Tim & Ana's Travels: September 2006

Day 163
We woke up early to get our taxi to the airport and catch our flight to Tanzania. It was nice to know we were off to see another country. I loved Ethiopia but wanted a change of pace and some wild animals and beaches.

We ended up getting to the airport a few hours early on top of the flight being delayed so in the end we had about 3 hours to burn at the airport. We burned a good chunk eating a really bad and expensive breakfast of eggs and bread.

Eventually the bus picked us up and drove us out to the plane. We boarded the plane old school style with the stairs and all. Always fun.

The plane looked pretty good and I was happy to see that. I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped us off at an old rusty plane with a flat tire and broken windows. But this plane looked top notch.

The flight was a little bumpy but I survived without throwing up. We got to see Kilimanjaro from the plane. Man it was a bigger mountain than I thought. Looking at it made me want to climb it but the money was crazy. Around 2,000 for a 5 day climb. That’s crazy since we spent 2,000 in both Egypt and Ethiopia.

Flying into Dar Es Salam (Or Dar) was really cool. The beaches were amazingly green. I was excited seeing them. We landed and changed a little American money for Tanzanian Shillings. We headed out to the crowd and headed for the local bus to get to town. Ana became the negotiator and got a taxi drive for only 7,000 shillings (6 American dollars) to the city. Prices are much higher in this city and that was a good price for the ride we took. Great to see Ana in the mix getting us deals.

Of course we arrived to the YWCA (our first choice) and they were filled up. So we headed to choice 2 which was the Safari Inn. They had rooms but it was about $15.00 American dollars a night. Dang that was expensive. We grinded our teeth and took the room. It looked like Tanzania was going to bleed our account to death.

The one thing that was nice was that the room was clean. It wasn’t the nicest but it was clean. I was happy about that. I hate when we pay double the norm and get a room that is worse than the other hotel at half the price.

After dropping off our stuff we headed out looking for a bank and an ATM. The streets of Dar are pretty rough. You could instantly feel that we were not in Ethiopia no more. The people had pepper in their stare and I didn’t really like it. They reminded me of the American thug black people. The kind of guys that hang around just looking for trouble and staring at you with a look that makes you fell not welcome. I didn’t like the way that felt and I felt like I was a rich white guy again. I hate that. I felt separated from the people because of the money I’m perceived to have and my race. So far our experience had been so great in Egypt and Ethiopia but here is was different. They shipped millions of slaves from these shores, they were people that had been colonized, repressed and there were plenty of fat rich people walking around them when they were hungry and trying to make money. Maybe they have the right to look at me this way.

Either way we walked through the rough streets and looked for banks. We tried our card at a few and no luck. Damn we couldn’t get money here either. URRRGGG! I’m so tired of having to spend so much energy and money to access my money. I’m starting to hate that about this country.

Anyway we gave up after about 8 banks. Allot of them closed and we would try again in the morning. It was starting to be evening and the power in Dar was out. The city was really dark and I didn’t like walking around the streets at night. Especially after we just ran around to a bunch of banks and tried to get money out. So we found the only place we could that was open using a generator for light. There were a few travelers there and it was funny to see them. I forgot how unvisited Ethiopia was. There were more travelers in that restaurant than we had seen in the last week in Ethiopia.

We sat down and ordered a chicken sandwich and two cokes. Half an hour later I got the feeling we weren’t going to be seeing that chicken sandwich for a while. I almost thought about leaving since it was getting close to dark but I said maybe it will come out in the next 5 minutes we can eat fast and walk back to our hotel quickly before it gets to dark. Wrong.

About 1.5 hours after we ordered the waiter showed up with our single sandwich and fries. But as soon as we opened up the sandwich there was no chicken inside. They only had tomatoes and lettuce. I was pissed. Ana said let’s just eat it. I said hell know and motioned the waiter over. I gave the food back and luckily it only took about 20 minutes to add the chicken and probably some spit or something because we sent it back. By the time we finished it was dark.

We walked back to the hotel down the dark street for about 10 minutes. I wasn’t happy about that but was so pissed I was sort of hopping someone tried to mug us so I can use my karate moves I learned. Not really but I was pretty pissed. We did though make it safe and sound back to the hotel.

So far I hate Tanzania.

At the hotel we watched a little of the World Cup. We met another couple from the States their names were Scott & Rachael. They were headed the next day to do a safari in the Serengeti and asked us if we wanted to join them. I said what the heck they seemed nice and we just had to switch our plans a little to make that happen. We planned to meet up the next day and figure out the details.

We headed to bed. Luckily the bed was flat and that was nice to see. I feel asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Day 164
We both sleep pretty well. It started raining in the night and pretty much rained all night. I love that sounds.

We set the alarm to wake up early and got try and hit the banks to get some money. Of course it was raining so we had to take our rain gear. We needed money wet or dry. I hate feeling like I have no money in these countries.

We walked around to about 8 banks in the rain before we finally found one that could give us money on our Master Card.

It was a funny transaction because I gave the girl my card and she told me I could take out money. I said how much is the most money I can take out. She looked at me funny. I said can you give me 400,000 (300 American dollars) in cash. She said ok. She then swiped the card and counted the pile of money out and gave it to me. That easy? I was thinking man I hope no one ever gets a hold of my card. To easy.

But outside of the security problem we had money. I was happy to have money and felt free again. Free to buy food and pay our hotel. Money can make you feel pretty unsafe here.

We headed back to the hotel and told Scott and Rachael were on for Arusha and the safari. After breakfast we walked down the street the four of us and purchased our bus tickets for the next day. That went pretty smooth and we headed out to get lunch.

Went to a nice place and had a good hamburger. It was nice to see a menu with stuff I actually could recognize.

After lunch we hit the internet for 4 hours. Were way behind and 4 hours didn’t even make a dent in what we needed to write. So I decided we needed to take a full day and just pound on it. We decided to do that sometime after the safari. The blog is starting to take allot of time and money and I’m thinking of just doing a personal journal. If I want to keep the blog up I’ll need to catch up and not make it such a massive amount of work. We’ll see.

After internet we ate dinner at the same place. Ana had another beef hamburger. I could tell she was missing the meat in the last couple weeks. She devoured the hamburger like a lion. Crazy little girl.

After dinner we headed back to shower in our “hot” shower. Again they sold the room as a hot shower and nothing comes out but cold. I’m going to start saying if the water isn’t hot you need to give us a discount. That way at least we get confiscated for the arctic showers.

We packed and hit the sack. The next day was a 10 hour bus ride and I wanted to be rested up for all the excitement. Oh Boy.

Day 165
Woke up at 6:30 to catch the bus. Ana didn’t have a good night and had a tough time sleeping. We packed up and walked down to the bus station.

The bus rolled up and we put our bags on the underside of the bus. A guy helped us and said we had to pay him 5 dollars for each bag. We said no way we want to talk to the bus manager. A couple minutes later he was gone. That punk was a local guy trying to rip us off. Man I hate that. I wish you could do something to them but you can’t. Not in Africa. Just got to take it.

Anyway an older guy gets on board and says “Don’t pay him he lies just pay me a tip”. Sure enough about an hour later when he got off he asked for a tip. We said what for? He said we said we would. He was pissed off. He did nothing for us but wanted a tip. What a punk and what a way to start the bus trip. Freckin scammers.

The next 10 hours ride pretty much sucked. The bus suspension was extremely squeaky so all the time it just keep squeaking down the road. Nice. They also had a great selection of movies that included American Ninja 6. Now that’s a good movie. I can’t believe in a country like this they would show such bad movies. You can buy any pirated movie on the street for 50 cents. I’ve stopped asking questions like that though. There just aren’t any answers.

After a fabulous feast of movies and 10 hours of squeaking we finally made it to Arusha. I felt like a celebrity when the bus pulled in. There was a crowd waiting for us and everything. Sure enough also they even had a nicely printed out sign with my name and a x4 (meaning Ana, Scott, & Racheal) perfectly spelled out on it? I was like who and how in the hell did they get my name here. So as soon as I walked off the bus I said I’m not that guy I’m not sure who he is. What a weird name. Ana was smiling and trying to figure out why they had my name.

It was amazing and the best display of communication I’ve seen. In the end I figured out that my hotel somehow gave my name to them and the bus and day I would be arriving. Their guys were there to great me and offer me a great safari tour. See safaris are big business in that city. Just between me and Ana we were going to drop 1,000 American dollars on a 4 day safari. That’s allot of money and there’s a ton of commutations. So the hotel in Dar sold or gave our name to a company there and they tried to intercept me before all the others. Nice work I must say. I hated it but got to give them credit. I’ll be signing my name much less clearly in the future.

We grabbed our bags and headed out with the guy Scott and Rachael had been talking with. His name was “Biggie”. He seemed pretty cool and was willing to take us to our hotel then to his office to see about the tour he offered. A little sleazy but oh well.

When we took off in the jeep the guy with my name was pretty pissed. By that point he had pretty much figured out I was the guy on the card and I was leaving with another guy. Oh well.

Biggie took us to a couple motels and we found one that was pretty nice and cheap. Had hot water also. Again no hot water when we jumped in the shower. We asked about it but he said yes that is hot water. See I think hot water in Tanzania is water that isn’t -600 degrees. Anything above 1 degree is considered “hot water”. That’s where we’ve been making the mistake. Either way we didn’t fight it and just took a shower.

After a shower we headed out to eat dinner with Biggie and hear what kind of safari he had to offer. He picked us up and took us to a really nice dinner. It was very expensive but nice. I had a pizza and Ana had some soup. She said the soup was great and it made her throat fell better. She was feeling a little sick. Oh man I was hoping it didn’t get worse we were headed for a 4 day camping safari.

After dinner and telling us about the safari we headed back to the hotel. The safari he offered sounded nice and we were interested. But we also wanted to check out a couple other agencies the next day before we made our joint 2,000 dollar decision.

Biggie was really nice and even drove us to a Barkley’s Bank to pull out money. It was great we actually were able to pull out 400,000 Shillings (300 American). That was the first ATM we’ve been able to use in a month. It was great.

