Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Finally I get to the post about my vacation in Tanzibar!!! Yayy!!!  Okay so Tanzibar isn't really a place.  It's actually Tanzania (the country) and Zanzibar (the island just off of Tanzania), but just for fun and the sake of not having to type out both locations a million times throughout this post, we're going to go ahead and refer to my vacation hotspot as Tanzibar (:

Most of the trip was spent relaxing on a small beach resort with three of my Peace Corps friends and my big sister.  It was absolutely, positively, breath-takingly BEAUTIFUL!!!  The water, the people, the village...all so beautiful.  The beach that we stayed on turned out to be a very intimate and culturally rich part of the island, which myself and the other volunteers preferred to the wild and crazy, party side of the island.  We were able to get a vacation and a cultural experience all wrapped in one and we enjoyed every minute of it!  When we got bored with the beach (which failed to happen at all) or just wanted to see what else Tanzibar had to offer, we wandered off through the nearby villages, played with the children, and visited small boutiques to test out the cultural snacks that are Tanzibar specific.  (Lucky for me, my PC bff likes to eat just as much as I do, so whenever we're together, we tend to spend a bulky part of our days trying out strange, new treats).

A lot happened on our trip, but this post highlights some of my favorite moments.  Ready, set, here we go!!

Tanzania Airport and Hotel

When my sister and I arrived at the airport in Kigali, we just happened to run into a woman who we met that morning at our hostel.  She stopped to say hello to us and after a few minutes of conversation we discovered that we just so happened to be on the same exact flight to the same exact place...Tanzibar!!  Long story short, we and Nancy (our new Ugandan friend) exchanged numbers and

kept in touch for the remainder of the trip.  We even managed to get her to try out some beef jerky (or "meat" as she called it)...and yes of course, it was a hit.  She finished off the entire bag!

When our plane touched down in Tanzania about 2.5 hours after take-off, we all grabbed our luggage and prepared to pass through customs, which of course, didn't go as smoothly as we would have hoped.  There didn't appear to be any type of order to the process and obtaining a Visa seemed to be more a scam than anything else.  We didn't even get a chance to stand in the customs line before we were approached by several large men, demanding money and passports immediately.  They were anything but friendly, and extremely impatient as we dug in our bags in search for the documents that they were requesting.  Finally, we found everything we needed and waited patiently for these random men (who we hoped really worked for the airport) took our passport, money, and remained hidden behind a wall until our names were called.  The Visa process took about 30 minutes in total and once we were finished, we found Nancy (who waited patiently for us to finish), passed through customs, and grabbed our luggage.  To the money exchange we go!

Just when we thought we were in the clear to enjoy our vacation, we arrived at the money exchange just outside the airport doors and were told that we could not exchange our money because it was not made after the year 2006.  Apparently there was some funny money business in the states prior to '06 so foreign countries no longer take bills before this year; they don't have the technology to check if the bills are real or not so they just made this rule that everyone must follow, but clearly everyone does not know about.  So here we are at the money exchange, handing them every single bill that we had, only to be told no.  Luckily, my sister had a couple of bills that were made after 2006 and we were able to exchange some money.  As for the rest...well, let's just say money and exchange remained an issue for the duration of the trip, but...we made it out alive!

Finally finished with the airport and the money thing, it came time for us to find a taxi to take us to our hotel in Dar Es Salaam ( the capital of Tanzania).  We had no idea where to even begin to look for a legit taxi; thank God for our friend Nancy, she knows the ropes of East Africa so she strutted toward a taxi display with all of us following closely behind.  "How much to Juba Hotel?" "50,000 Shillings," replied the Taxi man.  "I am East African.  We will not pay 50,000 Shillings."  "Fine.  30,000 Shillings."  And just like that, we got a 20,000 Shilling discount thanks to our East African friend (who, for several reasons,  my sister and I decided reminds us of our Auntie Donnie).

