Day One of Zanzibar

This is something I wrote after day one and couldn't get it onto blogspot so here it is now. Yay!
The rest of today was so much fun. My roommate and I, both feeling overwhelmed by actually being here, just laid in our bed and listened to the sounds of the neighborhood. Zanzibar is like a symphony of different sounds; a sound scape of children laughing, men shouting at TVs that they use to watch the world cup on in the street, babies crying, bicycles ringing, motorcycles buzzing, roosters cockle-doodle -dooing just to name a few. And each time we listened more, we heard more sounds. It's an amazing thing.
Then we went to dinner on the rooftop of this fancy hotel called Ebony and Green. We got there at 6:00 to watch the sunset over the ocean.You know those sunsets you see in cartoons like The Lion King where the sun is an exaggerated neon red that sinks slowly into the ocean until you hear a faint sizzle? That is exactly what it was like. I watched the sun set very quickly until it was only a sliver kissing the end of the Indian Ocean, just leaving a pink and blue glow as a reminder that it was there only moments before.
Just as the sun disappeared, a new symphony began. The call to prayer. You could hear mosques from around Stonetown singing their own traditional songs. The wind was blowing a cool air from the ocean, and the fabric on the restaurant ceiling was billowing a deep percussion to accompany the music in the air. We didn't make a sound. We just sat in this place listening to these new and beautiful sounds, completely awed and humbled by the experience.This was followed by a delicious meal of hummus, potato fritters, spiced carrot soup, a seafood salad, grilled red snapper with coconut rice and dessert. They had a traditional band playing while women danced at our tables in primal, isolated pelvic movements. They were so confident in their movements, so powerful. They invited us up to dance but none of us had the courage of these women. They way they moved their hips, butts and pelvis without moving anything else was amazing and something I clearly can not do. This would not have been any competition. John, however, decided to give it a try and it was amazing to watch.

We followed dinner by a walk around Stonetown. I don't know what everything looks like during the day but at night, it looks like a movie set. It can't be real. But it all is. Then we went to a rooftop bar, had a drink, toasted to a safe journey and watched for shooting stars.
I am going to like Zanzibar.