Kwa Heri Africa, Namaste India

Good bye Africa, hello India! 

It took us 24 hours of travel to get here, but we're in New Delhi, India.  We left our beach bungalow at 10am to get to the Zanzibar airport.  We took a short flight, about a half hour or less, to Dar es Salaam, then we had to wait for our next flight, which was 5 hours away.  This might be ok if we were in an airport like DIA (Denver Airport) where we could wander through the stores aimlessly, have a decent bite to eat, or even post up at the New Belgium Brewery in the airport.  But, Dar es Salaam is a tiny airport. There's 3 to 4 tiny shops that have the exact same items, and a restaurant that looked questionable and was severely overpriced, like the stores.  It was actually kinda funny.  We found little Kirkland packets of nuts for sale, but they were like $5, and not worth it.  A small pack of gum was $3.  So we sat and listened to our audio book.

Finally we took the 3 hour flight to Ethiopia.  We had another 5 hours to kill in that airport.  We had originally thought we were going to be there during the day, and that we would check in, leave our bags, and venture out into Ethiopia for lunch or dinner.  But, it was from 7pm to midnight, so we skipped that idea.  This airport was weird.  The shops were filled with random designer labels, but it all seemed fishy, like they were counterfeit, or they had "fallen off a truck".  Also, the shelves were fairly empty, there'd be a huge shelf with two or three items on it.  And there were TONS of cigarettes.  Apparently cigarettes from China are a hot commodity, because they were expensive, $50 a carton, while Marlboro were $16.

It was finally time to head to our gate.  When the man called for passengers with children, needing special assistance, and business class members, the entire group of people in the waiting area bum rushed the entrance.  And they began to enter without being let in.  Eventually we made our way up, but the people were so pushy and then so close behind us that I kind of wish we had waited for everyone else to board first.  But we needed to assure that we had overhead luggage space. They would push up against you, and when you turned your head they would apologize, but do it again and again.  Just before the plane there was a guy trying to check everyone's ticket, and we watched him turn away a passenger and realize that he might have been letting people on the plane who shouldn't have been let on.  Hmm.  I'm pretty sure there were some stow aways on that flight.

The flight was about 6 hours, after the delay, but it was not a bad flight.  We dosed ourselves with our respective knock out drugs and were able to sleep a bit.  Aside from the fact that I was awoken by people walking by and bumping into me with elbows and carts, we were awoken in the middle of the night for a meal.  I think we were in a daze because we sleepily ate a meal at about 2:30 in the morning.  Totally unnecessary, but we were zoned out.  Seth barely remembered anything the next day.

The plane landed and the airport in India was much more vigilant about the passengers on the plane.  They cattle blocked the exit and checked everyone's ticket stub, and if they couldn't find it, they had to wait.  I thought that was awesome.

We were picked up by someone from our hotel and we made our way into Delhi.  We landed on a Sunday morning, so traffic wasn't like it normally is.  We've heard a lot about Delhi traffic.  And, maybe it's because we just spent a few weeks in Africa, but so far New Delhi is not like we expected.  It is much 'nicer' than we expected.  But, I'm also going to assume that we are in the nicer part of the city.  When I looked up our area it seems to be the Silverlake of New Delhi.  But, when I say this, don't picture a street lined with pretty store fronts and welcoming restaurants.  I said it is the Silverlake of New Delhi.  We've already encountered areas that require ten gallon lungs to hold your breath.

Our hotel, aside from our romantic anniversary night, is the nicest hotel we've been in.  Amarya Haveli is a cute boutique B&B where we were offered their delicious homemade iced tea upon arrival.  Our room is the Jaipur room, so it is themed pink, with a pink temple painted on the wall.  And the bathroom is glorious.  Aside from the fact that you have to keep your mouth glued shut in the shower (we're in India) it is amazing, with water pressure and extremely hot water.  And we had the best night sleep, probably since we moved out of our apartment in May.  AC, hot water, clean, and a comfy bed.  Awesome.

