The Tortoise That Chased Me
Many years ago, my husband and I went to Kenya and Tanzania for our honeymoon. Buried inside that trip, almost as an afterthought, were a few days in a place hardly anyone had heard of back then: Zanzibar.
It felt like we’d fallen off the map.
We were mesmerized by everything: the long white beaches, the gentle chaos of the streets, the way the sky melted into the sea at sunset, and the food that tasted like nothing we’d known before.
I remember how, as soon as the sun went down, the beach turned into one long fish barbecue. Whatever the sea had given the fishermen that day went straight to the grill – fish, squid, prawns – and the air filled with smoke, salt and voices. We went on spice tours, saw an old dungeon, and tasted food cooked in coconut milk for the first time. I didn’t know it then, but that trip quietly rewired the way I experienced food and place.
But more than anything, I remember the tortoises.
On a small island not far from the coast live giant tortoises, some of them hundreds of years old. They are fed, protected and treated like ancient citizens. Thinking tortoises were slow and gentle, I crept closer to the oldest one I could find, holding out a banana like a peace offering.
To my horror, it opened a huge mouth, moved a lot faster than I ever imagined, and started coming straight at me.
I dropped the banana and ran for my life. Everyone around me was doubled over, laughing. I was shaken and embarrassed, but also secretly thrilled. For years, “the tortoise that chased me” was one of my favorite travel stories.
I wish I could show you a photo of that tortoise, but in the moment I was too busy running and yelling and dropping bananas to even think about my camera.
Fast forward. The honeymoon is a memory, and we now have three boys. I kept telling them about Zanzibar – the beaches, the sunsets, the barbecues, the spices, the tortoises – until I realized I didn’t just want them to hear the story. I wanted them to live it.
So we went back.
We landed in the same tiny airport, where luggage is still carried by hand and everything runs at its own speed. Not much had changed. Some new hotels, a few more tourists, but the feeling was the same: hot air, red earth, impossible blue water.
The boys loved the food, the beach, the people who greeted them with easy warmth. The fish market was a bit much – smell and guts and flies are not every kid’s idea of a great morning – but the rest of it felt like watching them step into an old photograph I’d kept in my mind.
And then we took them to Tortoise Island.
The place looked almost exactly as I remembered it. Same dusty paths, same shaded corners, same slow giants moving through the heat. As we walked in, I told the story again: how I crept up with a banana, how the tortoise charged, how I ran and everyone laughed.
We found an enormous tortoise resting in the shade. The guide told us its age and my husband and I looked at each other – it was the very same one!
The boys listened carefully, but they kept a respectful distance. No one tried to hand it a banana.
Watching them, I realized how strange and beautiful it was: this animal had barely moved in the story of its life, while everything in mine had changed. I had gone from newlywed to mother of three. I had moved countries, changed careers, picked up a camera, lived entire chapters. And here we were, all of us, circling the same tortoise on the same island.
For my kids, it was a funny family legend they could finally “see” with their own eyes. For me, it was a reminder that some places – and some creatures – become anchors in our story. We grow up, we move on, we come back with new people we love, and they are still there, waiting, a living bookmark in our past.
The tortoise that once chased me now just blinked slowly in the sun.
I don’t know if it will still be there if we ever return a third time. But I do know that, in my family, that tortoise will always exist: as a story that started with a terrified young woman holding a banana, and turned into a shared memory that belongs to all of us.
