Mythological Locations A to Z: Z is for Zanzibar
Mythological Locations A to Z: Z is for Zanzibar

"Zayn Z'al Barr" - Fair is this land - none dispute that. The galleys of Rome and Carthage dock here without disputes, Athenian freemen mingle with Median and Assyrian slave drivers in the markets and taverns. Just inland are the jungles, where innumerable spices are harvested. Cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper are most commonly sold, but if you know the right people and ask in the right places, you may be able to purchase the juice of the red poppy or the black lotus.

Sinbad called this port home, and John de Mandeville stopped over here on his way to the kingdom of Prester John.

The modern tourist will not find the right part of town - to his eye, it is a run-down, third-world-verging-on-second port. To the true traveller though, to one with magic in her heart and the eyes of a child; the open sewer mains, the tattered Coca-Cola advertisements, the throbbing European pop emanating from the dance clubs, those all fade and the true Zanzibar stands before them.

I was there once, as a young man. I stood at the gangplank of a teak-hulled galley and haggled with a man that claimed to be able to take me to the court of Haroun al-Rashid. As we prepared to close the deal, though, I was seized by worry - would I be back in time to start college? Would I be stranded in a strange port with no money? As the doubts mounted, I found myself standing in an empty alley talking to a blank wall.

I've heard that every traveller gets one chance to sail from Zanzibar, that if that chance is passed up they cannot return. I've also heard that once in a thousand years, the Gods give the truly repentant a second chance.

I pray the second is true, but I fear it is the first.

Still, I walk the crooked side streets of Zanzibar and I hope. For fifty years, I've hoped. It's all I have left, and it's almost - but not quite - enough.