Zanzibar Island. (The Story told)

  Paje By Night, Tanzania
Saturday, November 18, 2006

So, every one started congregating on Rhett's house in Johannesburg in the few days leading up to the trip. Myself and my Cousin (Ryan), being from Queenstown, decided to go up early to get some partying in.
We headed to Manhattan's on the friday night, where we met up with Marc, Rory, Celest, Jess, Valdette, John and Kath. It was a pretty big night, and we were grateful for the Toot and Scoot guy (who looked like he was on some sort of hard-core drugs) who came and fetched us with his Minnie Me bike which he put in the boot and then drove us home.
We Woke up with Hangovers...

After all the Lads arrived at Rhett's house, we finally headed off to the airport and beyond. I was almost not allowed to go, cause i had forgotten to check on the expiry date on my passport (which expired in 1 and 1/2 months!) Fortunately, the customs in Zanzibar would turn out to not really care, and didn't notice.-close one...
Bryan was the 1st to fall victim to the Nyathi rule (drinking with the right hand)- right at the beginning of the trip - still in the airport, and once on the plane, we all made good use of the Free Kilimanjaro and gin on the flight, arriving in Zanzibar in high spirits. Our guides picked us up at the airport in Stone Town, and drove us across the island to Paje. Our first experience of the driving was something to be appreciated, with much hooting, flashing of lights and swerving around bicycles, scooters, cattle and chickens. I was pretty chuffed to just be alive, and amazed that there were no other casualties from the trip. All the way, the co-driver was gesticulating and shouting arb facts over his shoulder (about white and black dolphins, and the population size of Zanzibar etc.). Arriving at Paje, we settled in and had a long nights party - something our livers would become accustomed to...
We were divided up into pairs, cause the rooms were HUGE double rooms. Marc and i were paired up, and i was the unfortunate fellow who had to put up with his unstoppable snoring...
Very soon, we became mates with Marko, the owner of the place, and he supplied us with much entertainment, and some useful facts about where to get things and what not to do.
Basically, we spent the next day or 2 lazing on the beach during the day, and practicing our sport of excellence - Hacky-sack - at which we got steadily worse. I think it had something to do with the amount of alcohol consumed...
On, I think, our 3rd night there, we met up with 2 girls who were staying at Paje as well, and became mates with them. Now i must say, they were pretty cool, and put up with 10 savages pretty well. Mind you, i'm sure they didn't mind being with 10 guys THAT much...
The next day, we had planned to hire motorbikes and ride across the island to the north western end, and see what lay install for us there, Dani and Kate (the 2 girls) opted to come with - this i must say was a show of extreme bravery, as i would never get on the back of a motorbike with some random bloke, who i had only met the night before, and who had just BOUGHT his license from a local chap at the bike shop... Anyway, we congregated together on the morning in question, all wearing a slight hangover, and a dodgy helmet, and picked up our bikes-XR250R honda's. At this point, i realised that we were in for an interesting time - that came as an epiphany when Rory, Glen and Marc all asked the general question... "what is this lever for" - pointing to the clutch or brake lever. On some vague questioning, i discovered that neither of them had EVER ridden a motorbike before...fun. So, in the spirit of things, we gave them a quick crash (being the operative word here) course, and laughed at them as they tried to negotiate the sandy track on the way to the road.
Dani jumped on the back with me and Kate with Ryan, as we were judged the most competent riders (in fact the only riders (bar Claude who was very competent) that had much experience at all on a bike).


Irony had it that Ryan and Myself were almost the 1st to have an accident, when i stopped on the side of the road, and Ryan almost pancaked his bike(complete with Kate on the back) into the back of mine. I just heard this wailing siren (kate screeming) as they flew between us and some large rocks on my left.....much nervous giggling.



We headed for Stone Town on the west side of the island, and as we got closer, the traffic got worse and worse. With goats, cattle, taxi's, buses and motorbike's to contend with. Rory, Glen and Marc had multiple brushes with death - notable was Marc's near miss when he dropped the clutch and almost rode straight into an oncoming bus.
With this all in mind, we headed north as quickly as possible, and eventually turned towards the coast on a very bad dirt road which ended up at a resort.
All a bit tired, we decided to have lunch and some beers here, and also spent some time swimming around. But we had a long way to go home, so we all got ready to get on our way. We were all reversing our bikes, when i looked behind to see Rory (engine revving) ramming into Marc's leg with his front tire with a look of panic and lack of control on his face. Marc was trying to get out of the way, and shouting vulgar language, and i was shouting at Rory to pull in the clutch. However, in the fray, He decided to rather rev the engine harder, drop the clutch, and, rear wheel spinning in the gravel, front wheel in the air, shoot passed Marc and all the rest of the bikes and ramp a mound of gravel into the bushes. Now, every time i think about it, i have a laugh. Guess you had to be there, but imagine Rory, eyes wide, ramping his bike a meter in the air, and then deciding discretion was the better part of valor, abandoning ship in mid air and adopting the foetal position for impact. Leaving the bike to crash a few meters further into the bushes, he turned around, and serious as all hell, starts asking who it was that pushed him!!! I'd love to see the bloke who could push a bike so it ramps into some bushes-UPHILL... We were all lying on the ground laughing - it'll be burned in my memory till the day i die.
Eventually, we started the trip back to Paje. After filling up with fuel, Rhett convinced Dani that she should ride with him for awhile, and we took a 'shortcut' towards home. We got stopped by some police, but they were pretty stoned, so we talked our way out of any fines. There was some rain around and we rode though some storms. - oh, and the road was wet.... oh, and Rhett's bike had knobbly tires on. All this culminated in Rhett sliding down the road with the bike on it's side when he tried to ride up a ledge in the road at an angle. Fortunately Dani wasn't injured (Rhett maintained that it was because he 'held her off the tar' but i dunno...) Rhett however put a deep hole into his knee which seemed to be oozing joint fluid - nice.

