Zanzibar

On Friday we left for Zanzibar!! Eight of us took a dala dala (van/taxi) to the ferry in Dar es Salaam. We had heard horror stories about the ferry and how everyone is throwing up everywhere... luckily this was not the case on the way there. After about a two hour ride we arrived in Stone Town, Zanzibar. Stone Town’s architecture is a beautiful fusion of Arabic, Indian, European, and African influences. After docking, we were attacked by numerous taxi drivers, peanut salesmen, and local street people that honestly thought they were tour guides. They would be walking alongside of you pointing at buildings, mumbling stuff, and then asking for money for their services. “Verrry nice room for you, very nice, very cheap, you want… I take you there” or “You need taxi… how many of you, 8? Here fit in my 4 door sedan” or “Hey nuts, you want nuts, very good price, cheap for you beautiful ladies”.. It was exhausting. One man followed us all the way to the “Night Market”. Finally after about 100 HAPANAS… GO AWAY (hapana = no) he left us alone. The Night Market is where we stopped for dinner. It consists of many vendors that cooked right at their stands on the street by candle light. We enjoyed Zanzibar Pizza which is nothing like American pizza. It was amazing!! It was more like an omelet wrapped in thin dough then fried. Our one roommate Mary (from Washington DC) met, who we believe, will be her future husband. They met and through talking realized that they live on the same block in DC. Sparks were aflyinnnggg!! Love found in Africa!! They took a picture together and exchanged emails… we’ll see what happens! Next it was time to find a cab to the northern part of the island where our hotel was. Back to the war zone we went to find a taxi. Finally after haggling for roughly 45 minutes we were on our way. Two hours, a heated conversation in Swahili between our driver and a police officer, and a ride down what seemed to be a deserted dirt road in the dark, we made it to Kendwa Beach. While the others went to sleep, we decided we would head to the bar and chat with some locals. We taught them about bears, boxers (the dog), and American History. One man was telling us about his black dog, Jack, he had as a young child. He said he was best friends with Jack and they did everything together. Christine tried to compare that to Tim with Philly. She said did you ever eat from his bowl or pee outside with Jack? Utterly confused he responded, “Why would I pee on Jack???”(you have to imagine it with an accent). We tried to explain that our little brother would mimic our dogs every move but we finished that topic leaving him still quite confused. The next morning we went to the beach. The water was crystal clear! It was a very relaxing day. Then it was time to prepare for the Full Moon Beach Party! We had two goals during this beach party: 1. Find a Bush Baby (we still don’t know exactly what this is but we hear it kinda looks like a koala bear). 2. To dance with the Maasai (The Maasai is a native tribe in Tanzania and apparently frequenters of the beach bar at our hotel; tribal garb, knives, sticks, fanny packs, and all). We had heard that the Maasai hunt and catch lions so we figured we would meet them, dance a little, then convince them to hunt us down a bush baby. But we only accomplished one goal. The first one we met immediately fell head over heels in love with Christine. The first one I (megan) met breathed on me and I almost gagged in his face..time to discard and find a new one. Christine’s had little rhythm but thoroughly enjoyed twirling her. She would twirl then he would twirl… the whole time he had the goofiest smile on his face. After I almost threw up from the first guy I told C that we had to go to the bathroom and try and get away. We thought we were in the clear when we left the bathroom to head back to the bar. We were wrong. Christine’s came flying out of the crowd after her. She pretended like she didn’t see him but it didn’t work. The bartender we had met the night before said we could stand behind the bar so they couldn’t approach us. After standing there for a couple minutes we realized Christine’s was just sitting by the bar looking as though he was about to cry with his head down. He didn’t understand why she wouldn’t dance anymore (huge language barrier!) Pretty much the only common word was dance and beer. C felt bad so we went back over to sit with him…. His face lit up once again! This is when my #2 Maasai man came into the picture. So there we were… sitting Maasai #2, Megan, Christine, and her Maasian. Christine’s presented her with a necklace she could wear for the evening and she gave him a shell. Maasai #2 told me (megan) that our relationship could be like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie… He kept pointing at himself saying “brad” then pointing at me saying “Angelina”…. Repeating over and over. They never found us our Bush Babies..Sadly we had to break their hearts once again as we headed off to bed. We left early Sunday morning and headed back to Stone Town where we had several hours to walk around. We went to the Slave Trade tour which we have two pictures of. One picture shows a room in the basement of a building where they kept up to 50 men at a time. There was another room that held up to 75 women and children. There were still chains hanging from the walls. You could hardly stand up in the space. The slaves were left there for three days. This is how they tested who was the strongest therefore could be traded for more money. There were a lot of small winding streets in the middle of the town that reminded us of Rome. It was easy to get lost which we experienced for a short amount of time until we found the coast again. When we arrived at the port to get on our ferry back home we realized this ferry looked a little different…..(not in a good way..) We took our seats and after about 30 minutes the ride became a little rough. They began handing out “sick bags” to all the passengers. This is when I-Pods came in handy! We put our headphones on and turned them up to block out the sound of puking passengers. Everyone got of the boat feeling pretty sick, only one of our group members lost it… All and all we loved Zanzibar!!