Out of Africa (Dec. 27 & 28/08 - Nairobi, Kenya to Singapore)

Since we learned of the violence occuring recently in India, we decided to avoid putting ourselves in unnecessary danger by skipping India altogether. It was a difficult decision to make since we were very much looking forward to experiencing the country, but for now it will have to wait until a trip in the future. As a blessing in disguise, we now have an extra three weeks to spend in southeast Asia, which will help to stretch out that portion of our trip. So today we are flying to Singapore, and from there we will probably hop over to Borneo for a week or two before heading up to Cambodia and Vietnam when our visas kick in mid January. Once we get to Singapore, though, nothing is booked until we fly out of Bali in March, so we're pretty much going to wing it! For a couple of rookie backpackers, that's both intimidating and exciting!

Our 3pm flight out of Nairobi was delayed until almost 7pm, so after spending nine hours at the airport, we were happy to be finally on our way. But when we landed in Doha, Qatar, mass confusion ensued as we ended up in th departure area still needing to check in, get our boarding passes, and collect our bags. We were directed four different ways before finally being told to come back later when everything would be taken care of. And it was! With $2 US in our pocket, we spent an hour trying to get money out of the bank machine and then trying to find somewhere that could change a $100 US bill so we could buy a sandwich. Gotta love airports! It was just a short hop over to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), where we struggled to get a bit of sleep in the crowded departure hall, since it was 6am and we had only managed a short nap on the first leg. By the time 10am rolled around, we boarded the big, spacious Etihad Airways airbus and were treated to individual movies and a yummy lunch before finally getting some sleep. A camera pointed straight down below the belly of the plane showed the green fields of central India pass below us, followed by a long stretch of blue as we crossed the Bay of Bengal.

It was 10pm local time by the time we landed in Singapore, but we had no trouble making our way downtown on the skytrain to find a hostel that was listed in the Lonely Planet. Phew! For the same price as paying for two people to stay in the dorm, we got a room that was about 7x7 feet, no windows, air conditioning, and our own giant fire hose box to use as a table. Works for us! So we made it to Singapore, got our bags, got a shower - we're happy! It might take us a couple days to readjust an get some 'chores' done, but then we have a new city and all of southeast Asia ready to be explored!

Another day, another country (Dec. 26/08 - Nairobi, Kenya)

Today marks the end of an era, so to speak - the end of our GAP trip, the end of traveling with a group, and the end of our time in Africa. It's bittersweet since we have had such a wonderful time here, and yet we're itching for the freedom of traveling on our own, being on our own schedule, and not having to be in the company of people we can't stand! First things first though - we have to get to Nairobi today since pretty much everyone flies out tonight or tomorrow.

Our first goodbye happened as we were packed up to leave the campsite in Arusha this morning, as Charlotte was staying there for the next two months to volunteer with a charity. So with an empty seat, we left Arusha and turned north and drove along some really crappy roads, past rolling fields of grazing cattle tended by Maasai herdsmen. Then we looked right and had an almost unobstructed view of Mount Kilimanjaro, much clearer than the view we had from the south the other day!

It was a long drive to the Kenyan border thanks to numerous detours off the crappy potholed road and onto even crappier gravel roads as the old roads were in the process of being repaired. We kept reminding ourselves that it was our last day of bumpy truck rides. The border was quick and painless, and from there it was about 150km to Nairobi. More detours, camels on the road, slow trucks to pass... it was a long haul to the city. Just as the highrises of downtown Nairobi came into view, a herd of zebras was seen beside the road, grazing amongst domestic cattle and goats. They would be the last wildlife we would see for a while, as we were soon pulling into the hotel that marked the end of our trip. The goodbyes were hard, as we have made some great friends over the past six weeks and spent a lot of time with everyone. Some we will surely see again - Ken in Vancouver, Ben and Kendra in Australia - others maybe not. We were sad to say goodbye to Raymond and Francis, who took us across Africa and showed us the beauty of the places they love. It really wsa a perfect way to see some of Africa's highlights, and we loved just about everything about it!