We went back to the hotel and went to bed. Ana wasn’t feeling to good and she was running a fever. I was hoping she could get over the sickness easy. I told her to rest up the next day so she could get past the sickness easier. But hard headed Ana won’t listen to me. I just have to tell her that so I feel better.

I fell asleep pretty easy. Was a long day.

Day 166
Ana woke up feeling better. I was a little worried since she was pretty hot the night before. She got some good sleep she said and I think that helped. I offered to run all the errands that day and she can stay and relax but she said no way. She’d go crazy in the room with no TV or anything to keep her occupied. So she suited up and we hit the town looking for a place to do laundry. Of course all you can find in the this town is hand wash places. No one has a washing machine. Hand washing never is the same clean as a machine. They always come back smelling ok. Passable at best usually. I hate that.

We hunted around and found a place that did have dry cleaning and a washing machine. But since the power wasn’t working in the city it would take two days to do our laundry. No thank you I need my cloths. We settled on getting out stuff hand washed and hoped it was sunny enough that day to dry the cloths.

After dropping the laundry we met up with Scott and Rachael and went to have breakfast. It was hard to find a place to eat but we did finally find a local dive next to the bus station. It was greasy but we ate anyways. We had some local tea with milk which was really bad as well as some old stale donut things. Yummy. I did though get a tortilla type thing that turned out to be pretty good.

After the .5 star breakfast we hit the town and went to a few different companies offering safaris. There are about 200 companies so we only went to the ones in the book that have been around for a while and are trust worthy. We also stopped by local tourist office to check out our Biggie friend who offered us a really cheap tour both to the Serengeti and the tour up to Kilimanjaro. The guy said that the rates were lower than he would advise. He says most of the time when the prices are that low the safari or hike up Kili will be bad. Bad food, car, guide, or something of that nature. We were instantly put on defense against out pal Biggie. In the end we decided to go with a well known company called “Sunny Safaris”. It was a little more but you could tell they were top notch and had been doing tours forever.

Our choice felt really good when we met Biggie on the street again and he said he was going to knock another large amount off the deal. He also was phoning around to all his buddies to find out where we were. It was like the city had eyes on us. I didn’t like that and the whole thing was just creepy. I’m glad we went with Sunny’s for our 4 day safari tour. We paid the 1,000 dollars and were set to leave the next morning for 4 days and 3 nights in the Serengeti and the Norongoro Crater. Cool.

After getting the safari set up I had a sense of relief. We then walked around town looking for snacks and warmer cloths for Scott and Rachael. I also found an adapter for my new charger. See I burned out the 3 battery charger in Ethiopia and I bought another 30 dollar one in Dar that doesn’t plug into the plugs in Tanzania. Man I was about to scream when I found that out. My tally so far on chargers is 4 chargers in 6 months. I’m not even going to talk about it because I could add pages onto this book I’m writing just expressing my slight anger at the situation.

Later that evening we went back to Sunny’s to learn more about climbing Kili. I was thinking about going. But 2,000 dollars was killing me. Also I’ve had enough altitude sickness in Bolivia to last me a lifetime. But none the less I was intrigued to go and the wheels in my head were turning.

That night we had pizza for dinner again and it was pretty good. I was pretty excited to go on the safari that night in bed. Actually keep me up for a little bit thinking about it. I’ve always wanted to see the real African beast in the wild. As silly and touristy as it was I still wanted to see and experience it myself. I couldn’t wait to sleep in the tent at night and hear the animals outside at night. 2 cool.

Day 167
That night we didn’t sleep very well. Poor Ana was sneezing and coughing all night. She was now for sure sick. Poor thing. I also was in the same bed so I didn’t get much sleep. Both of us woke up early feeling pretty tired.

The safari car, driver, and cook picked us up at the hotel. The driver was a little older and at first site seemed like he might be a little boring. But I tried to make the best of it and be more upbeat about it.

First stop on the safari was the large supermarket in town. It was REALLY nice compared to what I was used to. We loaded up on extra water, coke, and snacks for the next 4 days. I wasn’t sure about the food and wanted to make sure I had back up resources. I won’t make the same mistake as I did in Bolivia again. Horrible food I had to eat because I had nothing else.

We took off and drove the next few hours out of town and through a couple parks. They were really nice. We saw an elephant on the side of the road and pulled over to check it out. What was funny as that there was this typical hippy looking guy just on the other side of the road looking at the elephant. There were tons of white butterflies all around him as he started by himself at the elephant. It was the funniest thing. Like straight out of a movie. I got a good shot of it.

Along the way we saw some of the Massai tribe. They were much more civilized than the ones in Ethiopia and that made them a little less interesting. But none the less it was nice to see their villages and think they used to live in the county when the animals roamed free. Strong people. I bet though they lost allot of people to the animals.

We finally got to the edge of the Serengeti park and it the climate started changing. It got flatter and drier. Also a bit more hot. We popped the roof up on the Land Cruiser and drove with it open. It was really cool because you could stand up while the car was driving and see out in a 360 degree radius. It also gave us shade. Very nice feature I learned to really love in the following days.

As we entered the park we spotted a heard of giraffes. By this time Ana wasn’t feeling to hot and pretty much was just sitting in the chair trying to relax and feel better. It sucked that she was sick but what could be do. I just tried to give her room to relax and rest. But as soon as we saw the animals she popped her head up. They were really beautiful creatures especially 6 of them in the wild. Giraffes are Ana’s favorite animal. She loved them but after seeing them started felling bad again and had to sit back down. Poor thing.

We continued down the road toward camp. It was evening so allot of animals were coming out to feed. We saw a bunch of zebras and even a small heard (4) of elephants. They were pretty close to the car and really amazing just to watch eating. They wrap their trunks around a thing of grass then ripe it out and put it in their mouth. The sound and the peacefulness was amazing.

We also saw 2 lions walking down the side of the road. We positioned the car and waited and the 1 female lion walked right by the car. What a beast. It was so cool to look out the top and see it right next to us. She was wearing a tracking collar which made it seem a little less exotic but none the less it was cool. We saw so much wildlife just getting to our campsite.

Daylight was running out so we headed to the campsite. The sunset was magical. Reds and purple light coloring the fields of white grass, trees and animals. Like a postcard it was incredible. I took about 5,000 photos of the sunset. Somehow taking a ton of pictures made me fell better. I’m sure I’ll be throwing away allot of photos on this card.

Once we go there it was really cool to see part of the migration (hundreds of wildebeest and zebras) a few hundred feet from our camp. We got into camp and tried to set up our tents before it got dark. They were new tents which were really nice. VERY heavy but nice. In fact the normal fiberglass poles were actually steal. That’s how heavy it was. But once we got them up they were great. Large and plenty or room.

We rolled out our bags and took out all the food to keep the animals out. I for sure didn’t want no lions in my tent. The girl next to use was nice enough to tell us that the lions had walked through the camp the night before and that we should make sure not to have any food in our tents. Cool. It was nice to be so close. I actually felt nervous walking around in the dark. There were for sure lions in the area and I didn’t want to bump into one. They also recommended you don’t go to the bathroom late at night by yourself. All this added to the excitement and was really fun.

As we ate dinner the animals (Zebras and wildebeest but I didn’t know this at the time) made tons of noise on the horizon. Very cool. I knew I would sleep good that night.

Dinner was served and it was great. We soup, spaghetti and bread. It was delicious and I was happy the food was so good.

One thing that was really funny was that people actually say “A Kun A Matatta” here. It’s the funniest thing. It took me a long time not to sing the Lion King song in my head every time they said that. But I’m sure they were saying that long before the song. Pretty funny either way.

I put Ana to bed right after dinner. She still wasn’t doing to hot. The stars at night were amazing. Brilliant. Reminded me of the stars in Sequoia but the sounds were different in the night. Very cool.

I stayed up and smoked a cigar then headed to be with Ana to make sure everything was ok. Right before I went to the tent about 4 zebras ran right through the camp. They run and sound just like horses. I was hoping none of them ran into the tent in the middle of the night. We’ll see. I think they would scare the hell out of me if they did.

Once in bed I just sat there listening to the noises. It was so magical. I didn’t know any of the noise. I couldn’t tell if they were frogs, birds, zebras or wildebeest. Either way it was really pretty and something I’ve always wanted to experience.

Day 168
Woke up well rested. I awoke several times in the night just to hear the sounds. Very Very cool. Ana though woke me up in the morning when as she was getting out of the tent to got to the bathroom she fell down. I woke up thinking an animal hit the tent but instead I found a sick old lady wrapped up in net, zippers, and dirt. Poor thing she wasn’t feeling good and I’m sure this started out the day just perfectly.

Breakfast was great and included eggs, sausage, toast and tea. Way more than I ever expected. After lunch we headed out to go see more animals. The terrain was beautiful and we drove around the Serengeti dirt roads till lunch. We were able to barely see some cheetahs, a male lion, and tons of gazelles, zebras, wildebeest, and vultures. We also got to see a zebra leg laying in the road. Pretty harsh but also pretty real. Animals eat each other out here that was for sure.

There were a ton of cars in the park but most of the time you felt not to cramped. I guess I expected the worst and although it was bad it still was better than I had expected. Either way I was enjoying myself and just being in the park made so many things I’ve seen on TV made so much more sense. I love that about travel. I will never see African videos about animals the same. It’s much richer of an experience for me now.

Lunch was great and Ana was feeling 50/50. Most of the time she would just sit in the car. When we saw animals she would get up but then when we left she was back to sitting down. Seems like her sickness comes in waves. She was a trooper though. Tough little Latin lady.

After lunch we headed to the hippo pools. The road there was a little less traveled and I liked that. At one point there was a large rock in the road that made it hard to pass so the driver decided to get out of the truck and move it. It was really funny to watch him because he was actually scared to get out of the truck. If there was a lion on the grass he would be dust. He carefully got on the truck hood and looked as far as he could see. Then once he knew there was not one right next to use he got down and with speed in his step got out and moved the rock. Was pretty funny and it was nice to remember without the truck you wouldn’t want to be in this country.

