Pemba Island

The ferry was just off the dock, making its way out to sea.  Looking out at the water there was only darkness, but lights glowed warmly inside the passenger area behind us an occasionally illuminated a wave crust just off the boat.  It was a hot and sticky night, and Orian and I were glad to be outside with the breeze, away from the crying children, the stale breath of a room packed too tightly.  There must not be any regulations on carrying capacity, I thought.  

People were not quite ready to sleep.  What had been a quiet and private little corner turned into a happening spot, with 12 or 15 men standing about 8ft down from us on the walkway,crammed together, leaning against the rail, trying to see over a stack of bags and mattresses to watch a movie playing inside.  A cute little boy came and sat next to Orian and me; I was writing in my journal, but Orian was talked to him awhile.  Then Orian was reading, and the boy moved closer to me, staring at me.  I looked up.  "Hello," I said.  How are you?" "Give me money," he said insistently.  "No," I responded, "Where is your mother?"  He pointed inside.  "Give me some money."

"I am not going to give you any money," I said, and went back to writing in my journal.  But the moment was gone and I was tired of writing.  The boy was still sitting there.  I leaned up against Orian and tried to sleep.  Every once in awhile I would open my eyes, when a person walked by or when a wave crashed loudly, and the boy was still there.  Every so often he would stick out his hand or demand, "Money."  Eventually he went away.  

We set our bags up against the wall, and we each lay our sleeping pad partly on our bags and partly on the deck.  The deck was not more than a meter wide, and after the boat pushed off more foot traffic began filtering past, which meant we had only a foot and a half or so in which to spread out our stuff and find some sleep.  I got myself situated quite comfortably, and drifted off.  But there was a drip from the floor above; we didn't know from what, but it was a constant drip, and as the boat rocked from side to side, the drips would drip on us as it leaned to one direction and then drip into the sea when it tipped towards the other direction.   I sat up.  We lay a tarp for me over by the railing, away from the drip.  People had to step over me to walk down the way, so I had a hard time falling asleep because I was afraid someone would not see me--I did not want to be stepped on.  But it was comfortable to lay flat, instead of on my bags and I fell asleep again, only to be woken not much later by water crashing above me.  I got wet--though not soaked, enough to not want to stay there; the tarp was in a puddle.  

"Orian, I got splashed by a wave," I said to him groggily, nudging him awake.  

"Oh yeah?" he said, "Do you want to move?"

"Not really."

"Well what do you want to do?"

"I don't know," I said stupidly, "I guess I'll just sit here [against the wall, where it was drier]."  There were no obviously open spaces, and I didn't want to sleep by myself.  Even though I cannot actually interact with Orian when I am sleeping, I preferred to sleep next to him.  So I went and sat on my bags by the rail and groggily tried to relax, not expecting to find sleep there but too tired to think of a better solution.  The ferry tipped back and forth more and more violently with each tilt until it would suddenly calm before beginning the procedure anew.  That is why I had been hit by the wave; we had passed the protection of Zanzibar and were getting the ocean waves at their full strength, which were causing the boat to tip further towards the water.  The water was splashing aboard more and more violently.  It was getting to difficult to avoid; I sensed that if I stayed there I would be soaked in no time.  Not only that, but because of the rocking motion, sitting up was making me feel nauseous.  I got up and went towards the smelly bathroom at the stern of the boat.  There was a large coil of rope there, by which the anchor was attached to the ship.  There were now only a couple of people here, although it had been crowded when Orian and I first boarded.  I sat down.  It was nice and I was dry.  I went to get a tarp and one of my bags for a pillow and a fleece to keep me warm and set it next to the giant coil.  I fell asleep leaning against my bag.  

When I awoke, an hour or so later, there were more people around me.  There was a man sitting next to me on the head of a pipe.  He had his elbows on his knees and propped his head in his hands, trying to sleep.  There were more people on the other side of the corner.  I fell back asleep, taking time to overcome the nausea I had in my belly every time my head was lifted up.  

Retching.  That was the next sound I heard: violent, dry, heaving, right by my head.  I had taken my glasses off and stuck them up my sleeve (the easiest place to keep them safe and handy) and I am blind without them, but I guessed that someone was getting seasick.  "Not near me, please," I thought to myself, "not on the floor next to me...if she vomits there...," here I imagined the smell, the wetness, "I am close enough to being sick when I am awake as it is."  I fumbled and found my glasses, putting them on.  There was a middle-aged crone in black (black dress cover, black head cover), leaning over, one hand on the railing, the other clutching her stomach as she leaned over, heaving just outside the bathroom but not moving to open the door.  The man sitting next to me on the pipe opened the bathroom door because she seemed content to get sick on the deck.  Opening the door brought a flood of "fresh" foul scents; the smelliest bathroom I'd seen on the trip.  It swung open; the woman didn't close it behind her.  The man closed it.  I am not sure whether the woman was sick or not, but she was in there a long time.  By the time she had come out a long line had gathered, women and children, needing to pee.

