We ate breakfast at the hotel before saying goodbye to our beautiful beach resort and heading back to Stone Town. While I wasn't feeling all that well, Jodi had some herbal remedies to help settle my stomach (I asked the nurses on our trip and they agreed they were the right things for me to be taking)...and they made me feel better within minutes! I couldn't believe it and was SO relieved to not have to be in pain for the hour long drive back to town!
Our group was given the morning to putz around Stone Town which was really amazing. We hadn't gotten much of an opportunity to explore two days ago since we'd been on a guided tour, so it was nice to be able to wander at our own leisure, stopping whenever we liked, and just enjoying the day, finally feeling a bit better!
We meandered through the beautiful stone streets of the village, me stopping every now and again to take pictures of locals (when they would allow it and didn't ask me for monetary compensation!) We eventually ended up at an adorable coffee shop with Marcus and Julie which had adorable baclonies above it, delicious lattes (so said Jon since I don't drink coffee), and amazing foccacia bread. With a quick stop at the market for Julie and Marcus to have some cocounuts (which Jon and I passed on since we're still not exactly sure what made us so sick...and we had an awful lot of coconut...), we headed back to the ferry.
MAN was the Zanzibar side a MILLION times more organized than the Tanzania side!! People were called to board by their tickets, there was no crazy line, there were even SEATS! It took us about 10 minutes to board, the whole process was smooth, and we immediately got seated, ready for AC and another movie! That said, we ended up sitting RIGHT under the AC and were immediately frozen solid! I told Jon I couldn't shiver for 2 hours, so I went to another section, read, and watched the first parts of Jurassic World before we arrived back in Tanzania. And to another storm of "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE". The Tanzania side of the ferry port REALLY needs to get their act together! There were people wandering around in every direction and no one could give us a straight answer as to where to pick up our bags, where the rest room was, or where to exit the building. SERIOUSLY???!? YOU CAN'T TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF THE BUILDING YOU WORK IN?!?!? Oy.
After finally making our way to our truck, it was time to say goodbye to two of our travel companions, Jess and Grizelle (the nurses from Canada), who are continuing their journey with a flight down to South Africa. We said our goodbyes before heading off for a quick stop at the mall to stock up on water and snacks, before making our way (in the awful Dar Es Salaam rush hour traffic) to our hotel for the night.
While there was much confusion with everyone getting their rooms sorted out, we finally made it to our amazingly cold room with the best wi-fi we've experienced so far in Africa. Hooray!
After a movie (Band Camp (a terrible, teeny-bopper flick)) and a quick dinner (ONLY WAITED 50 MINUTES TO BE SERVED!!) of plain (somewhat) chicken and rice, we headed off to bed for the evening.
Not terribly looking forward to tomorrow - another long travel day to get to Mikumi National Park in southern Tanzania.
Jess' highlight of the day: our visit to Stone Town and starting to feel a bit better
Jon's highlight of the day: walking around Stone Town and getting a good coffee
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