To me, Zanzibar is a beacon of light which shines through the core of the Earth, one of the magnets scattered around the globe that keeps pulling at my heartstrings. And so, I return, time and again, to feel that rush of dopamine at the very sight of this blessed isle. It is the last stop on every one of my African adventures, a place to decompress and recharge before heading home. Officially part of Tanzania, Zanzibar and the other Spice Islands have little in common with the mainland. A different rhythm, a languidness unheard of on the continent, permeates the archipelago, historically the hub of Arab traders.
My duet with the island is unique every time: I may be feeding dozens of homeless cats on one visit, touring the island with a dance troupe the next, and helping a young couple with their spontaneous wedding the year after. But some things are deliciously staple: a night or two in Stone Town, a couple of days on Paje beach, then discover somewhere new.
Stone Town, Zanzibar's low-key old capital, always tempts me with the same exotic offerings: white houses painted with mould, streets ruled by narcissistic cats, the tantalising House of Wonders – a palace-museum, forever closed for renovations... Creaking floors of the Tatu Bar shaking to bongo flava, fishermen drying rags on their scruffy boats beached on the foreshore, robed elders eyeing me out with a measured sense of self-importance.
After a dozen visits, I still get lost in the town's maze – it's impossible not to. Leisurely looking for my way out, I run my fingers upon its sweetly shabby, peeling walls and old wooden doors, the mood of joyful decay ruling this place. The smell of rotten fish abruptly turns to sweet ginger and cloves and back to dead rat. I sit in endlessly languid cafes and shop for wooden masks and rolls of brightly printed cloth. No matter how busy the season, locals always find time to greet me with “Jambo, karibu! (Hello, welcome!)” and ear-to-ear smiles.
The first thing I do in Stone Town is head to Forodhani Gardens, a seaside park steaming with food and drink stalls in the evenings, offering mounds of freshly grilled seafood, samosas, cassava, and salads of exotic fruit. I head straight for the urojo stall: a soup as delicious as it is mysterious and impossible to replicate at home. I wash it down with a glass of sugarcane juice squeezed by a man-powered juicing machine as old as the town itself, and a hot cup of spiced tea from Baba Chai, a wizened man as old as the sugarcane juicer.
At sunset, local boys leap from the sea wall, showing off their salto mortales, though ever since meeting the mother of a fourteen-year-old who didn't survive an unfortunate jump, I no longer find the spectacle amusing. Instead, I sit on the wall and catch up on local gossip. Zanzibar is small and everyone minds everyone else's business. Every tourist and local in town is here at the Gardens, and not one thing has changed since the turn of the century. How many places in our raging world have stayed true to themselves for that long?
At night, when the streets are calm and fragrant after the hustle of the day, Stone Town takes on a surreal twist. White owls circle the Old Fort, an Omani-built bastion, in courtship dance. Locals congregate around food carts to eat tiny tubs of yoghurt and drink strong ginger tea.
“I love the life here in Stone Town. We don't sleep here, I don't know why,” muses one of my local friends. Instead of sleep, he and the others exchange gossip on stone benches which stretch along the base of the houses just for that purpose. Inside, these buildings hold three-dimensional puzzles of staircases, sub-levels, and inexplicable corners centred around blackened wells.
While the older Zanzibarians chat, the younger ones dance. I'm usually one of a handful of tourists at Tatu Bar, its three tiny wooden floors groaning and grating every night of the week. A stock of memories of magical nights spent dancing here helps me get through everyday tedium whenever it finds its way into my life. Tatu may be humble, but it runs on the sharp edge of life.
In the morning, the usual suspects nurse hangovers at the Stonetown Coffee House. Next to me are the two German girls who danced up a storm last night with one lucky Stone Town boy. At the back is Zanzibar's Number One party boy with his entourage of ladies from rich corners of the globe. And right here in my usual spot is me, last night a dancing queen, this morning alone and catatonic, an army of cats scratching around my esophagus. Even Zanzibar hangovers are special.
“Five coffees, please, Asante Sana! (Big Thank You!)”
“Karibu Sana! (Big Welcome!)”
Swahili is like music. I'm feeling better already.
Zanzibarians, both men and women, are gorgeous. Some of the most genetically blessed individuals on the planet live here. The winning mix of Arab and African blood means smooth light brown skin and impeccable, delicate features. The vast majority are athletic, with an astonishing number of acrobats per capita. Boys spend their childhood practising stunts on the beach, and many grow up to be worthy of Cirque du Soleil, but end up performing to tiny crowds at mediocre resorts. A Zanzibarian youth can hold five of his friends on his shoulders, do multiple flips in the air from a standing position, spin himself on one arm parallel to the ground, and stand on his head on top of a three-person pyramid without holding on – all for a few bucks and lethargic applause from the beach-bumming crowd. Zanzibar's top dance troupes perform at full-moon parties and the island's best clubs, but still live just above the poverty line and bunk down half a dozen to a room.
It's not Stone Town that propelled the island to international stardom. Most foreigners skip it altogether or hop in on a day trip from their resorts. Well then, more Stone Town for us. Unlike the coastline and azure waters – the other stars of the Zanzibar show – the town is hardly big enough for everyone. Let's keep it safe under the radars.
