For the rest of the Zanzibar story - hopefully this won't take too long.
So after the spice tour and a non-stop day (remember, this is still the day we arrived), we took an hour bus ride to the northern tip of the island. I definitely have much more respect for how big Zanzibar is, after that day and a good 2 hours of bus on Monday.
So on to how I lost my shoes: That evening, we made up a good percentage of the tourists and locals at a 'full moon' party. This was initially very baffling, because there was certainly no full moon... but the chance to dance on the beach and relax was worth the inconsistencies with the name. Katie and I stayed with the latest group - dancing barefoot, watching incredible acrobats, wandering around in the sand, and having quite a time. The bar was a sort of collection of roofs and some flooring, but largely sandy beach. So you're probably starting to get the picture-- dancing barefoot, left the shoes under a seat where someone was, they left before I did, shoes got picked up... yadda yadda. This might have turned out differently when we left, except that just as we were gathering the last stragglers, someone came to find me because they knew I had EMT training. One of our group members had started to have trouble breathing after laughing at a really funny joke (we still don't know what this joke was), and he started burping uncontrollably to the point where he couldn't take a deep breath. This continued as we tried to get him home, calm him down, and do something with absolutely nothing. Another EMT in our group was woken up and nearly 2 hours later we had a local doctor there with some medications that finally helped. All in all, now that our friend is doing fine, it was a really good experience. I learned that 1) scene control is incredibly important, especially with bystanders who get scared, want to help, some had been drinking, and general chaos. 2) I learned how helpless you can feel without the tools you know and need to address problems - just one more insight into helping here at the hospitals. In this situation, a stethoscope, bp cuff, and perhaps oxygen would have been so incredibly helpful.
All this in one day - I think the consensus was that the first day was the best day of the trip. Sunday and Monday, however, were both pretty spectacular, as well. Sunday we spent the morning on the beach in pristene blue-green waters of the Indian Ocean. A rather heavy rain gave us the opportunity to stop for lunch on the beach, and that afternoon we took a cruise on a dhow - an historical sailboat with food, drinks, snorkeling, 2 small kayaks, and a view of the sunset. The cruise was followed by an incredible barbeque dinner with calamari, octopus, fish, prawns, chicken, chapati, spiced rice, and salad. At this point, we all were reaching breaking points, but we still had one day to go. So Monday, was concluded with a bus ride to the opposite side of the island for more beaches where we found shells, sea urchins, starfish, and more sunshine.
On our way to the airport to catch a 5pm flight back to the mainland, our bus suddenly broke down at 4:30... Within 3 minutes we had hailed 2 daladalas, transferred everyone and their stuff to the cars, and were at the airport 8 minutes later. Though we were many still in our swimsuits, almost not allowed to get on the flight, and quite the disorganized group, we made it home safely and finally home to our beds here. Overall the trip was a success. Hopefully I'll be able to load pictures soon - words don't do the island justice... though pictures are also so inadequate for describing the incredible lushness we saw.
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