Once we got to the “Hippo Pool” there were a few people but not many. The hippos were really amazing to see. It was not really a pool as much as a mud pit with about 50 hippos all smashed together in it. The sound and smell found me far before my eyes actually saw it. One thing that was really cool was that you were allowed out of the car at this pit so we were able to walk in the park and go right to the edge of the pit. In fact we were so close I was a little afraid that they might not like us and attack. But I’m sure some people before me would have been mashed. But who knows I could have been the first?

We sat on the shore watching the hippos for about an hour. They were so nasty and funny. The pit was barely water in some sections most of it was thin mud. It was actually really gross because you could see man of them pooping in the water. They would sometimes get mad at another one that bumped into them and start making a deep booming grunting sound that lasted about 15 seconds. Then while they were grunting they would start pooping and with their tiny fast moving tails swat the poop all over the place and hopefully on the one they were mad it. It was really grotesque and a funny way to show you’re mad at someone. Can you imagine if humans did that? Maybe you were in a meeting and you got mad at your boss then with your fast moving finger you would… You know the rest. Nasty.

Anyway the animals were cool just to watch. They would often open their mouths wide and yawn. As they did they would take a scoop of nasty poop water into their mouths. I don’t know how they don’t get sick. They must have stomachs of steal.

When they yawned you could also see their massive mouth and teeth and you understand better why they are the number 1 killer in Africa. A vegetarian as the number one killer in Africa is pretty funny. I guess people are killed most when they get in the way of a Hippo and water. They freak out and run up and chomp you in half and mangle your body. They are as big as cows and although they look fat and slow I can see how they could turn quickly into killers.

We watched them as the sun started to fall and as we drove back to the campsite we enjoyed a picture perfect African safari sunset. The burning round red sun on the horizon illuminated the clouds in a bright and warm oranges and yellows. The trees were also amazing those typical trees that you see in the pictures that fan out at the top all light up by the setting sun as well. It was really magical. The type of shots you see in National Geographic. We watched as we drove back seeing a different animal along the way and watching the sun loose it’s power till it was completely gone. Very-Very cool.

When we got back to camp it was dark and our cook had dinner ready and we started with some fresh cooked popcorn, which was a treat out in the middle of nowhere. They we had some vegetables and beef for dinner all under candle light which was really romantic. The food has been so much better than I expected. Ana and me had bought one wine bottle in town before the trip and we decided to crack it open that night. By the end of the bottle both of us were pretty buzzed and really enjoying ourselves. We headed off to our tent to sleep after a bit and my stomach was a feeling a little off. Was a little tough to get to sleep for some reason.

Day 169
I didn’t sleep well at all that night. My stomach was a little off and the animals were extremely loud for some reason. Their noises were actually bugging me all night. If I knew where my earplugs were I would have put them in. At one point in the night the rumbling ground and the sound of a stamped awake me. I thought they were coming right through the tent. I actually got prepared to have one run full force into the tent. They felt close. I think what happened was the tigers were out in the night hunting and they had spooked the heard of wildebeest and zebras right next to our camp. There were about 300 or so and they made a loud sound when they ran together. Especially since we were sleeping flat on the ground.

We got out of bed around 6:30 in the morning to catch an early morning view of the Serengeti. Both Ana and me didn’t sleep to well and our stomach were telling us all about it. Poor Ana was sick so the bad nights sleep and stomach only made things worse. Poor thing.

We did a game drive for the next 4 hours. It was really nice to see the sunrise and the colors of the morning were so soft. The golden grass really reflects the warm colors of the sky and it makes your entire 360 view of the place spectacular. I took about 600 photos. Way too many but it’s so hard not to.

At one point on the morning game drive we spotted a male and female lion walking across the plains. Man that was an amazing sight. They were a little ways away and I wished we had binoculars but nonetheless it was amazing. I imagined being a tribal guy and walking in the plains. Man I would have shit if I saw those lions walking the way they did. They were huge and moved like small cats just about 20 times the size. I probably would have hide down in the grass till they were gone just like all the other animals do. WOW they were impressive. Power and dominance like nothing else around. Very amazing animals.

We sat and tried to wait till they got closer to the road so we could drive over and see them closer. But no luck. They spotted us and made sure they were in an area we couldn’t get to them. It was funny to see two together and the driver thought they must have been mating. Most of the time lion’s travel alone and only comes in groups when they are hunting or have a child.

After the lions we headed back to camp for an early brunch. Poor Ana was doing well but I know she was hurting most of the time. Her sickness was in and out. Sometimes feeling better and standing up in the truck to feel the breeze, look around, and smell the grass but other times she just sat and sleep.

After brunch we packed up the gear and tents and made our way to the Ngorongoro Crater for the last day of our safari. The Serengeti was really spectacular but I was looking forward to a change of scene.

While in route to the next camp on the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater we stopped into the HEAVILY traveled tourist trap of the Massai Tribe. As we drove up on the village surrounded by a fence made of small local tree limbs you could tell it was a set up. The people I think did live in the village still but they were all clean and all the jewelry they had on was new and clean. That in and of itself showed me what we were seeing was very staged. Either way I tried to just enjoy it and find something special about the place.

As soon as we got out of the car we paid the “Chief” to go into his village. As we entered all the people of the village lined up and started singing the “Welcome Song” to us in their African language. I must say as cheesy and touristy as it was they had beautiful voices. Together they were really beautiful when they sang. They also preformed a little later in the song. The guys would jump up in the air as high as they could on a certain drum rhythm. They were springy little skinny guys. Man they got some serious air with what seemed like no effort at all. Maybe that what you need to get away from the animals in the area. You have to run and spring into a small tree like Tiger on “Winnie the Pooh”. Maybe all the fat slow guys were eaten and only the skinny springy guys survived. Luckily I wasn’t a Massai. I would have been dead a long time ago because I got what they call the “white man can’t jump” syndrome. I’m like a delectable treat for the lions. Ummmm fat slow guy coming up.

We sat and enjoyed the singing. Ana really loved the singing and dancing since that’s her thing. After the show was over and we took our photos one of the guys who spoke really good English came over and took us into one of the huts. Of course it was pretty dirty and smelled like that yummy tribal musky smell. When I write this I can still smell that smell so clearly in my mind. In fact I think that I can actually taste it. That’s not a good thing.

The guy continued to tell us about the tribes and their way of life. They were pretty similar to the Ethiopian tribes. The women do most of the work but the men actually have to go out and hunt. That would be interesting in these parts. I think I would rather be an Ethiopian tribal man since they don’t have so many deadly animals. Our guide also explained how the hut was made and that they used cow skins on the roof and cow poop to seal the holes. That explained some of the tasty smell we were experiencing. In the end I got the feeling no one actually slept in that hut. The hut seemed to dirty and the people and their cloths and jewelry were too clean. Either way I’m sure at some time someone did live there even if it wasn’t right now.

After the hut we went to the local school they had for the kids. It was interesting to see this tribe starting to change into a more normal society. They were the most advanced I had seen while still holding onto their history. They didn’t have t-shirts will LL Cool J on them. They were becoming advanced but they still wore the tribal clothing.

The school had about 25 children and all of them were sitting on seats in a U shape inside the hut type school structure. There was a single chalkboard on the wall to the left when you walked in and that was from where the teacher taught the little kids. The teacher welcomed us in and we stopped all that was going on in the class. We were told a little about the school and that the kids were learning to speak English. That seemed to be the curriculum of most of the classes in Africa. Not math and reading but more learning the English language. I guess they see that as an actual useful skill set and the other stuff they just don’t see the use in it. To some degree I can understand that. All they need to be able to do is some basic math and speak English and they would be far ahead of most of Africa as far as finding a job (Especially in the tourist industry).

After the kids sang a song to us then went over the numbers on the black board we said our good-byes. It was really cute. They had a strategically placed donation box that when we put a little money in it all the kids clapped. Pretty cute and funny.

After we visited the school we were taken outside to buy crafts from the locals. It was way overpriced and we really weren’t that interested in getting any of it as well. So we climbed back into the car empty handed. The tour of the village was ok. The one thing I think I really enjoyed was the singing. Man can African people sing. They have a great sense of rhythm and strong powerful voices.

We headed down the road to the Ngorongoro Crater campsite. When we got there the sun was almost setting and the place was really crowded. There were what looked like about 40 tents scattered along a large grass area and tons of tourist. Luckily it was almost dark and we were only there to sleep. I figured I would need my earplugs that night and I was right. It was pretty loud. Not to bad but the earplugs were necessary.

After putting up the tent and getting things settled we headed to take a shower. It was really starting to get cold and there was a cloud front starting to roll in. It didn’t look like rain just a thick night fog layer rolling in and temperature was dropping rapidly. Luckily when I got to the shower it was really hot. In fact the water was really sporadic and would either burn you or freeze you. But overall it was great to feel burning water since it was so cold outside.

When I finished my shower I ran back to the tent and put on almost all the clothing I had. My long johns, 3 shirts, light jacket, heavy jacket, gloves, and beanie. It was getting freezing cold and it looked like it was going to be a rough night. When Ana came back she said the showers were freezing cold. Like ice water that she couldn’t even step inside of. She had to just wet small parts of her body and shower like that. I was laughing and told her my shower was boiling hot. She was pretty pissed and it was nice to finally have the hot shower when she had the cold.

After getting all geared up we headed to the dinner area to eat. It was a large area filled with different groups of campers. During dinner all of us were freezing. The temperature had to be around 40 degrees or so. It was cold and it felt like it could snow if the right clouds rolled in.

We ate pretty quickly and I couldn’t wait to get into my bed. I wasn’t feeling the hottest so I think that was contributing to my sense of cold. I was shivering at the dinner table and felt cold to the bone. I think I was colder than the others. Man I wasn’t looking forward to the night. It was going to be a freezing cold one I could tell and I’ve had enough of those nights in my life to last me.

I jumped into my mummy sleeping bag and could barely zip it because I was so large with all my clothing on. It was pretty funny. I was like a little “chimmy chonga” burrito. I buried my head in the bag and tried to fall asleep. Luckily after a little bit the shivering stopped and I felt semi warm. Close enough to fall asleep.

