What's your favorite Dish? I won't cook it, but I'll order it from Zanzibar!

Our whirlwind tour of Africa and Europe has started! 1st Stop:
Zanzibar!!! When Dr. Livingstone came here, he wrote of the island's
beauty....and of its odor, calling it "stinkibar" in his accounts of
it. In our estimation, he's about right. (He also could have called
it "Noisibar". The capital (and only) city, Stonetown has no less
than 51 mosques in a 1 square mile area, each with their own call to
prayer...5 times a day.)

Our tour of stonetown has been led by our great tourguide/hostess
Naheed, a friend of ours from USF who is doing research in Zanzibar.
(A common theme of our trip: Mooching housing off long lost friends!)
Zanzibar has unique food traditions that are very different from the
mainland, so our trip was mostly a tour of Swahili cuisine, punctuated
with a little sightseeing. We started off by going to the famous "Two
Tables" which is highly recommended by all the guidebooks. It's
literally someone's house, and reservations are made by calling up to
the kitchen window and telling them what kinds of foods you like.
It's quite 'authentic' to say the least as family members come and go
throughout the meal, people sat in the next room watching TV and
laundry hung in the hallway. The food included cardamom donuts,
lentil soup, fish in coconut sauce, okra curry and spiced bananas.
After 7 courses, they pretty much had to roll us out of there. The
next night we went to get "Zanzibar Pizza", which is basically the
best hot pocket ever. Ryan and I are hot pocket fiends (a little
known vice) and we definitely think that these are amazing!

We took a little break from gorging ourselves to go to the beach, at
Matemwe. All if Zanzibar's beaches are world class (sorry Florida,
but they put you to shame) and Matemwe is purported to be the best of
the best. It's reached by either a very expensive cab ride, or dala
dala. Since we are dala dala experts, we didn't think this would be a
problem at all. Oh, how wrong we were. Zanzibar's dala dalas make
Dar's look like a north American metro system - organized, timely, and
relatively calm. Rather than the used Japanese school buses that
populate Dar, Zanzibar's dala dalas are literally pickup trucks with a
bench around the bed and a sun shade. Also, the roads in zanzibar is
generally unpaved. The trip out took over 2 hours, and at one point,
there were 33 people on the dala dala, including 6 hanging off the
back, plus a few buckets of fish and local fruits and vegetables being
taken to the market. The ride was worth it though! The white sand
beaches go on as far as you can see, islands growing out of choral
reef atolls dot the horizon, and local fishing dhows sail to set their
nets. Since this is the low season for tourists, we shared the beach
with a few local women gathering seaweed. It was pretty hard to tear
ourselves away from the beach and go back (via dala dala) to the
hustle of Stonetown. (Luckily, I'll be back with my mom in a few
weeks!)

Now on to Arusha for Safari!!!

Betsy