I was a bit astounded by the quality of their dresses, the dresses on the women and the dresses on the little girls.  Many wore crappy plastic flip-flops, some wore nice heels, but almost all the women had on chiffon beneath their black caftans and head wrappings.  Chiffon veils.  Little girls in chiffon, wearing dresses that would be on a flower girl at a fancy wedding.  Many women in Tanzania wore clothes like this;  the girls might be playing in the mud, living in thatched huts, but they played in chiffon.  The women might squat in an outhouse and have no plumbing  and eat chips (french fries) for a meal, but they wore chiffon, or silk, or satin.  And here on this boat it was even more astounding; I cringed whenever I touched a surface on the boat, and I was in my dirty traveling clothes.  Well, whatever.

I slept like this the rest of the night, until day started breaking.  It was cloudy and started drizzling before we pulled into the dock on Pemba.  There were no lights as we approached the island, even though the dawn was just breaking.  Not very well developed, not like Zanzibar, where most places had decent electricity.  

It was very picturesque when we pulled in.  Misty harbor, beautiful dhows.  When we pulled in, we let most of the passengers debark before we tried to get our things off.  Orian brought some of our panniers, which we had had to take off to load the bikes, and I had the handlebar bags.  I sat with the stuff while Orian made trips back to the ship.  Off the boat, all was chaos: no rhyme or reason to the unloading, not traffic patterns, every man for himself.  I held our little corner; it was alright, the crowd moved past to get off the dock.  It started raining harder; I put on my rain jacket, opened the tarp, and sat underneath it.  Once we had all our stuff in one place, we braved the rain to load our bikes and moved towards land.  It rained harder and harder as we moved towards the buildings off the dock, that we were completely soaked within 100m.  We just wanted to find a dry place, but someone saw that we were mzungus and waved us into immigration.  Another hassle; they stamped us for Pemba Island.  Then they sent us back into the rain.  Everywhere people were standing under the eaves, just waiting out the storm.  But we didn't know where we were, we were hungry, and we had no place to go.  I was already soaked.  I just wanted to move somewhere dry, where we could sit out of the damp and eat something hot.  We passed buildings, trying to find our way through the blinding downpour.  Up a hill that was now a river, overcoming branches and other obstacles the river carried with it.  I didn't know where to go, just up, past the little shanties that probably had chai but had no shelter.  Up, up, I hope I find something, and then there were some buildings.  The rain let up a little; still raining, but easier to see.  

"Una chai?" Orian asked the shopkeeper.  "Do you have chai?"  He did and we parked our bikes and went inside.  No chapati.  I picked a roll and ordered some soup, and Orian had some njera-like crepes: basically, a spongy pancake,  not very flavorful.  The soup was overly salty, but was warm.

We sat there, wet.  I put my contacts in at the sink; better to wear contacts when it is raining.  This is where I would put contacts in in Tanzania; it was hard to find water, but at places with chai we were brought water with which to wash our hands and I would take advantage of the opportunity to wash my hands, use hand sanitizer (the water was no good to drink), and put in my contacts.  

We talked about what we would do next.  First we needed money; we had 60,000 shillings but we would probably need at least 40,000 for the boat ride, and a night at a guesthouse would cost 10,000-15,000, and we needed food.  The rain had let up some; we wandered into the street and rode up to an intersection with what looked like the main street.  Pemba looked dead, like one of those towns in the American West that used to be vibrant but now was dying, buildings boarded.  It reminded me more of the American dying towns than African dying towns, because many of the buildings were multistory (instead of one).  Across the street was the Pemba Crown Hotel (aptly named because no royal ever had slept there), which had been recommended to us by the immigration officials down on the dock, but which cost 10,000 shillings per person, more than our budget, especially because after riding up and down the road, there was no ATM.  There was one in Chake, we heard, about 30km away.  

Well, okay, so no luck there.  We still needed to figure out when we could get a boat to Tanga.  It was raining again; I didn't want to go down to the docks.  It wasn't that far: maybe a quarter kilometre or half a kilometre; I just didn't want to go.  I hate riding in the rain, especially because as I sit there getting all wet and sticky, I just can't help picturing the decline of my things into irreparable sliminess, moldiness, and smelliness.  I know, I know, it's not very tough of me.  I might get used to it if there were dryers...but I won't make any excuses.  Orian said I could wait in the cafe and wait for him.  What a husband!  I'm glad he puts up with me.

Anyway, he went down to the docks, I sat in the cafe, and 30-45 minutes he came back, completely drenched, because while he was out it had starting downpouring.  What he had found out was that there might be more ferries coming into the opposite side of the island from where we were or there might not be.  There might be a ferry to Tanga or there might not be.  

"There is no boat to Tanga," one person said.

"There is a boat, the Fatih, but it only goes once a week.  Maybe it will go this week.  Let me call my friend."  So he called his friend.  "Maybe it will go out Thursday.  But  it doesn't go out from this dock; you must go to the other side of the island."

With that air of uncertainty, we decided to risk going to the other side of the island.  The road took us to Chake, where we could pick up some money.  We found a transport across the street from where we ate breakfast a van that would seat 12 people with an open rack on top for luggage.  Orian and I were the first people on the bus; we negotiated $4 for the two of us and our bikes to Chake.  Eight more people piled in and we set off.  Not bad.  We hit the first bump.  Thump.  There was no suspension.  Okay, that was okay.  One young man drove the bus and the other manned the door, pulling it open and bargaining with potential passengers: destination, price, all shouted out of the door of a van that seemed to only slow when a bargain had been struck.  More people piled in before others climbed out; we ran at an average of 16 passengers.

