Or Hakuna Shida? I think pretty much everyone has heard of Hakuna Matata, largely brought into the English vocabulary via the Lion King but I bet fewer have heard of Hakuda Shida. Its a new word I learned in Kiswahili and essentially means the same as Hakuna Matata = “no problem” or “no worries”. It also makes you sound slightly more down with the locals, so I’ve been pulling it out of the bag a few times just to sound knowledgeable, and culturally astute! They speak Kiswahili here which is a derivative of Swahili, spoken in Kenya.
Its been a very busy few days, so I’ve finally time to sit down and write this blog! Day one was epic, exploring Stone Town on my tod, but the continuous offers of help and tour guiding got a bit exhausting, so I felt I needed to shake things up on day 2. I also got horribly lost late in the evening on the first night, resulting in my needing to bite the bullet and turn on my GPS/roaming services to find my way via the alleys, back to my hotel. Cute a rather unwanted O2 bill when I return…
There is so much you can do from Stone Town – Zanzibar really has a mix of everything, from nature to culture to beaches so I’m really spoiled for choice. It used to belong to the Sultanate of Oman, and as such, the Arab influences are still prevalent, a real cultural mix.
Day 2 saw me set an early alarm, and join a trip out to the nearby Change Island (Prison Island). The island was formerly owned by an Arab and used for the confinement of refractory slaves but no prisoners were ever housed here instead the island became a quarantine station for yellow fever epidemics. Its a beautiful boat ride from Stone Town (if a little turbulent!) and has a Turtle Sanctuary with a large number of Aldabra giant Tortoises who sadly, are currently considered vulnerable and therefore feature on the IUCN Red List. The turtle sanctuary on the island is a dedicated foundation which looks after the tortoises’ welfare. One of the tortoises is 194 years old, so it was incredible so pay him a visit. They are super tame, meaning that you can touch them, feed them and generally get some cracking photos with them without being overly intrusive. I’m always skeptical about these things as across the world there are so many ‘fake’ animal sanctuaries, but on this occasion, the desire to preserve the species for years to come seems legitimate.
After a tour around Prison Island, we then took the boat over to Nakupemba Beach. Nakupenda means “I love you” in Swahili. It’s a beautiful stretch of sand which you can only access in low tide, as when the tide is high, its completely covered. There was only a handful of people on it when we arrived, so we went straight out snorkelling, whilst the fabulous boat crew lit the BBQ and cooked up a fresh seafood lunch (meat for me of course). Lunch consisted of jumbo prawns, squid and octopus which for seafood lovers, I can only imagine was paradise! Especially accompanied by the chilled white wine they were also serving generously!
Upon heading back to the mainland, I took a detour to see where Freddie Mercury was born for a few obligatory photos, then headed back to find my new hotel in preparation for joining the rest of the group on the overland expedition. There was only a few of us this evening, as the rest of the group are joining us tomorrow as they’ve been doing the Nairobi to Stone Town prior leg of the tour. The beauty of Dragoman is you can literally pick up the itinerary in different places, so in each major changeover location, people leave and new people join meaning you get an injection of fresh blood (and sometimes naivety) in equal measure!
Tonight we did a quick walk around of Stone Town, before heading to the night market for dinner. I actually went to the night market the previous evening when I was on my own, but I didn’t end up eating as I was being pulled in all directions by the locals and it all got a bit overwhelming. In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t as Daniel our guide was super helpful in telling us what not to touch. He recommended three local delicacies to try (cue my joy when realising none of it was seafood based – hurrah!). These were Shawarma (which I think many of you will know as its widely available all over the UK), Zanzibar mix (grilled beef skewers, falafel and Irish potatoes) covered in a locally made sauce, and Zanzibar pizza, which is essentially a crepe filled with either a sweet or savoury filling of your choice. I went for the shawarma, followed by a sweet Zanzibar pizza for dessert (think banana, cinnamon and honey) which was delicious. The food was excellent, and a great introduction to East Africa!
We ended the evening with a few drinks in a local rooftop bar which a perfect end to my first accompanied day.
Thats it for now, will write again shortly!
Luce x
Finding Freedom 