Happy Honeymooning Day 8: a Swahili Feast, a Spice Farm, Prison Island, the Old Fort, and the Freddy Mercury Museum

 Monday, March 31st, 2025

11:38 AM

Konokono Resort, Michamvi, Zanzibar

Saturday night, Kenny and I ate at the resort again, and we were treated to a buffet style Swahili dinner. On the grill was kingfish, lamb, and chicken. There was pilau, chicken curry, okra curry, fresh fruit, hibiscus drinks -- a full feast. At some point, I hear a noise -- the noise that many Zanzibari make when they see a monkey. They come up from the beach in a line, ready to give us a show. An MC in a polo shirt explained that the men typically wear red, but they can wear any color and keep their hair long, but women must keep their hair short and wear only blue or blue-purple. There is always an exchange of cows for an engagement, but the more attractive a woman, the more cows she is worth.

Meal with the hibiscus drink.

I don't know if the cow thing is still legit, but it was all part of the show.

Then followed the coolest performance. They did a deep humming thing and then would jump one at a time to see who could jump as high as possible as many times in a row. It really highlighted that most of these men here are really young boys, maybe late teens and early 20s. The jumping was pretty impressive, and the humming was something I couldn't stop paying attention to.

A video would have been better, but the files are all too large.

Then, they had us all come up to dance with them. We danced to a song called Jambo Mwama, which is a way to teach kids and tourists Swahili. We held hands and danced in a circle, and it was the biggest smile I've ever seen on Kenny's face.

After, they sold us some souvenirs. I tried to negotiate, but I realize now that this was the wrong place, and they weren't really willing to do so. I actually felt bad about it later, so I don't think I'm going to do much negotiating. Kenny and I talked about it, and we agreed that they're not exactly trying to scam us out of thousands of dollars, they just want to feed their families.

(Okay, the Jozani Forest one was a scam, but the rest is just them trying to eat).

I think in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, haggling is part of the deal. I'm not sure that's as true down here.

Kenny bought a Maasai tribal outfit.

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked.

"Wear it."
"Where?"

"Around the house. Doing chores. Taking out the trash."

Glad I'm honeymooning with this man, because I am deeply in love with him.

The next day, Haji picked us up for a big tour day. He was in an excellent mood, because today was the last day of fasting, and tonight was his last iftar. He didn't even get upset when we got stopped by the police because they were asking him for money. Tomorrow, he was going to feast all day with his family before picking us up to go see the festivities in Paje.

We stopped at Mr. Kato, where we met our tour guide for the day, Malon. Malon was 24 years old and just a little cutie. He kept asking us questions and having us guess what spice (we were both pretty bad at it).

"Vous comprenez?" he asked at one point.

"Oui, je comprends."
"Vous parlez français?"

"Oui, je parle français."
"Oh, never mind. I will speak English then. My French is not very good."

I thought it was pretty good, especially since it's at least language #3.

Some things we learned about the fruits and spices:

Vanilla is a vine that is originally from Madagascar but was imported here and grows pretty well here.

The vanilla vines.

Jackfruit is the biggest fruit in the world after coconuts, and the jackfruit tree is also used for its wood. The entire jackfruit tree is actually pretty useable.

We tasted some fresh cardamom.

Cacao is actually a fruit, and it's very sweet.

Red bananas are very sweet and very expensive.

Pepper is also a vine, and it requires a support tree to grow.

They grow two different kinds of coffee beans -- arabica, which is Arab and requires a ton of water, and the more local coffee, robusta.

Henna also comes from a tree, as does something called annatto, which used to be used as makeup for women back in the 1940s.

Cinnamon is the "queen of the spices" since you can use the whole tree (and we got to try a cinnamon leaf, which was pretty neat), and cloves are "king of the spices." Most of the cloves are grown on Pemba Island, which is a short boat ride away.

See, we might be in Zanzibar, but Zanzibar actually refers to a group of small islands, the biggest of which is called Unguja. That's the island we're on -- Unguja. It is known for its tourism. Pemba grows cloves and other spices. And, of course, there are other small islands and sandbars nearby -- such as Prison Island (Changuu), which we visited later in the day.

