12/11  Dar's biggest market, Kariakoo, is our destination for the day.  The best prices on everything can be found here.  We buy a few gifts, groceries, and some cheap spices.  The market is nearly as big and crowded as Dongdaemun Market in Seoul Korea.  Thieves and pickpockets abound in Kariakoo, so it isn't the place to be taking tourist photos.

12/12  We visit Hussein's sister Rehema.  We spend the day with Rehema and her two children, Saidi and Amina.

Every night I go through a series of rituals with nearly religious significance.  First, I purify water for the next day.  Five people and a hot climate means lots of water to purify.  Chlorine dioxide has one drawback in this situation.  The chemicals need to be mixed for five minutes before being added to the water.  Since I am treating quite a few separate bottles, this process can easily take 30 minutes or more.  The second ritual is the anti-mosquito dance.  I first have to decide which of three mosquito protection methods I'm going to use for the evening.  Bug nets often have holes, are a hassle to use, make me too hot, and are ineffective where my feet press against them.  Still, bug nets are usually the best option.  Another choice is to cover exposed skin with DEET based repellent.  But the stuff stinks, leaves my skin oily, is somewhat toxic to humans and wears off after six hours.  The final choice is to do nothing and hope that the room is mosquito free.  Hussein teaches me the trick of vigorously whipping a bed sheet around all surfaces of the room to kill any lurking mosquitoes.  The ritual is to arrange mosquito killing clothing around myself.  Before departing the United States, I sprayed some of my nylon clothing with a permethrin based insecticide.  It is supposed to remain effective for up to one month.  This clothing circles me like a talisman at night, killing any mosquitoes foolish enough to venture near.  At least I hope it does.

For all the rituals, I'm bitten most nights.  I count on doxycycline to protect me from malaria.  It gives me an upset stomach and makes me sensitive to the sun, so the least it can do is protect me from malaria.  The next time I travel to Tanzania, I'll bring a comfy sleeping pad and my own bug bivy.  I'll spray the bivy with permethrin before traveling.  The bug bivy is lighter and more reliable than netting you can buy in Tanzania.  This has the added benefit of sleeping on a comfy pad instead of whatever lousy foam mattress happens to be in the guest house where I'm staying.

12/13  Back to Kariakoo for more shopping.  Shopping is hard for foreigners.  Prices are never printed on anything, so you have to speak enough Swahili to negotiate for every Mango and pair of slippers.  Of course, even for fluent Swahili speakers, it is tough to get the best price when you are obviously a foreigner.  Hussein would often leave us in one shop if he was trying to get a decent price in another shop.

Ice cream is cheap in Kariakoo.  There are vendors everywhere pedaling three wheel ice cream carts.  Treats which cost 43 cents elsewhere in the country go for much less here.  We get five ice cream treats for $1.10.

I'm starting to experience withdrawal symptoms because I haven't read or heard any news for nearly a month.  I remember that my MP3 player has an FM receiver with the headphone wires doubling as an antenna.  I find that at certain times of the day, by holding the headphone wire in a particular angle, I can get BBC world news.  Ahhhhh!

12/14  The original plan was to travel to Zanzibar today, but we take a rest day instead.  It is election day and most of the country is closed.  Zanzibar is known for sporadic violence during elections.  Even though elections there were held in October (they were delayed on the mainland) it doesn't seem like the best place to be today.  We walk around downtown Dar.  I see another foreigner with an "Ithaca is Gorges" t-shirt.  I wave and point to the Cornell shirt I'm wearing.  She laughs.

12/15  We take the expensive ferry to Zanzibar.  Luckily, Rachel still has her Tanzanian resident card which yields a significant discount, and the kids travel for free.  Hussein is staying in Dar to work on his projects.  So I'm the main expense on the ferry.  The ferry is fast and we arrive in Zanzibar after a two hour ride.  Then we spend two more hours in the harbor waiting to disembark.  Nobody knows why.

