Saturday, December 12th - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Zanzibar City, Zanzibar

I was up at 6 a.m. to get ready, finish packing and be down to breakfast at 7 a.m.  Our taxi arrived at 7:30 and after farewells to Raz and Aster we were on our way to the airport.  The timing was pretty good.  We cleared the entrance security, checked in, went through customs and immigration, cleared the second security check and arrived at the gate 15 minutes before boarding was to start.  Of course we didn't board on time but we were close.  We left a few minutes late but we made up the time  in Kilamanjaro, our only stop - 1 hour, not getting off plane - before continuing on to Zanzibar City.

As soon as we stepped off the plane in Zanzibar we were hit with a wall of humidity.  It was an instant change and so different from Ethiopia's dry weather.  We filled out the visa forms and went through immigration.  We tried to get some money from the ladies at the Visa / MasterCard window but all they were doing was taking payment for the visas so that didn't work.  We had a good laugh about that.  Our luggage was there waiting when we finished with customs and our taxi driver was waiting when we exited the airport building so all was well.

The hotel is quite close to the airport, which is good, but it's quite a ways from Stone Town, which is not so good.  There are only six rooms so it is very quiet.  It wasn't quite what I was expecting form the pictures on their website but it will certainly do.  And Maryam (reservations) and Mariam (reception) seem very nice.  

Zanzibar is going to be a very different place to visit and we are here for three weeks.  The businesses take Tanzanian shillings or they take US dollars but they do not take credit cards.  That means we need enough cash to cover the whole three weeks and we have very little US money left.  It sounds like the Malawi story all over again because with an exchange rate of 2100 shillings to $1 US, we may need a couple million shillings to make this work. 

The hotel folks told us there was an ATM just about 10 minutes down the street and downtown was only about 30 minutes away so we decided to walk into town, get some money from an ATM and do some touring.   Well we found the ATM that was just down the road.  It was a bit further than they said but you definitely couldn't miss it.  However, it wouldn't take any of our cards.  They had to be specific cards for that bank.  So we continued on into town and 1.5 hours later we made it.  I was not a happy camper as it was over 30 degrees and very humid so the last thing I wanted was a long walk just to get to where I wanted to start touring.  The good news is that we found a bank machine and it did work so we each got to take out 400,000 shillings which is the maximum withdrawal.  Just like I learned in Malawi the machines only spit out 40 bills per transaction but here you get 10,000 shilling notes here instead of the $1,000 notes in Malawi, which is much more useful.

We walked around the market area for a short while and then decided we needed a rest and something to eat and drink.  We went into a corner restaurant and it was buffet style with very few choices that they served from.  I had chicken, rice, beans and peas.  it was only slightly warm and very tasteless but it was food and I was sitting down which was good.  And, as a bonus, it was very inexpensive.

I can't think of anything else we did so I guess we just came home.  Somehow we knew what bus to take.   probably the ladies at the hotel told us the number.  However we didn't know our closest stop so we had great fun trying to figure out where to get off.  Some ladies in the back were trying to help us and we were all having a great laugh.  I'm not sure the driver was enjoying all the stops and starts until we found the place but he didn't complain.  And as far as "bus" is concerned, it's really just a van and they cram as many people in as possible and just stop wherever needed.  Tonight there were only about 15 of us at the max so crowded but at least still comfortable.

I was hot and tired when we got back so just went to my room, turned on the air conditioner, rinsed out some clothes, took a shower and went to bed.  This humid weather is going to be tough on me.  I'm such a wimp.