Orian and I nodded off, tired from a restless night on the ferry.  Thump.  I woke up to a burning sensation in my nose...I had been leaning my head against Orian's shoulder as I slept, and one of the bumps we hit sent my nose into his arm.  Ouch!  I rubbed my nose and looked out the window.  It was raining, but pretty, mist settled in the valleys, different from Zanzibar; hillier.  

We were soon in Chake, got some money at the ATM; though the town did not look much busier than where we had started this morning, it apparently had a hospital, a small airport, and this ATM.  We found a transport to the port we needed to get to, a pickup in which the back had been converted to hold passengers: benches, a roof, and tarps on the side that rolled up and down.  We started with them rolled down, because of the rain, but rolled them up to get the exhaust moving.  As with the van, there was a driver and another man who collected money, found passengers, etc.  Since they couldn't talk directly, the collector communicated with the driver by banging change on the metal bars.  

This truck ran at an average of 20 passengers or so; although this leg of the trip was shorter, it ran longer, because there were many passengers and they were all local.  It was cramped and sticky, but we soon arrived at our destination.  I was happy to get out of the back of the truck; breathing in exhaust was making me feel nauseous.  We unloaded our bikes in an empty dirt lot near the dock, the driver over charged us, and then he took off.  Orian went to ask about ferries while I loaded our bags onto our bikes.  Well, he went to find someone to ask; this town was even smaller than the one we had arrived at Pemba in and was nearly deserted when we arrived.  

There were no boats at the dock and no one had any definitive idea of when one would arrive.  No one seemed to have any interest in the boats, or anything, really.  We found a place to eat, but all they had was chai, which we were not in the mood for.  As we stepped into the restaurant, over the stone gutter, a pipe from the upper floors of the building sputtered and spat out a liter of coagulated blood, which is probably the most disgusting thing I have seen on the trip.  That also turned my appetite from the place.  After wandering around the neighborhood, in which we found tiny shops selling nothing and no food, we decided to go find a guesthouse.  There was one.  We rode towards it.  It was up on a hill, which was well-paved, and had a nice view overlooking a quaint cove that seemed blue even on this grey day, with a canoe carved from a single tree, and a palm tree.

We tried the guesthouse, asking them what their fee would be for the night.  A young man ran off and brought back a laminated piece of paper, with fees in English and prices in U.S. dollars, listing a single room at $10/night*person.  Although it seemed like a decent place, I was tired of being overcharged, especially in a town that obviously had no business.  We tried bargaining--I offered to pay him 15000 shillings a night for Orian and I to both sleep in a single room, with the promise of purchasing meals from him.  He wouldn't accept.  So we left.

We rode back to town and picked up a transport; that was the only guest house in town.  This time we did not sleep; we were too worked up.  All I wanted to do was to get off of Pemba--no one here had been friendly, no one here had been gracious, it was raining, and there was no way to get to Tanga.  Although Orian had thought we could find a local boat, if not a ferry, to Tanga, there were also no local boats, and the people we talked to made it clear that if there was 1. they never took them, and 2. it was forbidden anyway, because there had been an accident.  The only way was back to Zanzibar, and if we could manage to catch it, back to Zanzibar on the very ferry we had come in on...I didn't think I could bear to spend another day on Pemba.

We made it back to the dock by 6p.m.  We managed to find some food at the restaurant at which we'd eaten breakfast; everything else was closed.  My stomach was happy and settled a bit.  It was raining.  We rode down the hill with the river; it wasn't raining hard enough to grow the river that had been there earlier.  Okay.  Although we were told that boarding began at 7 p.m., at that time there was no sign of boarding.  We waited under the eave of a large building as it grew dark, and as it grew dark the rain picked up.  It was cold.  I went to see if there was a place inside the building; it was a large warehouse, where others were waiting out the rain.  Orian and I went in, and I slept on the floor so I would not get too anxious waiting.  

Orian came to wake me up around 10p.m.  I had been asleep an hour or so.  He said that they were starting to load the boat; I said that I needed to get ready.  I mentally steeled myself to go out in the rain, put on my visor so that I wouldn't have rain in my eyes, and headed out into the night.  

Zanzibar

As some of you may know, I arrived back in the U.S. last Tuesday, May 5, 2008. I flew out of Dar es Salaam, through Dubai, and into the Boston airport. The events that precipitated my departure from Dar took a little while to put down onto paper, but I will share some of our adventures with you. I also have some updates on Orian and the Three Musketeers.

When last I updated the blog, Orian and I were planning on taking a ferry to Zanzibar, then from Zanzibar to Pemba, then from Pemba to Tanga. The map we had showed that a ferry went from Pemba to Tanga, and we'd heard from various people that there were no ferries but there were boats. After Orian's experience taking boats in South America, he was pretty sure that once we got to Pemba we would find something.

