Tanzania

Okay so I found a place that was open until ten and I took advantage as you won't be hearing from me for awhile as we leave for Zambia tomorrow on a train that takes 40 hours! It goes through national parks and should be a wonderful ride so don't feel too bad for us! :) So where was I.....so I was explaining my bus ride to Tanzania, which was an experience. We actually met two Indian guys who work for the UN in Congo, but are traveling throughout Africa on vacation. We spoke with them a lot and they came to the hostel with us as they had nothing booked in advance. Ate dinner at a local dive place and I have become quite the vegetarian lately....hahaha! Since it was a long journey for us, we hit the hay after that as we had to get up very early again today to take a ferry to Zanzibar. Zanzibar is a nice island that is famous for the main slave port. We took a city tour along with a spice tour today and it was fabulous!! I never knew where so many of our spices originated from!! Our guide was extremely informative and spoke excellent English so naturally I was full of questions! ;) Then we went off on our city tour where we saw the horrifyingly small space that 75 slaves were kept in (pictures to come). The city is adorned with beautiful doors all intricately carved out of wood or ebony. A very very nice place to visit in which we hope we can come back to as there is much more to see and not nearly enough time!! Well I am off as we just met another fellow traveler and they are waiting for me to go to a local bar. I guess more lack of sleep for me, although sleep is overrated in this case!! I'll have plenty of time to sleep on the train ride!!

Love from Tanzania,
Nicole

Kenya and Tanzania

Hello all!! Sorry for the delay in writing.....it's been a long but great few days and internet was scarce where we ended up after staying in Nairobi. So after our safari, we took a 10 hour bus to Mombasa, a beach city on the coast of Kenya. It was absolutely beautiful!! We spent a couple of days there just to get some r&r by the beach and that we did! The locals in Kenya are very nice people that I had the priviledge of speaking to, just do to my talkative nature. Many of them are very hard working people that start working at dawn until way after the sun goes down. I have a huge respect for them as they are honest people trying to make a decent living. It's great because many people think Saul is a local everywhere we go and therefore we don't get ripped off if he doesn't speak.....lol! In Mombasa we took matatu's everywhere, which are 14 passenger vans that are extremely cheap. There is a driver and a conductor that hollers from the side window to try and fill the van. When you want to get off the van you just knock on the side of the van and it pulls over! A really great experience actually.....

Soooo.....that was Mombasa and it was fabulous! After 2 days, we then took a bus that was supposed to be 9 hours to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, however there was a "minor" setback. 30 minutes into our drive we were pulled over by the police and the bus driver was told that our tires were flat, there were no seatbelts (which there were) and there was no speed governor. Then it was explained that in order to leave a "price" needed to be negotiated. So 6 hours later the acceptable price was set and we were off!! Although it seems like a hassle, it was a nice experience because I got to speak with a local for a few hours who explained his business, why he was going to Dar Es Salaam (to buy cheap products and sell in Kenya), and many other things. He actually got me the local price for a mango, which was amazing!! Anyway, once our bus was on the road it was fine. A little rough for the first three hours as there were no paved roads, but otherwise great!

Sorry I have to explain the rest later as I'm using a computer in a shop and it closes at 9pm and it's now 9:01. Love to everyone!!!

Safari!!! Whoohoo.....

Hello all!! Finding a computer is much easier than I anticipated in Africa. The hard part is actually finding the time to write.....so I think I left off in Egypt and our crazy police raid. After that we just hung out and walked around Cairo and then left for our flight to Nairobi, Kenya around midnight. Our flight was pretty crazy as we left at 3am and had a stop in Sudan and a stop in Ethiopia before finally getting to Nairobi. Nairobi is a GREAT change from Cairo. Not that Cairo isn't a nice city as well, but Nairobi is the Africa I pictured. Very nice and green with beautiful scenery everywhere. Cairo is a humongous city with nothing but buildings, not to mention people trying to rip you off left and right, even following you for blocks to get you to go into their store. So we arrived in Nairobi around 3pm as we our flight was delayed from Ethiopia and checked in to our hostel which is AMAZING!!! It's very near the city, but far enough to be surrounded by nature. We walked to downtown Nairobi and explored the city a bit until I thought I was going to pass out standing up....lol!! We went to bed extremely early, for us anyway (around 10pm) as today we got up early to go on a SAFARI!!! We went to Lake Nakuru, which has a wildlife reserve! We came inches from zebras, giraffes, hyenas, buffalo, flamingos, rhinos, and baffoons (many baby animals too....so cute!). Actually a baffoon attacked me, but luckily Saul saw out of the corner of his eye and chased it away.....I was eating an orange and they are very hostile animals, especially when it comes to food. I looked away for literally one second to pose for a picture and the animal came running towards me. They are very very smart animals. Anyway, can't write too much more as we are leaving a couple of minutes to take a 9 hour bus ride to Mombasa, a beach town on the coast of Kenya. I'll post pictures there if internet is available as we'll be relaxing by the beach for 2 days. Love everyone and your comments too!!! Glad you are all enjoying my adventures! ;)

Pictures!!

