Zanzibar

We arrived at the Zanzibar beach at late afternoon, this was on like the 10th. 

It had the most luscious pool, deep all the way through and a view of the ocean, and warm and delightful.

The ocean was beautiful blue with the purple curling through for rocks and corals.  Our hotel was right on the beach, so ocean views for all the meals and great sunsets. 

So we arrive in the afternoon, and I bliss out in the pool with a bunch of people and many cocktails are had at happy hour and then bed right after dinner.  I had the only night's sleep that was 8 hrs plus so far this trip and skipped all activities on our full day there in favor of leaning into all that. 

So I had a sleep in, then a morning really enjoying the pool, plus a short swim in the ocean, then a full afternoon of spa stuff, massage, body scrub, facial, pedicure, I became literally a new woman.  Lord I love beds and rooms. 

Up early the next day for the day I already wrote about.  Happy time fun face. 

Getting to Zanzibar was a bit of a shlep.  We had to tear down 5 am tents in the pouring rain and then drove 16 hours with only stops for pee breaks in fields.  I had to be pretty tough to not go city girl, but everyone on the tour was so brave and cheerful it helps inspire. 

The next day was half transit too, but more fun because it was the closest thing to being around locals we've had, public ferry and all.  I felt some hunger to talk to anyone, that is a thing you miss by being on a tour, all the basic get a taxi buy tickets kind of interactions. 

Ok I'm back to Serengeti now which has been too intense to write about, but I'll try soon.

Jozani

We went yesterday to the jozani forest to see the red corabus monkeys (SP?).  We were all alone with the guide, the full tour went to a spice farm in the morning, so had opted to rest or shop in the afternoon. 

The spice farm was a blend of magical exotic things and that's in my backyard moments.  I got to see a nutmeg nut, and a guy demonstrated the lipstick tree, and another guy climbed a palm singing (they call the palm climbers butterflies) and I made a palm bracelet. 

In the afternoon we took off to jozani.  It rained the whole way there and cleared as soon as we got there.  We walked around looking at mahogany trees and heard a hornbill.  Then we headed to the monkeys. They do not like sweet foods so were eating young guava and other fruits. 

There was a whole big family grouping, maybe 20 monkeys who were eating. They got within a few metres of me, eating, sitting in the branches right above our heads.  Then another big grouping came up so they started to move on. 

We moved on as well to the road where yet another family group crossed the road right in front of us.  They loped across, adults looked both ways before crossing the street, some of the babies freaked out, and yet  more mothers loaded their small babies on their bellies and then took off across.  

Then we hung out on this board walk that reminds me of the Brisbane river walk.  Checking out mangroves and crabs. 

But on the way there we saw the sign for tthis turtle reserve.  It was new and a little dodgy but also pretty cool.  They had a semi commercial fish farm so started by showing us the fish.  Then sea turtles, rescues they rerelease when they are ready to breed but keep until maturity. 

You could hand feed them which was really cool and he let us hold one which was also really cool but maybe I shouldn't have.  Then some land turtles and a constrictor which we also got to hold and was also maybe bad.  And then giant land turtles who you got to scritch their heads and they really seemed to like it, they lifted their heads and all up to it. So cool, but I wish they'd had a disinfectant station for before.  And after.  It was a cool place tho and they're just starting. 

Ok then back through the rain and tapas for dinner and wine and running back splashing with the guide in the rain and bed in my magical hotel bed and a real shower. 

Today all day bus and games of charades with the girls.  It was hard to transition back to rainy and none too clean campsites after 3 days in hotels.  But the tents are up and we're all surviving.

Polizei

I feel pretty confident in proclaiming that neither Cuba nor Peru are police states, which I largely get from people's willingness to straight up argue with, gesture at, touch and generally mix it up with the popo.  We don't do this in the US. 

Kenya and Tanzania police are thus far way more intimidating.  The world of machine guns on the street is back.

Nairobi

So riding in the cab from my crap hotel to my good hotel I was sitting there like holy crap I'm in Africa. 

Impressions from out of a car window are... You can tell a third world country because suddenly all of life starts to happen on the streets. Stores on the streets and people hanging out and small businesses starting up and walking everywhere.  Life visible and out in the public domain because no one owns enough private domain to do this stuff in. 

Nairobi seems a bit different because it seems that people over the years have decided to build some big inside places, apartment complexes, steel and glass office towers, shopping malls, but people haven't so much decided to rent those places or maintain them so a lot of life is happening in tin shelters erected on the sidewalks outside them.  There are less scooters and more cars than Asia but a lot more walkers as well. 

To clear up my crap hotel vs good.  Our hotel last night was an air bnb offering.  It looked a little homey, not fancy, but a 3 bedroom house all for us at a cheap price.  So in reality she had booked out the other rooms.  In a sense though that was a blessing because it gave us a good reason to leave and we would have wanted to anyway because it was pretty dirty and buggy and shabby and the neighborhood was more scary gated than secure gated and (clincher time) the roof leaked onto my bed.  Well my side of the bed because as mentioned we were sharing one.  We got in at like 10 at night and took off at like 8am for a much more pleasant hotel which does cost like 5 times more but has crisp white sheets and a garden.  It's the place our tour is meeting tomorrow so we won't have to move again. 

Anyway the reason my impressions are heavily hotel based lately is because I got violently ill in Brazil so it was like fly into Brazil, eat amazing Indian food, have a deliberate sack out day lounging and going to the pool and gym of our hotel, eat another fantastic dinner, get travellers sickness at 4am spend next day less intentionally in bed, take an 18 hour death march of flights while still sick, survive, try to sleep in bed leak hotel, get here, be able to eat noncrackers for breakfast, sleep more, play online from bed, now. 

But I did leave gaps in Peru, namely the archeological museum in Lima we saw, and lake Titicaca the lake parts, and the Amazon, which I will hopefully fill in soon.  Peace.