The day left Dar es Salaam it was rainy. I waited at a cafe while Orian went to pick up our visas from the Egyptian embassy (although I had been thinking that I would go home in Nairobi, I had no ticket home, and we didn't want to discount the possibility that I might change my mind, which happens, so we had both gotten visas). When he got back, it was time to pick up my clothes from the tailor, and then we rushed over to the ferry booking office; it was 11:30a.m., and the schedule departure was noon. When we got near the office, the locals recognized us as mzungus (foreigners, white guys) and led us to a ferry booking office, and then surrounded us and took my bike from me to help put it on the boat. They wore uniform-type looking things, and the gangplanks were narrow and steep, or stairs, so I didn't complain. One guy helped Orian lift his bike up to keep it up over the railings. With their help we and our things were loaded on. It was a passenger ferry. We thought it would be a passenger-car ferry, like I've taken out to Block Island, and as Orian has been on in South America, or like we rode on in other parts of Africa. But it wasn't; it was for passengers only, which may be why it was so hard to get our bikes onboard. Once we had boarded, the guys wanted money for their services. Apparently they didn't work for the boat company. Whoops. We should have known; we'd been in Africa long enough. No one does anything for "free". Still, their services weren't worth the 10,000 shillings (~$10) that they had demanded, especially because we hadn't asked, and would have handled loading the bikes by ourselves, as we ended up doing on the way down. We gave them 2,000 shillings each. We had 4,000 shillings left. We sat in first class. It was fairly nice and clean, of Japanese manufacture probably, or at least made for a Japanese market, as there was Japanese lettering all over the ship. Foreigners are only sold first-class tickets. Actually, sometimes they just have to pay a higher price without improved accommodation, as our tickets from Zanzibar to Pemba were twice as expensive and we slept outside on the walkway getting wet. More on that later.

The ride took about three hours, and was fairly unremarkable. I got a little bit of motion sickness and went to sleep. The sky showered a bit, turning parts of the sky a dirty grey color. Soon, we saw an island peeking up above the waterline, green, low land.

We disembarked on a loading dock, surrounded by cargo containers. The sky had cleared up and it was nice. There was such a crowd, and the gangplank was so narrow and steep and gangly that even I, carrying nothing, had to watch my step going down. So the unloading of the passengers was slow. Orian managed to find enough gaps to carry our loaded bikes down and we hopped on. We were stopped a little ways away, near the exit; we had to go through customs, even though it is the same country. I have a Zanzibar stamp and a Pemba stamp in my passport (no exit stamps, though; the offices were always closed when we left). We left the gate and were immediately surrounded by men of all ages and health, trying to sell us hotels and ferry rides. We rode past them. We had not eaten since the morning and it was near dinner time. We found a street with a market, where we were again besieged by people wanting to find us restaurants and little market stands and spices. We drank some juice and escaped.

We needed a place to camp. We figured it would be difficult, especially since it was obviously a very tourist-y place, even more than Dar es Salaam had been. We tried talking to police; they did not speak very good English. The guys wanting to sell us stuff did speak decent English and many of them wanted to walk us to the 'cheapest hotel in town'. They all named the same place; we figured that hotel was giving them the biggest commission and decided to strike out on our own.

Throughout our stay on Dar I was impressed with the variety of languages these sellers were conversational in (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese), and their persistence, as persistent as a mosquito attracted to blood. They would do their very best to find a service they could sell you: they would try to bring you to a 'cheap' hotel, where they would get a commission; they would try to get you to buy spices from someone in the market (from whom they would also get a commission); they would pull out a cd of 'Zanzibari' tunes and would start singing them. I enjoyed this part. "What does this one sound like?" I would ask. "How about this one?" I would get serenaded in the street. We were not looking for one of these guys; we hoped that asking a policeman would get us a spot near a police checkpoint or something. So after we drank our juice we began asking.

Three policemen, a quarter-kilometre, and a threat to go off and find our own lodgings, and one of the men who was hanging out with the third policemen serendipitously remembered that there was 'a very cheap one just there, I will take you." It turned out the be 15,000 shillings (less expensive than the one being hawked at the market) and quite decent--clean, large room with space to put our bikes, a television, and complimentary breakfast. We left our stuff at the hotel and wandered down to the wharf.

"Let's go to the market," I said, "I don't think there's anything down by the docks." I would have though there was, but earlier, had seen nothing to suggest that there was. So we went to the market and then started walking from there to where we thought the shore was. We picked up a few guys along the way, including one who stuck. He asked us what we were looking for, and at first we said "nothing, just wandering", but eventually got it out of us that we were looking for a restaurant. After he promised to not ask us for money I slowed down my step and stopped trying to lose him. He took us wandering through picturesque little alley ways that were very much in the style of colonial neighborhoods: white stone, multiple stories (no traditional African style that we came across had multiple stories), narrow alleys.

Eventually we found a nice Italian place where my tongue met the delectable tanginess of real cheese for the first time in a month. We sat watching a soccer game on the beach; there must have been at least 40 players. I marveled at how playing soccer 40 people could all feel a part of a single game.

We relaxed and talked. By the time we finished, it was nearing dark, and we hoped we would not get too lost in the winding alleys. But we decided to take the main road back, which took us by construction and some old buildings that looked like forts but were covered in construction barriers. The main road was not a main road as such; it was just a road that went along the coast of the bay and was not an alley. It plopped us out right in front of the exit to the dock, in very little time, very painless, and it took us past all sorts of fancy, well-lit tourist lodgings, including some very posh and luxurious looking halls. We came from exactly the area that earlier I had looked down and thought led nowhere.

