JAMBO!

I must have heard that about 10 million times while in Zanzibar...it's "hello"...at least that's what I hope it means, cause everyone said it to me. I arrived early Friday afternoon in Stone Town where I stayed, the boat ride took about 2 hours (thank goodness for non-drowsy Dramamine!). Zanzibar is really poor...kind of reminded me of a Caribbean island, lots of run down buildings surrounded by beautiful water/beaches. After checking in to my hotel, I wondered around a bit, booked a spice tour for the next day, and got a tour of the city from the guy I booked the spice tour with. One annoying thing about Stone Town is that everyone is constantly trying to "help" you and then asking for money. I can't count how many times someone just started walking with me "Jambo my friend...are you english? No? American! We love Americans" etc. and then offer to give you a tour of the city, or a ride or something to get money. But the guy who showed me around was pretty nice and I felt more comfortable having someone with me who knew the streets. For $10 I got a tour of the town and some info (not bad, but then again the spice tour was only $10 and that included a full day and lunch). Market:

That night I walked to the Africa Hotel (used to be a British club or something when the British were in control of Zambia) it is the most popular place for tourists to have a drink and watch the sunset. Unfortunately it was cloudy and there was no sunset to be seen, so after 2 or 3 Tuskars (local beer) I walked back to my hotel, had dinner and crashed.

The next day I went on the Spice Tour, which was pretty interesting (you know cinnamon is from tree bark?), I got to see more of the island and after the spice farm, we hit the beach for an hour.

Pretty interesting group for the tour also...I was the only American. There was the Danish couple with the hyper kid, 2 english couples, zee German man and his son, two girls and another couple whom I have no idea where from. Anyway, the beach was nice...well, besides the dead dolphin that had washed ashore...but as you can see that didn't stop us from swimming.

On the ride back to the hotel, I took this:

That night I returned to the Africa Hotel to try and catch the sunset, but again, nothing (although it’s still cool to watch the boats go by). As I was leaving a guy came up to me and said "what? leaving so soon? the manager just ordered you another beer, so stay 5 more min." As you know, I'm not one to turn down a beer, so I sat back down, curious to know who the manager was and had my beer. Just as I was finishing it, another came...on the house. Anyway after that one, I insisted I had to leave, and went over to thank the manager (Belgium I think). He said since the sunset was "crap" yesterday and today’s wasn't much better he thought he should buy me a drink. He probably just felt sorry for the guy sitting by himself.

The next day I just walked around a bit and then caught the boat back to Dar. Not a bad trip if you like sitting inside a boat with no air conditioning with about 300 strangers and really rough seas...the Dramamine didn't do the job this time...I made it about and hour and forty minutes into the trip before puking in one of the bags they handed out to everyone. Everyone was hating life (at least I wasn't the only one). Needless to say I was very happy to be back in my hotel room in Dar after that. You may be wondering way I am writing so much...just killing time at the embassy waiting for the next session to start. Anyway, the training is going well and the embassy is pretty nice...so far so good.