Over the last 41 days, we have traveled 10,240km from Cape Town to Nairobi, covering seven countries and passing through hundreds of towns and villages. We have seen the cultural contrasts change with the landscapes and the language. The people were friendly and happy virtually everywhere we went despite living in extreme poverty, with big welcoming smiles and waves. Maybe the key to happiness really is simplicity?

I estimate that we saw about 94 elephants, 41 lions, 10 rhinos, one leopard, two cheetahs, 60 giraffes, and hundreds of zebras, hippos, buffalo, wildebeeset, and antelope of every size and shape. Africa was beautiful and memorable - and I hope that some day we can come back for more.

Christmas in the crater (Dec. 25/08 - Arusha, Tanzania)

Merry Christmas! It's strange to think that today is Christmas Day, but as we ate our cereal by the campfire as the sun rose over the eastern rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, we had a feeling that this would be a Christmas that we would never forget. The air was cool and misty as we packed up camp and drove to the descent road that would take us down into the crater. It was a steep descent, but soon we were leveling off on the crater floor, surrounded by zebras and wildebeest. The crater is about 20km across, and it is surprisingly diverse in the little ecosystems scattered across it. Wide grass plains, salt flats and Magadi Lake, a lush forest on the west side, swampy hippo pools, and sloping green fields on the edge of the crater walls. There were lots of young zebra foals running around, some of which were still fuzzy, with brown stripes and wobbly legs. A long line of zebras came walking towards the road, and as the first one reached a dusty spot in the grass, he got down to roll and kept on walking. The second one in line did the same, and every one copied! The road wound through the vine-draped trees of the Lerai Forest, where big families of baboons played in the trees and elephants grazed on the tall grasses. On the other side, we had stopped to look at some buffalo when somebody noticed two lions lying in the grass right behind them! It was kind of odd that they were lying there rather than sleeping like they usually do, until we noticed two more females approaching the buffalo herd from behind us, and then two more - a female and a large male with a dark, full mane - were spotted approaching from the other side. These lions were stalking the buffalo! The eight buffalo continued to graze, oblivious to the six lions that were surrounding them. Our hearts were pounding as the possibility of witnessing an attack was suddenly very real. Then, as one buffalo had unknowingly grazed to within about 50 feet of the two lying lions, it suddenly picked up their scent and sent the rest of the herd running out onto the plains to the safety of a larger herd. Damn! That was close - and exciting! Ironically, we later came across the carcass of a not-so-lucky buffalo that had likely been killed by lions and was being picked clean by vultures. We were so close that you could hear their beaks knocking the bare ribs together as they noshed. Also on the side of the road was another dead but fully intact buffalo who showed no signs of being attacked except for the gruesomely twisted position of its head. Our guide suggested that his death may have been a result of a fight with another male buffalo, who can ram eachother with their heads hard enough to be fatal.

In the distance, we saw three female lions walking across the plains with six rambunctious little cubs running amongst them. Later on, we found out that one of the trucks from our group was lucky enough to find this group within a few feet of the road, and watched them play and try to roar - their photos were adorable! Other animals we saw included lots of hyenas and wart hogs, some crown-headed cranes, a pool full of about 75 hippos rolling around in the mud, thousands of flamingos dotting Magadi Lake, several elephants grazing in the distance, jackals, ostriches, and even a black rhino. For being such a limited (albeit diverse) area, we were amazed at the variety and quantity of wildlife we saw. There were times when you could look out in one direction and see ten or more types of animals at once! It was like a fenceless zoo, and it made for an awesome Christmas Day. Just as we were heading back toward the ascent road, our never ending string of good luck struck again, and we spotted another cheetah sitting in the grass a few hundred feet from the road! An elephant flapped its ears at us as we turned up the ascent road as we left the crater floor behind. The steep climb took us up the crater wall and along the ridge of its rim, back through the park gates and onto paved roads bound for Karatu. Our three days in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro reserves were incredible - beautiful, exciting, memorable, and even better than the brochures! It was also far too short - we would need another week or more to see all of it!


Raymond was waiting for us in Karatu, and we were surprised to see that he had not only cleaned the truck from top to bottom, but a "Merry Christmas" banner hung in the windshield of the truck, and the inside was totally decked out with Christmas decorations! Garland lined the windows, ornaments dangled from the ceiling, a "Merry Christmas" sign hung in the front windows, and a musical Christmas card was stuck to the wall inside. Good job Raymond!

As we drove back toward Arusha, we realized that we'd had our last taste of the African wilderness, and our last chance to see its animals - or so we thought! On the side of the highway, out stepped a giraffe, then two, then three, all insisting on crossing the road right in front of us! Only in Africa :)

We celebrated Christmas back at camp in Arusha by enjoying a barbecue hosted by the campground, which featured rotisserie impala, wildebeest, and buffalo stew. It certainly was no replacement for good old turkey dinner, but it was a fitting end to our Tanzanian Christmas! We whipped up a potent pot of rum punch in one of our giant cooking pots, which we enjoyed in plastic mugs while festive tunes blared from the truck. We couldn't help but think about what everyone at home is doing to celebrate today, and yet we're happy to now have a special memory of that year we spent Christmas in Africa.

Our luck continues... (Dec. 24/08 - Simba Camp, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania)

A huge sky full of African stars greeted us this morning (Christmas Eve morning!) as we got organized for a morning game drive. At daylight, we set out with cameras ready for whatever the Serengeti would have in store for us. We started seeing hyenas all over the place, lurking around in the grass, and one was spotted gnawing on the remnant horns and backbone of what was once a buffalo. We spent over three hours scouting the landscape and came across lots of giraffes, a couple tiny little antelope called dikdiks (they weigh only 12lbs!), a family of rock hyraxes (chubby grey rodents that look like marmots but are actually an elephant's closest relative!), lots of zebras and various antelope, warthogs, vultures, a male kori bustard bird putting on his flamboyant mating display for a nearby female, hippos, and a huge herd of buffalo. At one point, an old bull elephant was spotted wandering toward the road, and we were able to get a nice close view of him as he picked a thorn tree right beside the road to munch on the branches, scratch up against the trunk, and eventually turn his rear end to us and take a giant dump right in front of us. Then he decided to flaunt his wares and drop his giant 5th leg, waving it around for all the suddenly inadequate-feeling men to see. As we carried on across the plains, we saw a cluster of six other trucks stopped at the edge of the grassland, gazing out into the grass with binoculars and cameras drawn. This has to be good! Sure enough, we raced over and scanned the horizon looking for anything that wasn't grass or antelope. Then we saw a small, furry head poking up, and looking straight at us - a cheetah! YES! Cheetah was literally the only animal we had hoped to see in Africa that we hadn't yet. Our luck continues! It was pretty far away, but through binoculars you could easily see his cute little spotted cat face. We returned to camp happy and with camera memory cards almost full.

After lunch, we tore down camp and headed back toward the park gate. Our driver was nice enough to take the scenic route back to the main road, which gave us a bit more time to spot wildlife in the semi-treed Seronera area. Right away we encountered a beautiful big giraffe munching on a tree about 15 feet from the road. We watched him for a while as he alternated between watching us and sticking out his tounge to grab thorny branches off the tree. These ones are Maasai giraffe, which have a distinctly different pattern than the other varieties we've seen elsewhere. The splotches were more like puzzle pieces than polygons, and the background colour was more beige than white-ish or yellow-ish. Very cute nonetheless - giraffes are some of our favourites.

We drove back toward the park gate and spotted more hyenas, giraffes, zebras, and antelope on the way. Big rain storms moved across the plains ahead, but we managed to dodge most of the storms. As we crossed back into the Ngorongoro reserve, Maasai herdsmen and their cattle started popping up on the plains again. We had the option of visiting a Maasai village on the way back, so most of us jumped at the chance to learn about these people we've seen wandering around for the last couple weeks. They are nomadic people, moving their villages as necessary a couple times a year so they are close to the green grasslands for their cattle. Each village has one chief, and he has twenty wives who each have two or three kids, so about twenty little huts are built in a small area, made of acacia tree branches and cow dung. The men, adorned in their red and purple robes, chanted and danced to welcome us into their village, then they took us inside. We got to go inside their houses, which are ironically very low-roofed (about 4.5 feet), considering that these people are so tall! Inside, one woman lives with her kids in a tiny but warm hut, with cow hides to sleep on and a small fire for cooking. They only eat beef, sheep, and goat meat and drink cow's milk mixed with cow's blood. Yum. We were enthralled by the outfits and jewellry they wore - especially the somen, who wore intricate beaded necklaces and dangling silver earrings. One of the customs they have is to cut out a hole in their ear lobes and insert hoops and decorations to weigh them down and stretch them. Most of them had such big, droopy, ripped ear lobes that it made you cringe to look. Something else that made us cringe was learning that they perform circumcisions on boys 15 years old as an initiation into manhood. Ouch! They took us into the little preschool hut where the kids were gathered, and were greeted by 25 adorable little Maasai kids singing and clapping. They were so cute! The adults explained how the school system works, that almost all kids go to school near the crater rim, and that some go to secondary school too. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into such an exotic culture and gain a bit of an understanding into the way people still live their lives on these famous plains as they have for centuries.