The ferry docks in Stone Town which is the main city in Zanzibar.  There is some interesting architecture in Stone Town.  Not sure how to classify it, other than to say Arabian.  It is more ornate than the simple concrete block buildings which are on the mainland.  The buildings are famous for their doors which are girded with decorative spikes.  The spike motif was imported from India where the spikes were actually functional.  They prevent elephants from walking through the doors.  Really.

This is the first place I have been in Tanzania where all the roads are paved.  On the mainland, only the primary roads are paved.  And not even those in Mvomero and Kwamsisi.  In Stone Town even the alleys are paved with at least cobblestones.  Zanzibar was controlled for years by Oman.  The sultanate even moved here for a time.  It was the center of slave trade between Africa, the Middle East and India.

The city is mostly shut down.  There were riots yesterday in response to the elections on the mainland.  Zanzibar used to be independent of the mainland and still has pretensions of independence.  It is richer and more Muslim than the mainland.  Zanzibar requires people coming from the mainland to pass through immigration and show passports.  In Zanzibar, CUF is the popular political party.  CCM is popular on the mainland.  CCM won the presidential elections 80% to 20%.  The BBC reports that international observers felt the election was relatively free from irregularities.  Still, everyone we talk to on Zanzibar is bitter about the results and tells us that CCM rigged the election.

Restaurants are all closed.  We find a market where we are able to buy food.  The Oasis is the cheapest hotel we can find at $17/night, with much negotiation required to get that rate.  The hotel has lousy beds with lumpy pillows, but they actually provide towels (colorful polyester towels which don't absorb water) and the showers and toilets work 50% of the time.  This is the only hotel we ever see in Tanzania which provides soap in the shared bathroom.  This makes it a luxury hotel.

12/16  We walk around Stone Town and take in the sights.  In the main square we meet a group of Masai from Arusha selling bead craft.  They appreciate the fact that Rachel speaks Swahili, and they like Nassor and Sophia.  They let me take pictures.  They are nice, so we buy some very overpriced trinkets.  Interestingly, the Masai have been making bead bracelets and necklaces for centuries.  I wonder how they used to create tiny glass beads with holes in the center.  Nobody knows the answer to this.  Maybe I should Google it.

We stop at the main market to buy spices.  Zanzibar is famous for its spices and we get some good deals on quality spices we couldn't find in Kariakoo.  I buy about a pound of saffron for 43 cents.  I'm doubtful that this is actually pure Saffron since it would cost about $500 in the US.  It smells good, whatever it is.

Earlier in the morning we had arranged for a car to take us to Jambiani on the other side of the island for $6.80.  When the car shows up (mostly on time!) the price is $21.25.  We tell them to take a hike.  Instead we catch a very comfortable and direct minibus for $2.04.  It turns out to be one of the nicest bus rides of the entire trip.  Ha!

Once in Jambiani we go to the Zion hotel where we hope to find a cheap room.  We had met a fellow on the ferry named Captain Sparrow.  His real name was Mohammed, but he goes by Captain Sparrow.  Really.  That isn't the Swahili translation, he said it in English.  Anyhow, Captain Sparrow recommended Zion as a place to get a bargain.  The best price Rachel can negotiate is $50 for two nights.  We move up the beach to a resort called Pakachi and get a rate of $40 for two nights.  It is a nice, new beach resort.  We have a three bedroom, one bathroom bungalow all to ourselves.  Being on the east side of the island it is cooler and there are no mosquitoes!  (The west side of the island is hot and infested with blood suckers)  This is the most luxury we have experienced in Tanzania.  Pakachi is still under construction, so there aren't many guests.  Our bungalow has some water pressure issues and the ceiling fans don't work, and one of the beds has filthy sheets.  But this is still luxury!

We walk down the beach towards Jambiani to find cheap food (Pakachi serves western food at western prices) and find the "Best Restaurant" on the beach just South of Pakachi.  They cook our meals to order for a decent price.  It takes two hours to cook the food.  I'm pretty sure they didn't buy the ingredients until we placed our order.  We are hungry when the food is finally ready, so we are glad to have tasty, plentiful meals.

