Cindy and Mike Do the World!

Stone Town, Zanzibar

We returned to Arusha for one more night after the safari and had a lovely dinner with our Kili partner, Ms. Farah. Good food and even better company! :)

We flew to Zanzibar the next day and stayed in Stone Town for 2 nights. It is a very conservative place and I had to cover up whenever walking around town (no sleeveless shirts or shorts). It was really warm though so Mike decided to wear a sleeveless shirt; he was asked to change later in the day when we went to our hotel bar. We did see some female tourists in shorts, although this is apparently not appreciated. Zanzibar is 99% Muslim, a fact that is evident immediately when you see how the local people are dressed.

We enjoyed walking around the narrow streets, and Stone Town itself is a UNESCO World Heritage site (next on your list Bonnie!). It felt like we were in the middle east somewhere and not in Africa. Zanzibar only become part of Tanzania in 1964 (which was called Tanganyika before joining with Zanzibar).

We had some of the best food we ate during our entire trip there. There are so many different types of cuisine in Stone Town - we tried Ethiopian, Indian and Belgian. We found the local people quite friendly and many would shout out 'jambo', which means 'hello'. We didn’t get harassed besides the usual sales pitch but we have heard stories of tourists being followed from their hotels. There is a group on the island that is not happy with the influx of tourists and there was an incident while we were there but we didn't even know about it until Farah sent us the news article!We were just leaving Stone Town and heading to Jambiani when this happened. No one was hurt and we felt safe the whole time we were on Zanzibar.

http://news.yahoo.com/bomb-blasts-zanzibar-cathedral-tourist-bar-154746917.html

Local market

Little shops everywhere

We toured the old Slave Market, an upsetting aspect of history. This is where the women and children were kept.

Men were housed in here.

On a lighter note, here's Mr. Sleeveless.

I never have to search far for a toilet here!

Yummy fruit smoothie and also some strong Ethiopian coffee

I accidentally ate one of those green chilies and then spent about 15 minutes feeling like my face was swelling up and I was dying. Phew! Mike enjoyed the few moments of silence while my tongue was numb.

Washing hands after meal

We had massages at this traditional spa. I had one by a deaf person and Mike had one by a blind person, which was a new and unique experience.

Okay, time to stream the Olympic Gold medal game! It kept buffering and cutting out to commercials, so when there 7 minutes left, we actual got a text from home that told us that Canada had won. Hahaha, we were a bit delayed!

Safari cont'd

So lazy

Random encounter with the President of Tanzania (in the striped shirt)! He and his entourage stopped to use the bathroom at the Serengeti entrance gates, just as Mike was coming out of the bathroom. He almost peed next to the President, hahaha. Anyway, we decided not to get a picture with him like many others were doing (didn't even know his name until the locals told us or what his policies are).

Excitement over the President's pit stop

Still shot of the video I'm trying to upload on the previous blog post. The mating starts...

Member of the Masai tribe

Masai village

Another warthog

Baboons are kind of funny

A line of flamingos

Not the most attractive creature and very conniving...the hyena likes to slink around.

School children

Safari guide swears by this stuff...he took us into the small shop where you can buy it. Apparently you never have any dental problems again once you use it a few times...

Mike thinks this bird looks like a man dressed up in a bird costume.

Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara

Time to see some animals!

I didn’t know what to expect when setting out on the safari (how close could we get, how many animals would we see, etc.) and didn’t spend much time looking it up since I was focusing mainly on Kili. We were pretty lucky! Check out the video at the end. Here are some snapshots of our safari week: