Stayed: Tanzania: Zanzibar (Stonetown, Jambiani), Dar Es Salaam (Oyster Bay) Duration/When: Nov 22nd – Dec 1st, During the Thanksgiving break
Good For: Whatever kind of time you’re trying to have
If you’ve read my post then by now you know I’m not one to pass on an opportunity to visit a new place. Especially if said place is with a local. Fortunately for me, all of my friends are from places outside of New York so the list of options continues to grow. Awhile ago I had asked a good friend of mine, from Tanzania, when she’d be going back home to visit and that I’d like to join her when that happen, apparently I wasn’t the only one in her world who shared those sentiments. With that Nafisa started planning a group trip back to her home country. That group ended up being a total of 9 people, acquaintances, strangers, friends.
I’ve never been on a group trip that I either didn’t plan myself or didn’t know all parties involved. So in full transparency I was a bit nervous about it. I couldn’t gauge the vibes well enough from the group chats and leading up to the trip I was in a weird space and felt very detached from it. Two weeks later, and this trip shaped up to be one of my best trips to date, well organized, and I may have some new travel buddies. For that, thank you Fisa ❤
The Stay
The Trip began in Stonetown, the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar island. I, along with 2 others came a day ahead of the others. For that day we stayed at an airbnb not too far from the hotel we had booked for the rest of our time there. The airbnb was nice and basic not too much to go into there, but I would say if you were to go the airbnb 
way try to get one located next to a landmark so that you could more easily remember how to get to it. The streets are very narrow and intertwined, there aren’t really any street signs and google maps wouldn’t particularly give you the best directions, incorporating in-blocks. So for ease I’d suggest staying next to somewhere identifiable.
For the rest of our time in Stonetown we stayed at Dhow Palace, located extremely central, everything was about a 10-15minute walk and it was right on a main road. I enjoyed Stonetown because of its historical nature. We were taught a lot about the history of Zanzibar and Tanzania but were really able to see the different influences (Arabic, African, Indian, and 
Portuguese) through the food, culture, and architecture. I thought it was beautiful and a nice balance between a busy island city and calm beach town.
Then we traveled south-east of the island and stayed at Raha Lodge in Jambiani. This was probably my favorite accommodation. It was a spacious private villa, 2 floors,private pool, beach as our backyard, big
terrace spaces and common areas. Also breakfast was freshly prepared for our hungover mornings. This location part of the trip was the calmest. It was calm, peaceful and relaxing. It was during this leg of the trip that I had a moment of “I DESERVE THIS”. Jambiani was the more naturalist part of the trip. It was here we spent most of our time at beaches, going to the forest, and playing with alllll animals. I’ll go more into this in excursions.
3rd leg of the trip was back on the mainland in Dar Es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania and East Africa. We stayed at Azure Villa in Oyster Bay. This leg of the trip 
our fine-tuned itinerary got a little relaxed and our plans got a bit shuffled. Traveling places was a bit different, unlike in Zanzibar, we didn’t have our own driver but we now had access to uber! (which had its advantages and disadvantages). Also being in a major city and centralized area, most places we wanted to go to were very close to where we were staying so we didn’t venture off much from our area.
The Food
The food was definitely a highlight of the trip, the food was soooo good and so fresh, especially the seafood. It became a joke that I had octopus everyday… but I did, and wish I had more of it. Meals were very inexpensive ranging anywhere from $12-$20 and these were full meals, appetizers, drinks, entrees, sides, more drinks. The only down side to eating was the wait time. BE PREPARED TO WAIT about an hour before getting ANY food, (maybe 30minutes for the appetizer). We waited 2 hours once. TWO HOURS for our food to be prepared (granted that was 1 place in Dar, and that whole experience was just a no but still). My recommendation would be to not wait till you’re starving to eat.
On our tour of Stonetown we went through the food markets during the day, a fav for me, I love seeing local markets everywhere I go. A highlight from Stonetown was that we were able to catch dinner at the Forodhani Gardens Night Market. Along their Seawalk were tons of chefs lined up with different but similar grills filled with local food and drinks. Among other things, I was able to get an authentic Zanzibar Pizza. Which was quite filling and very tasty. I’m glad I forced myself to have it although I was stuffed from our dinner just before.
As part of our Spice Tour, we were prepared a fresh lunch, served family style, super delish, if you ask me what food we had I wouldn’t be able to tell you but super delish.
On our last day in Zanzibar we made several stops to different beaches, taking scenery in, we stopped in at Mnana Bungalows for lunch.
