Friday September 21, 2012

OK here is the story of Friday September 21st. Our goal was to relax for the morning and return to Dar Es Salam and the Landmark Hotel for the evening. We had to be there for the daylight trip to Iringa on Saturday. The relaxing part went very well and then we sat down for breakfast at about 10:30 AM. The food arrived except for Tobie and Caleb's waffles. We all waited and then 15 minutes later we asked and the waffles appeared. The chef had a problem with the waffle grill and it took extra time. We all were just sitting around entertaining Elmer and talking about our snorkeling and sailing experience. But this was a harbinger of things to come in the restaurant world. We spent a short time in Stonetown, Zanzibar waiting for the ferry and each had an ice cream on the shore. The ferry was very full but we each had a seat and off the Kilimanjaro III went skimming across the water. This ride was a little splashier and we all have salty skin but a great ride in a beautiful day. Arriving at Dar's pier we foung a literal cacaphony of people tring to sell us trinkets, taxi rides and tours of the city. We managed to charge past all of them and find Kulwa and our bus. The ride back to the Landmark hotel took about an hour with many stops at controlled (sort of) intersections lasting 10 minutes. Street vendors walked between the vehicles selling water, ice cream, coke, cotton candy and plastic badmitten rackets (in cast the drivers wanted to step out for a quick game at the next stop light). We made it at about the time it got dark and there was Ismael, the hotel bellman, ready to hug his buddy Tobie and get us back to our rooms for the evening. Now here comes dinner. And none of this is fiction. There is a nice restaurant on the hotel's main floor and we sat down around a large table for the meal. Sheets of paper, appearing to menus, were passed around and we started reading. I read mine and said the children might like the hamburger or hot dog. The rest of the group looked at me as if I had stepped off an alien spaceship (pretty common reception to some of my ideas). They said where did I read that? I looked at Sharon's menu and it had about 12 beef dishes and Ginny's had fish and other things. The menu was clearly 3 pages long and each of us had one of the pages. I suggested we each pass our menus to the left after reading. That worked out and we were ready to order. The waiter arrived to announce that in spite of a 3 page menu, the available options were: chicken, beef and Kingfish. So the multi-page menu was for naught and really there were 3 things on the menu. We quickly reorganized our thoughts (this is Carrie's job and she is best at it) and started the order (I will be counting meals in parentheses). Ginny and Carrie ordered a single meal of chicken and rice (1), David = chicken and rice (2), Dale - Kingfish and rice (3), Tobie, Annica and Caleb one chicken and rice and one chicken and chips (french fries) (4 and 5), Sharon - chicken and fries (6) and Noel - beef and fries (7). All well and good and we were served our drinks from the waiter's four offerings: alcoholic and non-alcoholic, warm or cold. The waiter came back to tell Dale that the Kingfish was not available but the alternative fish was "chum". I believe he meant chad, since I think "chum" is the generic word for fish thrown out as bait. Dale ordered the chum. Soon our meals began to arrive. And I will list them in order of arrival, approximately. 1. Chicken and rice - Carrie 2. Chicken and rice - Ginny 3. Chicken and rice - David 4. Chum and fries - Dale 5. Chicken and rice - Tobie 6. Chicken and rice - Annica 7. Chicken and fries - Caleb 8. Chicken and fries - Sharon 9. Chicken and rice - split between Tobie and Annica 10. Beef and fries - Noel 11. Chicken and rice - placed at the end of the table to be further shared. Apparently, the concept of "sharing a meal" was skipped at cooking school. They interpreted the order to mean that the "sharers" wanted a meal and a half each so instead of 7 meals we ended with 11. We were hungry and happy to see food so we dug in. It was good and the only problem we had was Dale's fish staring back at all the food on the table.

We finished and corrected each of the bills presented by the waiter and headed to our rooms. Unfortunately, we realized that Carrie's little bag with her MS medicine was missing and probably left on the boat. We called the bus driver on his cell phone and gave him the numbers for the boat company and we are now waiting to hear if the bag is in the bus or found on the boat or what. Anyone want to take a 10 PM cab ride back to the Ferry Terminal and try to see if they found the bag? Tune in tomorrow for more adventures in "Survivor Restaurant".