Leaving Arusha early thursday morning, we drove through the northwestern part of Tanzania to a small riverside town called Pangani. Not much of a town, it was just a good halfway point between Arusha and Dar Es Salaam. After a night of camping by the river in Pangani, we headed to "Dar," where we arrived mid afternoon.

I wandered around the city for a few hours - seems to be a much more civilized place than Nairobi was. Still lots of street vendors and random people coming up to greet you and try to escort/follow you to wherever you might want to go, but it didn't have the same dangerous feeling that Nairobi did.

The next morning, we got the ferry to Zanzibar Island, whre we would be for the next 4 days. After checking into our hotel, we took a tour of Stone Town and the Spice Plantations.

Stone town got its name because its buildings are made from limeSTONE (and coral). I wandered around the town through the narrow alleys and streets. We stopped at the former site of the slave market where we learned about the conditions the slaves were kept in before they were sold and traded. This underground holding cell used to hold more than 50 slaves. I was in there for about 2 minutes before I had to leave because I was already feeling clausterphobic. There were only 20 of us on the tour and we barely fit into the cell, can't imagine cramming 50 people into such a small, damp, dark and cold room. Most of the slaves from Zanzibar were traded to the Asian countries. Next to the holding cells is a church, which was the former site of the actual market where the slaves were sold. It is not known exactly how much a slave was sold for, but the tour guide said it was probably not money that exchanged hands, but more likely ivory or beads or things like that.

From the Slave market we went on a tour of the spice plantations. Ali, our guide, showed us all the different spice plants and then we ate a bunch of tropical fruit. One of the kids climbed up a huge coconut tree with just a rope tied around his feet to get us coconuts, and another kid "peeled" a pineapple in one big long strip with a knife... I've never seen someone peel a pineapple before...

After the fruit eating, the kids started making things out of coconut leaves - hats, frogs, purses - for money of course, but it was still pretty impressive. On the way out, there was a little stand selling spices. I wanted to get some to send them back to the States for some of y'all that I know enjoy cooking, but I didn't think it would get past customs. Oh well... (I know - excuses, excuses)

The tour ended at a bar called Africa House, where we watched the sunset and had a few drinks.