We ventured out for a walk to a park nearby.  We ended up finding Deer Park, where they actually have deer in an enclosure.  There was a lady there who was feeding them yellow rice and naan.  I have a feeling that she wasn't supposed to be doing that.

Eventually we made our way to a recommended restaurant called Park Baluchi (which I bet means deer park), where we would have our first Indian meal.  We ordered two beers, two vegetarian dishes, and two types of bread. The beer was Kingfisher and the waiter presented them to each of us like one would a bottle of wine.  It was interesting.  Then there was a well packed ball of ricotta like cheese in something similar to a vodka sauce (i.e. tomato and cream).  That was really good.  It had lots of spices and a bit of a kick. Yum! Then there was a spinach based dish with string beans, corn and potatoes.  That was, also, very good.  We accompanied those with regular naan and kolcha, which is what I believe to be India's version of pizza.  It was a flat bread with some chopped tomatoes, spices and cheese.  All very good.

We made our way back to our hotel and ordered some masala chai tea to keep ourselves awake so that we wouldn't fall asleep too early.  The tea was delicious. And so was our night's sleep. Aahhh...

Food - Pizza Island style

On our first night in Stone Town, asking locals where we should eat is fruitless. You would be met with a blank stare or an undecipherable jumble of swahili and english. The divide between a restaurant that a local would go to and a restaurant that a tourist would go to is massive. And if you don't know already, I'm willing to try all sorts of street meat, but the local restaurants are a non starter. Also, many of the restaurants on the beach serve alcohol and that's reason enough for these muslim men to refrain from going.

After wandering around a good deal we had just given up all hope of finding palace to eat that both looked good and fit our budget. Then we saw smoke rising in the distance and a crown starting to gather. As we approached we saw tourist and locals alike ordering meat, fish, crab, vegetables, octopus, squid, you name it it was skewered and placed on white hot coals. They piled it all on a paper plate topped it with some still sizzling french fries and covered it with piripiri sauce or if you were adventurous pirpirihoho, swahili for very hot chili. (piripiri a native african chili, fiery hot, but immensely complex and flavorful)

Only being free of my stomach woes from istanbul for a week or so I wanted to play it safe, so we decided to steer clear of the pre cooked dodgy looking meats and go with what the vendors were calling pizza.

As you can see, this is clearly not pizza, but it was delicious. It came closer to a pan fried chinese dumpling. They start off with a thin layer of dough, pile on finely diced onion, carrot, peppers and tomato. Then they mix in a piece of laughing cow style cheese, a small scoop of mayonnaise, piripiri, and then crack a raw egg and scramble it all together in the dough. Our cook Mohammed slaps the whole thing dough side down on a buttered fry top and cooks for about 10 minuets.

During our wait we noticed a large wheeled contraption next to Mohammad's kiosk. And saw five foot tall stalks of sugar cane along with fresh cut limes and big bulbs of ginger being fed through the device, the juice was trickling down into a tub with large blocks of ice. We couldn't resist, we bought one, then another, then another. They were 1000 TZS each, that's about 75 cents. Ice cold, tart lime, sweet cane juice, spicy ginger. The only way they could have been better, and they were already superb was with a splash of white rum.

If some entrepreneurial person is reading this, find a way to get one of these machines to venice beach, south beach, pretty much any beach in america and you will have a line of people down the block.

I have the best husband in the world, hands down.

Although this may seem quite obvious I'd love to share a story of one of the many reasons I know this is true.

Though our accommodation in Zanzibar is quite acceptable, it was not as nice or as luxurious as the internet had made it seem.  Go figure.  But, there are very nice hotels along the beach, we just weren't really staying at one of them.  But, Seth and I happily ate our breakfast of fruit and instant coffee, glad to be out of Stone Town, and happy to be spending our second anniversary as a married couple in such an exotic place.

