Zannnzzzibar!

What a beautiful day we had today in lovely Zanzibar. We rented motorbikes and drove to Paje on the east coast of the island and swam in the Indian Ocean, the Indian Ocean! The sand was white and felt like flour between our toes. OK, from the beginning, from Arusha. We arrived in Dar es Salaam having met some nice people on the bus, stayed at the YWCA and went to Anglican mass Sunday morning. It was fun to see the Anglican preacher with a Tanzanian twist. I think we should send Christian Harvey (how many wins now buddy?) over there for some lessons in facial expressions while preaching. The first photo is us the next day on the Catamaran. We actually jumped onto another ferry which was actually not going to Zanzibar, it was only 16 cents a piece so we sheepishly go off the ferry without asking for our money back. We met two Brits (Hugo and Roisin) and an Edmontonian (Mike) on the ferry and went to the Flamingo hotel with them in the middle of Old Stone Town. Crazy place. It's a crazy network of alleys and mini streets. We met up with Gray, a South African hitch-hiking from Capetown to Cairo but stopped in Uganda discovering his girlfriend was pregnant, and he brought us out to town. We went to the market for street meat and had the time of our lives. That is until three in the morning when Andrea had to rush to the sink in our rooms and then to the toilet. Hmmm, I'll leave most of the details out but she didn't have the best night. She was, however, in shape for a motorcycle ride across the island with the Brits this morning. We had the time of our lives and my motorcycle training and my international driver's license came in handy for sure. Those were both Andrea's ideas so I am once again glad I married that girl. The Internet is pretty shaky here so I'm going to post it. I haven't mentioned going to Freddy Mercury's bar, the South Africans that got stopped by the cops and crashed the moped, and the intense Scrabble games to be had.

We leave soon enough back for Dar, catch the train to Mbeya, and enjoy the sights along Lake Malawi between the border and Lilongwe. We hear that Livingstonia is pretty good so we'll check it out.

No malaria yet and keep us in your prayers.

Much love from Zannzzibar!

Michael