Kilimanjaro Marathon 2007

I ran 21.1 km (or 13.2 miles) in the Kilimanjaro Marathon this year, along with over 500 others from all over the globe. It was pretty cool. Felt like I was somewhere different...Moshi completely changed for those few days. It was a beautiful course, right underneath Kili through coffee farms and banana plantations. And a good race, considering I had just returned from ultimate laziness on Zanzibar 2 days beforehand. My time was 2:15:56 -- not too shabby, eh, LaRae?! I got a t-shirt (lame compared to the ones for the other races) and a shiny medal. Yay.

First pic is me with my buddies Stigidi and Kassim (from WOY) selling tshirts. The second, the start/finish line.

Zanz pictures

1. me, rachel, and aleya

2. the beach where we stayed

3. the girls by the glow of a beach bonfire

4. smellin' some spices

5. the storm

Zanzibar

Dr. David Livingstone really said it best: “This is the finest place I have known in all of Africa…An illusive place where nothing is as it seems. I am mesmerized…” Pulling into the harbor, I knew right away that this place was going to get me; I was immediately enchanted.

Aleya, Rachel, and I had boarded the bus for Dar-es-Salaam the morning before. It was a long, hot ride from Moshi, with one pit stop along the 8-hour route and a horribly depressing Tanzanian movie playing at an unnecessary level of volume. I was unimpressed with this ‘luxury coach.’ Apparently, ‘luxury’ here means no air conditioning and a roach problem. But we did get a free soda and candy…

We found our hotel – a basic backpacker’s place down a very sketchy alley, but conveniently close to the bus station and the ferry port. Baba Mageni (the father of my Tanzanian family in Moshi, who lives and works in Dar) met us there and, at the insistence of Mama, helped us purchase our ferry tickets for the next morning (we finally got to put our Temporary Residence Permits to use and were allowed to pay the Tanzanian price!) and then accompanied us to the airport. Miss Elizabeth Heitkemper, one of my very best friends, was flying in to spend a couple weeks with me and see some of this beautiful country. I was so excited to see her – we have been dreaming of going to Zanzibar ever since we watched the PBS “Africa” series our last year of college (an excellent series, by the way; I highly recommend it).

The next morning, we got up early, ate a very basic (but included!) breakfast, roamed around the neighborhood for a bit, paid Tanzanian price for our hotel (yes!), and headed out to catch our ferry. The ferry proceeded to be a semi-miserable experience. We had been told the slow ferry would take about 3 hours to reach Zanzibar. This is what we thought we had bought tickets for, but we soon realized after boarding that this was more of a cargo boat than a passenger ferry. There were passengers, and they all seemed prepared for the 7-hour (not 3) passage, but the primary concern of this particular vessel was stacks of mattresses, countless sacks of maize and other foodstuffs, a few vehicles, and even some animals. We’re still not sure whether we were intentionally ripped off, or just grossly misinformed, but in any case, we were not quite prepared for it. There was little food, Beth got sea sick, and we had to nap sitting up, as the Tanzanians had claimed all the lying down room before we realized what was going on. We drifted into Stone Town as the sun was setting – not a great time to be arriving in a new place -- made it through immigration (even though Zanzibar is part of Tanzania), found a taxi, and headed across the island to the east coast. An hour’s drive to a little place called Paje beach.

We stayed at Paje for 5 blissful days of doing nothing but soakin’ it up. It was perfection. White sand beaches, palm trees, turquoise crystal-clear water, dhows everywhere, local fishermen and seaweed farmers, tons of sun. Too much sun; it’s a little intense. Our first night, I passed out twice at dinner from severe dehydration and heat exhaustion, scaring the girls to death and evidently causing quite a commotion in the restaurant (for days afterward, I had strangers approaching me to ask if I was feeling better). The Italian owner saw me, came over with a bottle of water, and told the girls, “She needs water, seen this 100 times, just keep her drinking.” It’s a funny thing, being half-conscious. You can hear what’s being said, but can’t respond. I just remember thinking, ‘oh, thank God, I’m just dehydrated.’ It’s a bit concerning to come to and hear you’ve just passed out twice, and to not know what the hell is wrong with you. That was it, though. Three liters of water later, I was feelin’ much better.