The hotel was nice and screened so we had no mosquitoes. We awoke in the dark to the sound of a muezzin calling prayer at 4a.m. (I always sleep after the muezzin call, and during it. Do Muslims go back to sleep or stay awake?). After breakfast (complimentary fruit and toast at the hotel), we checked out of the hotel, went down to the dock to buy tickets for a night ferry from Zanzibar to Pemba Island, scheduled to leave that night at 10p.m. Boarding would begin at 7p.m. Until then, we had all day to explore the island.

We set off. The island is long in the north-south proportion and short in the east-west direction. We decided to take the road from Zanzibar, on the west coast of the island, to a beach town on the other side. We hoped to see spice plantations and avoid the busy traffic that most likely plagued the main road on the coast. After some false starts, we found the road that took us that way. It was the narrowest road we'd been on yet, a real single lane. But the traffic was slow and sparse, the weather beautiful, and the terrain was not tough. In fact, Zanzibar, at least the parts of it we saw from the water and from our bike, was flat. A lot of lowland. I pictured the island flooding 'during the wrong season'. Palm trees that reached up to the sun and little communities boarding the road, like we've been seeing throughout Africa, but closer together, one house visible from the next. The riding was easy. The area seemed poor, poorer than the other little communities we'd passed by in Tanzania, judging by what was not in the stores, but rich in produce, coconuts, fruit trees, soil.

We rode and did not see spice plantations, just small houses with fruit trees. We also did not go all the way to the other side of the island because the road (on the map, one of the main roads of the island) disappeared into a wide but terrible dirt track. We rode aways on the dirt. The little rocks stuck up at the worst possible angle in the soil, which was rock hard, and held them there. Imagine large size gravel pieces, the pointiest parts sticking up. The wheels went over them alright, and it was a bit hard steering, but we'd done that kind of thing before. But we were just doing a circle, and earlier in the day I had looked at my wheels and noticed that the tire had peeled away, and I was worried what the sun and the rocks would do. We rode aways and then gave up, doubling back and taking a well-paved side road that even had shoulders and less traffic. It was really beautiful, very green, shady when we turned off the main road, and fewer houses. We saw people out on the road, walking and riding, and to me it felt like a Sunday morning outing, though it was a Friday.

It was hot, and sunny. We came upon a group of men sitting around and a couple of buildings with a porch, that looked like they might have some things, and in particular, sodas. We'd been drinking a lot of soda since the first time we got bottled Cokes way back in Botswana on Orian's birthday. Sodas were cheap (the ones with returnable bottles anyway), and sometimes cold, refreshing, with some sugar to keep us going. Although my teeth were starting to complain. Now that I am back in the U.S. I have not had any soda for awhile; it is nice to not have that sweetness sitting on my teeth all the time. But that day I wanted one and we stopped. One young man, a student, spoke decent English. He spoke to Orian; I waited to see whether they would have a cold drink or not. But an old man with bad teeth (not that old, maybe his 50s, but looked older, and old for Africa) came up grinning and engaging me in conversation. I didn't really understand what he said; he didn't understand what I said. We passed on conversational niceties. Then he moved closer to me. I was with Orian, no need to be too uncomfortable I thought. The man was nodding and grinning, then pointed at me, then poked each breast, right in the nipple. "Okay, keep smiling and grinning," I thought, "maybe this is some local greeting or something." Later on, another incident, on Pemba Island, put this in perspective: while we were in the warehouse, staying dry while waiting for a ferry, two men to whom I had spoken briefly before, came up and said to me, "Girlie, boyie?" They couldn't tell if I was a man or a woman! Because I have short hair, because I wear pants, because I have little breasts, because I ride my bike?

Anyway, with that taste in my mouth, I drank my Coke as quickly as I could and wanted to ride.

We took a different road, one that would take us back towards Zanzibar in a little circle. The foliage here was even a little different; the trees not quite as tall and shady. It was a dustier green color, with vines. But no spices yet! We rode through some lowlands, where the trees opened up and we could see coconut plantations. Just schoolgirls of all ages in light blue skirts and white blouses, light blue head coverings, coming home from school or just for lunch. Some men on the right side of the road. I mistrust these groups of men, sitting around, not doing anything. We have had no really negative experiences, but someone often comes to ask us for money. One walked out; Orian slowed and stopped and I kept going, more slowly. But Orian called and waved me back. It was a spice plantation. We had talked about buying some spices, so we went in. They had some black pepper, white pepper, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, chile. Fresh nutmegs.

Nutmeg

Ylang-ylang

Turmeric

They talked us into letting them take us on a spice tour. It was fun; we walked around, O and I and the pair of tourist guides, looking at vanilla and black pepper vines, shoots of cardamom and turmeric, orange groves, rambutan (like a lychee), and a lipstick tree (native to the Americas, according to wikipedia).

We spent some time there, we rode some more in the sun and rode back into the busy, dirty, smelly area of Zanzibar (Stone Town). We had time; we checked internet and ate dinner. I had a lot of fun. It was relaxing, fun. Orian and I were both in a good mood getting ready to board the boat, excited to be moving on. We were planning on boarding a boat immediately from Pemba to Tanga, not spending a day on the island as we'd done on Zanzibar.