In Dar Es Salaam, we went to a really good Thai-fusion restaurant one night, otherwise we ate at this one bar Samaki Samaki, some British restaurant, and KFC (clearly by this point of the trip we weren’t trying lol).
The Club Scene
There were only three of us that first Saturday in Stonetown, so of course we weren’t going to pass on the “best” night out. We started off by going to a popular club/lounge called 6degrees mad fun. There were a bunch of little dance crews, double shots equaled out to $6, and vibes were lighthearted and fun, definitely my kind of place. The we followed the new homies to the party-after-party (after-hours spot) Komba nightclub, pretty tipsy but I really enjoyed this spot. The music was a good mix of old hip-hop and afrobeats, it was packed and a pretty large space. Outside was a huge empty swimming-pool area, a few pool tables, and grilling going on. We stayed there literally till the roosters crowed. Great first night.
Second night, most of the group joined us. Being it was Sunday in a very Muslim area there weren’t many options for nightlife. We had the options of going to 6degrees or Komba both places we went the night before, but to our surprise the bar across from 6degrees, ”
Tatu” was blasting dancehall, definitely our speed! So after a pregame we headed there and it was really fun. We came through squad deep, saw some of the same dance crews from the night before, and genuinely just had a good time. The music for the most part was good, of course it had its little sprinkle of FloRida lol but the crowd was fun.
Jambiana, was mostly us turning up at our villa. They had beach bars along the coast near our villa. We went to the bar next to us, the Blue Reef,every night to eat and drink then back to crib to play games, do dares, you know – regular vacation group trip deserted island type of fun. Whatever that actually means 🙂
In Dar Es Salaam, we had a bit more of a fine tuned schedule and more specific recommendations. Our first night we went to Maison Nightclub on a Wednesday night which I believe was their first Wednesday night open so it was pretty dead but we had a good time with ourselves per usual. Pretty much every day before going out we pre-gamed at Samaki Samaki , a restaurant/bar that has pretty good drink prices and food and good music playing.
The BIG party event we looked forward to while in Dar was the Burna Boy Concert ! At the Next Door Arena. After some last minute adjustments we ended up getting hotel rooms across the street from the arena which worked out perfectly for our last big night. We got VIP tickets, ended up meeting promotors last minutes and scoring positions front and center and had and amazing night. The first 3 of us who got there before the rest got to see the whole concert, but during the time we had all together it was a great night. One of the bigger clubs in Dar, and the after party to the Burner Boy concert was Element, but unfortunately we did not make it. From what I saw from the outside it looked lit though.
Excursions
We started our first full day as a group in Stonetown, after regrouping, with a historical walking tour with private guide Ally Jape. He gave us an in-depth explanation about the different cultural influences of the island and how that came to be. A history that I had no idea of prior. Exploring how that history influenced language, architecture, religion, art, and finally how it ended up being reflected on their flag to their colors and the line placements. The tour concluded at the Christ Church Cathedral and Former Slave Market Site, home of the East African Slave Trade Exhibit.
En route to our next location, Jambiana, we went to the Zanzibar Spice farm where we were able to do a tour and then toured the Jozani Monkey Forest. Both the farm and forest were gorgeous. Better I show you, then tell you…
While on this side of the island we had a day to take advantage of the beautiful beaches. We did snorkeling at Mnemba Island, cave exploring at Tamara Caves, and swimming/feeding turtles at the Turtle Aquarium.
En route to the airport to fly back to the main land we spent the long day merely site seeing. Stopping into the areas along the way and giving treats to the kids. We stopped in at Kae Beach, the sand was fine and super white almost like powder. There we mostly relaxed. Honorable mention to “The Rock” restaurant, which we didn’t eat at but went to view. This restaurant is built on a rock, in the ocean a boat is needed to reach it from shore. Super dope concept.
In Dar Es Salaam, Nafisa was able to organize with a local orphanage “Bahati Trust“, and in a combined effort we were all able to cover health insurance for the 26 children in the orphanage for the year. In Dar we also got to visit their market place and support Nafisas aunts store which was a great addition.
All in all, this was a great trip with a great group. We have inside jokes that we still mention to this day. We sporadically talk in our groupchat. We make an effort to see one another when we’re in each others cities. It sounds cheesy as fuck but we started out as a group of practical strangers and now are really good friends; and for that we’ll always have Tanzania. I fell in love with Zanzibar, and would easily make that a regular trip.
anywherebutthereblog 