The green slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater were in stark contrast with the bare plains below, and we were welcomed to our campsite at the rim of the crater with a giant rainbow that spanned from one side to the other, touching the rim on both sides. The air was dramatically colder at the crater rim thanks to the wind and the elevation. Pasta and hot chocolate around the campfire overlooking the crater made for a strange but wonderful Christmas Eve. As everyone at home is getting ready for turkey and presents in the snow, we crawled into our tents listening to crickets and hoping that elephants wouldn't come too close overnight.

The one and only Serengeti (Dec. 23/08 - Seronera Camp, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania)

This morning we left Arusha and headed west, bound for what might be one of the most well known parks in the world. Maasai herdsmen could be spotted all over the plains, herding cattle and goats in their bright red and purple robes. We found it interesting that they wore these elaborate outfits to do daily chores, and some were even spotted wearing the elaborate jewellry out in the fields too. We climbed up a steep escarpment that marks the western edge of the Great Rift Valley, climbing up high enough to get a magnificent view down to Lake Manyara and several elephants and giraffes visible far below. Small villages and extensive farmland continued to span the plateau, and soon we were climbing up onto another escarpment, marking another step on the border of the Rift Valley. At the village of Karatu, we left Raymond and the truck in exchange for three Land Cruisers, which we packed with all the gear we would need for the next few days. The trucks were well used (the odometer read 328,000km!), but we took that to mean reliable! The roof even pops up for air conditioning and a perfect view of wildlife.

We entered a densly forested area and met the entrance to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This reserve sits beside Serengeti National Park, and includes the unique Ngorongoro Crater, which some call the eighth Wonder of the World. The crater is the remains of an extinct volcano, which collapsed thousands of years ago to form the 20km-diameter caldera, whose rim sits some 600m above the crater floor below. We wouold be spending Christmas Eve camping at the rim and half of Christmas Day exploring the diverse and densly populated wildlife that calls it home, so more about this later. We did stop at the rim for a breathtaking view out over the crater, and we could easily spot elephants and buffalo as tiny specks far below. It was interesting to note that a monument was erected to commemorate the various people who died here while working to establish the reserve; causes of death included road accident, plane crash, shot by poacher, and rhinocerous.

We drove around the south side of the crater and continued west, down the volcanoe's western slopes. Maasai villages and cattle herds were everywhere, also visited by the occasional ostrich or gazelle. As we passed a herd of about 30 giraffes during our descent, the massive Serengeti Plains unfolded in front of us. It looked just as I had pictured... wide flat grassy plains stretching as far as the eye could see, with some isolated mountains in the distance and flat-topped acacia trees sprinkled here and there. The road was long and straight, and busy since it is the main access into the park. We passed herds of zebras, tons of ostriches, a few warthogs, tons of gazelles, and a few of those weird kori bustard birds we saw at Etosha. Then we turned off for a lunch stop, which I was thrilled to learn would be at Olduvai Gorge! Most people in the group had never heard of this place, but having taken an archaeology course in university, I knew all about it! This spot is where Louis and Mary Leaky unearthed the evidence of the earliest human ancestors ever found. They found skulls, tools, and all kinds of proof of homo habilis, dating back 1.8 million years. At a site called Leotoli, several miles from here, they later found footprints belonging to our earliest upright-walking ancestors, dated to 3.6 million years ago. Incredible stuff. Anyway, after hearing so much about it, it was very satisfying to stand at the edge of the gorge where it all happened and see the museum displays of their work, the geology, and the proof itself. Somehow it's not hard to believe that this part of the world was likely home to the original human beings on earth - a place they have termed 'the cradle of humankind'.

Onwards, we carried on across the plains and crossed the border out of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and into Serengeti National Park. The distant mountains became more sparse, and Maasai herdsmen were no more since they are restricted to the Ngorongoro. Our animal spotting eyes were glued to the savannah, and we came across a Secretary bird, a herd of giraffes perfectly placed beside acacia trees to comprise that idealized African postcard shot, and even a group of three sleepy lionesses dozing by a waterhole, bellies obviously full and lying wih all four paws in the air - so cute! None of them even bothered to raise their heads or even do more than turn an ear in our direction. Another lioness was spotted later, lounging high up on a huge boulder as if she owned the place. A low spot had a few feet of water in it, which was home to a bunch of hippos and a lone crocodile. Hartebeest, topies, bat-eared foxes, eagles, impala... animals were everywhere! As we turned off the main road toward the Seronera campsite, the sun beamed down through the clouds onto the plains, leaving silhouettes of acacia trees and a misty sunset. It was such an awesome feeling to soak it in from the open-top safari truck, the afternoon sun warm on our backs and miles of Serengeti dirt covering our skin and our clothes. Ahhhh, Africa!

Giraffes were within a hundred feet of our campsite when we pulled in, and we were warned to watch for any of the animals that could quite likely wander amongst our tents. Lions, hyenas, and elephants topped the caution list. We dined on spicy coconut chicken curry as the sky turned orange and purple, marking the end to another spectacular day in Africa. With only a couple days left, we're soaking in every moment of it because this really is a once in a lifetime sort of place.

Tanzanite (Dec. 22/08 - Arusha, Tanzania)

Usually when Raymond pulls the truck over to the side of the road, it's to close an open compartment door or for a bathroom break. But this time, he pointed ahead in the distance, as we were in sight of Mt. Kilimanjaro! Sure enough, faint on the horizon, we could make out the white snowcap of Africa's highest peak. Raymond said that he has only ever seen it 3 or 4 times in the many times in the many times he has driven this road, as it is usually enveloped by clouds. Our uncanny luck continues! We were afforded glimpses of the peak as we approached the town of Moshi, which is the base point for most of the treks seeking to summit the 18,000+ foot peak. Thick clouds kept us from seeing the entire mountain, but we were happy to have had a peek!

Sisal plantations filled the fields stretching all the way to Arusha, where we stocked up on food and water for our next three days in the boonies of Serengeti National Park. On the drive through downtown Arusha, we spotted some amusing business names, including "Beyonce's Hair Salon" (whose walls displayed murals of Beyonce Knowles), "Florida Beach Cafe", "Family Lubricants" (an engine oil store, we hope!), and "God's Faith Insurance".

Our last stop in Arusha was at the Cultural Heritage Center just out of town, where Raymond wanted to show us their impressive collection of wood carvings and tanzanite gemstones. He wasn't kidding about the wood carvings - they were infinitely more intricate, complicated, and HUGE than any we had seen elsewhere in Africa. They had twelve foot tall giraffes, masks with incredible detail, and an amazing statue of a galloping herd of gazelles whose legs/horns/bodies were all intertwined and frozen in motion - all 100+ of them! A photo on the wall showed that a similar one was given to Bill Clinton when he visited here in 2000. Lucky guy - that was one beautiful (and expensive) piece of art! The real highlight, however, was the tanzanite. This unique gemstone, which is an exquisite blue-purple colour, is found in only one place in the world - and today we drove right past it! Just as we were passing the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, there was a turnoff to a tanzanite mine - THE tanzanite mine. This mineral is only found right here, and can therefore be said to be 1000 times rarer than diamonds! It was discovered in the 1960's by Maasai herdsmen moving their cattle, and soonafter, it was shown to Louis Tiffany (of Tiffany's), who instantly fell in love with it and launched a full-blown marketing campaign. That is, after he suggested that the Tanzanian government change its name from "blue ziosite", which it was originally termed, since he thought it sounded too much like the word "suicide"! Probably a good call. Prices of tanzanite have increased thousands of percent since it has been available, and they will likely continue to do so since it is estimated that the final reserves will be mined out in about 6 years. The girls drooled all over the jewellry for quite a while, and several people bought loose stones for lucky family members back home.