Day 170
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night sweating like pig. I tried to unzip my bag as fast as I could but in the middle of the night I had rolled around so much that it was like getting out of a straight jacket. Finally I got the cord open and felt like I could breathe. For some reason it had actually gotten really warm later in the night. All I could think is that the cloud cover rolled in and warmed up the area. Either way I was able to get ride of my large jacket and sleep the rest of the night comfortably till we were woken up at 7:30am by our guide.

Getting out of bed was tough. But from the look of it our Asian neighbors had it pretty rough. They had a cheap tent and it barely fit the two of them. They looked like they knew nothing about camping and had paid nothing for some cheap company to take them out there. It was really funny to see them getting out of the tent and looking like a truck had hit them.

My stomach wasn’t really happy with me that morning and I was toughing through it. I was trying to concentrate on the amazing things we would be seeing that day and not the feeling in my stomach. I barely drank some water for breakfasts. After that we packed up our gear and left it in the tent. We then jumped in the truck for another game drive but this time it was in the Ngorongoro Crater and tons of game viewing was pretty much assured.

The morning was cold and the sky was grey and cloudy. I was hoping it would clear up and sure enough when we started down the crater floor it cleared up and you could see the entire massive crater perfectly. The crater was 2,000 feet deep and had to be about 50 miles long. It looked more like a massive canyon rather than a crater created by a meteor. It was breathtaking and to imagine so much wildlife living in the bottom of it creating its own little ecosystem was amazing. I think if there was a real life place like on lion king this would be that place.

As we approached the crater floor we could see the herds of animals scattered throughout the long expanses of golden grass below. It was so cool to see it from so high because you could really tell which animals they were but you could see large, small and individual groups of animals all living with each other.

The first thing we saw was a heard of Land Cruisers (about 15) lined up along the side of the road. It was funny to see so many trucks all scattered about the bottom of the crater much like the groups of animals.

I tried to not frustrated with how much I hate touristy things like this. I really hate being in a place so over run with white people in their jeeps laughing and taking photos at anything that moves. I just tried to be one of them and enjoy the animals and the landscape and of course take my thousand photos of the same thing.

Once we caught up to the line of Land Cruisers we saw that what they were looking at was a couple of cheetahs walking down the grassy plains. There large shoulder bones moved up and down and they seemed to walk with such grace and ease. They just looked ready at any moment to spring into action. They were really amazing to see in their natural environment and you can really understand why they are such great hunters. Amazing creatures.

We followed them for a while and just enjoyed watching them stroll down the plains and every other animal around getting out of the way or keeping a close bead on them. They were the pimps of this area and all the zebras, gazelles, and wildebeest had respect and fear for them. Really a beautiful sight and experience I’ve never had seeing them in a cage at the zoo or on a show on TV. These were the experiences that I went on the trip for. To feel the fear and power of these animals is really something I wish everyone could feel.

Ana wasn’t feeling to good but felt good enough to get up and check out the animals then sit down for a while. Poor thing. I felt so bad for her. One thing that was really funny was that our driver keeps asking if she was hot and he was insinuating that she might have malaria. It was really funny. We were sure it was just a flu but he was genuinely worried and it was really cute. He was a really kind hearted and fatherly man.

After watching the cheetahs we headed to the edge of the small shallow salt lake in the middle of the crater. Our driver had heard on the radio that there was a pride of lions that had a kill there and were eating it. I was really excited and wanted to see it. Sure enough when we arrived there were about 10 cars circled around a group of lions. It was really amazing and since they had made the kill so close to the road the cars were allowed to actually drive within about 20 feet of the lions. That was really cool and our drive said this was very unusual. Usually they don’t kill so close to the lake. Usually it’s way out in the plains where you can’t go with the car and you have to use binoculars to see it and they only kill an average of once a week.

We rolled up and took our spot in the mess of cars. And right there in front of the car was a carcass of a wildebeest and about 4 lions chewing on it. WOW. It was like you see on TV. It was actually a little scary since we were just in a car and there were no bars and large cage between us an the lions. I took a quick count and their were 10 lions in total. Two of the ten lions were cubs. Strong meaty little guys.

It was really amazing to see them tear a piece of meat off with their teeth. There mouths were all blood and the floor was also stained with blood. It looked like they had made the kill in the night (which they often do) and they had been eating in the night and into the morning. There were about 4 lions casually eating the carcass while the other ones were sleeping with fat bellies and red blood stained mouths on the side. They were kind of scattered around and it gave me the impression this was like a orgy of food. It reminded me allot of how you feel after Thanksgiving. I think meat even to the lions is very heavy and makes them sleepy and tired after eating so much.

We sat for a little while and took a bunch of shots then had time just sit and enjoy the lions. They were really amazing and I in no way wanted to be outside of the vehicle. At one point on of the large females walked right towards our car. I sat down and cracked the window so I could get a closer shot of the lion. I was a little scared since the window was a thin piece of Plexiglas and the lion was at that point about 6 feet from the window. I tried to do it quietly but it squeaked a little and the lion glanced at me. The drive told me to be careful. I got a great shot though and the lion proceeded to go up to the front of our car and sniff the radiator. It was amazing to watch that monster just cruising around with such an air of power and dominance.

Every once in a while the lions would let out a roar as they yawned or were arguing over the carcass. It was really impressive and the size of the lion’s lungs made the roar deep and penetrating. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This experience alone was worth all the money and energy we spent to get up to this place. I’ve always wanted to see a group of lions in the wild with a kill and here it was. Another one of the “gotta do before I die” checklist.

After sitting and watching this group of lions for about half an hour we headed about 500 feet away to where the large male lion was sleeping. He had eaten first and was full and now sleeping in the grass near by. We drove up and parked about 8 feet from the lion. He didn’t even care that we were there. I think he was really used to having Land Cruisers around.

The male lion was amazing what a beast. He looked like he weighed as much as a cow. He sat there sleeping and we couldn’t see his head. If it wasn’t for his massive chest moving up and down he would have looked dead. The wind was slightly blowing his main and it was mesmerizing to just sit and watch him. Seeing him there in his environment made me really appreciate why people call him the king of the jungle. He just seemed to have so much dominance over any creature around. Except of course the large elephants and the herds of wildebeest which are the only animals know to have killed male lions.

While we were watching the lion just outside of our car he suddenly lifted his head and looked up at us. He was HUGE. The words out of my mouth in that moment were “Shhhhhhhhiiiiiittttttt”. There was no other way to describe what I was seeing. His head was massive and with the big furry main it made it even that much bigger. He only keep his head up for a few seconds to look around. I could see his brown eyes for a moment and they were beautiful. I could swear for a moment he recognized me and we made eye contact. It was really amazing and as soon as he laid his head back down we all started laughing and saying wow. That was an amazing experience and I so badly wanted to see a male lion up close. 5 feet from it was close enough.

After seeing the lion we headed off to another smaller pool of water in the floor of the basin. It was much cleaner water and wasn’t as salty. It actually was very green with plant life and it felt like we were in another environment even though we were only about 1 mile away from the dry golden grass area we saw the lions. Out in the 3 foot water filled with green grass there was a single elephant. He looked really healthy and had big long white tusk. We watched him and some nearby hippos floating around for a little bit. We had seen a few hippos and elephants and we weren’t as excited to see them at this point even though they were beautiful.

One the way to our lunch area we saw some hyenas. There were about 5 of them and one of them was passed out right on the side of the road. He was really dirty and looked rough. Man they were ugly little dog like things. I really don’t like hyenas. I really wanted to see them and it was nice to see the one up close but I just don’t like them as animals. They steal food from the other animals and their just nasty. You have to respect them because they can be formidable predators when their in a group. I guess in the end I respect them but don’t like them. I wouldn’t want one as a pet. Actually it might be cool to have one? Might be hard to find an apartment though.

After the hyenas we drove on to see ostridges and some other birds. We then stopped in a part of the part that they allowed us to get out of the vehicles and eat lunch. I must say we were only a couple miles from the lions we saw and I was a little uncomfortable walking around in the thick bush area. I keep thinking a lion or something was going to jump out at us. But I’m sure they’ve been eating there for years and had no problems. Still that kind of thinking didn’t stop me from looking around when I went by myself to use the restroom.

After lunch we headed out of the crater and back to pick up our tent and cook and then back to Arusha. It was nice to get back to the city and to top things off we spoiled ourselves and got a nice hotel that was clean and even had a TV. Man were rolling phat.

We sat around that night and enjoyed our TV and clean sheets and floor. It was great. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have a clean place and TV. I’m not even going to try and explain just know it’s amazing.

We headed to the one pizza place we knew in town to have dinner. The pizza was ok but it was the best option around for anything close to American tasting. It was also somewhat clean which was a plus. I didn’t really want extra meat in my pizza and this place looked like we at least had a 50/50 chance of not getting that extra protein.

After dinner we had a quick luke warm shower which is I think the hottest shower you can get in Tanzania. I think when they display “We have hot water” they mean when you shower the ice cubes won’t be bounching off you. I’m pretty sure the water was just above freezing. But whatever the room was clean and had TV what more could we want.

We watched some more TV and fell asleep with it on. Oh man it felt like I was home again. I’m sure I fell asleep with a little smirk on my happy face.

Day 171
I sleep good that night. My stomach is still off and giving me problems but I’m starting to think I’m just going to have to get used to having a bad stomach this entire trip. It seems like my stomach is always messing with me.

Because we were both tired and my stomach was off we laid around till about 11:00. It was nice just to chill and watch that fabulous 12 inch high definition TV from about 30 feet away.

When we finally unglued ourselves from the bed and that wonderful TV we headed out to get the bus tickets back to lovely Dar Es Salem. Man I can’t wait to get back to the toilet bowl.

We headed to our local place that had ok food for lunch. I ordered rice for my little tummy and Ana had a nice New Orleans style blackened hamburger. It was pretty funny. I love when she gets the bad food. So many times she gets the good food and I’m stuck with the nasty food. But this time I had the rice and she had a piece of charcoal between two piece of bread. I couldn’t even tell what kind of meat it was it was so burnt and dry. She ended up not eating only a little of it and I shared my wonderful rice with her.