After breakfast, we went for a leisurely stroll down the beach.  We checked out the little pools of water to see if anything was alive in them.  Tons of sea stars and quite a few crustaceans.  We eventually made it to the super nice hotel at the top of the island and Seth decided to use the restroom there.  We wandered from the beach in through the hotel to reception to find the bathroom.  I stayed back as Seth went around the corner.  When he came back a moment later, he was accompanied by a staff member and said, "Surprise! We're staying here for the night!"  I was utterly confused.  I didn't know what was happening.  But it turned out that the evening before when Seth "went to get pictures of the sunset while the light was still good" he was really booking it down the beach to make a reservation at the nice hotel for our anniversary night.  Amazing.  I have the best husband ever, hands down.

So, we spent the day and evening lounging around the super fancy resort.  Having drinks at the pool, lunch on the jetty out in the water, and a four course dinner, which had an added bonus of a rowdy kiswahili song and cake which, I think was their version of 'happy anniversary' or something like that.

This morning we had a beautiful breakfast with delicious coffee, charcuterie, fruit, and steak and eggs.  And it was an amazing surprise of an anniversary that I will definitely remember.

Stone Town, Zanzibar

We made it to Stone Town in Zanzibar and to our hotel.  Though it is an island, Stone Town has the least island vibe Seth or I have ever been to.  It feels like a busy, dirty city.  Though our hotel was pretty, they caused us more problems than it was worth.  When we did our laundry they burnt a hole in my shirt, they charged us more for our second night without notifying us, and they didn't follow through with helping us out with a transfer to the north of the island.  Zenji Hotel in Stone Town sucks.  Don't give them your money.

The spice tour was nice.  We roamed through a plantation and were able to smell and taste a variety of local spices such as lemon grass and cinnamon, but the spice Zanzibar is known for is clove.  The clove flower had a very sweet, spicy smell.  

We then made our way to the north of the island.  As I mentioned before, the hotel guy did not follow through with getting us a good price on a ride to compensate for the damaged shirt.  40 dollars is way too much for the ride.  After being swindled a few times trying to find a ride, we finally managed to get a ride to the north for a reasonable price.

But, apparently there are two hotels with very similar names.  We were taken to the Baraka Beach Bungalows while we needed to go to the Baraka Aquarium Bungalows.  Hmm… So we had a delicious lunch of lobster coconut curry before heading to our actual hotel.  The place is fine, but it wasn't quite as nice as the hotel we were initially dropped off at.  But the Aquarium Bungalows will do.  And it was clean and did have hot water, so… How can I complain.  Once we made our way down the beach I felt better.  This is my first white sand beach.  It's quite beautiful.  The fine white sand  makes the water glow a bright turquoise.  It's really quite lovely.

This Is Africa

We found a few days prior to leaving Istanbul that Americans need a visa to enter India, even for connecting flights.  We tried the embassy in Istanbul, but we couldn't wait the required four days for the visa.  So the plan was to apply for the visa in Dar es Salaam Tanzania and they would mail it to Zanzibar, where we'd pick it up after our safari. We landed in Dar es Salaam at 2 am and then "slept" until 8am where we hired a car to take us into the city to the Indian consulate. We dropped off our passports in the hopes that they would approve the visas and then send our passports to Stone Town in Zanzibar after our safari. We were more then a little concerned that we had just given away our only  way of leaving the country. Our trip hung in the balance and rested on the Indian embassy's ability to quirky approve a visa and return our passports.

Well, we made it back to the airport at about 11am and we were able to hop on an earlier flight to Kilimanjaro Airport.  We were picked up by our driver and made it to Moshi.  We were pretty exhausted, since we'd been traveling for a full 24 hours, I timed it.  

We met our guide, driver and buddy for the next week, Elvis.  And we, finally, got to meet Ria.  Ria has been such a huge help, not only with arranging everything involved with our safari, but she's helped us change things last minute in order to handle our India visa issues.  

