Last night in Tanzania right now...and I'm really not liking it one bit. I can't believe I am leaving my life for the past 4 months behind here. Its surreal that this semester is already over and I would literally give anything to be back with the 24 people I spent the last four months with. :( I have a red-eye out of Kilimanjaro Int'l Airport tomorrow at 10:30pm.... leaving summer and heading to winter in Amsterdam for four days! I'm excited to see Amsterdam but emotionally and physically I really dont think I am ready. Mostly physically considering I literally have no clothes...gunna have to rock the hiking boots look when I walk around. Cute.
Things I AM looking forward to in Amsterdam though: salad! and washing machines. After almost four months of hand washing my clothes are terrible looking. The Maasai goat smell has really seeped into everything..never did I think I would look forward to doing laundry so badly! Also I have been a bit deprived of lettuce and cheese so those are first on the list.
Anyways, I DID just get back from an amazing week on the beaches of Zanzibar with 7 other people from my program. After an extremely tearful goodbye to everyone on the program, the 6 of us headed to the airport and hopped on a little puddle-jumper to Zanzibar. The planes here are ridiculous. Its more like a bus...we boarded our flight at the time it was supposed to take off, we sat in any seat we wanted, and they literally shut the door behind us and off we went. No instructions, no nothing. We landed in Stonetown in Zanzibar and holllllyyyy crap was it humid. I dont think I stopped sweating the entire week we were there. Stonetown is SO different from Arusha though...I honestly didnt feel like I was in Tanzania! Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim, so the Islamic influence in the architecture and all the buildings was definitely noticeable...it even had a bit of a European feel to it. There are tons of winding alleyways and narrow streets with flags hung between them (we got lost a A LOT) that were so fun to walk around. We met up with some of the SIT Zanzibar kids, smoked some hookah with them, and then they let us borrow their snorkeling equipment. So nice.
Stonetown also has this awesome place called Forodhani Gardens, where a bunch of street vendors convene and sell food every night. Its all lit up and right on the water. They have fresh seafood they grill up for you and they also have zanzibar pizzas which are my new favorite thing. its vegetables, cheese, and egg grilled together and wrapped up in a thin bread crust. SO delicious. You can also get them with bananas and chocolate inside as well. I also got prawns there one night as well, which may possibly be a bit sketchy but I never got sick so I think its fine. Its a bit ridiculous how much street food I've eaten here...probably a miracle I havent gotten sick actually. There were so many nights in Arusha that we just wandered around the bus station looking for street mamas who cook rice and beans in a little pot on a sidewalk for about 900 Tsh, which is probably 60 cents. We also ate a lot of street fruit as well that we would cut up using what we liked to call "small sword" which is a machete my friend Sam bought off the street for $3 and which was sharpened on a bicycle. :)
Our first full day in Zanzi we took a nice little boat called Mr. Bean to Prison Island where we spent the day feeding giant tortoises and snorkeling around the reef!! The tortoises were so cool...one was 150 years old! It was about three times the size of me. The snorkeling was cool but a bit of a fail because my mask was broken so I mostly just floated around a lot. This is my first time in the Indian Ocean and for some reason it seems a hundred times saltier than any other ocean I've ever been in! The water is amazing though...bright turquoise blue!
The next day we took a 2 hr dala-dala ride to Kendwa, where all the really nice beaches are (there aren't really any beaches in Stonetown). Kendwa was AMAZING. I dont think I've ever been on a beach that beautiful...soft white sand and really warm blue waters..it was awesome. We spent 3 days there just hanging out doing absolutely nothing except tanning, swimming and eating really good seafood! The sun was unlike anything I've experienced though....its summer here and we are on the equator...no joke I was putting SPF 70 on and still getting tan. I didnt even burn myself which is quite the accomplishment for me!! I got some really cool henna on my foot as well that hopefully should stay for a couple weeks.
We all headed back to Stonetown after 3 days and Chelsea and I had to say goodbye to the rest of the girls we were with :( We spent our last day doing lots of x-mas shopping in the curio shops that Zanzibar has...I got some really cool rings and Aladdin pants! :) The curios were so neat...they were huge shops stuffed to the brim with antiques from the Middle East...some of the stuff looked straight out of Aladdin....huge jeweled rings, genie lamps, and tons of Zanzibar chests which are beautiful. I would have loved to get one if only they didnt weigh 50 lbs....
Chelsea and I said goodbye to the Indian Ocean and flew back to Arusha this morning. We packed a bit and then our Academic Director took us out for one last dinner in Tanzania.....we had some awesome wanyama choma (grilled meat) with a couple other people on my program was well. A couple of them had just summited Kilimanjaro, and one had just gotten back from Ethiopia, so it was cool to hear about everyone elsees experiences. I REALLY want to climb Kili...I guess I will make that my goal so then I can come back to Tanzania :).
I had about 4 pieces of this really yummy meat that I was raving about before I learned that it was goat...which I swore I would never eat but whatever. It was really good.
And now I sit here back in the Meru House Inn writing this blog entry, really trying hard to stop thinking about how I am leaving tomorrow night. Thank gosh I have all day tomorrow to get last minute stuff done. Still need to get some last minute x-mas gifts at the market, and I need to stock up on Vegemite, tea, and Konyagi packets (which I shall be distributing when I get home..its African gin).
I'll probably blog again from Amsterdam, but this is my last post from Tanzania :( Kwaheri for now...
No comments:
Post a Comment