Oddly enough, Mesarani Snake Park would be our camp spot for the night. Just like it sounds,this place has a zoo-like display of many of Africa's snake species, including rock pythons that have swallowed people whole, spitting cobras that jump 6 feet unprovoked to spit fatal venom into your eyes, and black mambas, which have been known to chase people and are almost always deadly. Yeah, and we're camping a hundred feet away? If that won't give me nightmares, I don't know what will!

Blah. (Dec. 21/08 - Mombo, Tanzania)

Back to the early morning "grind" today. The wedding out our window went on till at least 2am, so getting up at 5am was not so easy. We took the first ferry back to Dar Es Salaam, which turned out to be a smaller monohull boat rather than the nice big catamarann we had on the way over. Drugged up on Gravol, most of us managed to sleep for the whole trip. Others of us (including me) had some much to close encounters with the barf bags. Ugh, not fun. Needless to say, we were pretty happy to see Raymond and the truck waiting for us on the other side 2 1/2 hours later. I felt like crap for the rest of the day, but at least the windy drive north of Dar was somewhat soothing. It was nice to get out of the city and back to the expansive sisal plantations, thatched hut villages, and fruit stands on the side of the road. We stopped at a campsite near the town of Mombo, and were oddly happy to be back to our tents, cold showers, and the nightly campfire.

Vibrating bed (Dec. 20/08 - Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania)

So we came back from wandering around Stone Town tonight, eager to get a good sleep since we have to be up at 5am tomorrow to catch the ferry back to Dar Es Salaam. We walked into the hotel and started hearing loud Arabic music blaring on the other side of the building. We get up to our room and look out the window to see a full blown wedding underway in the courtyard below, not 20 feet from our window. Our non-closable window, I might add! The walls and our bed vibrated with the synthesizer and erratic vocals that went along with it. It's going to be a long night.

Waking up with no schedule in a big comfy bed with waves crashing outside was decadent this morning. We had omlettes on the patio and bobbed around in the waves until noon came around. We had a lunch date with Steve, and then said our final goodbyes to him when our shuttle came to take us back to Stone Town. Already, we're getting a taste of the odd goodbyes that others told us to expect while traveling. You meet people and become fast friends, share memories from a certain place, and then go your seperate ways knowing you'll probably never see them again.

Back in Stone Town, we wandered the shops for a few more hours and picked up some goodies for family at home, hopeful that we can send off a package soon since we've acquired quite a collection of stuff! One highlight we hadn't explored yet was the nightly fish market, which comes to life at sunset each night after the fishermen return to shore. One block of the narrow street beside the town's old castle-like fort becomes crammed with vendors selling skewers of fresh seafood, slices of fresh pineapple and breadfruit, samosas, naan "pizzas", freshly squeezed sugar cane juice, coconuts that are cut to order for their juice inside... the variety was quite impressive! We crossed our fingers that our stomachs wouldn't object, and tried some mussels, tuna, scallops, and kingfish grilled on the spot. It was delicious! You could buy whole lobsters, crab claws, squid, barracuda, reef shark, marlin, prawns, whole fish - basically anything the fishing nets brought up. Some of the tables were a cooperative effort of 6 or 7 fishermen, which probably helped produce such a wide variety.



We ate our fill in the busy, smoky market and then went back to the rooftop patio at the Africa House Hotel for a drink, some stargazing, and even some live entertainment as Nadia borrowed the guitar from the serenading guy to belt out an impressive version of The Cranberries' "Zombie". The two of them even did a couple duets, to loud applause from us (of course) and the rest of the bar! It was an awesome end to our stay on Zanzibar, which has been totally memorable and will likely be a highlight of our trip. Now if only the dude belting out off-key Indian music would can it so we could sleep...

