Tanzania Girls!!

Zanzibar, Tanzania - Intrepid explorers Nicholas "Nico" Wong, Daniel "DS" Smyth, and Sohaib "Soby" Al-Asaaed "Assassassin were spotted off the coast of stonetown this past Friday scuba diving and snorkelling. After the polar bear dip (the water was a mere 29 degrees), the three warmed up with fresh mango juice at the Buni coffee shop - in fact, they went for the full hat trick. The evening was spent at the fresh fish market, where the "cooks" were miraculously able to turn fresh crab, barracuda and shrimp into smoky coal imbeded leathery strips. To top this all off, the atmosphere was ripe with accusations of picture taking without permission, the threat of police calling (a very loud mobile phone call to the police to send cars to pick up these unruly tourists), a very loud, inebriated want to be tour guide for his new "japanese" friend Nico, and an absent Guy Leblanc.

Where in the world was Guy Leblanc? The better question would be: "Where in the world is Guy Leblanc's bag??" Kenya Air was kind enough to "redirect" said bag to unknown destination, to have Guy wait in Dar es Salaam with newfound resident friend Melanie - fortunately they were able to join our intrepid explorers on Friday. Unfortunately, the experience, coupled with a raging sinusitis and little promise of meaningful elective work in Tanzania prompted Monsieur Leblanc to do some finangling, and as such he will be departing for the motherland this week.

Saturday was a lazy day, whereby our explorers ran into "the americans". Heather and Jen were also refugees from the recent "tensions" in Uganda (Museveni won the election, Besiyge is contesting the results, and things are overall stable in Uganda). Though well travelled, they were able to demonstrate just how much one can pay despite staying in a developing cuntry. 100 dollars american per night (at a nice hotel - the Canadians are paying 10,000 shillings per night, or 10 canadian dollars), 85 dollars to go on a "dolphin tour" that consisted of a rickety old boat chasing a small pack of non-bottlenose dolphins, with insufficient shade to prevent sunburn and insufficient resources to find better dolphins. As such, "swimming with the dolphins" involved chasing the dolphins, madly jumping in the water, and seeing - NOTHING. wow. Oh, and apparently it had not been explained that bargaining was essential in this country. "Paintings" that look identical in every shop visited start off at 79,000 shillings, and end up being bought for 15,000 by most tourists - but the americans proved to be more generous. Having said this, this reporter must say the americans were very nice, likely very "book smart", but did benefit from their Canadian friend's "street smarts."

These explorers found the restaurant "Mercury's", apparently named after Fredde Mercury, who apparently is the lead singer for Queen, who apparently was gay and HIV positive, and wouldn't you know, came from Zanzibaar - for those of us born in the 80s, this was fresh news. Finally, Nico the early alzheimer's patient managed to forget the money belt with traveller's cheques when going to change travellers cheques, Ferry tickets when going to change ferry tickets, CDs when going to back up pictures, and his swimsuit when going to the beach - he's currently batting 4 for 4. Soby was able to match this with his ever impressive quotes: "What's a MILF" and his talk of "DVDA" over dinner - if you don't understand this, please don't ask. This is not for polite conversation.

From Tanzania with Love,

Lester the Lobster, from PEI