In fact, they call Zanzibar "Chanel No. 0" because of all the vanilla and jasmine and other scents that grow naturally here. But, yes, the ingredients used in Chanel No. 5 also grow in Zanzibar. Obviously, when it was time to buy some soaps and lotions and perfumes, I bought a bunch.

While we were buying, there was another guide selling to a Polish couple, and the guide was straight speaking Polish. He asked us if we spoke English, or French, or German, because those are all languages he can speak fluently.

We watched a kid climb a coconut tree to grab up some coconuts, where we then drank from the coconut itself and ate some of the fruit. Kenny doesn't even like coconut, but again -- fresh from the source and it's amazing. 

They gave us garments made of the local flowers and plants, which is a typical thing to do in a spice farm tour, and then they fed us the most amazing meal of pilau, spiced spinach, grilled kingfish, and curry. We also got some coffee (robusta coffee), which woke us right up.

We then did some more shopping (obviously) because we wanted some of these spices. We got stuff for tea, coffee, and cooking in general. We'll eat pretty well when we get home.

The Spice Farm tour was over, but we had plans to go to Prison Island off the coast of Stone Town and also walk around Stone Town itself. Stone Town is pretty big for a town on an island, with over 700,000 people living there. We got caught in a traffic jam, for which Haji and Malon apologized.

"We get these back home too," we joked.

"It is so busy because tomorrow is Eid al-fitr," Malon explained. "Everyone comes here to buy what they need for the feasting tomorrow. Not usually this busy."

"They need it for the yum-yum," Haji added. That's what he calls meals. Yum-yum. He also always mimics eating the food in case we get confused what he means. "You understand?"

"We understand," we agreed.

We drove through the markets until we got to the coast, where people were coming in from Dar es Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania, for Eid. Haji dropped Malon, Kenny, and me off by some small boats, and we made our way to Prison Island.

At this point, I was very sweaty. It's so hot out, and the rain we were promised at this time has only shown up seriously for one day of our stay, and the rest of the time it's been maybe a little drizzle for a few minutes here or there, or even at night when we're sleeping. I was craving rain at this point.

Cheaper for locals, which I get.

But Prison Island was great! It was once bought by Lloyd Matthew, the British First Minister of Zanzibar, back in 1893 as a prison. However, once the prison was built, it was never used as such. It was used as a quarantine station for yellow fever, and then a tortoise sanctuary. The tortoises on this island are up to 180 years old!

An old cotton loom.

Me being artsy.

Kenny being pensive.

Posing by a tortoises who are a spry 155 years old.

"I want to get strong, have a good chest," Molon told us (mostly Kenny) at one point. 

"I'll give you a regiment," Kenny promised, and Molon was very excited.

"Do you do this exercise?" Molon asked, mimicking a bench press.

"Yes," we both said, but obviously I am not the main draw here in this conversation.

"And the ones separately," Molon continued, mimicking a bicep curl.

"Yes."
"How much?"

"35 pounds," Kenny said.

"15 kilos," I clarified. Molon's eyes went wide.

"Fifteen?! That is... I cannot do that. Fifteen... that is so much."

"Do you know how much he does on the bench press?" I asked Molon, mimicking it. "100 kilos."

"NO!"

"Yes."
"I cannot... 100 kilos. That is so much." He and Kenny continued to talk about weightlifting. I don't think he has access to barbells, so he might only get to do dumbbells, which does change the dynamics of the lift -- never mind, nobody cares.

But another thing Molon told Kenny was that he just wanted to grow his tourism business. However, it's very expensive and difficult to get a website going in Zanzibar. 

"It should only cost $10," Kenny said.

"It is much more expensive than that."

Kenny had an idea, then, which he shared with me after dinner.

