ZANZIBAAAAAR

Zanzibar has basically been our fall break. This island, being both similar in size and location to Pemba, greatly overshadows Pemba. Having run the spice trade and the slave trade for hundreds of years, Zanzibar has since been put on the map as one of the largest tourist destinations in Africa. We stayed our first 3 nights in the old Stone Town by the main port and most touristy section of the island. Those days were fairly low key spent walking around the town, visiting museums, and checking out local venders. Walking around town was fun though because we immediately got hustled liked we were tourist where ever we went with people trying to sell us things for absurd prices. Though, the girls often wore traditional head scarfs when they went out and we made a note of speaking Swahili whenever we got the chance. The moment the locals realized that we were trying to be respectful, learn their language, and were students we were immediately given better prices and a lot more respect. Those nights also all happened to be birthdays of those in our group (Hope, then Tom, then Clara), which meant a good amount of birthday partying. The one night we went out to a club we only met one hooker, which was a nice change of pace. The next night was spent slightly more chilled out at a hookah bar inside the swankiest place in Tanzania (the Africa House. I suggest looking it up, this place is something straight out of a James Bond movie).

Wednesday morning we went off to visit Jonazi national forest to see the worlds only Red Colabis Monkeys. After so good times hanging out with these endangered monkeys and getting lost in the woods a few times we headed out to a spice farm where we all learned how to shimmy up a coconut tree and learned that eating cloves makes your mouth go numb. Then, as we got back to the hotel, we were off on our “free travel” days. A majority of us headed straight up to the northern tip of the island to get to some of the lower end tourist hotels. We ended up staying in the “Baraka Beach Bungalows” for the last two nights which was a party and a whole bunch of stories that my friends probably don't want me to post on the internet... It was great fun though to FINALLY have nothing to do and the ability to act like a tourist for once. Now we're a few miles down the beach at another much more low key hotel (also a moments walk from a beautiful white sand beach lined with palm trees and grass huts). Tomorrow morning we're waking up early to get on a small boat ready to take us across the Indian Ocean once again. Now we're officially done with our Islamic-Swahili Culture class and portion of the program (two classes done in 4 weeks, 2 more classes to do in the next 10...I can dig) and moving on to Pembe Abwe on the mainland coast and getting ready to...sigh...snorkel every day for 10 days before going on a month long safari. My life is awesome.