Saturday, October 8, 2011

First Impression Not Worth Quitting Over

Save for all the illicit details of travel (I will assume here that most have been on a plane) I will just launch right into the tale to be spun. I do not mean to dismiss the epic journey that took 4 planes and 5 flights, just under 23 hours of actual butt in a plane seat time, and 5 different airports with 5 VERY different impressions. I just truly feel that my time is best spent here (on a questionable Internet connection at best) leaping right in, and the tales of physical travel will most likely be told to you over a cup of American coffee, on the golf course somewhere, or around the table at a later date.

The Z Hotel is exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes car ride from the airport on the island. This was the most surreal and out of body experience I have ever had without the help of a back alley bought drug.

One lane road (half pavement half something dusty) and driving on the wrong side. Zanzibar is still heavily operated on the British rule that came through here in the mid 1800's. The kind of rule that has the steering wheel on the other side of the Toyota Caravan.
 On this one lane road there is a series of horn tooting and passing around slower cars and cow pulled carts, not to mention the (literally) thousands of people crossing the roads at their leisure. I have been informed that there are 1 million people that inhabit this island that can be crossed in a car in less than 2 hours. This drive was more of a death race than ride. Operating I assume under the "get then there fast for good first impression" mentality, we were both whisked away to our honeymoon in a video game-esque manner.

Build adrenaline on the foundation of sleep deprivation with a large dose recycled airplane air and the sensation is confusing at best.

Call it jet lag or just sheer exhaustion from the aforementioned 23 hours flying but as we arrived at our hotel, down an improbable rocky dirt road that had to be navigated at under 10 mph, and finally began to breath, stretch and observe any area where we could finally be alone, and in the spec and inescapable truth that over 2 months faced us in the foreign land, the only thing I could think to do was turn around and go home.

It was system overload in a sleep deprived world and to label it as "too much" would be a great injustice.

I am writing this 6 days (Africa time) after we left California off of notes I took then, and I can report that things settled down to a wonderfully embraced crawl point were we both got fed and rested and began to embrace our new temporary lives and I am looking forward to posting more emotion on the real and positive side of the scope, but for one scary moment I was ready to cut bait and run, it's just too bad that was the very first moment.

1 comment:

  1. Finally catching up here... been waiting to read a "chunk" at a time and do so without interruption of the smaller people in my house!

    While I am sorry that your first thought was to turn around, you describe it brilliantly... I am officially "glued" and can't wait until this blog (and your post-travel notes, reflections, etc.) turns into your second book!

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