Life is rough and then you dive (Dec. 19/08 - Nungwi, Zanzibar, Tanzania)

We didn't really know what to expect for diving on Zanzibar, but based on the nice clear water and wide variety of fish life we saw just snorkelling yesterday, we hoped it would be good. A cart full of scuba tanks being pulled by an ox arrived in front of the dive shop at 7:30am, and soon we were wading out from the beach in waist-deep water to pass our gear up onto the boat. These were the most unconventional dive boats we had ever seen - 30 foot wooden fishing boats that have had the traditional dhow sail removed and a canopy added. Our first dive was out to a remote site called Levan Bank, an hour's sail out north of Nungwi, to a pinnacle that rises from the sea floor in the channel between Zanzibar and Pemba islands. Half way out, I realized that the captain had no way of knowing where he is going - no GPS, no depth sounder, not even a compass. There is no mooring buoy on top of the pinnacle for visual reference or to moor to, as it would be ripped off by fishing nets. So when I asked how he knows when we're over the pinnacle, he turned around and pointed at the island behind us. "Just line up those two towers," he said, referring to two radio towers that stick up on the horizon. When they're lined up and he figures we've been sailing for the right amount of time, he tells us to gear up and jump in. I was skeptical, as hitting the several hundred foot wide pinnacle using this method was next to impossible! But they've done itmany times before, so we geared up and sank into the blue water. Sure enough, there was a bottom about 50 feet below us. We descended, but upon reaching the bottom, the guide motioned to us to go back up. What the hell? Maybe we lost someone already. Back on the surface, he tells us that this is the wrong spot, as we wanted to drop onto the deep side and work our way up to 50 feet. So we all took off our gear, passed it up, climbed back in the boat, motored over to the "right" spot, geared back up, and descended again. By now, the 10ft swells and commotion on the boat had some of us feeling pretty queasy... but that subsided once we got underwater. Down, down, down... 100ft and still no bottom below us. Just when I was thinking that they missed again, a reef came into view far below us. It seemed like a long swim in unnecessarily deep water to reach the pinnacle, and by then I had so little dive time left that I had to start ascending. The bottom slowly came up below us, but since I was always having to ascend, the bottom was always at least 20 feet below me! I could make out tons of fish though - grouper, moorish idols, parrot fish, wrasses, clownfish... too bad I was too far away to really see them. Before we knew it, we were up at 40ft and the dive was over. On the plus side, it was sure nice to swim in such beautiful warm, clear water!


We agreed to dive a shallow reef for the second dive, which made for a much more interesting dive. The sunshine was nice and bright at 40ft as we drifted along in the swift current with our eyes peeled for critters. Some of the interesting creatures we saw were blue spotted stingrays, Mauritius Scorpionfish (camoflauged to look like a pile of kelp!), a seahorse, lionfish, several big stonefish, giant clams, mantis shrimp, potato grouper, and even a crocodilefish. That more than made up for the frustrating first dive, and now we can add Zanzibar to our list of dive spots!

The rest of the lazy day was spent reading, bodysurfing, napping, and snorkeling with lionfish. We managed to meet up with Steve, who left the group in Livingstone because of a bad back, for dinner on the beach. We ate fresh seafood on the sand and chatted for hours until the thought of the big comfy beds waiting for us was too hard to resist....

Died and gone to Zanzibar (Dec. 18/08 - Nungwi, Zanzibar, Tanzania)

Nungwi, the northernmost town on Zanzibar, is paradise. We were blown away to see the big ocean view rooms and perfect white sand beaches after roughing it in campgrounds for so long. This morning we joined up with a guy named Musa who would take us on a tour of some of the island's highlights. We stopped first of all at a spot in Stone Town where the slave markets existed back in the 1800's. Zanzibar was the east coast hub of slave auctions, where Africans were taken from mostly Malawi and Zambia, shipped across Lake Malawi, marched in chains across Mozambique, and eventually shipped across to Zanzibar. Here, they were stuffed into dank rooms underground for days at a time until an aution was held, at which point they were sold to work in the Middle East, India, or the local spice plantations here on Zanzibar. We went into one of the holding rooms, where a space about the size of our bedroom at home was crammed with 75 people in a space with 4 foot ceilings and a trough down the middle for a toilet. This holding process was seen as a test to determine if a person was strong enough to survive as a slave. If not, they were just left to die until the room was cleared out. Dispicable - it was hard to even stand in that room and try to imagine it. An Anglican church has since been built over the spot where slaves were whipped as another test of strength, and it was interesting to note the tributes to Dr. David Livingstone, who was the European explorer who set out to end the slave trade in 1873. He succeeded, but actually died a month before the trade was shut down. Before coming on this trip, I read the book "Into Africa" to learn about his story, so seeing these places of relevance in person was really interesting. On the way out of the church, while noting that the whole building was constructed with concrete made of dead coral, we spotted a little scooter parked in front with a bumper sticker that read "OBAMA 2008" on it. These Africans are all over Obama's victory - a lot of people assume we're American and belt out "Yeah Obama!" before noticing our Canadian flags. We even saw a sarong yesterday with Obama's face plastered all over it!