I could easily have never left Paje. The ocean there is amazing. Water so warm, it’s like bath water, and unbelievably clear. The sand is perfect, so fine and soft – the kind that gets all over you, like you’ve been dusted with powder. Dry, it’s almost the consistency of flour, and wet, it’s like ice cream, if you can imagine that. One morning, we took a dhow out snorkeling (which took a while because we picked the one day without wind), and we saw some beautiful fish, the craziest starfish I’ve ever seen, and we caught 3 octopi and a blowfish! Well, we watched our guide, ‘Mr. Cool’, catch them, and then got to tote them back to the boat. And later, we got to eat them. Beth enthusiastically offered to help Mr. Cool beat the octopi with a stick (to tenderize them) after we returned to shore, and I think he was charmed (to say the least…). That day at lunch, we were surprised with blowfish soup, and that night, we were invited to Mr. Cool’s place for pweza (octopus) in coconut sauce and chapatti. Oh my God, it was heaven. And surprisingly tender, thanks to Beth’s excellent pulverizing technique.

When we weren’t surrendering ourselves to ultimate relaxation on the beach or swimming in the ocean, we spent our time watching a local soccer game (the culmination of Beth and my dreams about being in Zanzibar…watch the series, you’ll know what I’m talking about), getting henna tattoos, exploring the coral forest and watching red colobus monkeys swing through the trees, or sitting around a beach bonfire, listening to the local boys drum and sing, and dancing under the stars. It was great, and so very beautifully Tanzanian.

We, somewhat reluctantly, said goodbye to Paje, and headed back to Stone Town. Immediately upon arriving, we realized that the day and a half we had allowed ourselves was not going to do it justice. We decided to forfeit the day we had planned to spend exploring Dar in order to spend as much time there as possible – we’d take the late boat back (no worries, the speed boat takes a mere 2 hours).

As the Rough Guide to Tanzania puts it, “Above all, Stone Town is a cosmopolitan city, its ability to absorb and blend outside influences and cultures discernible in the faces of its inhabitants: African, Indian, Arabian, European, and every possible combination in between. It’s a place of contrasts: in the harbor, wooden dhows bob up and down beside modern hydrofoil ferries; women in black buibui veils chat on mobile phones, with kids dressed in baseball caps in tow; and Internet cafes offer broadband access from glorious old mansions with crumbling facades. Yet somehow everything, even the tourists, seems to fit.”

It’s completely enchanting, the fusion of cultures and influences, modernity and antiquity. Narrow, cobblestone streets, crumbling buildings with elaborately carved Persian doors, mosques rising out of the colonial European facade as constant reminders that this is definitely not Europe. The majestic-looking dhows sailing on the horizon, their huge cloth sails billowing in the wind (looking strong despite their simple, hand-carved construction), returning fishermen to land as they have done now for centuries. There are reminders of the slave trade everywhere and the wealth that it brought to the island. We visited the site of the former slave market – the world’s last – where 20,000 slaves were traded from Central and East Africa each year. We also stopped at a cave where slaves were kept and continued to be traded during the 30 years after abolition (1873). Disturbing, to say the least.

On our first night in Stone Town, we witnessed – no, experienced – a remarkable natural event. As we were getting ready to enjoy an incredible meal at Mercury’s Restaurant (as in Freddie Mercury of Queen – he was born on Zanzibar and they are very proud), the lightening in the distance quickly developed into a full-blown storm right on top of us. It was intense – things blowing all over the places, glasses knocked off tables, sheets of rain being thrown against the cloth curtains they put down to shield us from the storm. Some people looked a little concerned, but the whole thing was excellent dinner entertainment. We just crowded around a dry table with an Italian couple, held our plates in our laps, and enjoyed the show. It lasted a good hour and a half. Extremely amusing, watching all the chaos. A very cool storm; would have been a little scary had it gotten any worse.

In sum, Zanzibar is amazing. I almost did not leave. I was pretty close to never going back to Moshi, or anywhere else for that matter. It is the kind of place where you go, find pure bliss, and never return. It’s really that good. I fell quickly and deeply in love with Zanzibar, trying to come up with ways to stay and live there forever. But, I grudgingly shook myself back into reality; I had a race to get back for.