Of all the island's incredible beaches, the one I can never bear to give a wide berth is Paje. I have a masochistic habit of getting here by dalla-dalla, with thirty-three locals squashed tight in a mistake between a van and a truck, plus four hanging off the back. After leaving Stone Town, I arrive two hours later, a dollar lighter, with a kilo of dust in my hair. Tilting out of the vehicle, I find myself in a dreamlike maze of crushed-coral houses and slender palm trees, amongst women in bright scarves and happy kids tugging me by the skirt singing “Habari ata, Hakuna matata! (Everything's gonna be alright!)” Traditional tarab music fills the perfumed air. Youngsters roll a ball in the dust, elders spread out seaweed to dry, and a clever young girl wants to sell me her ducks.
“We have business here with these ducks. For example, you give money, you take duck. It gives eggs, everything. You want to see?”
Paje beach is as wide as a runway and rarely deep enough for a decent swim. After lying in the shallows – sea-cucumber-style – I give up the water activities in favour of what this coast does to perfection: long walks. Strolling past kitesurfers, sea urchin collectors, and herds of cows, I stop for the world's freshest octopus salad and chats with the friendly Masai.
Yes, the Masai. Wrapped in bright fabric; their necks, ankles and wrists embellished with bead ornaments; their heads adorned with catwalk-worthy hairstyles. Long walking sticks in hand, these slender members of the famous mainland warrior tribe have made a mass exodus to Zanzibar over the past few years. Here to work as security guards, sell handicrafts, and learn every language they can pick up from the tourists, they add colour and vibes to an already-scintillating island. The locals think them savage. I think them stunning. I even found myself infatuated with a Masai at one time. But then I remembered how it didn't go well for Corinne Hoffman, and decided I didn't need my own White Masai saga.
But while the cultural gap with the Masai might be a deep one, many foreigners – women especially – find themselves happily married to Zanzibarians, living on the island full-time and loving life. As my Polish guesthouse owner put it:
“My values are closer to Zanzibarian values than European. You can trust people here and you don't have to be scared. We share everything and we help each other out.”
That I've experienced aplenty. How many times, in a packed dalla-dalla, a stranger offered: “Let me help you, sister!” and held my backpack on their lap for hours on end? How often people I've never met before volunteered to fix my broken bracelets, cut the fruit I was carrying, even wash my muddy feet? All for no reason other than it's nice to be nice?
On the northern tip of Zanzibar are Kendwa and Nungwi, two small beachside villages which I've watched morph from low-key to posh and fashionable at enviable speed. They are sensational places to swim, go sailing at sunset, and take a beach walk from one to the other and back. Unlike Paje, the beach here is narrow and framed by a limestone wall, and at high tide, parts of it disappear altogether.
I can never figure them out, the tides. On one occasion, a harmless beach walk bordered on disaster: faced with a flooded part of the shore, I decided to wait until the tide went out and fell asleep on the sand. I woke up in complete darkness, stuck on a little dry island, water lapping against the limestone all around me. The escape route involved scaling the wall and trespassing into a luxury resort before finding the back road home.
Now, some years later, I find myself stepping on the same rake again. Engrossed in Junot Diaz's This is How you Lose Her – a gift from my Namibia-based Rwandian friend, I walk slowly and stop a few times to sit and read. The ingenuity of the words I'm imbibing and the route they took to end up in my hands have me enthralled. Finally reaching Kendwa, I order a mojito at a beach bar and sit for a couple more hours, reading until it gets dark. Now the tide is in, and it's time to take the boring back road home – except I can't find my shoes. Sustained digging under my table brings up nothing but a couple of beer caps. The bar organises a search party. Nada. I must have left the sandals behind on one of my reading breaks, and by now, they've joined the masses of trash polluting the oceans. No sooner do I have time to grieve my contribution to one of the world's ugliest problems, than I realise there's another pressing issue: the back road is all sharp rocks, and Mother Nature chose the thinnest skin to cover the soles of my feet.
Without a preamble, one of the barmen, Kombo, launches a rescue mission. We walk across the village – I'm in his oversized flip-flops, he barefoot, to the house where his mum lives with his eleven brothers and sisters. Kombo started working as a child when he got tired of seeing the dinner table empty. He did well, and now, at twenty-three, he is the main breadwinner of the family.
The house is steeped in darkness. Kombo fiddles with the electrical box, and lights come on – he's just paid for the next few days of electricity. Now I can see his big family, eyeing me with shy curiosity. Before my new friend takes me back to Nungwi on his rusty motorbike, he suggests we watch his favourite film, The Blue Lagoon. “I've seen it dozens of times, but never till the end 'cause I always fall asleep after seven minutes,” he confesses. Kombo works three jobs and yet still finds time to help disorganised strangers like me.
I always go back to Zanzibar. It has a lot of heart.
Australian-based travel writer Janie Borisov spent the last two decades visiting every country in the world. She is usually found treading some little-known path, taking all the wrong turns, and scribbling in her notebook. When not circling the globe, Janie is working on her first book, Tripping All Over. Follow her adventures on Instagram @janie_traveloid.