The next day we cruised further down the east coast. The beaches were magnificent, picture-postcard perfect. Lagoons were reticulated with swirls of seaweed that was being harvested by local women. Distant reefs were marked by breaking surf, coconut palms swayed in the breeze and time slowed, defined merely by the inclination of the sun.
Further south the lagoons disappeared and the gentle surf splashed onto the beach. After stopping for a coffee for me and a Sprite for Sam at a particularly nice five-star hotel perched on a giant coral rock hanging over the creamed-honey shallows, Sam decided he liked Zanzibar. So did I, despite being ripped off twice.
Sam glanced around the hotel. ‘Let’s stay here.’
‘No, Sam,’ I said, ‘we can’t afford to stay here.’
Sam thought about it for a second. ‘Let’s go to the bank and get some money.’
‘No, it doesn’t work that way,’ I explained. ‘We only have so much money left, and it’s got to last until we get home.’
‘Hmm, okay,’ he grumbled.
We looped south on our final full day on Zanzibar. After a quick tour through a monkey sanctuary in a red mahogany forest we were back to the crazy streets of the capital. The driving became challenging again. Increasingly narrow streets sometimes ran unexpectedly into dead ends, or we came face to face with another vehicle. In a tiny lane we encountered a cart piled with thirteen mattresses pulled by a lean and wiry local. I had no choice but to reverse the Suzuki.
Sam seemed a bit off-colour through the day and hardly ate any food. I took him to Mercury’s, a pizza restaurant on the foreshore named after Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, who was born in Zanzibar before emigrating to the United Kingdom in his teens. Sam only ate half a pizza, way below par for him, and then sat for ten minutes in the toilet deciding whether he would vomit or not. Fortunately, the nausea passed and we headed for the hotel. I wondered if he was getting sick again but it didn’t return.
The return to Dar on the ferry was uneventful and we headed for our hotel. There would be no more travel until we left.
Naomi headed off to the airport the next day. Sam and I would be here three more days. For the first time in the heaving city we were alone. Sometimes solitude seems more profound the more people you have around you; we were surrounded by three million souls but connected to none of them. Like so often before in the trip, it was just Sam and me, lonely as two clouds. After constant probing questions from Naomi on interviews to camera, I was a kaleidoscope of emotions.
Sam sensed the solitude too, but also the significance of the moment; the realisation we had arrived at the point where there was nothing more to do than go home. I began to again look at Africa with the eyes of an outsider. At some time during the preceding six months it had become so familiar that I’d stopped noticing it; I, and perhaps also Sam, had become immune to its chaos.
Outside the hotel, a group of young men, all dressed in red, were jogging in time while chanting in deep sonorous tones. A political rally or a religious ceremony? No, they were just exercising. A shirtless middle-aged man stood on a street corner, furiously drumming with his neck extended and eyes closed in concentration, sweating in the equatorial sun while the rest of the street ignored him. Conductors shouted out of the open sliding doors of minibuses as they neared a bus station, crackling political slogans echoed through the streets, swirling in the auditory soup of engine noise, horns and chatter.
Sam and I walked down the footpath, sweating and on alert in the glare, watching our feet to avoid puddles, rubbish, mud and the occasional beggar. The latter would thrust out a bored hand and mumble ‘Friend’, or ‘Mumbo’, as I scanned their body to assess their particular tragic circumstance. Deformity, amputation, paralysis or perhaps just being very old or very young—the more visible the tragedy, the more effective the plea.
I focused on Sam. Chess, cards, writing, reading, drawing and talking.
I was also looking at him a lot, which annoyed him. ‘Why are you looking at me?’ he asked.
I smiled. ‘I’m just wondering if you’re different to how you were before the trip.’
‘Yes, I am,’ he stated forthrightly.
‘How?’ I asked.
He paused for a moment. ‘I’ve changed from a boy to a person.’
Interesting. I pushed him, but he couldn’t elaborate. It suggested to me his insight into the purpose of what we were doing was profound. I was proud of my young man.
I continued to try to step outside myself and observe him as objectively as I could, while trying to remember what he’d been like in Cape Town, in Hermanus, in Durban. Yes, he was more self-reliant, more confident, more independent. As he crossed the road, ordered a meal, ate the meal, chatted with me, I could see he had progressed. I started to look forward to Sydney. What would Benison notice? Our family and friends? His school?
Would he go back into his shell? A shiver went down my spine at the thought.
We packed our bags for the last time. Given we had lost or broken half our possessions, we had plenty of room for souvenirs bought at nearby markets: Tingatinga paintings, carved ebony statues of Maasai heads, and handcrafted jewellery.
We walked around the dirt-floored market. Sam was quiet and reflective, but then would suddenly smile to himself. ‘Stop looking at me,’ he said again.
‘What are you smiling about?’ I asked.
‘Home,’ he said, beaming.
I smiled too.
It was time. I had given it my all, and Sam had done brilliantly. As I packed our bags, I was also packing away my emotions. My mind was swirling with anxiety, pride, regret, relief, fear, but mostly joy.
A series of lasts: our last night, our last meal, our last walk on an African street, and finally our last cab. I was on the verge of tears as we piled into the taxi for the trip to the airport. The cabbie, oblivious, nattered about Tanzanian politics, food and the bloody Dar traffic. Thanks to a delayed flight we missed our connection to Perth and Sam kipped for a few hours of the floor of Jo’burg airport. Then, after thirty hours of travel and two nights in the air, six months to the day since we’d left, we were home.
We spied the familiar skyline of Sydney as we arced over the emerald city, shimmering in the dawn light, and finally the exhausted ragtag travellers fell into the arms of Benison…and the Heiress film crew.
‘Can we just film that reunion scene again?’ the cameraman asked. Ah yes, nothing about this trip had been ordinary.