The art of doing nothing in Zanzibar

When you think of Zanzibar, you picture a perfect honeymoon destination of pristine beaches and crystal clear blue waters. You picture an island getaway lazing on a hammock with a book in your hand and wind in your hair.

The first thing that greeted me upon arriving was a dilapidated airport in desperate need of repair.

Gone were the plush carpets and the stark cold air that blows from the vents lining the aerobridge. Forget the vents – there wasn’t a single aerobridge in sight! We were ushered into a ratty old bus that took us to the terminal proper where the arrivals hall was probably the same size as my apartment back home. Baggage carousel? What’s that? Our luggages (and hundreds others) were lined up neatly across the floor according to your flight. Imagine the hard work of the guys manually extracting your bags from the cargo and bringing them up from you at the terminal.

After an hour of driving past about a hundred banana plantations later, we’ve arrived at Melia Zanzibar, our accommodation for the next 24 hours. The all-inclusive luxury beach resort is located adjacent to Gabi Beach at the northeast coast of the island.

During high tides, one need not to go really far to enjoy a dip in the sea. But when the tide gets real low, Zanzibar coasts do this funny thing where one would have to walk about a kilometre or two out before hitting the water. Today we were lucky, for it was high tide which meant perfect photo opportunities!

My agenda for the afternoon was simple: change into something comfortable, go out by the pool and just laze there till the sun sets. And fulfilled them, I absolutely did.

We left our bags under the watchful eyes of friends lazing by the pool before going out to the boardwalk to enjoy the view, and of course take a few pictures. Then we headed out to the end of the boardwalk where a tapas restaurant was, and my highlight of the day: an unobstructed invitation into the Indian Ocean via wooden steps.

While Yensen decided to be a show off and cannonball from the edge of the restaurant and into the water, I decided a safer, more cautious approach because I don’t trust myself to dive head first (literally and figuratively into anything these days). Once in the water, I felt like I was in a giant warm, incredibly salty bath.

Dinner was a choice between ‘Arabian Night’ down by the beach, or a sample an extensive range of tapas at the onsite Tapas Bar. Living in the Middle East, the last thing everyone wanted to eat was anything ‘Arabian’, so we settled for the latter option. The seafood was fresh, and the best loved item was probably the chicken skewers, tastefully marinated and chargrilled to perfection.

If you’re reading this, I must say a big, big thank you for making this far. I’ve intended to make my very first post on this blog a light and fluffy piece of absolutely nothing while I figure out how I am going to build everything from scratch again. I’ve had the absolute misfortune of losing all my previous content due to some site crash business that I don’t quite care about, so I’m broken hearted for all that had been lost but excited at the prospect of beginning again.

Here’s to a clean slate this 2018!