Consider me thoroughly unwound

What will I do when I can no longer buy a mango the size of my face on my walk home? The thought plagues me. A few more backlogged entries:

So when we last saw our heroine, she was heading north in the back of a hired Hiace Toyota minivan, wind blowing in her hair. It’s a long, winding road up to Kendwa beach along the coastline, with spectacularly blue water to your left and very jungley-looking foliage to your right, interspersed with the usual little shops and shacks and mobile fruit stands that line tourist-traveled streets all over Tanzania. Quite a dramatic change from the dry Dodoma interior. (If dust were valuable, Dodomans would live like kings.)

Travel was a little slow, partly due to the road conditions, but more due to the series of “roadblocks” set up along our drive. About half a dozen times over the course of our 40-minute drive we were waved to a stop by uniformed polisi, who sauntered over to casually chat with our driver in Swahili, suggesting that perhaps he’d like to donate a few dollars to the officer in order to guarantee our approved passage into the northern part of the island. One guy was particularly blunt about his bribe demands, beginning the conversation with an overt “Nipe changu” – “Give me what’s mine.” Apparently this is par for the course in a lot of parts of Tanzania: policemen place barriers in the middle of the big roads to slow traffic and indirectly demand money from any vehicle that looks like it might have shillings to spare. Drivers can either pay or agree to pay on the return trip; outright refusal eventually leads to license revocations or traffic citations for one of the many road violations Tanzanian drivers are always committing. I wondered if we should pay our driver extra in order to cover his “tolls” for getting out to Kendwa, but it occurred to me that this is not an unexpected phenomenon for him – bribes were already figured into his asking price. I’m pretty sure the whole “tip” system would make me crazy if I drove a car here (that is, if my decision to drive a car in Tanzania weren’t already casting aspersions on my sanity).

If my and Victor’s action-packed days in the interior were episodes of “24”, our time at Kendwa was straight out of “Teletubbies”. Laziness abounded. We napped in the shade of huts, pretended to read Important Non-Fiction Books before falling asleep again, played Frisbee, swam, and generally frolicked around the gorgeous beach. The biggest setback of the day involved our unsuccessful search for ice cream bars. (The humanity.) Everything comes at American prices on Tanzania, which is a bit shocking, but the whole place is so goshdarn pretty you’re willing to forgive it. Oh, you cheeky Zanzibar, you say, forking over the price equivalent of four Dar es Salaam meals for one small bowl of coconut pumpkin soup.

Because the scenery itself on the northern Zanzibari beaches is almost a cliché. The sand is perfectly white and very fine, making your feet look as if you’ve been dancing in flour when you finally return indoors. The water matches that “cerulean” Crayola crayon exactly (a favorite of mine as a kid), and as deep as we swam out, we were always able to see clearly to the bottom. The only thing assuring me that I wasn’t in a Corona advertisement was the presence of a) amazing foot-long sea urchins that washed ashore and b) an energetic pack of Maasai teenagers strolling up and down the beach in full traditional clothing (except, of course, for the ultrahip pairs of sunglasses they were all sporting). Every so often they’d break into jumping contests; apparently Maasai men like to compete by see how high they can bounce into the air, no running start, legs perfectly straight. It looked like fun.

In a foolish move Sunday morning, I left my trusty, ever-so-vulnerable flipflops alone on the sand while I wandered up the shoreline, trying out the various “Scene” features on my camera. By the time I returned they were long gone. So that was dumb. Pole sana. But perhaps I was just subconsciously looking for an excuse to buy a pair of the pretty beaded sandals all the women here seem to have. Back in Stone Town, before my return ferry, I managed to find the single pair in town that fit my big feet. (I’m a size 43 here, it turns out. Seems enormous.) The beading is a little wonky on one shoe, but I figured that was just a bonus point for haggling. My feet haven’t felt this pretty in quite a while.

My ferry back had billed itself as the “Sea Express” and apparently took its 6 PM arrival time very seriously – we were flying. Big, choppy waves did not deter our captain in the slightest. By about 30 minutes into our journey, the whole economy passenger class was doing that half-gasp, half-laugh, half-scream thing usually reserved for rollercoasters. (Quiet, you. I can have as many halves as I want.) I had a great time.

So Zanzibar totals: + 1 bathing suit, -1 pair of sandals, +1 pair of sandals, + 1 very relaxing weekend. A lovely way to spend July 4^th. I shall return to the office rested and ready to get cracking on my interview data.