Jakey Jake

Sunday 20th June
After waking up early so we could get the ferry back to dar, we got back and the bus was waiting to whisk us off to Pangani, a 10 hour drive away. We stopped at a picturesque little camping ground with a river running through it. We didnt do much today, except that i finished the jeffrey archer book, the fourth estate which really was a rip off of true life events. He used to be one of my favourite authors although now his unoriginality has made me think otherwise.

Saturday 19th June
I went for another jog in the morning before having to come back to get ready to leave. Daniel was there to pick us up early, and none of us were ready. We got back to stone town at 12 when i picked up my new thongs and then headed down to the market to get heaps of fruit (especially the custard apple) before i headed off to the africa house for numerous coconut cocktails and lots of pool. This evening i had dinner at the fish market again and went to sweet easys too. I think ill miss zanzibar, its a beautiful town with so much to offer. Ill be back here at some stage for sure.

Friday 18th June
This morning i went for a run along the beach with Dipper and after chatting we found that we were both going to the running of the bulls, and he also thought that the massive love parade was back on the cards, so we were going to definately catch up over there. As we ran to the northern tip of the island we came across Scuba Do and we checked out what they had to offer and we decided to get the others to come snorkelling with us at 2pm for 10 bucks. We ran back and dipper sped off in front of me, he being a much better runner than me, anyway he dived into the water when he got back only to stick his hand on a sea urchin. We managed to fix that up before i headed further down south to the turtle sanctuary. There were some massive turtles there and it was all very nice but i was a bit over it. So we headed back to the restraunt for lunch and my obligatory crayish after that it was time to head off to the snorkelling. We justmanaged to get around the rocks as high tide was coming in, although we were waist high in water. Once we arrived we found that there was 3 guys and 5 girls, and a couple of scuba divers we were dropping off. We started talking to the girls who were from arusha and were here on holiday after having helped out in their local hostpital. the snorkeling was ok, but afterwards we met up with the girls again for a few drinks, which lasted a long time as we made our way down the island, bar hoping all the way down to cholos. It ended up only being francesca, lisa, jeremy, dipper and i. We got down there and we ended up playing a drinking game with the irish guys where you had to say an actors name that started with the same letter as the first letter of the surname of the last actor that was said. While you were trying to come up with the answer you had to “think while you drink”, obviously it got pretty damn hard, although the irish are damn experienced drinkers and were beating us by a mile. Then lisa wanted to get home so i offered to walk francesca and lisa back to their resort, and we had to leave before the tide came back in. We managed to get back just in time.

Thurssday 17th June
Glorious days life doesnt get much better than this. Lazing on an incredible beach with beautiful food and nothing much to do. Spent the whole day getting red Had my usual crayfish for lunch and dinner again. as night kicked in we decided to head to cholos tonight, a fucky little bar on the beach with some decent tunes. It all ended up a bit messy, and i decided to get out of there before it ended in tragedy. I met a couple of good blokes tonight though, Des, an irish bloke who worked for the un implementing systems, and Dipper, a financial planner who had been travelling a fair bit lately. These fellas knew how to party and they could hold a damn good conversation too. Anway it seemed that there were a few people who worked for the UN that were staying around for a while as they had been evacuated from their compund in the congo. It seems that the UN has very restricted rights when it comes to enforcing some of their objectives. Des was pretty insightful into the politics and the problems confroting the un and the challenges they face in hoping to bring peace and stability to the african continent.

Wednesday 16th June
Today we had a tour of some of the attractions of the island including a spice tour. Frist we visited the old portugese fort which was now converted into an ampitheater where it staged shows and dinner. Then we went next door to the house of wonders, which is now a museum but was previously the house of the arab sultan, which was designed and built by the british, also later bombed by the british in the worlds shortest war. After this we went to the site of the original slave trade spot. This was a place where such incredible brutality and shocking human rights abuses took place. Slaves were cpatured from all around tanzania, malawi, kenya, zambia and others and walked in chains to dar es salaam before being shipped over to zanzibar where they were locked up in tiny rooms, 50 men in one room and 75 women and children in another, those that survived 2-3 days of no food or water were taken to the whipping tree where they were whipped and thier prices increased if they didnt cry out or their prices dropped if they did. There is now a church over the exact site of the tree. Very sad, and the arabs still havent apologised, (as the americans still havent for vietnam). After the slave tour we headed out for a spice tour. Its no wonder this was such a busy port, within a 500m walk we came across crops of just about every spice there is, as well as all the fruit i mentioned was in teh markets. We came across lemon grass, nutmeg, vanilla, pepper, coco, chilli, clove, cardiman, cinamon, tumeric, ginger and many more i cant recall the names of. After this we returned to our hotel in stone town before we set off for Nungwi on the north eastern coast. After an hour and a half we arrived at the most scenic beach i have ever laid eyes on. The water was perfectly clear and turquoise before turning into a deep blue. the sand was white and super fine. It was heaven on earth, and full fresh crayfish was only 10 dollars at the restraunt including salad. cocktails were 2-3 dollars too… The only thing was there were very few people around and i wanted to do some partying. So i resigned myself to reading another book, this time it was the da vinci code, which took two days to read and was a pretty interesting book with a lot of facts about paganism, christianity, and symbolisim weaved into an intriguing story. Didnt do a heck of a lot this evening and called it a night pretty early.