There is no way I could give you a play by play of our entire safari.  There's just too much to say.  We saw every animal you could imagine on a safari and experienced things that we could not have imagined beforehand.  We saw elephants up close, and were even charged once.  We watched giraffes get spooked by our slowing car, then stop to check us out.  The lions were majestic and even more impressive close up.  On our second day in the Serengetti we watched a collared lioness kill a thompson gazelle and then retrieve her two young cubs to treat them to a feast.  

The safari nights were just as eventful as the days.  Our chef, Good Luck, treated us to some lovely meals that we were able to share with the good company of Elvis.  We were so fortunate to be able to share our safari with these wonderful men.

We only left our tent in the middle of the night once, and seconds after we got back into our tent we heard close sounds of hyenas and lions.  And the noises only became more intense.  I woke up one evening to the sounds of a kill, lions grunting and hyenas cackling.  Those noises stopped any future nighttime bathroom runs

We were able to partake in a few days of cultural experiences as well.  We jumped and shrugged with the Masai, we spent time in the sitting room with Tatoga tribeswomen, and went on a hunt in the wee hours of the morning with the Hadzabe tribesmen.  We were able to catch a glimpse of life that hasn't changed since the beginning of communities.  The experience has been life changing and I hope our pictures can give you a glimpse into our adventures.  

Turkish Cooking and a Wild Goose hunt

We made our way to our meeting point to meet with Olga our cooking instructor for the day.  We headed out to the Asian side of Istanbul and wandered around the market. We stopped at various stalls to learn about local things and try foods native to the area.  I especially liked the Turkish Coffee.  We've tried some pretty good coffee here, but this one was the smoothest.

We then went to Olga's home to cook.  We whipped up an assortment of traditional Turkish food.  We started by preparing mezze (starters).  We made one with green beans and one with eggplant.  I absolutely loved the green bean mezze, which is not characteristic.  But, they were so good!

We, then made the stuffed eggplant.  It was stuffed with garlic, onions, tomatoes, and a beef and lamb mixture.  That was also really tasty.  Even though I'm a big eggplant lover, I'm not usually a fan of stuffed eggplant.  But, I think this is because they are usually stuffed with rice, and I'm not a huge fan of rice.  So this was delicious.

We made bourek in triangle form! Filled with a sliced cured meat, a feta like cheese and grilled onion mixture, wrapped in Turkish filo dough (which is a little bit thicker than other filo).  Those were amazing.

For dessert we made what Olga called a sponge cake.  And spongy it was! It soaked up a ton of simple syrup.  It was served warm out of the oven with Turkish ice cream, which is made with a type of orchid root which has kind of a gummy consistency, much like the mastic we found in Greece.  Delish!

That night we did some laundry and ran into some ducklings waddling around outside our hotel.  They are adorable, but I'm not sure how much longer they're going to last without a mommy.

Turkish Ducklings from Seth Cobb on Vimeo.

Today we went on a wild goose hunt.  Yesterday, we learned from Olga's Turkish husband who used to work in tourism, that many people here would rather give you an inaccurate answer than tell you that they don't know.  We definitely encountered this today.  We asked the tourist office If there was a UPS.  He told us yes then gave us directions.  But the directions did not lead us to a UPS.  We asked around and people kept pointing us in different directions, when finally one man in a hotel checked on the UPS website, and found it's location, which was quite a walk away.  But, he told us there was a DHL down the street.  Then we had to walk in circles for quite a while asking people for directions and being sent in all sorts of directions.  Finally, after about an hour to an hour and a half we found the DHL, but they wouldn't ship half of our things.  So we went for the regular post office, and had to wait a half an hour for the place to open.  Once it was open we were sent on another hunt to buy a box, because they only had one size, small.  My goodness.  I wish people would just tell you to ask someone else if they didn't know.

We walked around for a bit and found a pide place that Olga recommended.  Pide is Turkey's version of pizza.  It's pizza, but the dough is shaped almost like a boat.  It was pretty good.