Off to ZANZIBAR. We left Dar es Salaam and headed to Zanzibar. Zanzibar is s short flight from Dar or you can take a 3 hour boat ride. We opted for the former because the last time we traveled to Zanzibar several years ago, we took the boat -- or should I say, the boat took us if you get my point. We were so seasick. The trip also resulted in our giving up a small pencil drawing of a beautiful Zanzibar door we purchased. A rather large lady who was soaking wet with sea water (it was a VERY rough ride) sat on the little piece of art and that was the end of that. But guess what? During this trip we searched the narrow streets of Zanzibar to find the same art gallery and low and behold, we found it! We purchased a pair of pencil drawings of Zanzibar doors and were thrilled that we rescued the original effort to take these home with us. The story doesn't end there. We hand-carried the drawings on the plane and...you guessed it, we left them on the plane. We concluded that since third time's a charm, we will have to return to Zanzibar some time in the future to finally bring home these little treasures. We will use FedEx next time!

Shown here are some photos of this exotic part of Tanzania. It is a mostly Muslim population as compared with the mainland which is mostly Christian. Zanzibar was the Eastern African center for slave trading beginning in the 1700s. You will notice one photo of a sign of a restaurant we visited: Mercury's Zanzibar. Can you guess which Mercury? It's Freddie Mercury from the group Queen. He was born in Zanzibar. The food was great but we didn't hear Queen music. They played Michael Jackson music while we had lunch and watched the boats coming and going in this coastal location.