12/17  Nassor and Sophia are having a great time playing on the beach.  Rachel is bored.  I'm reading my book.  This place is a resort, which means beach and a bar.  It is difficult to swim here because of the huge tidal plains.  We walk out at low tide and see lots of urchins, clown fish, sea cucumbers, crustaceans and other ocean life.  In the afternoon I climb a papaya tree to collect fruit for us all to eat.  This is how vegetarians hunt food.

12/18  Done with resort life.  Back to the real world.  We take a minibus towards Stone Town... umm... sort of towards Stone Town.  It heads North up the Eastern side of the island.  We get a tour of every back road all the way up the island.  The bus collects nobody and drops off one bundle of papaya.  Seems like a wasted effort to us.  But we do see one wild monkey in the trees.

We get off at Jozani Forest in the middle of the island.  Here there are many Red Colobus monkeys which are rare elsewhere in the world.  We get a guided tour and hike two or three miles.  We see lots and lots of Red Colobus, a few Sikes Monkeys, a Brown Squirrel, and a huge colony of ants on the march.  Zanzibar is one of the few places in Tanzania where we see evergreen trees, and there are many here.  Also Red Mahogany trees which are imported from Madagascar.

Walking from Jozani back to the road, we hitch a ride with a taxi.  For $3.40 the taxi takes us the rest of the way back to Stone Town.  The taxi is air conditioned!  The only air conditioned vehicle we ride in during the entire trip.  There is less traffic in Zanzibar than on the mainland, and the drivers are a bit less aggressive.  Because of that, and because of the moderate scale of the island, this would be a good place to go bike touring.

12/19  We go out on a boat with Bahari divers.  I'm scuba diving, Rachel and the kids are snorkeling.  The whole package costs $95 which is expensive, but much cheaper than diving in Australia.  Bahari is a professional outfit with brand new equipment.  Better than what I rented in Australia.

The first dive is an amazing trip down to an old wreck.  We go down about 20m, then swim along the bottom for several hundred yards to reach the wreck.  There are huge schools of smaller fish and a few large fish.  My fish identification skills are pretty weak, and I'm not taking notes, so my memory of what I saw is limited to "lots of pretty fish."  This dive has lots of firsts for me.  At 28m, it is my deepest dive.  It is also my first dive to a wreck.  And we used 12L steel tanks, which is fairly irrelevant, but still a new experience.

My second dive is to a coral reef about 12m deep.  This is a long dive, we are down for about 50 minutes total.  I do a better job of remembering fish this time.  Saw Parrotfish, Clownfish, Lionfish, Grouper, Rays, Idol, Zebrafish and more.  The Lionfish is especially cool and hangs out quite close to me.  Almost too close.

We return to Zanzibar in time to change clothing and catch the ferry back to Dar.  The ferry breaks down midway across the ocean and is stalled in the water for an hour until the crew gets it fixed.  The seas are a bit rough and the cabin is very hot.  Many of the passengers are stretched out in the aisles, puking into little plastic bags.  I am feeling fine, possibly because I had taken a double dose of meclizine prior to scuba diving.

Finally reaching the mainland, a few taxi drivers nearly get into a fist fight over who has dibs on the white people.  We walk past them and catch a minibus to Hanif's house.

12/20  With some effort, we manage to locate the British Airways office in Dar.  Turns out it is in the lobby of a swanky hotel.  I walk in wearing a filthy, torn, sweat soaked t-shirt.  Nobody bats an eye.  They are used to western tourists dressed like slobs.  Almost all Tanzanians dress very nicely and I think they must find it strange that rich people dress so poorly.  Hamza is hassled for several minutes by security even though he is dressed in clean, new clothing.  We finally make it to the British Airways office to confirm our flight times (and enjoy the air conditioning).  Good thing, since our flights have changed.  After getting our itinerary squared away, we go to Kariakoo for some shopping.  Returning to Hanif's house, we meet Hussein's friend Johnson -- who arrives with ice cream!