The time to board was 7p.m.; it was dark. We had all our stuff on our bikes, all prepared, but the place was a zoo. So many people, pushing and shoving. It was not like the first boat we took. It was a big cargo ship--half passengers, half cargo (local cargo). There was no easy way to load the cargo; it was handed over the side of the ship. We had to pay extra to load our bikes, which we put on one of the walkways. The boat was packed. Deck passengers were cramped, sitting with their luggage between them; the lower decks were just as bad. We should have boarded even earlier; all we could find was a space on a walkway. It was nice at first: though a little sticky, it was slow and quiet. But then people started filling in the walkway as well, and when the boat got going, the water dripping from the upper deck splashed inwards towards to cabin, onto us and our things. Sometimes we could smell the bathroom just around the corner; one of the most foul smelling bathrooms I've smelled in Africa, the smell would waft around the corner.

We pulled away from the dock; it was magical, despite the discomforts, the gently rocking waves and the lights way off on the dock. Going on a sea adventure. Off to Pemba...off to the mainland...

Well, I started off the post by saying I would tell of my adventures and give some updates. But I had more to say than I thought, and will split the story up into parts.

Three Cheers for Kenya!

Cheers, cheers, cheers...An African hippie, fantastic border crossing into Kenya, and unprecedented Kenyan hospitality!

Most of the people we have met in Africa really enjoy their meat. When we enter a restaurant, they bring us goat, beef, or chicken by default. And when we say we just want ugali and veggies, blank uncomprehensive stares is all we get. But Major, one of our hosts outside Moshi, was a vegetarian. That was the first surprising thing about him. Secondly, he wasn't just any vegetarian. He grinded different grains together to make his own mix of ugali/nshima meal. traditionally, ugali is made only from pounded maize, but Major's was from sorghum, rice, wheat, and finger millet. He was a dietician by hobby, and said that the different colors in his mix meant different vitamins and minerals for a complete and varied diet. He also ate sprouts, which I hadn't heard anyone mention since I lived in a hippie community in New Zealand. Major didn't take painkillers, and instead studied Indian and Chinese Acupuncture and Reflexology to cure his ails. At 60, he had the energy of someone in their 20s and said he would still like to be healthy at 120. I believe he could do it!

We followed a road skirting the foot of Kilimanjaro and headed into Kenya. The border crossing was our best one yet! The exit immigration office was a small shack set just outside a small village under a picturesque Kilimanjaro. The officials sat outside the shack enjoying a coke, clothed in tshirts and khakis. A small dirt road took us into Loitokitok town, Kenya. At customs, there were no sketchy moneychangers and no audience. The officials greeted us with warm smiles, and were very impressed that we had come from CapeTown. Even though the town had no water that day, they brought us over to their reserve water jugs and filled up our water containers for us. Though we were surrounded by rough, dry heat and dust, we did not feel it.

Since we have entered Kenya, we have met this hospitality everywhere. We met Johnathan, a man who resigned from the National Hospital to start a small community clinic near his home village. He showed us around Emali town, his clinic, and his blooming garden. We met a heap of open friendly workers at the Makutano gas station who said 'of course you can camp here!'There, we also met Jeremiah and Charles, a civil engineer and a businessman who took us around their home town Machakos, and took us to visit the earth dam they were constructing.

We are now staying in Machakos, about 60 kms outside of Nairobi, killing time while we wait for Orian to catch up with us. After watching Champions League football last night with our friends, we realized how much we missed watching games. Barcelona play Chelsea tonight! Who are you rooting for?

Safe Haven in Arusha

I met Father Dan and Father Bill in Beagle Bay, a remote Aboriginal community in Australia. When I emailed them that we were in Tanzania, Father Dan replied that we must go to St Theresa's Catholic Church in Arusha. He had already sent a text to his sisters there that we were coming.

Sister Mao greeted us warmly when we first arrived in Arusha a week ago. When Nate and I left for our week long journey in the bush, she sent us off with plenty of juice, water, and various snacks.

We came back to Arusha with heads hanging low from exhaustion, physical and mental fatigue. And we showed up to the church with a sick Quinn. The nuns welcomed us back, and were so happy to see we were safe. They gave us big teddy bear hugs that felt the world to us. There was nothing like coming back to a place where we knew we were safe and looked after by such a loving family. We were gifted with the comfort of love and a home away from home.

Indeed everyone at the church has become like a family to us. Meeting, talking, and eating with the nuns and priests have been keeping us entertained. Nate is Yesu (because he looks like Jesus with his beard), Quinn is Kwinini (because he has malaria and is taking Quinine-Kwinini in Swahili), and I am Rafiki (because I was the friend of Father Dan).

Sorry for the delayed news from the other trio...Nate, Quinn, and I. Nate is updating better than me, so check out his blog: matembezi.blogspot.com

We had similar troubles in the rain in Malawi, like Karen and Orian. So much rain that the three of us got pretty sick as we crossed into Tanzania, plagued with puking, nausea, disorientation, etc. But we were so lucky to meet with Quinn's family who brought all sorts of goodies from home. How we missed feeling safe and at home again! Many many thanks to Los Baumbergers...

