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ifoundru-blog · 6 years

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Jozani Forest should be high on anyone’s list when travelling to Zanzibar. The forest is the largest home to the Zanzibar red Colobus monkeys that are on the endangered list. In my trip to Zanzibar I found on two occassions, tourists being completely inconsiderate. Once at Makunduchi village when I saw a tourist in their mid 20’s eat a chocolate bar in front of the children and throw the wrapper on the ground. The other time which was worse was at Jozani Forest.

Arriving to Jozani Forest

Alawi picked me up at 7.30 am and we drove a good hour from Stone Town towards Jozani National Forest. We went through several villages, a food market, and little stalls on the streets. There were even cows crossing the road and running all over the place trying to escape traffic. It was something I would have only seen in movies and now I am seeing it live! We arrived at Jozani Forest, Ali Spoke to the front desk, ‘Jambo, Mambo, Jambo’ and then he asked me to join a guide by the name Shabani and three couples.

Inconsiderate Tourist No.1

As we started to walk the path to get to the entrance of the forest, Shabani stopped and just waited.

A tourist asked him ‘why have we stopped?’ Shabani replies ‘because you are smoking, we are waiting for you to put it out’ Tourist replies, ‘ Why just keep walking, I will put it out in the ground’

In my mind, it’s as if Shabani heard me mumble to myself ‘would you like to burn down the F’ing forest and the endangered red Colobus monkeys?’ What an idiot! (excuse the anger, it still gets to me that people are not mindful of looking after the planet). Shanabi’s straight faced at this point and said ‘When you’re ready’. Wow, he was so good at keeping his cool, I almost lost it mumbling inside my head!

Jozani’s Natural Medicine

We walked through the Jozani forest with Shabani making plenty of stops to identify the herbs, trees, bushes while also giving us an explanation of what they are good for. Some are used for urine infections, some as natural Viagra, some skin care etc It was quite interesting how much natural medicine can be made from Zanzibar’s forests.

Imagine to my surprise another one of those tourists in the group says ‘but you don’t have olives, do you?’ I couldn’t believe there was that tour guide taking us through an impressive number of natural medicine and the one thing he gets asked is a silly question. His girlfriend walking by his side suddenly jumps and screams from something moving in the bushes. We all could see it was a cow, she soon made everyone laugh and we continued our walk.

Shabani The Local Tour Guide

At this point Shabani realizes I came alone to the tour, and starts to walk with me. He asked me where I am from. I said ‘Lebanon’. Shabani and I got along perfectly. He was an Arabic teacher at a school near Jozani. We spoke in Arabic for a while and discussed the Zanzibar economy and he was surprised to meet some one from Lebanon, female, and travelling alone. I said times have changed and I want to make a difference to this tiny world of ours. He smiled.

The Red Colobus Monkeys

Just above our heads the red Colobus Monkeys were chilling, some sleeping, some stretched out on their backs and some just being playful. They were so zen, I wanted to just hang around with them.

These red Colobus monkeys have adjusted to human visitors, are always in a higher ratio of females to males and stick together in groups of more than 10, and could be in a group of 30.

We hadn’t been there with the monkeys for two minutes and I heard the group say, ‘come on, let’s leave’. Shabani told me to take my time and apologized for having to put up with such inconsiderate tourists. I told him I felt sorry he had to put up with that! Shabani had called another tour guide to take that group while he stayed with me.

The Jozani Mangroves

The mangroves at the time I visited were pretty visible as it was low tide. It was easy to spot tiny fish feeding in the water as well as crabs popping out.

Summary

Bottom line, I loved the Zanzibar Red Colobus Monkeys and being in nature. It was something new, and different. No matter how many types of monkeys you come across, or how many nature paths you walk on, a new experience is always beautiful and soul enriching. Now about the inconsiderate tourists I hope they have grown up and gained a bit of knowledge on how to be a mindful traveller.

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Jozani Forest Zanzibar: Why It Made Me Hate Inconsiderate Tourists Jozani Forest should be high on anyone's list when travelling to Zanzibar. The forest is the largest home to the Zanzibar red Colobus monkeys that are on the endangered list.

#Jozani forest #mindful travelling #monkey #tanzania #tourists #zanzibar

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