After we ate we walked to the building where they were holding the Urwanda Trials. The United Nations trials for the genocide they committed on the Tutsi people was being held in this city. We were lucky enough to have time to go see it. I was really interested to see how they were trying the people involved and responsible for the killing of so many thousands of people. It’s horribly sad but at the same time I want to see and feel for myself how and why such things happen in this world. I guess I’m just the kind of guy who really wants to feel and experience life no matter how painful and sad it may be.

From the place we ate to the building took us about 30 minutes to walk. We had to go on some back streets to get there. I really didn’t like it and I don’t really like the people of Tanzania. They are of course the exceptions but walking down a back street I never felt welcome nor did I feel safe. I hate the way the people look at me and I feel like there is so much tension and desire on there part to have what I have. At least that’s what I feel when they look at me and stare as I walk by. There’s no smile or mutual connection just a sense of pepper in their stares. When they stare that way I feel scared and mad at the same time. They don’t know me but for that brief second we connect eyes we don’t meet with smiles but a direct angry blank stare. I hate that and even when I smile back at them they just look at me as I pass. I can see them in the corner of my eye watching me pass. After a few steps I have to look back to make sure there not following me and Ana. I hate that and I hate the way the people make me feel. I never felt that in Ethiopia or Cairo. It’s only here and I don’t think it’s something I’m causing.

Anyway we made it to the building where they were holding the UN trials fine. I was glad to be there. You could see it was a building with educated nice people just from looking at the guards and the few people inside. That was a pleasant thing to see. We were processed in an orderly manor and headed to the room where we could watch the trial from behind a Plexiglass wall.

We were given headphones to hear the English translation of the trial. We sat down in the room and were the only ones there at that time. We could see all the court except the person that was being cross examined. He was being hidden for his protection. We watched the trial for about 1.5 hours. It was really amazing to experience a UN court cross examining this witness. The people in the court were highly intelligent and very rational. But the witness represented so much of what I had experienced in Africa. He was irrational, hard headed, and always looking for someone who is against them and trying to hold them back in some way. Someone is always out to get them and they need to fight.

As we sat quiet and listened to the trial a story began to unfold. He was talking about rallies that had taken place before the actual slaughter of the Tutsis took place. He painted such a clear picture it sent chills up my spine. He talked about how they were all rallying in a stadium and shooting guns in the air. They were chanting hate messages like “kill the Tutsis” and things of that nature. I’m sure the power of the crowd would have been scary. He said they all went to an area of bars after the rally and after some people had addressed the crowd on what needed to be done.

On the way to the bar a kid hanging on the side of a truck fell off and was killed. The way the guy spoke made it sound like it was no big deal. He died and that was that. He was so cold when he talked about it. Amazing.

At the bars they talked met and talked about things. The cross examiner asked if anything happened to the Tutsis that night and he said nothing happened that night. The cross examiner pointed out that a year before when he was on trial he said that several Tutsis were dragged outside the bar and beat up severely. The cross examiner was basically calling him a liar. The guy on trail was getting really mad and saying I told you “nothing happened that night, no one was killed and I don’t understand why your calling me a liar”.

At that point the guy became very irrational and upset. We spent about 1 hour after that trying to get this guy to write down on a piece of paper the names of the people that were at the bar that night. He keep going off on tangents about how the cross examiner was trying to cheat him and lie to him. He was this and he was that. The judge keep explaining that he names would be given to all the court to see and that they were secure. But the guy keeps going in circles and wouldn’t let go of the idea that this guy was out to get him.

It was really funny and actually really sad to watch this guy sit there and talk. In his voice and his mind you could see why something as terrible as the slaughter of 120,000 thousand Tutsis happened. In his voice you could feel the cold blooded anger and ignorance that could spark a community of people to kill. I couldn’t help but just feel helpless for all the people in Africa. I don’t know how to stop a mentality like his. Education, money, what? I don’t have any idea and I can’t imagine anything that will change how Africa is within my lifetime. I think when I die Africa will not be much further ahead then where it is now. In fact I can imagine it actually being worse. It’s sad but when your there you can understand how I feel.

We left the trial with a feeling of sadness. We were pretty quiet on the way back to the hotel. After seeing something like that you feel like you just want to be quiet and respectful and not laugh or joke to much.

Later that evening we ate at the same place we ate for dinner. This time Ana had rice with me. My stomach was still off and the rice was the thing to settle that bad boy down.

We pretty much lazed around the rest of the evening and stared at the beautiful TV and touched and smelled our clean room. I think we knocked out around 10:00.

Day 172
We woke up early to pack and head down to the bus station to catch our bus. When we jumped in the taxi the guy said the ride would cost 2,000 of the local currency. This was only about 75 US cents but the station was also only about a mile away. We didn’t want to walk and the taxi would take us right to where we needed to go without having to figure things out. When we got there the taxi guy said the ride was 3,000. About 90 US cents. I was like Oh man here’s another punk. I was considering paying him since I wasn’t in the mood to mess with him and it was really no money at all to wait early in the morning for us to only make 75 cents. But to my surprise Ana was pissed and wasn’t going to pay. It was nice to see her so passionate and taking control of the situation. Usually she kind of hides and makes me deal with the punks but not this time she was a hot Latin lady. I know no not to mess with a mad Latin lady but this guy didn’t. Ana told me don’t even think about paying that guy. I told the guy oh well she said don’t pay and I only gave him the original agreed price of 2,000. He was pretty pissed but I just looked at him and said take it up with her. He took off fast in his car and Ana was still fuming.

It was so funny because I told her before the trip that she would get in fights over 25 cents. She didn’t believe me but sure enough here she was fighting like a tiger. I could only laugh. It was really funny and after she was laughing at herself as well.

We jumped on the bus and headed out. We were a little tired and slept till the first bus stop. I was feeling a little sick and weak and think that I had the same thing Ana had when we were out on the Safari. Luckily I didn’t have it as bad as she did but none the less I was hurting a little. My stomach was really messing with me the first part of the trip. Man I was tired of fighting with my stomach. Damn I can’t wait to get home and eat normal food and feel OK!

The second part of the bus ride was tough. Between seeing American Ninja 2 for the second time, and all the horrible local movie productions of black people being dramatic and getting in fights. I’m not kidding about every 2 minutes during the movie someone would either get punched, slapped, beat up or stabbed. They pirate everything in this country but they can’t get some decent films for the bus. I’m sure they only cost about 2 cents. Oh well its Africa and what can you do.

During the last few hours of the bus trip my stomach was really hurting me. The pains were really sharp and the bumps in the road were killing me. I was feeling head pains and really weak. It felt like I had something that my body wasn’t really able to fight off and it had been getting worse over the last week. I decided I was going to do a couple weeks of antibiotics to give my body the power to kill off whatever crazy jungle disease I had. I didn’t want the pains to get any worse and maybe land my big white butt in a hospital.

We got to the city just as the black night was taking over the city. When we stepped off the bus we were revenged by taxi drivers. They started fighting over our bags and Ana got so. She’s been getting pretty feisty these days. I think she’s hitting a limit. I just chose one quickly and stop the dispute. The one guy was pretty mad at the other guy. Whatever just get us to our wonderful dorms at the YWCA. Yes that’s the women’s version of the YMCA. But they now have a sign in the lobby that says “If you got two hanging your still welcome”.

We dropped our bags off in the shitty little room and headed out to get something to eat. It was getting pretty late and we were walking down some dark dodgy streets. I didn’t like being there and wanted to find something fast. I hate when we get in those situations when your on bad streets walking for what seems like forever just to find one open restaurant to eat at. Finally after a while we found a fancy little place with no one inside. That wasn’t a good sign but it was the only option and I wanted to get off the streets as soon as we could.

We were sat down and the menu looked decent. Expensive but decent. We ate pretty quickly and the food was ok. Ana’s food wasn’t that good but mine was ok. We paid up and caught a taxi back to the YWCA.

We crashed pretty hard after that mediocre dinner that insisted on fighting with my stomach. Man I HATE feeling this way in my stomach.

Day 173
We woke up at a decent time and headed downstairs for our crappy free breakfast of toast and horrible coffee. Eating that breakfast made me glad I had started my antibiotics.

We ran upstairs and took a cold shower after that wonderful breakfast. Ship shape and ready to start the day we headed out to get our visa’s at the Zambia Consulate office. It really sucked because they had to keep our passports. What that meant was we were locked down to Tanzania. We couldn’t even go to Zanzibar like we wanted to since it was somehow not fully connected to Tanzania somehow and we needed our passports to get onto the island. Oh man I love the way things work down here. We decided to just stay at a local nice beach for a few days till our Zambian visas were ready.

After leaving our passports with the crazy lady at the Zambian Consulate we hoped for the best. We headed to a local place called ShopRite. We had seen it before and it looked really nice. We got a couple things and dropped them off at the hostel.

After that we caught a taxi to the local ferry port that we needed to use to get to the beach resort of Poepipi. When we got there we found out the ferry was about a 10 foot ride across the small water area? I don’t know why they had ferries but I stopped asking those kinds of questions a long time ago. I guess they didn’t have enough money to build a bridge? Whatever. So we knew we just had to come the next day and grab a ticket when we got there.

We grabbed the same taxi we had come to the first ferry port and he took us to the second ferry port. We wanted to pre buy our tickets to the island of Zanzibar. This was a three hour trip and we wanted to make sure we could get tickets early so we didn’t miss the boat. We were going to be in Poepipi and we wanted to arrive back in the morning and then take the mid day ferry to Zanzibar.

When we rolled up with the taxi we were immediately surrounded by a large group of ticket junkies. The book warned us not to buy tickets from these guys. They were really aggressive and as soon as you got out of the car they were all over us. Yelling at us to come here, do that, no that is the wrong ticket office. I think some of those guys should play defensive football. They would be all over anyone. The coach would just have to say that guy on the other team has a ton of money and is looking to a buy a boat ticket? Then forget about it that guy would be covered.

During all the chaos and craziness Ana got really pissed and yelled at one of the guys to “Back off”. He was really startled and quickly backed off. It was really funny. We laughed about it later.

