, the kids were waiting for me to go walking along the beach and sheek for shells. They were my 2 shy Mohameds (N.1 & N.2) & the girls that I named all Fatima, because of the name of a little one which I adored: She was a little triangle like shaped scarf in green color, over a pair of skiny walking legs. No more than 5 years old.

Favorite thing: Zanzibar is the center of the Swahili world, an ecclectic culture that has received influences from very different civilisations: Arabs, Black Africa, India... Its strategic location off the Eastern coast of Africa has made of it a crossroads of trade and culture. As a matter of fact, Zanzibar was during a time the capital of the Sultanate of Oman. In this picture you can see the ruins of the Sultan's Palace.

Favorite thing: Zanzibar's wealth was based on the trade of spices and slaves. Fortunately, the latter has been abolished long ago. The first is no longer so lucrative, thoufh, but the so called Spice Tours are very popular with tourists, who like to see some spice plantations and experience the exotic smells of the plants from which they grow.

Favorite thing: On our first morning in Nungwi resort we realised that during Ramadan there was nowhere locally that we would be able to withdraw cash, so we would need to make the trip back to Stone Town. We went to reception at the Amani Bungalows to book a cab. Shortly, a cab pulled up, spoke to the receptionist who gestured towards us and told us the guy and a couple of other men would take us to Stone Town. We didn't realise until we were on our way that the guy wasn't an official cab, he was a local businessman on his own shopping trip to Stone Town and taking us along for a paying ride to make some extra cash. This would have been fine, except the guy turned out not to have any insurance or permits and when we reached the police checkpoints we had to drive off road to avoid being discovered. We were a little bit on edge to say the least on the journey. We noticed a fair amount of traffic building up on the northbound road as we jouneyed south towards Stone Town, but our driver insisted that there wouldn't be a problem on the return journey.

Fondest memory: After withdrawing the cash we needed and buying a few other items, we returned to Nungwi with our driver, but shortly outside Stone Town we hit a large traffic jam. The traffic jam turned into gridlock, people hanging off vans and dala dalas, others walking between the vehicles...all apparently en route to a political rally in aid of the forthcoming local elections. When we eventually made our way through the traffic by driving in a ditch beside the road, we came across a road block manned by police wearing gas masks and holding automatic weapons trying to prevent people reaching the rally. Some injured pedestrians were walking by the roadside. It wasn't clear what the cause of their injuries was. As worried as we were about the seriousness of the situation we found ourselves in, our driver seemed unpeturbed and carried on doing his shopping from roadside salespeople. We arrived back in Nungwi that afternoon wondering what on earth had just happened....we certainly didn't have a boring day.