Mamy Hotel Pemba Island

Hey,
Just a quick update from Zanzibar. It is great here! What an interesting place. I went on a tour of a spice plantation because afterall Zanzibar is the spice island. Have you ever wondered where cinnamon or cloves come from? Well, now I know :) I have a couple more days on the island and then I'll be flying to Nairobi and then to Kisumu for the water project. I am now going to try to put up a few more pictures.

Hurrah, I am finally off the truck for a few days and I get to sleep in a proper bed, in a room with hot water. To be honest it wouldn't have mattered if Zanzibar had nothing else to offer that was enough in itself. As it turned out however the 'Spicy Island’ was ...

... no less than 10, having two wives, the second of which is rather peeved to have borne him only two offspring and pining for two more...but he wants a crack at a 9th out of Mamma Uno....mamma mia!) would be seen from 6am on the boats or pulling the wooden barrow with oxygen tanks from the dive shop to the shore and on to either glitz glam Sea Wolf or Rock Hopper (our "vessels").

Around 9 to 9.30am we'd set off. Most of the time under brilliant sunshine with those water colours and ...

... was and getting " yes yes" to each scenario.

Hitting the run way to board our onward flight to Pemba, running up to the Pilot and asking if the co-pilot's seat was free and thereby taking co-pilot position (regretting it when asked to take the steering thing on taxi and saying "umm...I have no idea how to do this", and the entire plane bursting into laughter when Claes assured me he just wanted me to check that it would react or whatever). He was lovely ...

... sandy paths and decided that it would be nice and easy to take the 'old road' back to Sharook's Guesthouse - bad idea. It took nearly 3 hours in the rapidly fading sun on one of the bumpiest roads I have ever seen, not quite as bad as cycling Italy from top to bottom but Amanda - we feel your pain.

We spent a couple of days on Wete exploring the local area and befriending the local people - they really test your Swahili but if you pass the test everyone (almost!) is ...

... fly to Dar es Salaam instead or we could spend the night in Stonetown, which should give us enough time to get the reservations. After some discussion we decided it would be nicer to stay in Stonetown for the night. We found a lovely hotel near the center called Abuso, a small, clean hotel. (The power in Zanzibar has been off for the past five days, and is expected to be off for another week. Therefore the generators they use ...

... a hyena with a red face who had just killed a wildebeest. Its
face was red from all the blood, but in my opinion it's still one of
the cuter animals on the plains. Then the vultures and eagles began to
circle and a few more hyenas joined, fighting the first one for the
leftovers. While we were leaving we saw jackals joining the mess.

It
was the last of our 6 day safari, which we had been to Lake Manyara,
Ngorongoro Crater, Oldepi Gorge (where ...

... mate just spent 5 months in the south of India working and she says the food we had last night was every bit as good as she had in India. YUM. We will spend today gettling lost here (it's my favorite thing to do in a new place) and hope to find a good plenty of surprises. I think I'll also try and shop for ...

... I had been waiting for!! Being the unlucky person I am, I got to spend the next two days around Misali scuba diving. We saw some amazing coral, dolphins, giant fish, and all kinds of other neat stuff. I haven't been scuba diving in forever, so it was an amazing reintroduction. The nights between scuba diving Rose and I spent hanging out in Chake Chake annoying the locals. We decided that instead of being asked the usual 5 questions ...

... and family) and about african economics, you name it. He asked me lots of questions about Canada too. I really cant say that the quality of life is any better in the "richer" western world. Sure you can afford to buy more luxuries, but look at the decay of the family system, the casualty with with sex is viewed, alcohol consumption and how we treat our elderly. In africa there is things to be learned on womens rights, recycling systems and more organized ...