After leaving the slave market, we drove north out of Stone Town and into rural countryside. Our next stop was the Butterfly Spice Farm, where we wandered around to see/smell/taste a huge variety of spices that are grown here and shipped around the world. On the way in, the "farm" looked pretty much like a natural forest, with different types of trees all mixed together and no apparent pattern to the planting scheme. But once we were shown which plants were which, it was amazing! The list of spices and fruits that we saw included:

• banana
• pineapple
• coconut
• passionfruit
• oranges
• coffee beans
• cocoa beans
• jackfruit
• breadfruit
• durian
• almonds
• henna
• cloves
• cinnamon
• ginger
• lemongrass
• peanuts
• tumeric
• peppercorns
• vanilla beans
• ylang ylang
• nutmeg
• cumin
• cardamom

It was so cool to see how some of our everyday spices (and many exotic ones too) are grown. Some little factoids we picked up:

• cinnamon "sticks" are actually sticks of dried bark; eating the bark was like sucking on sweet cinnamon candy!
• chewing cardamom pods makes your mouth go numb, so you can use it to soothe a tooth ache
• Zanzibar produces about 30 to 50% of the world's cloves
• vanilla beans are super expensive because they have to be pollenated by hand
• black, white, and green peppercorns are all from the same plant - only the drying process differs

We even got to taste some of the just-picked fruit and amazingly flavourful lemongrass and clove teas. The guide even climbed a palm tree to get some coconuts for us to try the milk and the fresh coconut meat inside. We all bought a bunch of spices to take home - the freshest (and cheapest!) spices you could buy. Did I mention they don't even have to fertilize or spray anything? So make that fresh, cheap, and organic!

We carried on down the dirt road to a village called Kizimbani, where we were led through a grove of nutmeg trees and wild teak trees to a house in the middle of the forest. We were asked to take off our shoes and rinse our hands, as the woman who lives here had cooked us lunch! All 13 of us plopped down on a woven mat in her house, which was tiny, two rooms with nothing more than walls and a couple windows. She brought out bowls of spicy clove rice, red onion salad, ugali (maizemeal) with octopus sauce (seriously, it had tiny purple octopuses in it!), fried cabbage, and steamed spinach. It was an awesome meal that had us understanding how these people eat (though this was clearly a special feast!) and sweating twice as much as we were when we came in! Afterward, she brought out some fabrics and beaded jewellry she had made, and some people held her sweet little 4 month old daughter named Sada who had pierced ears with twine earrings and the biggest white eyes you've ever seen.

It was an hour-long drive north through tiny towns where piles of freshly picked cloves were spread out on the edge of the pavement to dry, until we reached the town of Nungwi at the north tip of the island. The village itself seemed pretty rough around the edges, but once we pulled into our hotel and caught a glimpse of the beach, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Being on a budget trip, we were expecting a pretty low end hotel. What we got was a king size bed and sand-covered balcony overlooking a turquoize sea and perfect white sand beach. Perfection!! It only took a few minutes to ditch our bags before everyone was paddling out into the ocean, where the water was crystal clear and a lovely 28°C. Several hundred feet out, it was barely waist deep, and soon the coral heads started that were home to clownfish, anemonies, butterfly fish, crown of thorns starfish, giant snails, and bright blue urchins. All within view of the bar :) We signed up to go diving tomorrow and watched the dozens of dhow sailboats coming in from a day of fishing as the sun went down. Ahhhhhh, paradise.