Zanzibar Island

People are so genuinely nice here. Even if they are trying to sell you things they are doing it because they are seizing an opportunity to make money in an area where it is really hard to do so. Most people will make sure you get where you're trying to go with no strings attached. Yea there are the occasional people who want you to pay them for their services but that's usually not the case.

The first morning in Zanzibar we woke up not really knowing what we were going to do. We had already explored stone town and it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. So we had breakfast at our hostel and met these two ladies that had been working as missionaries in Dodoma. They told us they were headed to Paje beach on the east coast of the island and we should tag along. So we split a cab with them and headed out.

On the drive there we went through a monkey sanctuary and there were cute Colobus monkeys in the trees on the side of the road. Unfortunately I only got a really quick terrible photo of them because you aren't allowed to stop on the road for fear of poaching the almost extinct animals. We also were stopped a lot at "polisi" checkpoints. The driver would argue with them for a bit before speeding away, the whole time we were oblivious to what was going on. We asked him later and I guess they try to get bribes from the taxi drivers to pass. Good thing ours was so tough; he just continued on his way and they didn't follow.

Paje was beautiful. There wasn't much to do there besides lounge around on the beach so Meg and I layed out our towels and sunbathed. The sun is so strong here we cooked in less than an hour and a half. Didn't swim much either because there was too much seaweed everywhere and it freaked me out haha. When we were walking down the beach we saw a group of young girls digging shells out of the sand. They got a kick out of cameras and wanted us to take a million photos of them. They were so cute and really sweet. After, we had a lovely lunch on the beach and lounged around on the hammocks and then made our way back to town.

At night on Zanzibar it POURS. We had switched hostels because ours didn't have rooms for the last two nights we were there and that night it rained so hard it woke both Meg and me up. It sounded like the sky was falling it was nuts.

The time switch has been really hard on this trip; not really sure why but I wake up multiple times during the night and wake up SO early :( I usually don't have much of a problem getting used to it but for some reason it's been tough. Hopefully that by the time I get to the villages I'll be better.

The next day we decided to be adventurous and take a daladala to the North coast beaches which are basically pickup trucks with benches in the back where everyone squishes together. They are also VERY inexpensive. We walked to the daladala station and were unsure exactly which one to take but they pointed us in the right direction. We hopped in the back; completely full of locals and started on our way. There are a few stops on the journey where people hop on and off. At one point on the way back from the beach we had 24 people in the back!

Nungwi beach was even more beautiful than Paje had been! Perfect white sand with gorgeous turquoise waters. We didn't bring swimsuits but we had to swim. So we wandered in to town and found swimsuits so that we could. The water was the perfect temperature and it was perfectly clear. I actually SWAM which I don't do in the ocean. Usually I'm too scared of animals but it was so amazing. Just when I was getting comfortable though Megan screamed and we ran out of the water. She had been stung by a jellyfish. Luckily it was just a little one so the sting went away quickly. But we didn't get back into the water again. We went to a little restaurant on the water and had a late lunch then caught the daladala back to town.

Our last night we wanted to go to the Foradhani gardens again since it was so good and cheap. We got everything: Coconuts $.50; Meat skewers and "chips" (french fries) $.90; and chocolate pizza $1.50. The chocolate pizzas were the same ones I used to get in Thailand and thought I'd never get again! They were amazing. Definitely going to miss this place when we leave.

Chelsea