We left for Zanzibar the night after that 3rd break-in, which put a bit of a damper on our excitement for the trip. It was a relief to be out of that house, though, and once we got on the plane to Joburg, we didn’t talk much about what had happened. The break-in remained in my mind throughout our trip. I had moments of real panic, wanting to talk about it, but at the same time not wanting to bring it back into the light, not wanting to analyze and wonder about it. That’s all I’ll say about it in relation to our holiday, because our trip was a beautiful, incredible experience, turning out to be very therapeutic.
We flew from Joburg to Dar es Salaam, an uneventful flight until we reached customs in Dar. We were asked for our passports and 100 USD, which we definitely didn’t have on us. I hadn’t seen US dollars since August. Of course we couldn’t pay by card, so the customs officer called a guard over to escort us to an ATM. The ATM was located outside the building. Picture this: three white, oblivious Americans, laden with backpacks and handbags, sweaty and tired, fresh off the plane, following a guard outside the airport to withdraw tens of thousands of Tanzanian shillings. From the ATM we ambled on over to the Bureau de Change to exchange our recently acquired TZ shillings for some good old American dollars. We’re pretty certain the guy at the counter had no idea what the exchange rate was, but we handed over the shillings, and got nice, crisp 100 dolla bills in return.
Our chaperone escorted us back through the doors, away from TZ soil and delivered us to our less-than-charming customs officer. We handed over our passports and said goodbye to our Benjamins, and waited a half hour while they processed our visas (this involved photocopying our passport photos and cutting/pasting that picture onto a visa to be stamped into the booklets). We grabbed our passports and made our way out into Tanzania for the second time that day, looking for our ride to the ferry to Zanzibar. I had previously communicated with a woman from the hotel we booked and arranged for someone to meet us at the airport. I assumed she knew that when I said we’d be arriving at DAR, I meant Dar es Salaam, not Zanzibar airport. Not the case.
We were wandering around at the arrivals gate, searching for a sign with my name on it, when a man came up to us and bluntly said, “You are going to Zanzibar, yes? You will not make the ferry. You must book a flight.” How he knew what our plan was, and that we were stranded I have no idea. He hurried us into an office where another man named Elijah set to work on getting us tickets to the next flight to Zanzibar, leaving in 45 minutes. We just sat there, stunned by the air conditioning and cold bottled water they offered us.
Elijah convinced us flying to Zanzibar was our best (and only realistic option) at that point in the day, so we set to work booking tickets. When I say “book” I mean we watched as Elijah filled out ready-made airline tickets by hand, and then we made another trip to the ATM to withdraw a few more shillings (200,000 to be exact) to pay for the tickets. Cash only. Yessah.Tickets = booked. Taxi to domestic airport = ripoff, but successful. We unloaded our bags at the domestic airport and were guilt-tripped into tipping everyone who helped us. One man led me into an office and informed me that I needed to pay an insurance fee of 5,000 shillings per person. I highly doubted this was true, but what was the point in arguing it? He also gave me his name (Robert) and number (written on the back of my plane ticket) in case we were interested in flying back from Zanzibar. He promised a great price.
We boarded a 12-seater on the runway and enjoyed a smooth, 30 minute flight to the island. I freaked a bit when I realized I had to look at the control panel of the plane (memories of a less-than-smooth trip to and from Green Turtle Cay a few years ago). I was relieved to land, collect my bags, and see my name on a sign for our hotel, 
the Paje Ndame. Our driver loaded us into a van and we drove about an hour to the hotel. Zanzibar had lost power on the entire island about two weeks prior to our arrival, and it remained without power during our stay, so the drive got very dark very quickly. It was nice, though, to drive through the darkening jungle roads with the warm breeze blowing through the windows.
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