Dani Jumped back on with me....
We made a quick stop off at a dispensary to buy some bandages etc, and proceeded on our way back home. We took a wrong turn, and somehow, Bryan and Ryan were left stranded in a dodgy town when Ryan's chain fell off. While some waited for them, Rhett myself and Brett headed for home to try and get Rhett's wounds sorted.
The so called shortcut ended up leading us through some dodgy muddy areas, but, with the light fading, we eventually pulled into camp with sore asses from all the riding. After stitching Rhett up (under effect of neat whiskey, but no local anaesthetic) we sat around to wait for the others. Eventually (it was now pitch black) the rest arrived in dribs and drabs, and there were some tempers at how people were left behind. However, after celebrations all round, we realised that our intrepid explorer - Marc - was not present...shit. By now i imagined he would be running out of fuel, and in the dark, wasn't sure if he would find the reserve switch. Eventually, as we were trying to organise a rescue vehicle, he coasted in on fumes. He had missed a turn off and had been heading far south.
I was just happy we were all alive... drinks all round.

I think it took a few days to recover from our exploits on the bikes, but soon, we were heading off on the Blue-water-tour. Sandy beaches and a nice seafood lunch awaited us, and spirits were high. We jumped in 2 taxi's, and headed for the south of the island. The taxi i was in was stopped at a road block, and the co-driver hauled out and carted off to the police station with much shouting and gesticulating. Evidently, he had failed to pay a fine earlier in the week, and the cops were grumpy. Never a dull moment. after a while it was all sorted (bribe??) and we were soon all together again. With ominous rain clouds gathering, we had to walk a long way out through shallow water (the tide was out)to our 'boat'. Just when we had gotten there, the heavens opened, and it POURED for about 1/2 hour-nice, with no roof on the boat, us and all our stuff was sopping. We headed for our island getaway anyway, and soon, the sun came out. Then, the engine stopped - i think water had gotten into the fuel.(spare engine, nah, where's your sense of adventure??) We were now drifting in a large expanse of sea, and, being the great swimmer that i am, i was worried. With much shouting, our guides (bless them) managed to get help from a nearby boat, who towed us to the island at the price of some of our fuel - heh heh, little did they know it was booby-trapped with water!!
It was all worth it in the end, cause the island we went to was beautiful, and the snorkeling was great. Also, our guides prepared an awesome seafood meal.

They managed to fix the engine, and the rest of the trip home was uneventful, apart from another huge downpour.

Now, alot of our time on the island was spent lazing around Paje and on the beach in front of the resort. There was a pool table and a fooze-ball table at the resort, and there was alot of games being played all the time. Rhett, being our major of naked-ville, very soon introduced strip pool and fooze-ball. So, as can be imagined, we spent alot of the time running around in our birthday suits. - compliments to the locals, who never once called the cops to arrest us (nakedness is severly frowned on apparently). The extent of our exploits became clear on our day of departure, when one of the local chaps came and asked us if it was our religion to be naked!!! Heh heh.
We also played some drinking games in the form of Rhodesian coinage, which is always a laugh. I think Bryan and Koos came off worst.





One day we were lazing on the beach, drinking malibu and coconut juice - doing the tourist thing, and a guy came and asked us whether we'd like to come to his 'restaurant' for dinner. We could have anything we wanted, and needed to pay a 1/2 deposit now. I was suspicious, but everyone else was fortunately trusting. We ordered king prawns, fish, calamari, chips and beers.The chap went off to stone town to collect all the goodies nice and fresh. Our total came to about 14 US $ each, and it was the best meal of my life. We wandered over to the 'restraint' at about 8 in the evening, which turned out to be the guys house... we were seated on the stoep, and his whole family was involved in cooking and serving etc. They were all really friendly, and as i said, the food was great, and we weren't able to finnish it all there was so much. Happy times.

One of the nights (it all blends into one) Myself, Ryan, Claude, Glen, Bryan and Dani treated ourselves to a night dive off the coast. It was a great experience, and besides me feeling a little sea-sick, and Glen running out of air in 30min, all went according to plan. The guides were great, very safe and informative. Something i'll definately do again.

All in all, a great time was had by all, and it was a holiday i would definately recommend to anyone. The was alot of stuff we didn't get to do (like visiting the spice market etc), but after all, it was a reunion tour, and the most important thing was just catching up with buddies and making some more good times to add to the many already had.
We all headed back to SA, and the flight home was pretty uneventful.
The only thing worth mentioning was my bud Koos, who went to all the trouble of getting his yellow-fever Vaccination in the UK (after loosing his books for Africa one, which was still valid) and then promptly left it behind. So after thinking he had gotten away with it, was stopped on the way into SA, and had to get another vacc - R400 later, we all crossed onto home ground.
Everyone headed off to lead there separate lives.

Thanks to all for a great holiday...till the next one.