It’s interesting to see the difference between what you have been led to believe and what you find in reality. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the travel business, where many a travel writer or reviewer waxes lyrical about a place which turns out to be anything but.
That may be a tad unfair to journos and reviewers, but I had the phrases “the best of both worlds” and “heaven on earth” ringing in my ears when my wife and I went on honeymoon to Zanzibar recently.
What follows is my reality check.
Touching down on the island’s capital, Stone Town, from bustling Joburg, one cannot help but notice the differences between the two cities (and countries). Zanzibar International Airport is like OR Tambo International in the ’60s – save for a few touches of modern technology such as fingerprint scanners.
The culture (of staff) is different from the here-and-now we’ve so become accustomed to. Snaking queues at immigration control are commonplace and to the locals they are nothing to write home about. Shuffling slowly through the immigration control process, you wonder when the wonders of air conditioning will hit the shores of this beautiful place.
Hakuna matata (no worries). This is the local tourism slogan you hear until it comes out through your ears. After making it through customs, in spite of the sweltering heat, you sigh and grin “hakuna matata”.
The shuttle service to various beach resorts is amazing. The drivers, who also double as porters, greet you with a smile and offer you cold bottled water and damp towels to keep the sweat at bay. Throughout the journey they show you landmarks and give you a brief history thereof. Their South African counterparts can learn a thing or two from these guys.
There seems to be one road rule: there are no rules. However, in the midst of all that, road rage is a foreign concept. I would slap the Dala Dala (the local taxi drivers) silly for doing the things they do on the road. I salute Zanzibarians for keeping their cool.
The last time I saw so much poverty was when I worked in Maputaland on the north coast of KwaZulu-Natal. But the difference here is that people don’t see it as poverty – it’s just a simple life. Our politicians would love having us see it that way. When we finally arrived at our beach resort, we gave the driver a R20 tip and little did we realise that it meant so much to him.
Diepsloot meets Camps Bay. That’s how you can sum up the disparities between the beach resorts in Zanzibar and the local surroundings. The most apt phrase to describe Zanzibar is “the best of one world and the worst of another”.
After about an hour’s drive from the airport you find yourself in a place like Europe minus the crappy weather. This is where the rich and famous play – oblivious to their poor surroundings.
The service here is different. Hakuna matata rings true. The aim is to please although I later learnt from staffers that South Africans are hard to please. We rule the whining roost so much so that management let complaints (from South Africans) slide…
I’m no food fundi nor can I claim to have been to the finest places in the world but I know world-class service when I see it. Pristine beaches on your doorstep, fine cuisine, bottomless cocktails and eager waiters at your beck and call. Never mind the latter’s interesting use of the English language. “You are welcome” is a phrase they use randomly even without you saying “thanks”. At least they say it with a smile.
Our Stone Town tour was an eye-opener. This is where expectation met reality and what a meeting that was. The city has a rich history but romance, I think not. The shuttle dropped us off at the flea market which is sprawling with tourists. Cleanliness is a remote concept. Many grin and bear the unpleasant aroma that the meat market unleashes on tourists’ sanitised nostrils.
The market is probably the closest thing locals have to supermarkets. Everything from cassava, rice to plantains is on sale at the stalls. The fish market is abuzz with buyers bidding for octopus, sword fish, calamari and anything else the sea has to offer.
The most interesting part of the Stone Town tour is the walk-about in the city’s narrow streets which in any other city would be just sidewalks. Pedestrians share this rat-infested space with pets, cyclists, bikers and cars without a care. To tourists who aren’t used to this type of an arrangement, this can be a huge pain in the butt as bikers literally hoot under your bum for you to give way.
It also doesn’t help that there is no clear zoning of residential and business areas. People conduct business where they live and the converse applies. I wondered how the concept of Stone Town’s “romantic streets” was coined.
The relatively relaxed part of town is the Anglican Cathedral precinct which used to be a slave market. Here you meet tourists of all nationalities visiting the church which was built specifically to end the slave trade in the late 1800s.
One of the main attractions is the crucifix made from the tree under which explorer Dr David Livingstone’s heart was buried in Zambia. Livingstone is revered in the country for the role he played in ending slavery. Another attraction is clergyman and human rights activist Bishop Steer’s tomb which is behind the altar. The altar was built where there used to be a tree to which slaves were chained and beaten during auctions. Outside the church are two slave chambers where hundreds of men and women were crammed without food and water for days on end.
Also in the precinct is the island’s first Roman Catholic Church, mosque and a missionary school which used to be a private school. The island apparently also has several private and public universities and colleges but, judging by the lack of infrastructure one would assume university is a generic term also used for what we used to call vocational colleges.
Going back to the resort after seeing the other side of the island you realise how much a fence can separate poverty from opulence and how the poor locals’ closest experience of the good life can just be serving drinks.
There are many other activities such as diving, the spice tour and game drives we could have taken part in, but there’s only so much you can do on honeymoon and you can only stretch the South African rand so far.
At the end of our week-long stay we headed back to the airport where the realities of the Third World stare you in the face. Almost everything, including checking in, is done manually in a shelter that is no different to parking bays in Joburg townhouse complexes. With the number of tourists bringing in foreign currency over the years to the island one would expect facilities to be better. Someone must be eating something under the table. But who are we to judge; we are just on holiday here. - Saturday Star
Source: Saturday Star - Mthunzi Mbatha
