Market and African Queen

Every time we travel, we always make a point of visiting the local markets.  Everyone in our group had fond memories of the Mexican market from San Miguel when we lived there, so we sought out the Zambian equivalent.  It was very similar in many ways - food vendors selling meats, fish and vegetables, albeit with a lot more flies.  In particular, a lot of beans were available for purchase, and some weird anchovy looking dried fish.  There were also the dry goods vendors - selling electronics, clothes, toiletries, and other sundry items.  I was running low on underwear, so I bought a three pack of "large", which turned out to be too small for me.  The clothes vendors were particularly interesting, since their fare was what you would find at a Goodwill in the USA.  T-shirts from all sorts of sports leagues, bars, etc.  I asked one of the vendors where he got his wares, and he just said "Tanzania".  We suspected that a lot of church groups sent clothes over, and they would up being sold at market.

Beans, dried fish, and other goodies from the market

 

I love mangled English - this one was even personalized!

Next, we visited a more tourist-friendly craft market.  We shopped and bargained with the vendors for their local crafts, including some cool wood carvings and other interesting items.  We quickly figured out that the vendors likes to trade, and I had an old "Obama for President" T-shirt that was instantly highly valued.  I traded it for a discount on a cool stone carving, and the vendor was so proud that he wore it right away.  It made me happy too.

My new friend, with his new Obama t-shirt

That night, our tour group had reserved a river boat trip on a two story barge called the "African Queen".  We had drinks and snacks, and had a leisurely float upstream from the falls.  We saw some hippos, but since we were safari experts by this time, we weren't as eager as the rest of the patrons to see them. It was still a fun, relaxing cruise, and I started to feel closer to my travel-mates than ever before.

Sunset from the African Queen

That night, I found a local Indian restaurant called the Gold Leaf on TripAdvisor.com.  It was highly rated, and I was able to get a table for 25 reserved.  We all ordered an assortment of dishes, and everything was excellent. It was probably one of the top three Indian meals i have ever had.