I love Zanzibar. So, I’ve only been here maybe five hours, but I just love Zanzibar. And it’s 10:30 at night and still 90 degrees outside and inside—way too hot for sleeping—but I still love Zanzibar. With touts in my face, with mosquitoes buzzing about, with too many tourists, I’m in love with Zanzibar.
Morgan and I are staying at a wonderful place right near the port. It’s off-season so we’re paying $25/night for a relatively palatial room with a really cool bathroom and a balcony overlooking a lush courtyard. And to top it all off, I have a canopied California king size bed, and if properly accompanied, this place could quickly become—as it was described to me—one of the most romantic places on earth. Without the romance, I’ll have to settle for the free breakfast served between 8-10AM.
This hotel rather reminds me of a place where my friend, David Belda, and I stayed in Havana Vieja, only at about a quarter of the price. Morgan suggested that the architecture here is likely from around the same time as that of Havana Vieja since there are certainly some similarities. I’m very excited to explore the city in the daytime hours to see the combination of Indian, Arab, and Swahili cultures coursing through the streets of this picturesque city.
We even had dinner tonight at a place that was very reminiscent of Cuba, only better. It’s a twenty person restaurant on the veranda of some people’s home here, and we were brought dish after dish of local food. Except we were the only two people there. Seems like business for them dropped off a fair amount after the embassy attacks in Dar and Nairobi, as the proprietor suggests that business has not been so good in the last ten years. In any case, the location was delightful, the food was quite tasty—including some of the best dal that I’ve ever had with tomatoes and cardamom—and I loved that the restaurant was in these people’s home. It’s called Sambusa’s Two Tables, and was recommended to me by my semi-food snob friends, David and Tina, who live and eat in San Francisco, but describe it as one of their favorite restaurants on earth.
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