The yelling didn’t last long and the same guy was all over us again. So all you can do is pretend like they don’t exist. Walk right by them and when they talk directly to you ignore them. It’s a skill that a traveler must learn and were both getting better at it.

We finally found the right window in all the chaos and asked about purchasing a ticket three two days in advance. He laughed at us and thought we were crazy for asking such a question. He said come back about two hours before the boat leaves and get the ticket. Man I hate the way Africa works. You can’t plan for anything it seems. Just come a few hours early and fight the massive pushy crowds and then if your lucky you can travel. Oh the joys.

So after two failed attempts at getting tickets we headed to the bus station to try and secure our tickets to Zambia. I was hoping this would be different since allot of times you can actually buy bus tickets a day or two in advance. To our surprise after waiting in line for about an hour we were able to buy really expensive bus tickets to Zambia. I don’t understand how the tickets can be so expensive. I think the price was close to the cost for a similar trip in America. How they can get away with this I’m not sure. Some how the locals are paying it, or maybe it’s just us dumb tourist.

We taxied back to town and spent four hours on the internet trying to catch up our hopelessly behind blog. It’s getting a little frustrating finding internet cafes and the time and cost of keeping the blog going is getting a little out of hand. Might just take notes and type the blog later.

After the internet we taxied back to the hostel and crashed. I wasn’t feeling the hottest still and I was pushing myself to keep typing and making things happen. I think that was making me feel even worse.

Day 174
I woke up pretty tired. The sickness is starting to affect my sleep. But I knew once I went down to get that yummy breakfast I was going to be A – OK. Sure enough the nasty jam, stale bread, and horrible coffee did the trick I felt so much better after that. I was lucky enough to burp it up for the next few hours and taste it for the second time.

We hit the city and looked for a place to burn our photos from our camera onto CD. Of course in the capital of Tanzania there is not one damn place that has a CD burner. Tons of computers but no one has a burner. Man the list of reasons I never want to come back to this city keep piling up.

We gave up on trying burning the CD and went back to the hostel to get our stuff and taxi to the ferry. The taxi dropped us off in a mass of local African people. We followed the line and paid the 20 cents to get on the boat. It was a mess of poor people and all of them seemed to find me and Ana pretty interesting. I’m not sure why they stared so much at me. I can understand Ana since she’s Hispanic but I should blend in with my pasty white skin? I can’t figure out this country.

We got on the boat and the boat went about 10 feet and landed on the other side of the water. Why they don’t build a bridge is beyond me.

We waited till the end to get off letting the people, bikes, and cars exit first. We didn’t really know where to go but we were looking for a taxi. Eventually a guy told us we shouldn’t be walking in this area that it was very unsafe. I knew that but I was looking for a taxi and had to go to the bad area to get one. Sure enough right past this guy was a couple of taxis. We negotiated the price and jumped in the taxi.

Once we were underway the driver asked for the money upfront that he needed gasoline. Of course I didn’t have the right change and had to give him a 50,000 bill (About 5 times the amount). He said he would get me change at the gas station. I hate giving money to anyone before the service has been completed. You lose all your power. But in this situation I trusted him.

The car got filled up with gas and we took off. I was waiting for the change but the guy didn’t give it to me. I was thinking this Basterd is going to try and stiff us on the change or say that we gave him a different amount. Me and Ana were getting pissed and said we wouldn’t get out of the taxi till he gave us the right change. We said it loud enough so he would hear? He seemed quiet and kind of weird as he drove us about 5 miles to our beach hotel.

When we got there I stayed in the car till he gave me the right change. Sure enough he did and we grabbed our bags and got out. He gave me his telephone number and said to call him if we needed a ride back to the ferry. Yeah right I’ll give you a call.

The air was warm and tropical when we got out. It was a little cooler and you could smell the salt in the air. Sure enough right as we past the gate into the hotel we saw the beautiful turquoise beach. It was amazing and we sighed in relief. We had made it. Hopefully they had rooms available.

We went to the reception and sure enough they had one beach hut left. We paid and walked through the sand to our proper beach hut. It was really cute and barely big enough to surround the bed on the inside with enough room on the edges to walk. The entire hut was built out of palm tree leaves and it was pretty fun to be staying the night in it. The best part was is was really remote and the beach was only about 50 feet from the door. You could clearly hear the ocean waves from our room. I couldn’t wait to fall asleep that night to the sound of the waves.

The rest of the day we pretty much just relaxed on the beach and huge out. Did some serious chillin. At one point a large group of men (about 20) all worked together to stretch a large net out in the ocean and then together pull it in to trap all the fish that were within it. The circle created by the net in the ocean had to be about 200 feet wide. It was huge and it took about 8 guys on each side of the net to pull it in. Once they got it into shore there was about 500 small fish. Some were a little larger but the bulk of the fish were silver and were about 8 inches long. It was interesting to see the fishermen work together like that in such large numbers.

Later that evening they pulled out a TV in the lounge area and a group of about 25 of us from the hotel watched some of the World Cup games. It was beautiful at night with the warm salty ocean air blowing the palm tree leaves. It was really like a little paradise.

While watching the game we ate dinner. I had some really good calamari, and a big burger. It was great. Later we sat on the beach and I smoked a really dry cigar I had been keeping in my bag since the Serengeti. Was nice. After the cigar we headed off to our beach hut to fall asleep to the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the beach. Was really wonderful.

Day 175
I woke up early to go outside and secure on of the really nice private huts on the beach. The previous day we had gotten there so late that there were no more left and we had to sit under a smaller umbrella. Ana was tired so I left her in bed and closed the door from the outside. Little did I know that I had pushed the pin in the door from the outside I was actually locking her in the room.

I went to the beach hut and grabbed a table and a few chairs. I sat down for a while then proceeded to lie down. I was starting to get annoyed that Ana wasn’t getting up. She usually is pretty good about waking up early. I was there for at least 45 minutes till I finally decided to go wake her up.

I walked to the hut and opened the latch from the outside. When the door swung open I saw Ana standing on the end of the bed looking out through the small holes in the hut to the ocean. Her face was completely red and she was crying. I was so startled. I hugged her and asked her what happened. She said in a small whimpering voice “You stupid you locked me in”. I felt so bad. I told her I was sorry for about an hour and she was laughing at the whole situation.

Ana gets extremely claustrophobic and when she tried to get out shortly after I locked her in she panicked. She didn’t know what to do and no one was around to help her. She started to cry and she said that getting on the bed and looking out at the ocean made her feel better. Poor thing. She sat there crying and hoping I would come back for at least 40 minutes. The whole thing stunk and I really felt bad.

The rest of the day we pretty much did all the things you do when you’re on a beach. Swim, chill, drink, eat, and repeat in a random order for the rest of the day. It was a nice break and I enjoyed the relaxing.

Sometime though around evening I started to get a little bored and started digging sand hole in the ground. I made some pretty large ones and Ana keep saying “Your getting bored aren’t you”. Sure enough if I don’t have something to do I go crazy. I knew if we stayed there one more day I would go crazy.

It’s funny because we were sitting on a magnificent beach in an exotic place. The place was super cheap, the food was good and they had tons of cold drinks. So many people dream of going to places like that. They think they could live the rest of their lives like that. But not me man. Living on a beach like that would be hell after a few days. I just get so damn bored. I can’t sit around and do nothing for too long no matter where I am. It’s funny that when people dream of going to exotic beaches I think yeah there cool for like a day or so.

In the evening we took our last swim in the bath like crystal blue waters and called the beach done. I ate some calamari for dinner again as it was pretty dang scrumshous. I had another stogies on the beach that ended up being even dried than the previous one and I put it out about a quarter of the way into it. Nice idea just wasn’t that good.

We headed off to our cozy little hut and fell asleep.

Day 176
We woke up early in our hut and got a jump on the day. We got a taxi to the ferry and took the ferry 10 feet again across the water to Dar Es Salem. We then got another taxi and went back to the Zanzibar ferry station.

It was a mad house. People everywhere. We wanted to take the slow boat that was less expensive then all the other high speed boat options. It took 3.5 hours to get to Zanzibar on the slow boat and I wasn’t looking forward to that. I get so seasick that 3 hours on a boat could actually cause me to throw up all of my intestines.

I knew we had found the right ticket counter when I saw the mass of huddled poor black people. They looked like the start of a rugby match. You know when they all lock heads and there are bodies everywhere. That was the mess we had to fight through to get our tickets. Man I wasn’t looking forward to that. My stomach wasn’t doing so well, it was humid and the sun was scorching, we had our large backpacks on, and you know a mass of poor people that large in the sun is going to smell wonderful.

Me and Ana got in line and started pushing with the rest. Ana got really claustrophobic and hot after about 5 minutes in the crazy line and had to leave to the side before she passed out. I told her don’t worry I’d get them. But in my mind I was thinking I was going to pass out. My stomach was having some sharp pains and I was sweating like a pig with all the people pilled against me.

I sat there for about 30 minutes fighting to get my hand with the money to the front of the line and into the people inside. The people inside don’t care and will only take the money that is closest to them. So luckily I have a long reach and I was able to rest my hand on the ladies head in front of me and reach further than allot of the people in the front.

Of course right about the time I was going to get my ticket a guy from a tour group went in the side door and tied up the ticket people for about another 10 minutes. I was getting pretty pissed by that time and wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.

Luckily after they finished with the tour group the lady saw me and grabbed my money. She asked me in English when I wanted to go, I got the tickets and ripped my way out of the mass of people. I was lucky because being a foreigner I pay more for the tickets. She saw me and serviced me before allot of people. I didn’t care that I had special treatment. In fact I was happy to be the only white foreigner fighting in the crowds of locals and getting special treatment. It sucks but damn those lines are ridiculous. Only in Africa. Only in Africa.

After getting the tickets we walked to the local Sterns to get some lunch and sit in the only place we knew had air-conditioning. By the time we got to Sterns I was feeling like a wilted flower. But with a little air-conditioning and Chinese food I was coming back to life.