Tuesday 15th June
We woke far earlier than necessary (yes this is a holiday) hung around for a while so we could get a lift with one of the other trucks so we could catch the ferry to Zanzibar. After doing the usual necessary ATM stuff and money exchange stuff we hopped on the 2 hour ferry. We arrived in stone town at around 12 and were greeted by daniel who drove us to our hotel. First impressions of this place were of amazing architecture and a beautiful old muslim town. We checked in and decided to wander around for a while and see the sights. Everyshop was selling paintings and carvings, and every other person was hustling for some cash. being used to throngs of such people i politely told them i wasnt interested in anything they had to offer and walked along ignoring them intently gazing at the edifices and wondering how they remained standing. Stone town is the main port of zanzibar where all the europeans and indians traded their warez for zanzibars spices and later on its slaves. Zanzibar would prefer to be an indipendant island but for the time being it is part of Tanzania. After wandering the streets and not getting lost, yes thats right i managed to read my book and find my way around the twisted streets. We found our way into a market selling lots of fresh produce, star fruit, jack fruit, watermelon, banana, passion fruit, paw paw, custard apples (the size of your head and only 50 cents (yes i bought heaps)), oranges, mandarins, coconuts, mangoes (also the size of your head), lychees, limes, yes just about everything you could imagine and it was huge, cheap, and more importantly the best fruit i have ever tasted. That night we headed down to the docks for dinner, and lo and behold it was fresh seafood, lobster, barracuda, tuna, marlin, kingfish, snapper, octopus, squid, crab, prawns, shellfish oh and chicken, yes the place is a feast of cullinary delights. I was in my element and immeadiately set out to devour serious amounts of food, which was accomplished with ease. Afterwards we went to the africa house and later sweet easy. I went to bed fairly early.

Monday 14th June
This morning we woke up at 5am again, although it was more like 4am as we had to wind our clocks forward an hour. again it was going to be a long day to Dar Es Salaam, through Mikumi national game park. On the way we managed to see a heard of giraffe and a heard of zerbras and a heard of elephants including a baby elephant. Its so amazing to be able to see these animals just roaming around near the road eating and going about their business… its truly spectacular, but i guess thats what the african experience is all about. We all had a pretty long afternoon nap (10 hours on a truck is a LONG time). We pulled into Dar at around 4.30 which was good as it gave me a chance to check my email although not enough time to reply unfortunately, so my apologies to those who sent me emails. After this we caught a ferry a short distance to our camping ground which served slushies (same thing as at frostbites) and most of us settled down for an evening of drinking and getting to know the other tour groups. After i reached my limit i came back to the truck to finish off my diary so sorry fo the spelling mistakes of the last few days…. Tomorrow we are heading off to Zanzibar

Sunday 13th June
Today was pretty much a write off after last night, i was still feeling sick and still rather peeved with myself for being so foolish. but hey we are only human and are prone to error right???? OK Maybe im more prone to these things than most. anyway i slept most of the day and we pulled into a nice little campsite in Iringa Tanzania. they served us a beautiful dinner of fillet steak with tomato and basil soup, i missed out on the brownies though because i just felt sick and needed to hit the hay.

Saturday 12th June
Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise, or at least thats what my grandparents had always told me hopefully it works, this morning we were up at 5am and left by 6.30. We were on our way to chipata, It was another long drive through all the scenic landscapes of africa, unfortuantely i think i spent most of it sleeping on the bus. nevertheless i awoke to see the occasional game when someone yelled LOOK AT THAT. We pulled into chipata at around 5pm and set up tents. Chris managed to get some local goods back in candii, and we spent the afternoon rolling a few. I hadnt had a smoke in a couple of years but hey im on holiday and i thought i might indulge. What a mistake….. im never touching the stuff again, it really disagrees with me. My head went into warp speed and began diliberating the most incredibly stupid irrelevant thoughts that one could imagine. Then i just started feeling sick, so in the end i had little sleep.

Friday 11th June
We spent today in kandi again, we were considering 3 nights here but with some deft maneauvering and sweet talking i managed to convince the others that it would be better spent with an extra night in zanzibar Anyway i got up early and went for a jog along the beach, just as i was begining 3 african guys decided to join me, obviously with an ulterior motive, but hey ive been in asia for 3 months so thats nothing new. Although it was pretty clear that they were only interested in selling me things i found it quite amazing that they would spend the whole 40 minutes running along side me, so i decided that since they were going to such extraordinary lengths for a sale, id give them one (albeit not mine ) Well we had breakfast and i managed to convince chris that he should get a painting (they were pretty good) so it wasnt that hard. We went back to the guys, who werent allowed near the campsite, which included the forshore, so we went down to meet them at the border of the camp and where it was a public area and made the deal. The guy hired by the campsite came along and started swinging his bamboo sticks at these poor kids who were only like 15 and they were only trying to get enough money to live. I was pretty shocked at that. This afternoon we had a tour of the local town by the local tribe leaders son. He showed us their houses, which were apparently the best houses in the area, needless to say they were crap. then he took us to the local clinic where we saw a 1 day old african baby. There was also some educational material on aids, as there is such a high incidence of aids in africa (alomst 25%) After taht we went to the local school and that affected us all in a pretty big way. These kids all had such big smiles and such incredible enthusiasm despite their situation. The girls were dancing and singing around the socer field while the boys played soccer. They were all so friendly and very eager to have their photos taken. It was really incredible. After that we met the chief who told us about current politics and how the local tribesmen worked to help withing their social systems. After our tour concluded we all went ack to the campsite for a refreshing game of volleyball which of course we won then it was time for a nice afternoon nap before heading out for dinner. Tomorrow was going to be another long drive so i took it pretty easy after doing some more exercising.