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  Zanzibar, Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania
Saturday, November 8, 2008

We are still in Tanzania but it feels like we're in another world. Welcome to Zanzibar! We had a pretty hellish flight. The plane out of Arusha decided the weather was too bad to land and so went to the Kilimanjaro airport instead. This meant we all had to take a bus about 45 minutes from Arusha to that airport. Then since they were already late they decided to switch the order of flights and go to Dar es Salaam before Zanzibar. Finally, they decided to leave the air conditioning off in the plane so we had a full small plane of smelly people having waited five hours with no air conditioning. By the time we finally arrived at the Zanzibar airport, our hotel pickup had given up on us and left. We borrowed a cell phone to call him, got a taxi, and finally got to our hotel at 7PM. But what a hotel it is! We are in the heart of Stone Town, the oldest part of Zanzibar, full of narrow streets filled with shops, food, and people. We are on the fourth floor (no elevator and really steep stairs) of the tallest building in the area, and our room is open air, including an open air shower. It's like something out of a movie stepping out onto a balcony to overlook the entire city and the Indian Ocean.

Today we are getting ourselves lost in the city and wandering around. Tomorrow, maybe a little more of that or maybe we will head to the beach. The people, architecture, and food here are sooo different from mainland Tanzania. It has a much heavier Muslim, Arabic influence that is present everywhere. Zanzibar is also the spice capital of Africa and the smells permeate the air. It feels similar to Granada, Spain or what I would expect from Morocco or somewhere like that. It's amazing that this is still part of the same country. The only downside to the city is being stopped every couple minutes to be offered a tour somewhere or other in the city.

We stay here for another couple of days and then head off to Egypt where we are on a Nile cruise that will probably also have very limited Internet access. We are very anxious to post millions of pictures, but so far haven't found a good place to do it. Until Egypt....

- E and A

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View from our hotel room in Zanzibar

View of our hotel room in Zanzibar

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