Journal: 11.10: Zanzibar

Friday October 10th

Stone Town, Zanzibar

Our penultimate day in Tanzania is spent exploring Stone Town. Sujji and Colin go off to the beach. We eat lunch at a Freddie Mercury tribute restaurant where I have a drink called a "Monica Lewinsky" which is described as "find out what lies behind a bubbly blue dress".

For supper we eat at the Forodhani street market -- very neat. I am seriously out of money after I bought this rather unique painting - one of three. Keli and Chris picked up its partners.

Sujji shows up in the evening having stepped on a sea urchin. Aaron and Santhi run off to the hotel with her to pull out the painful needles while we retire to the Sweet Eazy bar to drink some Tusker. Aaron, Santhi, Sujji and Colin join us after performing emergency surgery on Sujji's foot. She seems better and in less pain.

We drink late into the night and I realize how special my friends in general and those seven are. It is likely the last time we'll all be together. About 2am I stagger off for the hotel after we had consumed all the Tusker at the bar. In fact Aaron's last Tusker was encased in an ice block with the bartender having spent 5 mins searching the freezer at Aaron's insistence.

I learn later the next day that Keli was mugged coming back to the hotel with Chris. Her purse containing her new expensive digital camera was taken. Luckily her passport and tickets were in the safe at the hotel. Chris and Keli spend much of the morning giving statements. A horrid end to an otherwise fantastic vacation.

The slave pens of Zanzibar In this one room 50 men were held... the chains of their brutal captivity are behind Chris. I swear no more than three of us could fit in there at one time comfortably. This must have been hell on earth.