I walked over and got our passports and visas for Zambia from the consulate. Luckily the passports were there and the visas were fine. I was happy that nothing went wrong. I didn’t want to spend another damn night in Dar Es Salem and if the visas were wrong or our passports were not there we would be forced to. Nooooooooooooooooo!

But all was well and we got our passports and walked back to the ferry. Ana had the brilliant idea to walk in the heat back to the ferry to save about 1 US dollar. Of course all the strain and heat was making my stomach act up right before a 3.5 hour guaranteed to make me barf – boat ride.

We got on the boat with the usual pushing and shoving lines. The lines just have to be that way here. We did though manage to get on and find a seat on the upper deck outside. It was close to the rail which was a good thing in case that Chinese food I ate for lunch wanted to go swimming in the ocean.

The boat backed out of the dock and sat in the harbor for about 1 hour. It was great. I was thinking oh man after all this I’m still going to have to sleep another night in Dar Es Salem. I’m not sure if something was broke or what but after an hour we headed out to sea and to the exotic spice island of Zanzibar.

Surprisingly I did really well on the boat. I had my trusty ear patch on for sea sickness and that seemed to do the trick. My stomach was off but I think the Chinese food would be staying with me till sometime in Zanzibar. That was a really good thing.

During the ride I was really surprised how far off the coast Zanzibar was. It was 70 Kilometers which was far enough out there that I couldn’t see the island or the mainland for a while. Pretty cool.

We made it to port about 4 hours later. The ride wasn’t bad and although it was slow and rocked allot I don’t think I saw anyone get sick. I was surprised since most of the time when you travel with locals you get a group of them chumming for fish. But this time to my surprise it looked pretty good.

Once in port we fought through the usual crowds to get our bags checked and our passports stamped. We then went down a really scary street to find the hotel we read about in the Lonely Planet. The rooms turned out to be ok and we took it.

We headed out to walk a little in town before it got to dark. The streets were really rough and the people as well looked like they were up to no good. Allot of pepper stares from the people. I didn’t like these streets but tried to make the best of it and see the gold under the scum and dirt.

At sunset we headed to the fish market. It was really beautiful to watch the golden sun set and the unique looking sailboats float across the horizon. The fish market was located right on the edge of the water and contained about 100 vendors that were selling their catches from the day. Some of them were selling the catches from that day and the previous week or so as well.

We searched the entire market before settling on the best of the rough looking food stales. The stale we chose was cooking beef on a small wood stick over a hot fire. The beef looked “pretty fresh” and I wasn’t in the mood to try something from the sea. My stomach was bothering me as is and I didn’t need a little sea creature swimming around my stomach causing more problems.

I told the vendor to cook the crap out of the meat and he did. Then he put the meat on a tortilla type thing and added some sliced cabbage, cucumber, and some ketchup. It looked rough but what the heck it was the safest thing I could spot in the market.

Me and Ana both got the same thing and headed over to a large stone block to eat before all the light in the sky was gone. The sunset was fading into a grey color but it was still amazing and it was wonderful just to sit in the market and hear the sounds of the ocean and the people. The people on this island seemed a little more laid back than the mainland. I think island life does that to people.

The first bite into the tortilla taco thing was scary. I could hear the sounds of the toilet in my mind when I took the first bite. But to my and Ana’s surprise the food was actually good. Somehow if the food tasted good it meant that we shouldn’t get sick off it. I mowed my taco thing as well did Ana. In fact it was so good we headed back to get another. About this time it was getting dark and the vendors were starting to light there lanterns. They all had about 3 of them on their table and it was really beautiful to see all the vendors and the seafood on their tables light up by lantern light.

We ordered another taco thing which Ana ate most of. I decided to head to another vendor for some a “fresh” shrimp taco thing. What the heck I was feeling lucky and wanted to pull the handle on the poop slot machine.

The vendor tried to sell me everything on his unhygienic table. He had octopus, shark, yellow tail, crabs, lobster, etc. You name it they had it. I told the vendor I wanted just wanted shrimp and to deep fry the hell out of it. He deep fried it for a little bit and pulled them out. I said I really like my shrimp crunchy and could he leave them in there for another hour or so. After the shrimp was severely overcooked he slapped them on a tortilla with the other condiments and handed it to me. I said a quick prayer to the strong stool gods and down the hatch it went. It was really good and I enjoyed every bite.

After that we also had a deep fried banana which Ana had to try. It was really good as well and it was wonderful to eat with all the locals under the lantern lights of the vendor’s stalls. Really a cool experience.

When we were finishing out food we met a nice German guy and an American son and father that were traveling together. There were really nice and we ended up chatting away until late in the night.

We walked back with the German guy to our hotel. The streets were rough and we had better chances with three of us. We made it fine back to the area where our hotels were. We grabbed another coke and ice-cream at a local place and talked some more.

After that we headed back to the hotel and took one amazing hot shower. It was great! I was expecting the usual freezing cold but no sure enough it had hot water. What was coming of this country? Was there hope?

We jumped in our beds and draped the mosquito nets around our beds. The nets were in rough shape. I think it had more holes than net. But maybe it would stop a couple of those punk mosquitoes. I threw it over me and fell asleep to the sound of people yelling, and banging things around on the street just outside.

Day 177
Sleep pretty badly that night. I was attached my heard so mosquitoes and they seemed to know exactly where my ears were. At around 2:00 I had to get up to drain the main vein and couldn’t really get to sleep after that. It was a bit frustrating and my stomach was again not doing me any favors.

We got up early to head over to a local place that gave spice tours of the island. We were lucky and were able to get them for later that day.

We headed back to the hotel and got our free breakfast. Breakfast was served on the top of 4 story building so I knew at lest the view would be nice. To my surprise when we ate the breakfast it was actually really good. It was an egg, bread, fruit, and pretty good coffee. Man I really liked this hotel. It was in a really rough area but it had hot showers and the free breakfast was good. What more can you ask for?

After that unusually good breakfast we headed back to catch our spice tour. The tour was in a small mini bus with about 15 people inside. It was pretty touristy but I wanted to see some of the spices that have made that island so popular throughout history. We drove around to several farms where we saw coffee, vanilla, cloves, huge green spiky things (they tasted like a mix of pineapples and bananas), cinnamon trees (we tasted the bark and it was just like cinnamon), pepper, lemon grass, etc. You name it they could grow it on this island.

After spending about 2 hours walking around and looking at plants we sat and tasted a huge variety of local fruits. Some were good and pretty bad. Was nice thought to taste a huge variety of fruits I’ve never really seen. After that we got in the bus and headed to a local coconut farm to have lunch. Lunch was ok and consisted of us sitting on mats and eating rice with a curry coconut sauce. They also had some drinks and those tortilla things I really liked.

After lunch we headed to the see some of the old slave caves. Around the time slavery was starting to become illegal the traders started building these hidden caves in which they would store the slaves they were hoping to ship abroad to places like England, American, and South America.

Being at the caves was really interesting. It was well hidden in the bushes and had a train leading to the shore where at night they would load up the ships and sail off. It was really sad to think of what people must have felt in those caves.

After the caves we headed to a local beach to swim for a little bit. It was a nice relaxing end to the day. We headed back to town after that and were dropped off sometime around 5:00.

We decided after the trip to just get lost in Stonetown. We walked around the city and saw a huge fish market for the local. They had so many strange fish I’ve never seen. They had sharks, barracuda, and one fish that I only saw part of but it must have been MASSIVE. The guy was taking scales off of a block of meat about 1’x10’x8” big. It was one single piece of meat and looked like a large piece of beef not a piece of fish. The scales he was taking off were about 2 inches round. I asked him how large the fish was and he said it was around 6 feet long. Man I don’t even know how they would catch something that large with the little boats they have. Man that was a cool fish.

On the outside of the market we saw a guy using an axe to cut up a large ray about 5 feet wide. It was crazy. When I looked around there were about 10 large rays all over the ground. Man they have some abundant fish in the area. You would think they would have fished it out but apparently not.

We continued to walk around the town and get lost in the narrow labyrinth of Stonetown. It was really cool and seemed almost like a Disneyland layout. There was no planning just I want a house here and they put it up. Really cool.

As the sun started setting we headed back to the fish market to get dinner. We sat on the edge of sea and watched the golden sunset change till it was no longer alive. It was wonderful to watch the kids swimming and bathing. Life was just passing by in this little town in the middle of nowhere. Another day was ending and it was nice just to sit and watch it unfold.

Just before it got dark we headed to eat another beef taco thing. I had another shrimp taco thing and we bumped into our German friend, and the father and son team again. We chatted away the evening again talking about our travels and experiences.

At one point in the night a guy came over and tried to sell me a painting. It was a really bad painting and I didn’t want it. But of course he pushed on me for about 10 minutes. Finally I felt like getting into a conversation with him. I told him that selling the way he did was really not a way to sell. It made me mad not really like I wanted to buy anything. He started talking and we got into a pretty interesting conversation. He was saying how he has no opportunity and his life was so hard. I told him there are ALLOT of people in Africa that have it much worse than him. He couldn’t understand that and could only see how hard it was and how when tourist like us come here and eat food in front of him it makes him mad. He says he just wants to come up and take the money and food from them. I told him tourist bring allot of money to the island and that life would really be hard without them. He didn’t care and would rather be alone starving. He was of course really irrational.

We talked for quiet a while and it was interesting to look through his eyes at us. I understood his frustrations even though it seemed like allot of what he was saying was a lie. At the end of our conversation he asked for money and I said I would buy him something from the market. We went to the market and I paid the vendor for some food for him. The vendor was his buddy and somehow in the mix took off with the money. I’m sure they were teaming up to just get the money. I told the guy this was the reason people treat you the way they do. He shrugged me off and I told him good luck and left.

I was a little pissed he scammed me out of some money. But the conversation was interesting and reaffirmed allot of what I thought the people were thinking when I walk buy them on the street. They envy and hate tourist like me. We bring them money but also pain. They want what we have and that I think is the pepper in the look.

When the evening was complete we headed back to our hotel with the company of our German friend again. We headed to our room and covered ourselves in mosquito repellant. I put some earplugs in to stop the buzzing sound and headed off into dreamland.

