Climb for Hospice

Last night Robyn and I had a very nice chat via Google chat as she sat up, fully awake still at 2am. It was great to hear from her and even better to feel like we were having something close to a full-on conversation instead of exchanging emails. She has met up with Amanda in Dar es Salaam, at the New Africa Hotel where they were going to spend the night before waking up early to sort out details for the rest of the trip and catch a 10am ferry to Zanzibar!!

Ah, Zanzibar. I just love to say Zanzibar. ZanZIbar….ZANzibar…ZANziBAR!!!!… it just has this magical way of rolling off the tongue, however it’s pronounced.

So if that was a 10am ferry Tanzania time, it should have left at midnight Ladner time (or Pacific Standard Time, whatever you want to call it), so I figure she should be arriving on Zanzibar by this point. Awesome!!

I know that my mind is at much more ease now that she is with a friend she can have a lot of fun with, and out of Dar es Salaam into a more tourist friendly type of space. From her emails the culture shock was really starting to get to her. And Amanda has traveled in Africa pretty extensively, at least South Africa. But she did have some very good things to say about the trip to this point, including: crazy palm trees that grow too close to the waters edge, Zanzibar coffee that tastes like spicy peppers, the heavy musk of spice that hangs in the air constantly, and definitely the heat. She loves the heat.

Heck, maybe she’ll even have a tan when she gets back. Hehehehehe…..

– Chris