Another long day today. For some reason, the only inexpensive and feasible flight back from Kigali required a departure at 3:50 am (yes, in the morning). Because of the timing, I had to leave for the airport at 1:30 am. I ended up just hanging out at the hotel bar Saturday night watching soccer matches and waiting for my time to leave.

As we were taking off from Nairobi on the second leg of my day’s travel, the pilot said we were flying at an altitude of 18,000 feet and that we may be able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro off to one side of the plane. 18,000 feet? That still over 1,000 feet BELOW where I was just a week ago. Amazing. Mt. Kilimanjaro is such a huge piece of geography, I was unable to see it from the plane window because it creates its own weather patterns. Everywhere else, it was fairly clear, but the mountain was shrouded in clouds, so I was never able to get a clear view of it from a distance. That reinforces even more how fortunate I was to be able to summit on such a clear day.

I landed in Dar Es Salaam at 9:30 am, then took a taxi to the ferry terminal where I booked a ticket on the 12:30 pm ferry to Zanzibar.

As the taxi pulled into the port area at the ferry terminal, the atmosphere was one degree short of pure chaos. A large crowd milled about outside the ticketing office. Vendors were selling everything from cashews to soft drinks to t-shirts. Men in orange vests were yelling at the taxi driver and me. I looked over to the taxi driver, and said, “Porters?”, to which he quietly replied, “Yes.”

I had read about these situations. The moment the car trunk is popped these porters reach into the trunk and deputized themselves to handle your bags, walking away toward the ticket office without even asking if you would like to hire them.

I made sure I was wearing my black baseball hat and reflective sport sunglasses to give the appearance of “Don’t mess with me”. As I emerged from the taxi, the driver knew well enough to wait on opening the trunk until I was standing at the back of the cab. Different porters were yelling at me to allow them to take my bags, and I was firmly saying to them, “No thank you! I take my own bags!” After a few exchanges, they realized I was serious and knew what I was doing (joke’s on them, eh?). They backed off, giving me a decent path to the ticket office. They would have to find someone else to take advantage of.

In the end, though, I still ended up paying a porter. As we queued through security (a narrow door into a small room with an X-ray machine and people pushing and shoving to get through), I tried to unload my pockets of all their contents, but the line was shoving to get through the X-ray portal, so I walked through without emptying any pockets, thus activating the metal detector. I was also wary about putting anything unsecured through the X-ray machine as there was a large group of people all reaching for items on the exit end of the X-ray. If I was held up at the X-ray door, I would have never been able to get to my loose stuff.

A security officer told me to go back through and put all my pocket contents on the conveyor belt. As I began to turn around a porter waiting on the other end of the conveyor told the officer that it was my watch that was activating the alarm and that I was OK. The officer gave me a pass.

Of course, by this point my bags were already in the porter’s hands. I decided to reward him for getting me through. 10,000 shillings thank you very much.

Karibu means Welcome in Swahili

Two hours on the ferry, and we docked in Zanzibar. The first establishment outside the ferry terminal is Mercury’s Bar. Mercury, as in Freddie, late of Queen. Turns out Freddie was a native Zanzibarian and this restaurant / nightclub is a lasting tribute to him. His original name was Farrokh Bulsara and he was born steps from where the restaurant is today.

The rooftop breakfast area of the Kiponda Hotel in Zanzibar

I checked into my very modest hotel – talk about being dropped into an old movie – and took a nap after my long day. I was awoken at dusk with the loudspeakers next door calling for evening prayer. Zanzibar is 99% Muslim, so I will be hearing those loudspeakers five times a day. Surreal, cool and exotic. I’ve never been in a predominantly Muslim area before.

Later in the evening, I walked around Stone Town, the old city on Zanzibar. The city is fascinating, a labyrinthine  community with heavy Arab and Indian influences. There was a food bazaar in one of he parks, where I ate some local delicacies.

I’m entering a new phase to my trip. While the past couple of weeks had a degree of structure to them, what with the planned excursions up Kili and into the mountains to track gorillas, I’m now at a point where I will begin to head south after my time here on Zanzi. My itinerary will become more unstructured and fluid as I make my way south on trains and buses. Should be interesting….