Poa Kichizi Kama Ndizi

Yes I'm still okay! I've been moving a lot since my last update, and also not been in a writing mood, but I'm back!

I left Rwanda and after pausing to consider a trip to Burundi, changed my mind and headed straight to Tanzania, on a 3 day, 3 part matatu and bus ride to Mwanza. It should only take a couple hours to get to the border but, being that when I arrived at the matatu stand a full one had just pulled away, I was the first into the next one, and ended up waiting about 3 hours for it to fill up. Upon arriving at the border crossing found that it was closed, and had to stay the night at a hotel there. I crossed the border the next morning on foot, which goes over a large bridge covering small waterfalls and a river, and certainly must be one of the most beautiful border crossings in the world.

During the 2nd leg of the trip, in a dalla dalla (same as a matatu but the name has changed now that I'm in Tanzania) I shattered my record for number of passengers, Had I been able to dislodge the fat lady from my lap and turn my head enough to count them I would have found at least 30 people crammed into the minivan. The last five or so had to be shoved in through the windows after we shut the door so that nobody would fall out. Needless to say it was the most uncomfortable journey so far, and lasted about 3 hours. I spent the night again at an unmemorable town and caught a 5am bus to Mwanza, which takes about 8 hours to cover around 100 miles or so, as the roads are completely unpaved and potholed, and among the worst I've encountered, yet again. The passengers refused to close the windows even when we were behind large trucks that were kicking up clouds of dust, so we arrived in Mwanza visibly covered in thick dirt from head to toe, and coughing for a day or so after to get the dirt out of my lungs.

My goal in Mwanza originally was to catch the 2 day train to Dar es Salaam, but upon arrival learned that it was fully booked for the next 2 weeks. The only other option was taking a bus, but since the roads are so terrible in western Tanzania, the buses actually cross up into Kenya and go via Nairobi, and then back down to Dar es Salaam, which sounded like hell, and again, I hate backtracking, so tried to avoid this too. After 3 days of failing miserably to arrange a 1 way safari through the Serengeti and ending in Arusha, I had no choice but to take the 26 hour bus. As soon as we left I could tell that the driver had no clue, couldn't shift the gears very well, and had no sense of controlling a vehicle that size, but I decided to put my head down and hope for the best, as usual. About an hour into the journey he hit something, I'm still not sure what, I think maybe a goat or a cow, which freaked out the locals on the roadside, but we waved and kept moving. I nervously went to sleep around midnite, but was worried at the speed of which the driver was going along these rickety and narrow roads. Sometime around 2am I awoke to the shrill screams of the entire bus as the driver lost control at about 70 mph, I still don't know why, and was swerving all over the road, rocking the bus from side to side, tires screeching, and I'm sure we were up on two wheels a couple of times. By some pure miracle we didn't flip over, and I thought the entire busload of people would beat him to his death, but... I think he sensed that and kept the bus moving, which guaranteed his safety.

I spent a few days in Dar es Salaam getting cash, etc, and then finally borded a ferry to Zanzibar, which I was really looking forward to. Stone Town is the capital, and I spent about 8 days there during the Zanzibar International Film Festival and Festival of the Dhow Countries, which was a week of music and films, a few good, but mostly not. Wonderful food, and an excellent ice cream shop. Yay! The city itself is really nice to spend time in, it’s on the beach, really old, and reminded me a little of a Moroccan town with an old medina to get lost in and plenty of atmosphere.

After the festival I came up to Kendwa, one of the northern beaches, where I am now. It’s on a very beautiful stretch of beach, bright turquoise water and white sand, and nothing to do, which is perfect. The highlight of each day is when they unveil the dinner menu around 5pm at the restaurant. We order then, and come back around 8:00 for a declicious and leisurely meal. I ran into a Danish couple that I had met in Stone Town, Rasmus and Sophie, and spent several days with them, which was nice. Rasmus was good at finding new things for us to do, so one day we went on an 8 hour deep sea fishing trip where I got terribly sick on the boat and was puking over the side all the way back. We caught one huge fish about 5 feet long, I think a King Fish, and got a little too close to some scuba divers, so almost caught them as well. The sea was way too rough for the boat we were in, but the captain looked bored, despite the fact that we were getting completely lost between two waves, up and down like a roller coaster, with the front of the boat flying up in the air and then crashing down in the water, and water pouring into the boat each time. He calmly grabbed a bucket every once in awhile and scooped some back into the sea.

Another day we decided to try Scuba Diving since neither of us had, which was amazing. I ended up continuing on and getting my PADI open water certification, so now I can dive when I get to Mozambique, etc. It's an amazing feeling the first time you breathe under water, as some of you know, and just got better through my other dives. There are beautiful coral reefs here, and no shortage of fish and things to see. So far I've seen octopus, stingrays, jellyfish, lion fish, eels, huge moorish idols, and a lot more. On our first real dive we were out with our instructors... Jose was with us two boys, and Kate with the two girls. At one point a large remora (sucker fish) was swimming straight at my head, and so I jumped back a bit. Jose was laughing and motioning for me not to worry, and played with it a bit and then it left. When we got to the surface Kate was going on about how it had attached itself to her forehead and was nibbling on her. Sure Jose, I'm glad I relaxed! I had no idea what it was, I thought it was going to eat me.

I'm not sure if it's made the news over there or not, but 5 divers are missing here in Zanzibar, they never surfaced from their dive, and the boat couldn't find them, so they have been missing since last Saturday. All that has been found is one BCD (the vest you wear attached to the tank). Kinda scary. This happened off the coast of Pemba, a different island than where I am (Unguja) where there are stronger currents and far from where I'm diving thankfully. The owners of the dive shop here have been part of the search party, and flying around in planes looking for them. Definitely the talk of the islands at the moment.

So to recap, since we last spoke I've covered hundreds of miles, seen yet another view of Lake Victoria, tried in vain to arrange a safari from Mwanza into the Serengeti, narrowly escaped death on a 30 hour bus ride to Dar es Salaam, been sea sick and thrown up twice while catching a 5 ft king fish, learned how to scuba dive and got my open water certification, and have come to one conclusion... Laura Bush is stalking me. As you recall, our first encounter was in Cairo, and now yesterday I heard that she is in Zanzibar. What gives Laura? Nothing better to do than follow me around Africa? I've realized what an amazing job she has as first lady... travel around as a diplomatic ambassador/privileged tourist and smile and wave like an overaged beauty queen.

On another note, I've thankfully lost the mzungu name here in Zanzibar, they show slightly more respect for the tourists, and say mambo… which I thought was a new nickname, but turns out it just means 'how's things?'. And I've found the best response to be 'poa kichizi kama ndizi'… cool, like a crazy banana. Kids love it.

Anyway, back to Stone Town tomorrow! I've got to get moving if I'm going to go to all the places I have planned and get to South Africa by October. I think I've missed the good time to go to the Serengeti, so I think I'll be headed towards Malawi next... we'll see. But thankfully I'm refreshed, have my energy back, and am generally well after three weeks on an excellent beautiful island, and am ready for the mainland once again!

I hope you're all well! Speak soon!

Wes