Once we piled into our Taxi and talked over what was a rather short ride, we pulled into a neighborhood that looked anything but...hmmm, what's the word I'm looking for??...SAFE!  My sister mentioned that the area kind of reminded her of Jamaica Queens, New York and I have only been to New York once, but it certainly did look like the New York that I had seen in movies so many times before.  After a few minutes of silence (more out of shock than lack of topics), my sister joked, "I hope this isn't where our hotel is."  Before she could get the last word out, the car stopped and through the window to our left we read the words, Juba Hotel.  Great.  Just frigging great.  As soon we stepped out of the taxi and began to walk toward the entrance, our East African veteran said to us, "Let me talk."  (She was referring to speaking with the hotel clerk).  We followed her in like we were her five children, waited a while, and then in no time we were headed up to our rooms.  Of course check-in didn't go as smoothly as its written here, but I'll go ahead and forego those details...they're not that interesting anyway.

To the Ferry

The next morning, we woke up early enough to catch the hotels complimentary breakfast and walk to the ferry that would take us to the place we (the volunteers) have been dreaming about ever since we found out it existed...Zanzibar!!  This ferry which was just a "5 minute" walk from our hotel ended up being more like a 20 or 30 minute walk through the over-crowded streets of Dar Es Salaam!  Upon leaving the hotel, these were our instructions from the clerk, "When you leave, turn left down the small road...continue to the major light, turn left (or right, I can't remember), then continue down the road until you see the ferry stop.  And don't talk to anyone.  Nobody.  DO NOT talk to anybody."  I didn't understand why the receptionist had emphasized his last point so much (and I still don't), but I heard the people in Dar Es Salaam can be a bit shady (and corrupt), getting you lost so that you will have to pay them to get you "found").  Either way, we didn't follow his directions at all.  We made many rights instead of lefts and we broke the one rule that I'm sure we should have obeyed...we asked not one, but several people for directions.  After about 20 minutes of walking through the streets with all of our luggage, and making more lefts and rights than we were instructed to initially, we decided to take a cab.  We summoned one in our direction, hopped in, and made it to the ferry in no time.

Next, we hopped out of the cab and bee-lined it for the ferry check-in.  After the cab was long gone and about 10 steps later, Nancy shouted out, "Oh no! My camera!  My bag!"  We all stopped and stared, Lord please don't let this lady be crazy.  As it turns out, she wasn't crazy.  But she may as well had been.  Once we were able to calm her down and ask what she was talking about, she said, "I placed my camera in my bag and I didn't take my bag out of the taxi!"  I didn't know what else to do so I think I stared for a split second with one of those oh-no faces.  She started to walk away to search for a taxi that could take her back to the place where we found the initial one (I guess maybe she thought he would have gone back there).  As we stood there waiting, wondering what we should do to help her, Nancy randomly took off her backpack and opened up the front zipper.  Immediately she covered her face and began to cry, "My camera, it's here."  She sat this way for about 30 seconds as my sister rubbed her back and said to her, "It's okay.  Don't cry."

Whew! That was a close one!  Now to get to the ferry check-in!  We were just barely on time for check-in and once we finally made it through the extremely long line and up to the front desk, the worker said to us, "We cannot let you on the ferry.  You have missed your check-in time."  "What?!" said my sister.  "We had to be here 30 minutes before departure.  We are on time."  "No, you had to be here 1 hour before departure.  You are late and we cannot let you on the ferry.  You must take the next one at 12:30."  Assuming we had no other option, my sister  gave in (rather easily, to my surprise) and said, "Okay, can you transfer our ticket then?"  The lady said okay, pressed some buttons on her little keyboard, then looked up at us, "Actually, we don't need to transfer.  Someone before you cancelled at the last minute so you can keep your seats on the ferry."  My face lit up as I didn't want to have to sit and wait for another hour for a ferry as we watched what should have been ours depart right before our very eyes.  My sister, who is a little more street savvy than I am, said okay, and in no time we were out of the line and headed to our ferry.  As we were walking, she said to me, "That lady was lying.  Nobody cancelled.  She just thought we were going to try to bribe her and when we didn't, she just said never mind."  I hadn't thought of that, but it did make sense.  Tons of volunteers who had made the Tanzania trip before us said to be careful of scammers and being caught in bribes.  I guess they were right...but again, we made it out alive.  Better luck next time lady!

Love and Peace Corps,

Dametreea