We got back to Stone Town, where Molon showed us around the Forodhani, which is an area right on the docks. It was emptier than usual, probably because everyone was preparing for Eid. We walked to the Old Fort, a structure created in the 1600s by the Arabs occupying the island but is now mostly a tourist attraction with lots of places to buy artwork, clothing, and souvenirs. They didn't try to charge us too much, which was nice. I got a dress to wear for the celebrations, and Kenny got another dashiki. Next door, I got a lot of artwork, all hand-painted -- one of them by the man selling to me. Meanwhile, Kenny was getting his hair braided because it was getting difficult to manage. His locks had long since fallen out, and he wanted to keep his hair under control.

That cat had the right idea.

The Old Fort.

This used to be the slave market.

Trying to dry the henna on my arms.

This is also where I learned that Zanzibari people drop the "thousand" when discussing pricing in shillings. So "15 shillings" means "15 thousand shillings," because what could possible cost less than a thousand shillings?

"Vous parlez français?" the seller asked me.
"Oui, je parle français." Always excited to speak French, since I'm surrounded back home by the failure of not learning Spanish.

"Quelle d'autres langues vous parlez?"

"Juste anglais. Et vous?"

"Spanish, Italienne, Arabic, German..."

"Wow!"

"Huit langues."

He speaks eight languages!!

"C'est facil."

"Je ne suis pas d'accord avec toi."

He laughed, I laughed, and I bought a bunch of artwork.

I decided to get henna, and while it was being put on me, the seller spoke with Kenny (after, of course, Kenny bought a Maasai tribal sword).
"Thank you," he said. "Now I can buy a chicken for my family for tomorrow for the celebrations."

We walked through a beautiful area of the Old Fort, now overgrown, which was once the old slave markets. Molon walked us through Stone Town so we could get to the Freddy Mercury Museum, where he started telling us about Freddy Mercury by reading off of his phone. 

"Freddy Mercury was born in 1946..."
"Oh, you don't need to do that," I offered. "We know who he is."

He was just trying to be a good tour guide. Very sweet.

The Freddy Mercury Museum was cool in that it was the house he lived in until he was 8 years old, but beyond that, it was pretty sorely lacking. We learned that he was a talented kid, shy, but always a go-getter. He was successful at everything he tried, a very well-rounded kid. We put together that he grew up wealthy -- when he left Zanzibar at 8 years old for India, he went to school with white kids, so that says something about his family's wealth in the 1950s and 1960s. He returned to Zanzibar after his schooling, but then left again because the UK lost control of Zanzibar.

At this point, they pretty much gloss over the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, which overthrew the British-backed sultan and the mostly Arab government. The Black population outnumbered the Arab (well, Freddy and his family were Parsi) population, but they had much less wealth. Now, only 2 Parsis are left in Zanzibar.

We also never learned how Queen got to be so famous beyond "Freddy Mercury knew he was going to be the best so then he was," and the museum never, as Kenny pointed out, mentioned how he died or why he was so young.

It's a young museum, less than a decade old, so maybe it will grow in the upcoming years. Zanzibar is clearly getting ready to become a force to be reckoned with, as more luxury apartments and resorts are being built.

By this point, it was 5:30, and Haji still had to drive us back and needed to break his fast, so we quickly went back to the car. We walked through narrow streets that were hundreds of years old, through loud food and spice markets where people kept asking us "just to take a look," until we got back to Haji's car.

We had a nice, easy ride back to the resort, where Kenny told me he wanted to host a server for African entrepreneurs, where they could build websites for cheap like we can in the US. If it's $10 to host a website, well -- Molon already made that back in one day with us. It would be easier for tourists as well, since the best deals were ones that we couldn't find online before we got here. Since I'd never been to Africa, let alone Zanzibar, not having anything lined up before we arrived was not something I was interested in, which made it easier for me to get scammed. However, if Kenny can help Zanzibari locals, who for now rely on Instagram and Facebook and Whatsapp, get their tourism websites going, it could help a lot of people.

After dinner, Kenny and I got an amazing surprise! Champagne from Eamon and Allegra to celebrate our honeymoon. Asante sana, kaka na dada!

Asante sana, kaka na dada!

And that's where we are now. Kenny and I are having a relaxing day before the celebrations tonight, and tomorrow we go on Blue Safari.