Week 08: Lost Soles and Found Stories

kathleenglass1
Sep 8
4 min read

Closing chapters with ocean breezes and heartfelt farewells

This week featured a lot of travel and a lot of fun. As a reward for our hard work and to capitalize on our time here, we built in a few days of “play” to compensate for our hard work. On Saturday morning, we packed up for our holiday and checked our large luggage to be stowed at the hotel while we went to Zanzibar. Erick had recently arrived from Iringa and brought us our bags to store. We then went to Saifee hospital to visit our friend Timo who was going for physical therapy after his accident (see week 5). We were so glad to see him well enough to walk on crutches and said our good byes before his appointment. We then went with Erick to our friend Hussein’s coffee shop in Masaki to eat lunch and check the place out. Erick is building his coffee shop with the help of Hussein and wanted to see some models of what Hidden cafe might look like. After a delicious lunch, we headed back to Gallivanters where Erick was staying and hung out with him there briefly before our driver met us to bring us to the ferry station. It is ironic that Erick, who owns Hidden Valley, the hostel where we lived for 2 months, stays at Gallivanters, the hostel in Dar that we stay at too.

1) Visiting Timo at the hospital in Dar 2) Coffee at Hussein's shop 3) Us with Erick at Gallivanters

Soon enough we were on our way to be met with…the opposite of the crush of humanity, perhaps the desert of humanity at the ferry terminal where you could hear a pin drop. There was really not any mass of people going through security and we felt confident about our choice to take the afternoon ferry. Oh boy were we surprised to find the crush of humanity waiting for us upon deboarding the ship. We were crushed and tossed about in the crowd as everyone pushed forward to get through customs, getting their passport stamped and then to the final mandatory security check. Upon emerging from the crush into a sea of clingy porters, we fought them off and continued our journey into the heart of Stone Town to our hotel.

We were pretty pooped by the end of this day but had enough in us to go out for dinner at an Indian restaurant we ate at last year. During dinner we made plans to travel to the east coast of the island to see a friend.

1-9) Images of Jumbiani Beach on the island of Unguja (the main island of Zanzibar)

After one of the best breakfasts of our trip, we hopped in our private taxi to drive the hour to Paje beach to see Maria and Hussein. While en route, we found out that their “free soul” spirit had guided them to leave Paje and go to the spice farm then head back to the mainland, destroying our plans. We pivoted and did some hasty research, finding that Jumbiani beach was the place for us. Our driver dropped us at a quiet beach resort where we had some spice coffee, enjoyed the view of the ocean and decided to take a wander down the beach. As Lucy and I have had months to talk about anything and everything, our conversations have turned to reflections, reviewing the trip and processing our feelings. As we strolled down the beach, Lucy often told off local entrepreneurs that we didn’t need their services with “sihitaji hela”. When multiple people said “I don’t understand you” in clear English, we revisited Lucy’s words and realized she had been saying “I don’t need money”, which was never an offer in the first place. Anyway, we wandered down the beach and found ourselves at a hostel called “Lost Soles” where we enjoyed lunch and returned down the beach, walking out on the sandbar. I decided to take a quick dip betwixt kite surfers and realized that the tide was coming in rapidly. As we walked back, the water chased us in and soon we were having another cup of coffee on the hotel patio watching the water rush ashore. We then headed back across the island, took a brief siesta and recalibrated for an evening in Forodhani where we got sugarcane juice and watched the night market wake up just as the sunset over the Mozambique Channel. We concluded our night with some more Indian food and woke up the next day ready to explore Stonetown and get the rest of the gifts on our list.

1-9) Stone Town Sites

On our last day in Zanzibar, we coffee shop-hopped, enjoying many delicious drinks and chronicling our time in our personal journals before getting the chance to fly back to the mainland on a 20 minute flight, avoiding the chaos that is the ferry ride from Zanzibar to Dar. The flight was quick, painless, and cost less than a puke-worthy ferry ticket!

1-9) The cats of Stone Town!!

1-9) The journey from Zanzibar and the last hours of our Tanzanian summer!

On our final day, we spent time with Soloman, visiting in Dar and met up with the study abroad group at Slipway to share stories and say our goodbyes. We also spent few minutes packing our stuff up knowing we were just going to unpack it all once we arrived safely at our homes. The goal was to make it fit and under the weight limit. Easy!

1-9) Travel home!

We then started our lengthy journey home, going from Dar es Salaam to Amsterdam, conquering customs in Detroit and finally being met with an appropriate welcome once in Tampa. My roommate and best friend picked us up from the Tampa airport with her windows decorated to welcome us back to the good old USA. It took Lucy 29 hours to get home and it took me another 8 between driving and 2 more flights to make it to Syracuse in 37 hours!