dar es salaam, funky hotel, rats and zanzibar

so we arrived safely to dar es salaam with a very nice (!) bus. exiting the bus tho', was a chaotich experience... everyone shouting at us, offering taxis, asking where we're from, where we wanna go and our names. luckily we held on to another couple of white people who knew someone, so we managed to get a great price for the taxi to the hotel we had booked. the car is the nicest one we had ever seen. i told the driver: "you have a nice car!" and he said.. kinda unaffected: "of course.."
then i asked, to lighten up the mood.. "hows the weather here? do you think it will rain tomorrow also, or will it be sunny?" and he answered: "yes".. christina struggeled with not laughing.. while i felt like asking more questions. he was great. tho not very good in english..

we arrived at the hotel -new continental.. sounds very fancy indeed.. and even the pictures from internet where great. i must say my expectations were very high.
the lady in the "reception" said hi, then guided us upstairs to find a room.. looked like she didnt quite know who we were or where we were going to stay.. so she just picked a room, randomly. was'nt quite the ensuite two single beds room we had ordered, so we tried to tell her.. tho she wasnt that good in english. so she put on bedsheets.. and the aircondition, turned on the tv and told us to just wait there for a moment.. we used that "moment" (like 45mins?) to call around for a different place.. and luckily we found one.. (thank god for the lonely planet book).. we walked down to the reception to tell the lady that we didnt want to stay there.. and she just sat there and said: "ok". hm.. it was so strange.. we hope to get our deposit back.. sometime..

jambo inn was great. shabby, nice and lots of backpackers. that evening we went for libanese dinner at a restaurant we were recommended... and yeah, the food was great! but noone told us about mice, dead lizzards on the floor and bugs on the wall.. hehe. but hey, we hadn't eaten the whole day and we knew we were in africa.. soo.. we wasnt that bothered really.

next day we took the boat to zanzibar. met an american guy and shared a (45$!!) cab to our hotel at the north coast. we have our own bungalow, the beach is fantastic.. and the american guy talks alot when he finds us.. so we try to be social/polite while we sit there with our shisha playing cards.. hehe.. indeed i just love it here. everyone is moving in slow motion, and just the sound of waves makes me relax.

mhm.. im fine.