Day 178
All night long I had some weird dreams. The malaria pills were messing with me again. Although I must say I think I’m getting better with them over time.

The first dream that I had was that I needed to clean the house really quickly before my parents and my old bosses came over. I was in a real panic trying to through stuff under the couch and clean as fast as I could. Weird?

Ana also had a dream about dating Tom Cruise. I thought I remembered her making kissing noises in the middle of the night. Man why couldn’t I have a dream like that with some hot famous girl like Pamela Anderson. Ana gets all the good dreams.

After our night in dreamland we woke up early to catch a local bus to the other side of the island. Supposedly in the south there were some really chill places on some amazing white and turquoise beaches.

We jumped in the bus at around 8:00 and sure enough right there in the same bus was the father and son traveling together. It was great to see them and they were really cool to just hang out and talk to. We made it to the other side of the island called Paje in about 1.5 hours. When we got there we were dragged around to a few different places. The buses get kick backs for bringing tourist to the places so of course the first place was the most expensive. We weren’t staying the night so it didn’t really matter to us. We were just there for the day to see and enjoy the beaches.

Eventually we found some accommodations that were fit everyone and we settled down for some chill time on the beaches. The beaches were amazing just like they had said. Hardly anyone on the beaches and the sand was sugar soft and white. The ocean was also a clear brilliant turquoise as far as you could see. Really amazing little place.

We walked down the beach for a while and talked for a while. The beach had tons of little crabs that would run into their sand holes as soon as you got a few feet from them.

We sat around talking with the father and son. Ana at one point wanted to go swimming. I told her go ahead and I would watch the bags. She went in for a while and came out saying she felt like something bit her. Later that evening she had a bunch of red marks on the side of her stomach. We both think she had a jelly fish brush up against her when she was in the water. Poor thing she gets all the bites. I swear most of the time she has at least 5-50 bites on her body.

Later we ate lunch and had an interesting time ordering. The waiter was no smarter than a stone and our orders came out three different times totally wrong. In the end we just gave up and ate what we got.

After lunch and some nice conversations with the father and son we said good-bye and headed back to Stonetown. We were lucky to catch a bus and pay a small fee.

After we got back in town we decided again to get lost for a while in the backstreets and just enjoy the city. It was really nice to see all the Black Muslim people walking down the white stone alleys. It was just a funny contrast to how I imagine Muslim people. I always think they are more Middle Eastern looking but that’s not always the case. Her in fact they were black and dressed from head to toe with the head wraps and everything. Interesting to see how the religion has penetrated and changed the island people.

The one thing I thought was really funny is that the Black Muslim girls would be covered in clothing from head to toe. You could only see their eyes and hands. The one other thing you could see was their feet and shoes. What was funny was that about half of the women were wearing hooker sandals. They had heels about 3-4 inches high. It was like the only area they could express themselves. It was really funny.

We headed back to the fish market again for dinner and to watch the sunset. It was really an enjoyable way to end the day. We ate the usual taco things with beef and shrimp again. It was our last time so we had to eat there one more time.

We walked back after eating and on the way stopped off for some ice-cream. I was starting to like Zanzibar people a little more. I’m not sure what was changing but I wasn’t so frustrated with them. Maybe I was starting to see past my fear and judgment and see the people. Either way it was nice to feel like I was in a place where I was enjoying the people more. Made things seem allot easier.

After ice-cream we headed to our palace and crashed for the night.

Day 179
Sleep pretty bad that night. I keep waking up to being bitten by mosquitoes. Man they were killing us. I kept itching my hand and legs all night. When I woke up around 5:00 am in the morning I had about 15 bites in a small inch area on my hand. My legs were also covered as well as miscellaneous parts of my body. I guess they were drilling for good blood and couldn’t find any. Man I hate those little things. Those bloody basterds.

Ana as well was machine gunned up with bites all over her body. To top bites and bumps off Ana’s jelly fish bites were looking even worse. Man we were looking rough.

We headed down to the boat dock to get tickets around 5:30am. Luckily we were able to get tickets on the high speed boat back to the mainland. I was thinking cool. It cost more but should be faster and normally I get less sick on fast boats since they rock much less. One thing that had me a little worried was that I talked to a couple girls before that said people get sicker on the fast boat? How could that be? I think they were smoking and had mistaken boats. Little did I know the S.S.PUCK was about to be leaving the docks with me on it.

After getting the tickets we fought our way through the usual mad pushy pain in the ass crowds to get on the boat. We were able to secure a pretty good seat next to the window in the front of the boat. I was pretty hopeful it shouldn’t be too bad of a ride. Everyone loaded in and of course there were too many people on the boat. So we had people standing in the isles and all over the place.

We took off from the docks and the boat light up the strong motors. That boat was pretty fast and I was feeling pretty good until we got far enough away from the coast to start getting some really large waves. At the speed we were going we didn’t just bob up and down we actually would get a little air off the large waves. When we did this I would lose my stomach. That was trouble. It’s one thing to bob around and another to be losing your stomach every 10 seconds or so. I was in trouble but I was hoping for the best.

As I sat trying to make myself believe it wasn’t that bad and that the patch I was wearing would get me thorough I realized something. I realized that if I gasp for air when the boat jumps in the air I don’t lose my stomach as bad. I might have a cure to help me survive this trip that was slowly turning into a nightmare.

So I continued on each wave to gasp for air and when I did that I didn’t really lose my stomach. Suddenly I started feeling really bad. I keep breathing and hoping everything would be ok. But just for safety I started spotting where I would get rid of the contents of my stomach. I found a nice corner to my left that would do nicely and I noticed I wasn’t the first to use it for that.

Suddenly I started feeling REALLY bad. The heat and stale air was getting hard to stand and it seemed like there was absolutely no ventilation. My hands started going numb and then the numbness started creeping up my arms. Looking at my hands I could see they were the wrong color. They were actually turning a green yellow color. I had to get out before I passed out.

Later I realized that by inhaling for air on every bump was actually hyperventilating me. So on top of being sea sick I was hyperventilating myself. Nice job Tim. My wonder cure was about to make me pass out.

I realized I needed out and told Ana move it or loss it. She moved a little and slowly so I had to mow her down. I continued right past Ana and through the other two ladies to her side. I pretty much wiped them all out getting out of my seat but I didn’t care. I needed air NOW. Later Ana said when I told her I needed to get out she had never seen me so green. She said I actually was the color green. I believe he since my hands looked the same way to me.

Once out of the seats I ran to the front stairs and tried to open the hatch. FUCK it didn’t open. I was really feeling like I was going to pass out at the moment. I went down the stairs and quickly made my way to the back of the boat. Luckily I didn’t pass out and when I got to the door I prayed to God that it was open. I turned the large handle and sure enough it cracked open and I could smell the fresh ocean air outside.

But as soon as I swung the door half way open I felt a thud. I had hit something and the door wasn’t open enough to get through. I pushed again and the weight seemed to move then fall back. It felt like a sack of potatoes or something. A guy motioned to me through the window to wait. I was about to say screw it and just push the door open. Luckily I waited cause what was holding up the door was a sick old women. She was dead on the floor and even the heavy iron door slamming against her didn’t get her to move. She was really hurting. In fact she was dragged out of the way by the other man all I could see on the entire back deck was sick and dead looking people everywhere. They were passed out on top of each other everywhere. It was like hell.

I walked through the bodies on the floor to make it to the only kind of open place available. I had to hold peoples hands as I went through and everyone that wasn’t passed out was helping me. We were all in hell and we were helping each other. There was a sense of connected pain.

I stood leaning against the wall trying to calm down and regain felling in my arms. I slowed my breathing which was way to fast and told myself just to chill. I started feeling better when I saw Ana coming out of the door. She was looking as ill as I was. Poor thing. She looked like she was ready to pass out and some people helped her over to me. She stepped on a couple of them as I had but they didn’t even move. I’ve never seen people that sick in my life. And here on the S.S.PUCK there were about 70 of them.

Ana made it to me and I held her. We were both hurting and we both though we were holding the other one from passing out. Ana wasn’t as sea sick as she was claustrophobic. The heat and all the people just got to her and she had to run for the door like me. Man what a sight that must have been. I wish I could have taken pictures but I was way to sick to even thing about something like that.

We sat there both trying to relax and breathe the fresh air. I tried not to watch the old lady next to me as she keeps hearling in her little bag every 10 minutes or so. Nasty. Just the thought was enough to make me want to join her.

After about 20 minutes we were both feeling better. We weren’t better as much as we more confident we wouldn’t be passing out and joining all the others on the floor.

In total the boat took about 2.5 hours. That time on the boat was the worst experience I’ve ever had on a boat. I’ve never been that sick or seen that many sick people in the condition they were in. Poor people have no access to any medication for seasickness. They just have to tough it out and that sucks. I was lucky enough to have the patch because for sure if I didn’t there would have been one big white guy in the large pile of dead looking black people.

When we finally hit shore it was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever experienced. I never thought I would kiss the ground but I was damn close to doing it this time. Man I never want to go through something like that again.

Once off that boat from hell we grabbed a shared van to the YWCA. Cause you know it fun to stay at the YWCA, It’s fun to stay at the YWCA – A.

We settled into our hole in the wall place and headed out to grab some food. We ended up at Stear’s and had some more Chinese food. Luckily by this point my stomach was feeling more human and the food I think actually helped to settle it.

After lunch we headed to the local internet place and put some serious time in trying to catch up our blogs. I think we were there for about 5 hours.

We ate a later dinner at Chef’s Pride. We weren’t that hungry but we knew that the next day we would be on a bus to Zambia and you never eat well on long distance bus trips.

We headed back to the YWCA and took a lovely freezing cold shower and packed our bags for the hundredth millionth quintillnith time.

We tried to get to bed early that night but didn’t really have any luck. We finally settled down for the night around 12:00pm. Tomorrow EARLY we were headed off to Zambia. Yeah a new country! I enjoyed Tanzania but damn I was ready to leave and see something new.

I fell asleep with no problem at all.

Tim & Ana's Travels

Friday, September 29, 2006

Tim & Ana_Tanzania Pics

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Tim_Day 163 - 179 (Tanzania)

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