Carl's Big Adventure

One of my goals for this trip was to visit Zanzibar, for no other reason than that it was close and it would be a shame to get that close on not go.

It was also nice to get away by myself for a mini-vacation. I took one of the fast ferries over and it took about an hour and a half. As we were leaving we passed by one of the other terminals, in contrast there was almost no one in our terminal and pretty much the only people on the boat were tourists. I don't actually know where these boats were heading, hopefully not zanzibar:

We arrived and I was met by the brother-in-law of one of the partners we were dealing with. We had arranged for a driver so I could go out to see some of the island. But first I did a quick walking tour of Stone Town which is the old (and interesting) part of Zanzibar. It was ruled by the sultans for a long time and had some old palaces and forts you could tour.

The streets are very narrow and windy and lined with tourist shops and painters studios, the painters churn out hundreds of painting that all look exactly the same.

I always like visiting the markets whenever I go somewhere and Zanzibar had a good one, with an unbelievable variety of fruits.

Then it was off to see the monkeys, we went out to one of the national parks and had a guide take us through the forest until we came accross a group of Red Colobus Monkeys:

Afterwards I was able to shake the brother-in-law and did a bunch of walking around on my own. About every 5 feet you get someone coming up trying to sell you some trinkets or a painting. I've come to understand that "special deal for you, my friend" means "please pay way to much for this bracelet made in malaysia". I got lost a few times and finally paid a guy a couple bucks to get me back to my hotel. The next day...surprise, he found me and wanted to take me on a tour. Since I wanted to see the slave market and sultan's palace I gave him a few dollars and off we went, here's him showing me the quarters where the slaves were held before going in to the yard for auction, he looks way to happy for what he was showing me:

Finally it was time to go, as I had arrived by sea, I left by air and took the 10 minute flight back to Dar es Salaam.

The next day we finished up our business and it was time for the long bus ride home, with an overnight stop in Nairobi where I spent the day trying and failing to find someplace that sells a french press coffee maker. I was just getting used to drinking fresh brewed coffee again and was dreading coming back to Nescafe, sadly none was to be found and I thought too late that I should have offered to buy one from the hotel.

and now...I'm back in Soroti.