la playa, zanzibar.

Bienvenidos a Parte 2 de Zanzibar.

We got off the bus and walked out to this:

Just a little piece of paradise is all.

I spent the next two days reading lots of poetry on the beach. I also finished a memoir, did some napping, swimming, exploring. I went for a couple runs along the coastline--absolutely epic. We had such a cute little beach house. Sam and I walked into it while Jeff was bartering with the manager. We were both thinking, "I don't care how much it costs, we're staying here."

home sweet home. 

You don't know how beautiful that bed looked.
And that bathroom!! Increible.

We went snorkeling which was awesome until I kept getting stung by jellyfish. That part of it sucked. There's nothing quite so claustrophobic as being aware of a jellyfish stinging you and you can't get it off of you and your face is underwater and all of a sudden you feel like you're surrounded by jellyfish. Ugh. After that happened three or four times, I just got back on the boat.

The sunsets were some of the most gorgeous I've ever seen. Ever.

Things would get interesting at night. I was reading outside on the beach one night with my headlamp and some dude came up to me and asked if I was by myself. I said no, and pointed out Jeff who was up a little behind me. Jeff shined his flashlight at the both of us, and the man instantly told me he was a guard and was just there to make sure I was safe. Riiiiiight.

I decided to go inside and go to sleep when somebody walked right by the foot of my chair in the nude--I'm assuming to go skinny-dipping. I didn't realize that was what was going on at first, so I looked up and the headlamp showed said individual in all their glory. I looked around and realized that we were the only people outside and it was weird. So I resisted the urge to burst out laughing and calmly walked towards my hut instead.

These couple of days on the beach were awesome. I'm usually almost always extremely busy, and even if I'm not, I'm thinking about how I should be being busy. It's been a long time since I've been bored in a good way. I couldn't have done school or work even if I'd wanted to, so I didn't feel guilty in the slightest for being 0% productive. So I had nothing to do--and I'd take a nap because I felt like it. It was great. I was definitely ready to get back to work and being productive at the end of the stay, but having that time to just recharge was definitely needed.

Sean and Nick both peaced out a little before the rest of us due to their flights leaving earlier. Jeff, Sam, and I were all leaving the same day (May 31st), so we got to stay at the beach for a little longer. The day  before our flight, we went back to Stone Town for the night. I explored Stone Town a little bit more by myself, bought a souvenir, and other such things.

That night, we went to that one really good restaurant in Stone Town (its name I have forgotten) and got the hands-down best meal in Africa. A chicken cashew curry of some sort. It was ahhh-mazing.

deliciousness.

The next morning we took the ferry back to Dar to catch our flight and if you really want to know more about that, I wrote about it here.

And that finishes up Africa. Or at least, that's all I'm going to say about it on here, other than "Yes. T'was an adventure." EL FIN.