Zanzibar and the mishap

Our flight was about an hour from Kilimanjaro airport to Zanzibar. It was pretty pleasant. When we landed we were looking for Jess and Alan...Jess spotted us and the group greeted her with hug and kisses. But where was Alan? I started looking for him, but then I spotted him from a distance walking over. He was so tired, since he took a red eye flight. So now that we found our seventh person, we needed to claim our luggage.

Zanzibar's baggage claim was a disaster. There was no automatic baggage carousel. The airport staff unloaded the luggage on the plane into wheel carts and then brought them to the manual baggage claim where they just put it on the table for you to claim. The table was the size of two three seater couches...and tons of people were surrounding it. I was sent there to look for the bag since I was the tallest. I waited and waited as I was being pushed and shoved. As I was getting annoyed I looked back at the tarmac and saw the group getting the bag directly from the plane, so I went back there to pick up my bag too. So much better than the crowded mess.

Now the challenge came of finding our taxi guy to bring us to Kitete hotel at Paje. We were bombarded by many taxi operators, but we knew Kitete was supposed to pick us up. We asked around, and someone claimed the guy just left and should be circling back. We asked Jess, who amazingly spoke Swahili. She is an elementary school teacher in a small village in Tanzania. She's been here for a year now. To come here, she had to raise $16,000. Basically her fund raising was to pay for the children to go to school and her bare minimum living expenses. She is such an amazing samaritan...moved from NY to Tanzania to live in a village that barely has clean water and electricity. She made us appreciate the normal things in life like clean water, meat, hot showers, western toilets, and cheese.

Back to the driver...we waited for 40mins and he never came, so instead of wasting our precious beach time, we hopped in a taxi minivan. The taxi driver was pretty scary, drove like a maniac, but we somehow got there safely. Right when we got there a local (aka beach thug) asked us if we wanted to plan a trip to swim with the dolphins and snorkel. His initial price was $25...then $20 and I said $15...and he said $20 was the best so I said forget it.

The first glimpse of our hotel felt like paradise. We were right next to the Indian Ocean, and could see it from the reception desk. There were cute little huts and tall palm trees surrounding us.

We went to check in at our hotel and it was so messed up. Our quad room was given to someone else, so we had to do another room arrangement. We did two doubles and a triple. I got stuck with sharing a room with Alan, but it was ok because I had the huge king bed while he had the twin...hee hee hee.

Once our room was settled we dropped our bags off and went for some yummy lunch. Alan and I shared a chicken and fish dish...it was pretty yummy. After we had our jolly belly full, Steph, Bernice, Alan and I went to check out the beach. It was beautiful. Green ocean and fine white sand with palm trees...but it was a bit windy. We still tried to lay out, but couldn't find the sun since it was starting to set and cast a shadow over us.

We were harassed by the locals there asking us to buy excursion packages from them. They even got an annoying british guy into the gag pretending he was a tourist wanting to do this dolphin swim with us....later on we realized he was partnering up with them. We decided to forget the beach boy thugs and just buy it from our hotel...which was also a disaster. They originally quoted us $26, then said they misquoted and it should be $40...eventually we talked it down to $32.50. That was after some hard bargaining. Hey every dollar counts!

After the strenuous bargaining we went to Paje by night for some drinks. The place was really cute, with nice outdoor lounges. We learned happy hour means nothing because the prices are the same all night. But it was chill. The british guy that bothered us on the beach came up to talk to us. But by then I was fed up, so I asked him to please leave us alone because we didn't want to talk to him anymore. The girls thought I was mean. Oh wells! Bernice, Alan and I shared two pizzas and a bruschetta for $8. It was actually very yummy. Steph was the only one that got wasted or actually blacked out, but she only ate one small slice of pizza.

While the rest of the gang stayed drinking, Bernice and I went back to do laundry. How uneventful. I was pretty annoyed to hand wash everything, but I guess I have to start getting used to it. After an hour or two Alan strolled back into the apartment. And then 10 mins later we heard Stephanie calling us....hi guys! Hahaha, so cute. Alan poked out to say hi and realized she was just chilling on the balcony by herself. Alan was like, we'll shut the door because of the mosquitoes, but we'll talk through the window....10mins later Steph went back to the room...and she had no recollection of this.

Our rooms were really nice and comfy...we all had a great night sleep.

The next morning we woke up at 6:45am to go swim with the dolphins at Kizimakazi. We tried to eat breakfast first, but Mary (a lady that worked at the hotel) came running to us saying we better head out or else we'll miss the dolphins. So we rushed out to the van. It's really fun to travel with a full van of friends.

We arrived at Kizimakazi in 30mins...got our gear and took the boat out. Our captain had elephantisis, and it was freakin me out. If anyone knows me, I feel uneasy with anything outside the norm because I'm nervous it may happen to me or my children one day...I know it's really bad that I think this way.

The guy gave us a litte speal about the dolphins. There are two types and none of them are in zoos (or aquariums I should say). They are all "free". I can't help but think that them letting us throw ourselve on the dolphins to see/touch/ride them couldn't be good for them. We must be disturbing their nature habitat.

We had to actually help push the boat out. So yes, we paid to work. Our boat kept on being stuck on the sand. Alan thought the guys were crap and didn't know what they were doing. Alan was a sailing instructor at one point, so he knows a lot about running boats. Eventually we got out into the ocean.

We spotted some dolphins and the guy said go jump. I was a bit nervous without a life vest, but I had fins and a snorkel mask on and I've done this many times before...but I am terrified of drowning. I made Alan promise to be my buddy and stay close to me. I even told him I might put in a request to hold hands if I get nervous. I made him jump first, then I got in. I felt fine once I was in the water.

We saw a family of dolphins swiming right next to us, and when we looked into the water, they were playing on the bottom. It was really cute. The looked like they were cuddling each other.

Alan was a great buddy. He spotted a blue bottle jellyfish...the worst jellyfish in Africa...it has a small body and a long tail...and he swam right into it to prevent me from being stung. Ok maybe it didn't quite happen that way...but he swam into it. He said it was stinging him and it wrapped itself around his neck. I was too nervous about drowning and scared of what's going on with Alan to help. I saw that he eventually pulled it off his neck and it was a really long black string. I was so nervous by then and he was in so much pain we just swam back to the boat.

Alan did not look good. There were bite marks where the jellyfish stung him. Literally a line around his neck and part of the hand where he touched it. He was in so much pain, I was so nervous. He was lying down, but then started to say he couldn't move his hand. Then he started to shake...then felt really sick. So we thought it was prudent to go back to shore. We brought him to a ghetto doctor in a shack where they gave him some medicine and put lemon on the wound. He was still in shock. We let him cuddle with towels on the beach for a few minutes...but then it started to drizzle and we had to sit in a hut inside. By then he seemed to feel better...at least not shaking.

We took the car back, ate some breakfast, and did separate things after Vicky put some after bite on alan (which really helped). Vicky saved the day. Tina, Vicky, Bernice and Jess went to the market to get fruit, snacks and much needed alcohol. Steph showered. Alan and I went to use the internet. We tried to upload photos on the blog but it took forever...so no success there. Photos will have to wait.

Now we are sitting by the beach under a straw umbrella enjoying some wine, passion fruit and crackers. This chill moment is much needed. How nice :-)