12/21  I'm taking a rest day today.  Reading, listening to BBC World News, and cooking food.  I'm confident enough with my Swahili to walk to the small stores and purchase food on my own.  My vocabulary is limited, but I manage to buy what I want without paying excessive prices.  I manage to avoid the morning rain, but not the resulting mud.  Johnson comes again with more ice cream.  I like this guy!

Since I'm home resting, I'm doing more of the cooking.  Hussein has showed me how to make Ugali (boiled corn meal) which is a Tanzanian staple.  It is served with vegetables and beans.  It isn't hard to be a vegetarian here.  Staples like Ugali, Rice, Beans, and Chapati (tortillas) are common.  Fruits and vegetables include Mango, Papaya, Jack Fruit, Pineapple, Avocado, Peas, Casava, Oranges, Bananas, Carrots, Strawberries (in Morogoro), Coconut, Eggplant, Sugar Cane, Lemon, Tomatoes, Nyanya Chungu (bitter tomatoes), Mchicha (greens like spinach).  We often have Peanut Butter and Jelly, Cashews and Peanuts while traveling.  Rare treats include Ndizi (banana stew) and Sweet Noodles.  We drink lots and lots of water, UHT Milk, Fruit Juices (Mango, Pineapple, Passion Fruit), Chai Tea, and the excellent Rosera flower drink.  Snacks for me are mostly Ice Cream and the occasional Mandazi (donuts).

12/22  We consider trying to visit a museum, but never get around to it.  This turns into another rest day.  It rains during the day again.  We had a brief shower in Arusha and these two days of rain in Dar.  Other than that, the weather has been clear.  It rains hard for a short time every night in Dar, but the skies are clear during the day.  We never saw rain in other cities.  This is a real problem in Mvomero where the fields are barren due to a drought which has run a few months longer than is typical.

I finish my books.  During this trip I read Hawaii, by James Michener; Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar, by Emily Ruete (which was horrid); Harry Potter III; King Lear; and The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler.  (Harry Potter by JK Rowling and King Lear by Shakespeare, but hopefully you knew that already).

12/23  After five weeks, it is time to depart Tanzania.  We head to the airport, say goodbye to Hussein's family, and receive a final shakedown for money.  A bunch of people in uniforms tell us we have to pay $8 per person as some sort of airport fee.  Of course, the fee only appears to apply to white people.  We argue and get mightily pissed.  They don't budge.  Official government policy -- they even show us a photocopy of a poorly typed letter saying we have to pay $8.  Finally they offer us a deal.  The kids don't have to pay.  Official government policy my ass.  I'm somewhat pissed that British Airways doesn't use their clout to protect their passengers from having to pay bribes in the airport terminal, less than 5m from the British Airways ticket desk.

Hussein has trouble with his passport.  Some stupid clerk decides that it must be forged since Hussein looks like a Tanzanian.  We finally display Nassor as proof that Hussein has been in the United States for at least seven years.  Jerks.

We finally get to the departure lounge.  We take turns walking through the overpriced duty free shop, because it has air conditioning and we enjoy the luxury.  In the shop I'm flipping through a picture book and find a picture of a whole pride of lions up in a tree.  The caption reads, "Contrary to popular belief, Lions often climb trees."   Being right is quite possibly my favorite hobby.  I do a victory dance calculated to inflict maximum humiliation on my vanquished opponents.  Of course, any dancing I do inflicts a substantial amount of humiliation on me, but I've long been accustomed to that.  The sweet, sweet victory is enough to wash the bitter memory of airport extortion from the forefront of my mind.  We board the plane, they close the doors, spray for mosquitoes, and we depart Tanzania.

Trying to figure out who all the people are? Check out this genealogy chart that Rachel and Hussein made for me so I could identify all the family members we met.