The Nightmare Before Christmas
Trip Start
Nov 07, 2005
1
60
75
Trip End
Nov 04, 2006
Zanzibar Channel / Iringa,
Tanzania
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Despite leaving some good friends behind, I was more than happy to leave Zanzibar. I'd had enough of incompetant staff at the resort, rude salesmen and strange locals, including a Masaai guy with a very high-pitched voice who Ruth was convinced was a prostitute. I had a lot of fun in Zanzibar but it had to be my least favourite place so far.
The 8 hour overnight ferry back to Tanzania was pure hell. It started off well - we got our own compartment and I nabbed a nice space to lie down on a matress. My intention was to try and sleep the whole journey which would've been fine if the air-con hadn't stopped working over on my side of the room. I woke up dripping with sweat and my clothes soaked through but before I could even attempt to move, my hand instinctively shot out for the only tiny plastic bag I had and the vomiting began.
Claire grabbed me a bigger bag as she thought I was going to puke on her head, which had previously been where mine now was, and helped move me to the other, cooler side of the room. I made it just past halfway and then collapsed on the floor in a wretching heap. Having already reproduced my previous meal of Zanzaibar pizza, banana and chocolate pancake and beef skewers, I began to throw up the only thing left: my stomach lining.
Zoe was the only one able to help me as most other people were feeling sick themselves as the sea was so choppy and the sound of me probably didn't help. Others, like Ruth, were sound asleep. Upon waking she revealed that whilst I'd been emptying the entire contents of my stomach, she'd been blissfully dreaming about Christmas.
On return to shore the last thing I wanted to do after a night of vomiting was spend the next 11 hours on a moving truck but I didn't have much choice.
We acquired British Matt, a trainee tour guide who would be with us for a couple of weeks and who I noticed had strangely painted toenails but was roo sick to question why.
I managed to sleep on the floor for the first 4 hours and when I woke up I started throwing popcorn at Claire, everyone decided I seemed much better, much to Marcus' disappointment who thought me being seasick was the height of entertainment. It was the longest time we'd spent on the truck and everyone was a bit tetchy after the ferry of death. Romy asked Bart to phone through to the cab (we have an intercom on the truck, its so cool) to ask Jules and Robert how far away from the campsite we were. Jules gave him the answer of 15, and repeated it by saying: "one, five".
After hanging up, Bart seemed confused: "One, five? Why would you say one, five? What does that mean? I can understand fucking English! I still don't know if its 15 minutes or 15 kilometres!"
One, five later we arrived to a rare luxury of hot showers (scalding actually) and what Romy said would probably be our best group meal yet. The starter of soup and home baked bread went down a treat but when the main course or spicy meatballs and spicy beans arrived I had to tell the manager that I couldn't eat spicy food. Mortified that no one had informed him, he raced into the kitchen and soon delivered a vegetable stirfry and local cheese. An odd combination but give me anything laced with cheese and I'm happy. Dessert was a chocolate brownie accompanied by hot chocolate with Amarula (like Baileys).
I was suddenly feeling much better.
