Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam

Habari,

We had a great time in Zanzibar this weekend. We left Thursday at the butt-crack of dawn. We had to hire a Dala-Dala at 5:30am in order to get into town for a 6:00am bus ( it turns out that there was only a 6:30 bus) and had to pay extra money for the ride. We figured that since we payed extra, that the Dala-Dala driver would go straight into town, but we ended up picking up passengers, who paid the normal fare. After we reached the bus stand, we were immediately surrounded by ten men trying to sell us tickets. We knew in advance to search for the bus sign for Dar Express Company. Erasmus told us that the bus would be there, but...as it turns out the office was located a couple of blocks away. Eventually, after being led astray in many directions, we managed to find the bus stand and get a ticket by 6:30am. The ride was long but managable, as we were provided with complimentary snacks and drinks. Once in Dar, we grabbed a taxi with another American who was on our bus. It turns out that he was a New-Yorker in his 30's who quit his job and decided to go on a world tour for six months. He told very interesting stories about India and Asia, and it sounds like the conditions there are even worse than in Africa in some places. We immediately got a ferry ticket and made the 2 hour journey to Zanzibar. We took a taxi to our hotel in Zanzibar, the Victoria Hotel, and met with the Jubilee coordinator of the area, Omar. After dinner at the hotel, we met up with our Canadian friends from Moshi who were also spending time in Zanzibar. We went to an out-door fish market where local vendors were selling everything from octopus to shark on skewers. We bought some fish and some sugar cane juice squezzed right from the cane. After the market, we made our first of many trips to the ATM because all of our travel arrangements were payed for in cash, even the hotels (and zanzibar is frikin expensive).
On Friday, we got up early to drive an hour north to the beach where we would depart for snorkeling. We had a quick breakfast at a beach-side restaurant and got onto a dhow. Dhows are the traditional wooden sailboats of the Indian Ocean. We were on the boat with a group of Spee
do-wearing Spaniards and other various Europeans. The water and beaches in Zanzibar were absolutely amazing. The water was crystal clear and the sand on the beaches felt like white pudding. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures for today (because we forgot to charge the camera), but we will upload them as soon as we can. The snorkeling itself was also incredible. We saw hundreds of species of fish and coral of all shapes and colors. Although we only spend around an hour snorkeling, we both managed to fry our backs thoroughly. Since snorkeling was an all-day adventure, when we got back to the hotel we rested an hour or so before going out to our high-class dinner. We decided to splurge one night and dined at the only five-star hotel on the island, the Serena Inn. The meal was excellent and was as good as any meal you could have in the States. Ryan had his first real steak in Africa and Andy had some chicken and lobster crap(in Ryan's opinion). After a long day and a full stomach, we went back to rest and prepared for our Stone Town excursion the next day.
After waking up at a leisurely hour, we strolled into town. We decided to not take a formal tour since we were limited on time, but we made sure to hit up the popular landmarks. The town itself had a very distinguished cultural atmosphere. Stone Town was the last major slave-trade port in Africa. Most of the buildings were constructed in the 1920's during the reign of the last sultan, and the architecture had a very ancient Muslim feel. We spent some time at the House of Wonders, one of the more famous palaces in Stone town, and took several pictures of the surrounding area. The rest of our time was spent navigating through small alleyways and haggling with store owners. It is very easy to get lost in the maze of alleyways and we lost all sense of direction very quickly. It was not as easy to bargain against the Mzungu prices of Zanzibar but we were successful as we could be. After a hot and exhausting morning in Stone Town, we traveled back to Dar es Salaam by ferry. This time, the seas were pretty rough and almost everyone on the boat was nauseated (we saw many people vomit). We met a friend of Omar's at our hotel in Dar and he helped us to arrange find an ATM and transport back to Moshi. Dar es Salaam itself is a huge city in comparison to Moshi. The size of the city is about the same as Miami, but since so many people are walking or selling things on the streets, the city seems overcrowded. It was so large that it was the first time that we have seen traffic lights and multi-laned roads. The nickname of the city is "Bongo" (head in Swahili) because you have to be clever in order to survive. We had a great experience and we would recommend Zanzibar as a part of anyone's trip to Tanzania