Pictures of nile cruise dinner, camel and horse ride to pyramids and sphinx, and the Egyptian

museum. I think they the pictures are in reverse order, but I'm sure you can figure it out. :) Sorry I couldn't upload more, but it takes a long time to load each one.

Pyramids and more galore!

Hello from Cairo!! Yesterday was a fun although exhausting day.....Saul and I only got 3 hours of sleep due to our new found friends from our hostel whom we went out with the night before to celebrate Saul's birthday. Very very quickly we found out that negotiating here is required conduct and can get extremely tiresome after a long day, but lucky for me, I happen to be with someone that is from Africa and knows this formality well! :) So hired a driver for the day who started by taking us to a paper store, where they showed us how they make paper out of the papyrus plant. It was very interesting!! Then he took us to a perfume factory (well oil actually), where they explained how they extract oil from plants/flowers. I tried many scents that I'd never heard of before and most were pleasurable. After this, we negotiated a ridiculously good price for a 3 hour tour of the pyramids and the sphinx by camel and horse. Saul started off with the camel, however after 10 minutes couldn't handle it....lol! Unfortunately the little boy who guided the camel spoke better English than our actual guide so we didn't really learn much of the history behind the pyramids, but it was enough for me just to see them.... They really are something to see in Cairo as it is fascinating to me how they were built. At night, we visited a couple of mosques and a bazaar or market with our newfound friends that we met while on a dinner cruise along the Nile river. As women, we were not allowed to go into the main part of the mosque and only a smaller portion which was 1 tenth of the size of the men's size, but we still peeked through and saw the magnificance of the men's side.

Today was a rather light day as we were both exhausted from the previous two days so we took it easy and visited the Egyptian museum which holds many artifacts from King Tut's tomb as well as many many other Egyptian Kings, Queens, and other royalty. This was great too, although many of the pieces were unmarked and thus we had no idea what we were looking at. We visited a cafe afterwards for this excellent apple drink that they have when all of a sudden the police raided the sidewalk grabbing all the tables and chairs with a whirlwind quickness. Shocked, I got up from my chair quickly and ducked into a door opening but still got hit by some chairs that a shop owner and policeman were fighting over. Didn't hurt at all so don't worry mama, I was just utterly shocked at what was happening and how quickly it all came and went. When it was over I looked at Saul and he said "Welcome to Africa.....you couldn't possibly visit Africa without seeing something like that"....lol! Back at the hostel, our host explained to us that you must have a permit to put tables and chairs on the street and that a diplomat was in town today and the police probably came around trying to clean up and make the streets look "pretty". Apparently it is a very normal, very common occurrance, that I had the fortune of witnessing......

Anyway, that has been our adventures thus far.....we are are heading out to Kenya on a 3am flight tonight and will arrive in Nairobi around noon. Hope all is well with all of you!!!

Cairo

Hello all!! Just wanted to let you know that I arrived in Cairo safely and am already having a blast. Been up for more than 48 hours and am slightly delirious, but am great and having a blast!! Saul's birthday was/is today (as I consider when you wake up to when you go to sleep your birthday) and we checked into our hostel and met many people on a dinner cruise across the nile river. A couple American's, an Italian, a couple German's and an Israli. Very nice people and we ended up going to a bar after we were finished with the cruise. We are going to the pyramids tomorrow and can't wait to wake up in 4 hours for that....lol! Everyone is extremely nice in Egypt and we've been very lucky to encounter people that have helped us with everything from directions to ordering food (all is written in Arabic). Only being in the country for a day, we've already been ripped off several times, however compared to the US dollar it's quite a bargain.....hahaha!! Anyway, time to sleep off my Stella's......hopefully I can post some pictures soon.

Love,
Nicksta (that's for you Mo!!!)

Here we go!! I have a few minutes before my shuttle bus comes to take me to the airport where I fly into JFK, meet up with Saul, and then head to Cairo!! I couldn't be more excited, which is why I stayed up, instead of trying to catch some zzz's (well that coupled with what Ted showed me on the Wii, thanks Ted!). I figure there will be plenty of time to catch up on sleep with my 15+ hour plane ride(s). I will try my hardest to update upon arrival, but I am really leaving in a few minutes, but I wanted end by saying,
"CONGRATULATIONS!!" again to Andy and Elaine, who got married on Saturday in beautiful Boulder! I love you guys!

Love,
Pants (that's for the happy couple)

P.S. If there are typo's, you're just going to have to suck it up, sorry no time for corrections and I doubt there will be an English keyboard available in Africa (oh yes, you know who I'm talking to).