In February, we had President's Day weekend off so I decided to get out of Nairobi and take a trip to my first "other" African country, Tanzania. My friend Lorraine decided to come with me and we had a blast. We arrived in Zanzibar, a small little island in the Indian Ocean, and got our first taste of being Americans in a part of the world where we're not necessarily liked. At the airport, everyone had to get visas in their passports. There was a listing of prices for the visas for citizens from each country. Every country out there except for the US paid $50 for a Tanzanian visa. US citizens had to pay $100. Sheesh!

After walking through customs, we went to get our bags and that was pretty bizarre. There was a long metal counter and people behind the counter plunked bags on it and you had to rummage through the pile to find your stuff.

A driver from our resort was waiting for us and took us out of the airport and across the island to the Sultan Sands resort. It was really pretty. They gave us a small bungalow and we grabbed some lunch overlooking the ocean. It was warm but there were beautiful breezes so it wasn't as bad as in Mombasa or Nairobi. After lunch, we changed into our swimsuits and lay out on the beach for the afternoon, stopping only to run up to the bar and get a cocktail. I liked the people at the resort right away, especially the Tanzanian Masai. (The Masai are a tribe that are in both Kenya and Tanzania.) I've not yet had an opportunity to talk with Kenyan Masai but there were a lot of Tanzanian Masai at the hotel since they were hired to do security. I've been told that hotels like to hire them for this since the Masai tend to be tough. They were out in front of the hotel and on the beach and I watched them chase away some of the "beach boys" who nag tourists on the Indian Ocean to buy stuff or rent their boats, etc. In Mombasa, the beach boys are annoying. And the Masai were talking with the tourists which I thought was really cool. Zanzibar is filled with Italians so the Masai would try to talk with us in Swahili first, and then Italian. It was kind of neat! Lorraine speaks Italian so she had the conversations for us but I could usually follow what she said.

We went back to get ready for dinner and found that our AC didn't work so after a very nice dinner by the ocean, the hotel gave us a MUCH better room right on the water. It was heavenly (and the ac did work!)

The next day we hired a driver to take us to Stone Town, the main town on Zanzibar. Zanzibar has some beautiful furniture and these really cool trunks/chests and I want to bring one home when I leave Africa. We wandered through the streets and went into a museum and a bunch of stores. But I think they're used to tourists there who don't know to haggle because most storekeepers wouldn't bargain--bummer. But I bought some tinga-tinga paintings for my nieces, nephew, and my godddaughter and her brother, and I did find a small version of the Zanzibar chest to use as a jewelry box. While we were walking around, we saw the corner of a park that was ALL spray painted for Obama and we both took pictures of that. Then when we came out of lunch, we walked past a tourist office and saw a sign advertising "mafia tours." i HAD to have a picture of that. (found out later that mafia is a place in zanzibar but it still was a funny sign!)

we came back to the resort and spent the afternoon lying on the beach, having a tough time believing that we were there. at dinner that night they had a valentine's day party and we stayed up drinking and dancing all night. the next morning, we decided to go snorkeling and hired a boat to take us out into the water. I'm not a big swimmer in oceans (who knows what's under my feet?) but I loved sitting on the boat and getting a tan in the middle of Feb. The guide pointed out all the starfish of all different colors and we took the boat out to a reef where i sat in the shallow water and it was so nice!

Our last afternoon we spent on the beach again. We were very sad to have to leave the next day!