Coming into Tanzania, on top of being sick, we encountered other stressful headaches that have challenged us. At the Tanzania border, we had to pay 100 USD for our visas. But since we were coming from Malawi, we only had Malawi Kwacha. The border officer wouldn't accept Malawi Kwacha, only USD. We tried to explain that we didn't carry USD around, but he said that we would have to change into Tanzania shillings and then go back into USD. As the three of us were discussing what to do, one of those sketchy moneychanging sleezeballs comes up to us and says, 'the officer says you need some money changed? we give you good rate'. Unbelievable! The border officials are working together with those sketchy sleezeballs! And this is happening all in front of a huge sign saying 'Money changing at the border is STRICTLY prohibited!'

Nate and I took a 7 day trip into the bush while Quinn spent time with his family on a safari. We had yet new surprises...but running out of time.

-MinWah

Dar es Salaam

We made it to Dar and will be here until Thursday, April 23rd or 24th, waiting for some Egyptian visas and some clothes I got tailored from some chitenge (brightly colored material used as a sarong or for tailored clothes). Then we are going to take a ferry to Zanzibar and Pemba Island and from there back to the mainland to avoid having to bike out of Dar and to see where some spices are grown and some Indian Ocean islands.

From the coast of mainland Tanzania, we will train and bike to Arusha, getting a glimpse of Mt. Kilimanjaro and then take the road north to Nairobi.

Tanzania has been quite a colorful experience. The main language here is Swahili, and is the first country we've been to that has a common language other than English, so more people speak very little or no English than in other countries, and almost everyone addresses us first in Swahili, and only very occasionally in English. We have a couple little phrasebooks and have learned how to purchase things like chai and chapati and to count, as well as have some minor exchanges of greetings. It is hard for us to converse beyond a very topical level in Swahili, but people here really appreciate the effort. We will say a few things beyond Jambo and Mzuri, the basic greetings, and out will pour a flood of Swahili and smiles directed at us, more than we can keep up with.

Tanzanians have been some of the friendliest people we have met so far, and we appreciate that the friendliness is not offered with an expectation of getting money or a gift as it was further south. In Malawi and south, excepting the Boers and all our hosts in S.A, whenever someone offered us assistance or friendliness, we were always a bit wary because sometimes people would offer help and then later ask us for something. Here, people occasionally still put out their hands as we go by, but no one who has hosted us has later asked for anything extra. This is distinct from someone performing a service for us, like showing us how to get somewhere...I am not being entirely clear on how these experiences are distinct, but that is the feeling we get.

Orian and I are still traveling alone. Quinn met up with his parents, went on safari with them, and contracted malaria, from which he is recovering in Arusha. Nate and Minwah took off on a loop down some dirt roads while Quinn was on his family excursion, and the three of them will meet in Arusha. I think the five of us will try to all meet up in Nairobi.

Tanzania has a much better variety of food. For breakfast we can get big, moist, homemade rolls, any number of fried doughnut-like pastries, or chapati and chai, always sweet, occasionally spiced, and occasionally with milk (chai ya maziwa). The maziwa is always fresh although has not been pasteurized. So Tanzania is the first place I've tried raw milk, which is definitely what the Lonely Planet health book advises against--unpasteurized milk! It is incredibly rich and always served boiling hot (so it may be boiled). One full cup of milk will last in my stomach all day. Lunch is sometimes chipsi mayai (or french fries (chips) with an egg) basically a french fry omelette. We've also been seeing more wali ya maharagwe (rice and beans). For breakfast, I've seen many people eating a chicken broth with small piece of meat, slice of lime, and chapati or other starchy thing. For dinner, people like to eat rice or ugali with meat and tomato sauce.

There has been much more of a presence of Islam here in Tanzania. Many of the towns we have been through have mosques and many women have their heads covered. Here there are often women on the streets in the full veil as well. Men will often have the little hat and occasionally the ankle-length robe...but not nearly as often as the women in head coverings and veils.

It is interesting to see that there seems to be much more of a diversity of cultures living together here in Tanzania. We still see the same second-hand western clothes and women with chitenge wrapped around their waists, but we are also seeing more women in western clothes and women in clothes with obvious Islamic influence. The most interesting style we've seen recently is that of the traditional shepherds, with cloth draped roguishly over their shoulders, white plastic sandals meant for girls, beaded arm and ankle bracelets, and earlobes stretched and occasionally plugged. The cloth garment is held together by a leather belt that goes over the ensemble (basically your typical men's leather belt but not being held in place by belt loops) and occasionally they wear basketball shorts underneath for modesty. The leather belt holds their most essential items---handmade short sword sheathed in leather, torch (flashlight), wooden club, and cell phone. A few had assorted other items like a washcloth or a comb. Seeing these shepherds in small villages playing pool alongside men dressed in western gear, the shepherds look far more distinguished and well kept. They are also usually very tall and very lanky.

We've been in Dar since Monday evening. There are many mosques near our hotel, and one in particular is very close, so we hear the muezzin call to prayer five times a day. Sometimes it adds an exotic flair to the place. Other times it is intriguing. This morning it started at 5a.m. and went on for literally an hour, the low, droning, metallic chant. I thought, 'this must be why we don't hear it in the states...they would get shut down for disturbing the peace!'

