Trippin'

Greetings from the Indian Ocean!



I am writing this on the island of Zanzibar on the coast of Tanzania. This is actually the view as I compose this entry. It sort of beats the scenes of Port-au-Prince I captured on my way to the airport. Speaking of which, let me tell you about how I came to be sitting here.


My company always hosts its annual meeting for people involved in the AIDS Relief program in member countries. This year my colleagues and I have travelled from the four corners of the world to Zanzibar, a place I have always dreamed of visiting. But first I had to get there. Leaving my office in Port-au-Prince (see the pictures below) on Wednesday morning, I was driven to the airport for a flight to DC via Miami. I had the chance to spend the night in the capital and see some of you then (and hope to see more of you all when I swing back on Thanksgiving week).











Friday saw me go to Dulles and catch a flights to Amsterdam and Nairobi where I arrived in the evening, sadly too late to take any pictures of the city and its surroundings. So this shot of the hotel lawn at dawn will be the only picture of Kenya you will get to see on this blog (at least for now). It was taken on Saturday morning, just before leaving for, you guessed it, the airport. The final flight of the journey brought me to Zanzibar, but not before flying right by Mount Kilimanjaro, and I promise to take a picture of the view on the way back.

Zanzibar turned out to be all I was hoping for and more. The hotel, the Zanzibar Beach Resort, is quite nice and, as you saw, boasts some pretty beautiful views. But the real gem is the old city of Stone Town, pictures of which you will find below. A major center of trade between the Middle East, India and Africa, the population of the island is an exotic mix of ethncities and religions. You can see all of these influences in the narrow streets of Stone Town, a combination bazaar/souk/commercial center, where every doorway leads to a shop and every street smells of spices. You can see the pictures I took during my first foray there yesterday and you can rest assured that more will be forthcoming.





























































I think I'll leave it at that for now and wait for some more stories to develop before my next entry.