Chewy said this is common because many people drive without a license. The police in Arusha are known to be corrupt. They have a reputation of not helping if you don't have money. It seems that they mostly deal with issues of traffic. From dusk on it is unsafe to be outdoors despite any hint of law enforcement's presence.
The flight to Zanzibar was an hour long and uneventful.
It included the perk of cashews as the snack.
Upon arrival we collected our bags from the opening in the side of the airport which was baggage claim and hired a taxi to take us to the hotel.
The lady at the front desk of the hotel appeared confused when we attempted to check in. I showed her my confirmation and was asked to please wait a few minutes in a different part of the lobby. Guessing what this probably meant I hopped on wifi and attempted to find something else. At first glance most things were booked. I was then asked to come to the phone were a spoke to a very pleasant Canadian lady who explained that there had been a mix up and there was only one room available that could be made into a triple. She offered to help us find another hotel. While she called around I looked and was unable to find a place with two rooms. She called back and had found a place not too far away. One of the people in reception took us there.
We looked at the rooms and TG decided to stay. The beds were very short and had thick wooden bed posts making it impossible for taller people to lay down so I went back to the other hotel to see about their beds and ended up keeping that room. It was a bonus that both hotels had air conditioning because it was almost 100 degrees outside. Intending to quickly drop my stuff and then spending around a half an hour attempting and not succeeding to lock the safe (the instructions in Swahili didn't help me), I went to the TG's hotel.
Next on the agenda: to find some lunch.
We ended up at Monsoon, which some claim turns into the most romantic place in Stone Town in the evening with candles and jazz.
I had amazing seafood salad with chipati and then we ordered the dessert sampler.
Throughout lunch people attempted to sell us things. One guy even sang us the Kilimanjaro song which was on the Blue Ray disc of "African Tourist Hits" that he was peddling.
After lunch we wandered through the twisting alleys occasionally dodging speeding bikes and running children. We stopped in antique stores and art galleries.
The art in Stone Town was amazing. I almost bought a piece of art but talked myself out of it due to my current lack of wall space, next time (this isn't it but I liked the idea of this one as well).
The alleys are what I imagine Greece must be like only with an African/Muslim twist.
In our wandering we got lost, ate beef skewers from a street vendor, and accidentally happened upon the spice market (Spices are one of Zanzibar's main exports, in addition to seaweed) . We didn't explore it today because A's flight had arrived and we were meeting him at the hotel.
He was already there and we left pretty quickly to meet up with C and J who had come in on the same flight to head to the nightly seafood market at Forodhani Gardens.
We had all heard amazing things and were not disappointed.
We attempted to eat it all and were not far from that goal by the end of the night.
It was delicious and despite almost everything being seafood, it didn't smell like fish.
Reportedly and believably most of it had been caught earlier in the day. We ate octopus, calamari, crab, fish, samosas, mussels, oysters, salad, seafood pizzas (hold the mayonnaise and the ketchup please)
and more with abandon (and the comforting knowledge we were still on antibiotics). The pizza isn't anything really like a pizza, but it is delicious. It is a crepe filled with anything you want. They have both savory and sweet. I chose prawns and bronze fish. The fish and shrimp are finely chopped with veggies. Apparently they usually add mayonnaise to every savory pizza and then top it with ketchup. After the mayo and cheese sandwiches on the safari (that i didn't eat) I had started asking if everything contained mayo. After cooking it is covered with salad. If you would like cheese, they throw laughing cow cheese in.
As we sat to eat on one of the park benches we attracted more cats than any other group to the point of hilarity.
At one point I accidentally dropped an onion and A leaned down to pick it up and was almost assassinated by two cats who pounced immediately.
After dinner we decided to go to a bar on the beach called Mercury's (after Freddy Mercury, who is arguably Zanzibar's most famous resident.). At the bar the waiter gave each of the ladies a wrist corsage made of jasmine flowers.
After a drink we called it a night, walked C and J to their hotel and headed back to ours.
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