I haven't been taking nearly as many pictures as I would like, but I will make an effort to take more before leaving Dar. Sometimes I am self-conscious...I don't always feel comfortable taking a picture of the shepherds, for instance, just because they look cool. Sometimes I don't want to display this obvious sign of wealth (I have not been wearing my wristwatch since Livingstone, Zambia).

Two days before we arrived in Dar, we rode 50km through a National Park. The road was quite flat for the first time really since Malawi and we had a tailwind, although the day was very humid. The terrain was open savannah, low open scrubland. We saw many giraffes and we saw buffalo for the first time, a few elephants and some quite cheeky (literally and figuratively) baboons.

We haven't seen many mazungus in Dar es Salaam, but we met more mazungus on the road in Tanzania than any previous country on the trip, including Charlie, a cyclist who has spent the past 10 months cycling down from his base in the U.K. This man was quite outgoing and we chatted for quite awhile on the side of the road. He has been bike touring for the past 10 years, and has been on this road in Tanzania 3 times (!) as well as doing the Alaska-Argentina trip and some touring in Southeast Asia.

We've camped in some incredible places, my favorites being a pine forest plantation in the highlands, where we slept on a bed of pine needles so thick it was like being on a mattress and our tent was cozy and warm since the night was so chilly, and the other being the day we came down from the highlands into a humid hot yet arid area and slept in the vicinity of seven large baobab trees.

I also want to mention something about the traffic:
We had a couple of scares the two days before reaching Dar es Salaam. The drivers of the buses here are really inconsiderate and the roads were not very good (imagine a two lane country road without any shoulders and buses bigger than greyhound going 100km/her around twisty little corners) so pretty scary. Also, we've had a couple of close run-ins...one time I was stopped ahead of a bad traffic spot (steep and long mountain descent...two lanes...and three cars decided to pass a truck even though they could see me in the oncoming lane) and this local guy flew past me on a bike and the last car decided to go anyway and there was a collision. The car didn't even stop. I made sure the guy was okay but all his stuff flew down into a ravine and I was pretty shaken up--tired from the long, steep, windy road without a shoulder and very little or no barrier between the road and a steep slope, and the sickening crunch playing over and over in my head, so close. And two days ago we were going up a hill, not as steep, and this bus decided to pass an 18-wheeler with double trailer, but the trucker wasn't having it. Orian was riding in the back and riding out in the road a little ways to try to force the trucker to slow down but he got within 5 or 10 ft of the truck without the truck slowing down and narrowly got away. I was ahead and by the time they reached me the bus had passed the truck, and the line of three large vehicles (there was another truck past the first) came within a few inches of my panniers going like 80km/hr...Since then the traffic has been better but a bit wary to take the road into Dar.

We hear the traffic continues to be bad through Kenya, which is why we're considering taking some trains north.

Long-Overdue Update

Apologies to our faithful readers for not updating the blog sooner. The internet connection between Livingstone, Zambia, and Mbeya, Tanzania has been so painfully slow that it was practically impossible to update, even if we had been willing to spend the small fortune it would have cost in internet time.

A lot has happened since my last post, that I am not even sure where to start. We have witnessed the agressiveness of African killer bees and why they were given the nickname "killer", we have enjoyed eating with our hands the local dish nshima, we have crossed flooded waters on our bicycles and refused to give countless people money.

After leaving Livingstone, we got more of a taste of local food and how people eat. There is mainly subsistence farming in Zambia and Malawi, and people eat relatively well since the soil here is so productive. Everyone has a maize plot, and the popular food to eat is nshima, which is a very thick porridge made from maize flour, which is taken off in pieces and used to scoop up the "relish" (usually tomato sauce and spinach or rape or sometimes cabbage), similar to the way a chapati is used to scoop up daal or something.

As soon as getting into Zambia we were hit with rain. It rained at least part of the day almost every day we were in Livingstone. One day it rained particularly hard while we were in the market, and the access road to Gustave's farm was this clay-ey mud that was so hard to traverse. It I took off my shoes so they wouldn't be ruined but then had no traction, so I was slipping and sliding even as my bike became harder and harder to move...the mud just caked on until the diameter of the wheel and increased by 3 or 4 inches. I ended up dragging my bike the rest of the way home! Fortunately, it was only a quarter of a mile or so.

This rain plagued us through Malawi, sometimes giving respite for a week and then coming back with a vengeance. On the days it only rained at night, the days were often quite comfortable with an overcast sky blocking the sun's most intense rays. But the days that it rained it rained hard, until all of our stuff was wet and smelly, and there was no way to get it dry without the sun, since everyone here air dries...there is not an automatic dryer to be found anywhere.

The worst rain came the day we rode into Nkhota Kota in Malawi. Not only did it pour buckets, monsoon-style on us for twenty kilometers, but we slogged through several kilometers of roads flooded to our knees, almost losing our bags in the process!

Well, now we are in Tanzania and so far it is our favorite country. I would recommend tourism to Tanzania above Malawi or Zambia based on my own experience.

Running out of time, will try to post again later.