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Italiano (Italian)
It makes me laugh a lot to think that when asked what to do in Zanzibar, someone would answer to eat Italian food. As mentioned earlier, if it were up to me, the visit to Zanzibar would have been shorter. This is despite certain memorable photos like the one featured.
Domestic flight to Zanzibar
The Kilimanjaro airport near Arusha, where we took the airplane to Zanzibar, looks more like a watermelon stand, and we stayed there so long because of a resounding delay due to the following reasons
- Breakdown of the plane and waiting for the arrival of the technician
- arrival of the replacement part (yes, of the airplane, not the washing machine!).
- passage of the president of Tanzania and then everything blocked
The first day was the most enjoyable and worthwhile. Having said that I don’t find the birthplaces of famous people particularly noteworthy (so even that of Freddie Mercurie born there). Due to the delay written earlier, we had to neglect the capital Stone Town a bit but I really enjoyed the tour called the 3 islands, although due to bad weather we saw 2 of them.
The island called Prison Island was used by slave traders as a quarantine collection station, and I found the guide’s display very interesting. Inside there is also a colony with giant tortoises from the Seychelles, which are definitely domesticated.
Then we went to a sand atoll, where it was possible to swim and where we enjoyed a memorable lunch, also because we had to rush it as the atoll was about to be submerged!
What to do in Zanzibar? Little stuff
The remaining days passed fairly lazily although we moved around in various areas. We snorkeled fairly anonymously, I did a couple of walks and read a lot; my companions almost just lay around sunbathing.
The island is hyper-touristic with western-style clubs along the coast and just a few yards inland you find slums and poverty. I liked another excursion to another of the many atolls that disappear at high tide; but more park lunch, as the agency guy had already won us over the first day.
Speaking of lunch, though, it was an authentic one from guests at his home, with mother and wife cooking one of the obviously tastiest chickens I have ever eaten.
Otherwise lunches and dinners with lots of carbonara dishes and pizza around me, but after all, the place had lost its poetry for me already on the first day with the Masai who on the beach, in Italian, proposed me: Diving? Woman? Smoking?
In this regard, I find this issue happened in 2024 emblematic.
Would Ishmael have been bored too? I think so, especially without alcohol.
Home travel Tanzania Photographic safari in Tanzania, that is my first
Previous stop Savannah life, sleeping in a pasture with zebras
Trips taken, travel stories divided by continent
Countries visited in my travel stories
Anecdotes, divided by type in travel narratives
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