Somehow spring break was suddenly upon us last week, and we set off for the airport at 6:30 am on Saturday for a quick flight to Zanzibar! We stopped for a (literally) hot 10 minutes in Mombasa to refuel and exchange a few passengers. Maybe it was my total lack of sleep the entire week before this or the early morning flight, but I thought it was hilarious that we disembarked and hung out in this hallway for 10 minutes. Maybe it's just me. Actually I'm confident it's just me, but whatever.
We stayed in Stonetown Saturday afternoon through Monday evening, and what an adventure it was. I love exploring new places, and it was refreshing to allow myself to act and feel like a tourist here. I think I have had this idea in Nairobi that I don't want to be the stereotypical mzungu taking pictures of everything and acting like I don't know what I'm doing, but I fully embraced my tourist side in Zanzibar and I'm glad!
Saturday afternoon I was tempted to give in to the temptation of a nap, but am glad I didn't because I would have missed out on some prime adventuring! Tyler, Makenzy, Nyseku and I set off to explore and ended up coming across an old bath-house that were able to tour. It ran for over 140 years, up until Tanzania's independence around 1964.
 |
| A fire was kept burning in here to heat the hot baths. |
 |
| Nyseku on the roof of the bath-house. |
Saturday afternoon and Sunday we tried our hands at bargaining and all purchased probably a few-too-many of our new favorite clothing items: ZANZIPANTS!!(photo credit for both of these to the beautiful Katie Shea!)
We visited the site of the old slave market on Sunday. The slave trade in East Africa was very small in comparison to West Africa, but slaves that were taken from the East were routed through Zanzibar and kept and then sold at the slave market. Once slavery was abolished, the site of the market was transformed into an Anglican church. The designers of the church incorporated many elements that acknowledged the former slave market and there was a lot of symbolism of redemption: turning this place from one of horror and pain into a community of hope.
On Monday we took a boat to the nearby Prison Island, named so because it was originally meant to be a prison but was never actually used as one. There is also a tortoise sanctuary there which was definitely an educational experience!
 |
| I promise that I like animals more than this picture reveals! |
 |
| Prison in paradise? |
The best part of Monday was going snorkeling after visiting Prison Island. It was my first time in the Indian Ocean, and I loved it--the water was clear and warm and I could have spent the rest of the week just swimming. We swam above a small coral reef and were able to see some fish and mini jellyfish, but most of the sea life stayed too deep for us to get a good look. Thankfully we would get many more opportunities to swim with sea creatures later in the week!
There's so much more to share about Zanzibar that I'll have to do so in another post!
A few more random photos from Stonetown:
No comments:
Post a Comment