Crossing into the territory of Tanzania.

Good news: I have arrived in Zanzibar, Tanzania.
Bad news: I feel sick.

I've been using Pepto, Gravel, Motrin and Imodium like it's going out of style the past two days. At what point does "using" become "abusing" these over the counter drugs? My problem is: without the aid of Pepto and Imodium I have the "Poops" then of course comes the fact that with the "poops" comes dehydration. I guess it doesn't help that I may have gotten a sun/heat stroke in my excursions of visiting Hell's Kitchen and walking the beach.

Of course I will not let this ill feeling bring me down.

Yesterday (as you can assume from the above statement) we visited the beach. It was surprisingly warm to the touch. In fact it felt more like a warm bath then the Ocean temperatures that I'm used too. The beach was quite a sight. There was about half-a-dozen barefoot pick-up soccer games. Instead of nets the guys were using any kinds of random objects like sticks, rocks, sandals...

The pier was also filled with people just sitting and enjoying the warm breeze being brought in with the ocean waves and children where playing in the waters near the shore.

It wasn't until I got back to the room that I realised I was no longer sun kissed. It's more like the sun decided to full out skip the kissing part and just give me a glow; a bright glow of red. Before going for dinner I took a cold shower and hopped that it would cool my skin down. I called it an early night and went to bed (not before taking an imodium, gravel and motrin).

It was another early morning as we headed back to Mombasa to catch our flight to Zanzibar. We opt'ed to an hour flight into Zanzibar instead of a long bus ride followed by a ferrry (very much more agreable for a girl with an upset stomach).

The border customs at the Zanzibar airport didn't feel nearly at all as proffesional as the one in Kenya. As we walked onto the tar mat we were greated by someone demanding to see a yellow fever certificate then yelled at to fill in a customs card. Then at the visa office we were told that they only accept American dollars and refused to return our passport until we got everything exchanged to American currency. I finally got some Euro's exchanged and went back. The guards behind the window totally looked sketchy handing each other $50 bills trying to hide it from us. Made me wonder what kind of curruption was going on.

The city itself isn't nearly as nice as the past towns that we have visited. You can tell that people here have more money (with the kinds of vehicles being driven) but it seems that with the money comes a more laissez-fair attitude with the amount of garbage on the street, the revving of the vehichles, black smoke emissions etc...

We'll see what tomorrow brings to redeem my opnion thus far...