Monday, December 14th - Zanzibar City, Tanzania

I slept in again and didn't make it to breakfast until about 8 a.m.  I'm really liking my dark room.  After breakfast we were heading into town to try and get some money since the banks would finally be open.  Just as we were getting ready to go the internet started working so we had to take a break to do some internet work before we left, finally about 10:30.

The local bus stops close to Barclay's Bank and that's where we were told we could get some US money and larger amounts of shillings.  However, that was not at this particular branch but at the local head office, which is in a new parat of the city.  we got directions and took off to see a new part of the city.  It was about a half hour walk but we found it.  Inside there were maybe a dozen people lined up for the windows and someone very quickly asked us what we needed and then gave us the forms to fill out.  Well, the wait was really long and we were probably there for two hours.  But in the end we each had $800 US which would certainly help with our bill payments.  Not being able to pay by credit card is a real pain, especially in countries where the currency is so low that you'd have to carry millions around to cover what credit cards normally would. We could have stood in line again and filled out a different form to get more shillings but we decide not to do that.  Barclays charges 4% on everything so that adds up.  Other banks don't have such a charge so we'll try elsewhere at another time.

From the bank we walked back into Old Stone Town and back down to the harbour.  We tried a couple of ATMs along the way but had no luck because either they didn't like our cards or they just weren't working.  We finally hit one that worked and didn't charge any extra fees so we each got another 400,000 shillings.  We figure another such withdrawal before we head up island and we should be okay, although we will be ccarryng around a lot more cash than normal.

We continued our walk along the harbour front and decided to have lunch at the Freddy Mercury restaurant overlooking the harbour.  The food was good but it was definitely more expensive than our normal places.  Apparently Freddy (or whatever his name was at the time, was born in Zanzibar City, crawled on the white sand along the beaches and took his first steps in the park where we spent so much time yesterday just sitting.  Who knew?  For that matter, who cared?  I actually didn't have a clue who he was but after reading the write up at the front of the menu I decided I probably should have known.  "We are the Champions" and "We Will, We Will Rock You" were actually songs I recognized - not from anything Queen ever sang but from hockey games.  I also knew Bohemian Rhapsody, which I always thought was a stupid song so that just proves my cultural literacy didn't really include Freddy Mercury.

As we continued our walk after lunch we came to the Old Customs House, which is a large three storey square building with a centre courtyard.  We went in and had a look around.  The top floor is now a music school and we discovered there was a free concert at 4 p.m. so decided to add that to our agenda.  in the meantime we wandered around some more and then decided it was time for ice cream as we waited for concert time.

Vitali Maembe was the name of the singer and guitar player.  He was pretty good but he was also a political activist who had been arrested by the government and had obviously had several run-ins with the political powers..  The more he talked, and he talked a lot, the more we wondered if we should even be there.   Hoever, nothing happened so I guess it was okay.   At the end he was joined by some friends playiing guitars and drums and doing vocals).  It was all good music but there was just too much talk to make it really enjoyable. 

The same place also had an 8 p.m. concert (every Monday and Thursday) that featured old instruments and more cultural songs.  We went to that too.  There were six players and two soloists but the players sang too at times.  If I remember correctly there were two violins and sometimes three, one (or none) older stringed instrument, one older guitar-like instrument, one drum, one electric harp that was played on the musician's lap and where the strings were plucked while doing lots of tuning of strings/  The songs were very old and traditional.  The person doing the announcing had a very heavy accent so I really couldn't understand much of what he said about the songs.  I just remember thinking that a lot of them were very repetitive and long and could have been cut in half.  The soloists  parts were really too long in my opinion.  However, the whole concert was only about an hour so I guess I really shouldn't complain.

After the concert we walked to the bus station.  We had planned to take a taxi but they just didn't seem to be working at that hour - at least not where we were walking.  The bus was absolutely packed again.  It was full when we left the downtown area but we kept picking people up.  At one point we had 22 people in the van.  Well, actually they weren't all exactly in because the side door had to stay open as some of them were kind of hanging out - and hanging on.  It's all an experience and no one else seems to mind how crowded it is so why should we.

I got back to the hotel and said good night.  I was just about in tears because my feet hurt so much and my butt hurt.  I obviously don't deal well with mosquitos and other biting insects and the heat and humidity.  The bites on my feet get really irritated in my running shoes while I'm walking around all day so I end up with big red patches that blister up.  Now, probably because of the heat and all the sweating I am doing, I've got swollen red welts that are bites or boils or blisters on my butt as well.  It is a very uncomfortable feeling like you have little fires in various parts of your body and you can't put them out.  I decided to try an antihistamine to see if it would help.  It might not have a big affect on the problem but it was sure to put me to sleep for a while.

After a shower and rinsing out some clothes I crawled under my mosquito net and did some computer work until I got sleeping and then I called it a night.  I was surprised to see that it was almost midnight by the time the lights went out.  That's late for me.