Nancy Chapin, my former Barrington High School classmate and longtime friend, and I at the beach on Useppa.

Kids out sailing with sailing with Nancy.

Yesterday, it took Eric the Eagle only four and one-half seconds to hope out of his cage and soar away to freedom after 17 days of rehabilitation.

On February 27, Eric Glidden, who works Useppa Island, spotted an injured bald eagle huddled in a bush.  Chuck and Paula Berry, the island’s emergency fire and medical team immediately contacted CROW, Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife, to arrange for his rescue and rehabilitation. The Berrys used a large fishnet to trap the eagle that was coated with dried blood and unable to fly.  They wrapped towels around his head and neck to quiet him, and then loaded him into a large crate, where he huddled in a corner, unmoving.

John and Gretchen Coyle, island residents, transported the eagle by boat to Sanibel, where CROW is located.  The clinic’s two full-time veteranarians, Drs. PJ Deitschel and Amber McNamara, treated the bird of prey with fluids and pain medications.  Dr. McNamara said that Eric the Eagle, named for Eric Glidden, had probably been injured in a fight with another eagle or an osprey.  The bald eagle’s wounds were limited, but he was battered, bruised and in shock.

At the clinic, the veteranarians treated the eagle with pain medication, fluid and rest.  By the second day, he had recovered enough to eat herring, and he began to move around at the start of the second week.  They moved him into the clinic’s flight cage where he could stretch his wings, and as he recuperation progressed, he began to eat rats, as well as fish.

On March 16, Eric the Eagle traveled back to Useppa in the dog cage on the Lady Chadwick, a luncheon excursion boat out of Sanibel.

Dr. PJ  and Dr. Amber carried the eagle in his cage off the boat and down the dock.

Chuck wheeled him onto the island

and held onto the golf cart that Paula drove down to the field where the eagle had originally been rescued.

The release team arrived at the field.

Chuck and Dr. PJ carried the cage to the middle of the field.

Dr. PJ opened the door to the cage,

Eric the Eagle took several quick hops, then soared away over the treetops.

Here’s the rescue team:  Eric Glidden, Chuck Berry, Dr. PJ Deitschel, Dr. Amber McNamara, Paula Berry.

And Eric the Eagle, at rest in a tree near the field after his first post-rehabilitation flight, before he disappeared into the wild blue yonder.

I’ve been thinking of adding a separate blog category for friends from Barrington and, today,  my former high school classmate Laurie Manning, now a minister in California, gave me the perfect opportunity.

Over the week of May 31 to June 6, she’s bicycling in the AIDS/ LifeCycle 8, riding from San Francisco to Los Angeles (545 miles).

Hope you will support her!

Back to sightseeing — On the morning of January 1, 2009, we took a small van from our resort back to Stone Town, not far from the airport.

Stone Town, designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2000, was once the center of Zanzibar’s trade in slaves and spices.  We met our guide Mbwana near the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral.

In 1860 alone, 25,000 slaves were transported to Zanzibar out of Africa’s interior. About 8,000 slaves were exported, 4,000 put to work in Stone Town and 12,000 sent to work on Zanzibar’s plantations.  By 1873, however, Zanzibar’s sultan had put an end to the island’s slave trade, in response to the efforts of British missionaries, including Dr. Livingstone.

Who knew the explorer Dr. Livingstone (of I presume fame) played a huge role in stopping Zanzibar’s slave trade?

We followed Mbwana into the church, appalled by the low ceilings of the two slave chambers and narrow window slits that barely allowed in any light or fresh air.

Outside the church, we could see a mosque nearby.  Mbwana pointed out the juxtaposition as an example of modern day Zanzibar’s religious tolerance.

Regardless, almost everyone in Zanzibar today is Muslim.  The U.S. Department of State says that 99 percent of the island’s one million residents are Muslims.  Mbwana and others that we asked while we were there gave answers ranging from 85 to 95 percent. Almost all women and girls in Zanzibar wear long dresses and head scarves–no shorts or short skirts.  Cara and I had to be much more sensitive about taking people’s pictures in Zanzibar than we had been previously on this trip.

We walked from the church to Stone Town’s marketplace.  Hard to stop shooting photos of everything and everyone.

This woman pushed a wheelbarrow full of bloody horns,

and this man shoved a huge swordfish, bent into a u-shape, in his cart along the street.

Once we got inside the fish and meat market, the stench was overwhelming.  I gave Lynne a hand wipe to hold over her nose to prevent her from gagging.

Outside, where the fruits, vegetables and spices were sold, the air was much fresher.

In the past, Zanzibar was the world’s largest grower and seller of many spices, but after its government  began experimenting with socialism in the 1970s, other regions overtook Zanzibar in the spice trade.   Now, tourism is Zanzibar’s largest source of revenue, but few natives of Zanzibar find jobs in the tourist industry. Most people in Zanzibar still earn only about one dollar a day.

I have too many photos of colorful, exotic Stone Town to post on my blog! Not only did our group tour continue all morning, but Cara and I remained behind in the afternoon to take more pictures.

Look for a Zanzibar photo essay on my Web site by April 1.

All seven of us met at the resort’s breakfast buffet, then went for a swim in the wonderfully warm, aquamarine Indian Ocean.  Dwight took Troy and Lynne snorkeling, and I headed off to check my e-mails (wow!) and get some exercise.  We were all eager to MOVE after so many hours and days of traveling and sitting during game drives.

I stopped back at our room and discovered that our little fridge hadn’t been re-stocked.  Anticipating that we would need more bottled water and Diet Coke after everyone worked out and the day heated up, I called the front desk and asked to have more drinks brought to our room.  The man who answered the phone at the front desk seemed a bit confused by my request, but we managed to communicate, and he said that some drinks would be brought to our room shortly.  I gathered up some laundry and marked the paper up with what I was sending to be washed.

I opened the door at the sound of a knock and found a sleepy-looking Moses standing there in his gleaming white caftan, carrying a tray of waters and Diet Cokes.

“I’m sorry, Moses,” I said.  “I thought the front desk would send a waiter, not bother you to bring us drinks.”

“I’m the only one who has a key to the pantry,” he answered, a bit grumpily.

“Well, I am sorry,” I repeated and meant it, although I did wonder a) Were we the only guests who had ever asked to have their fridge re-stocked? and b) What happened to the “I’m here for you 24/7 attitude” that Moses had shown the prior day?

“It’s no trouble,” Moses answered, although clearly he didn’t mean it.

“Thank you,” I said, left it at that, and he departed.

I followed him out in search of the resort’s fitness/spa area with lap pool, which should have been easier to locate than it was.  Most of the resort’s staff didn’t speak much English, which wouldn’t have been a problem, if there had been any signs showing the way.

Eventually, I found the fitness/spa area.  It looked lavish and luxurious, but there was no one at the desk.   I called out hello a couple of times and a woman appeared.  I asked to use the lap pool, and she looked mystified, told me to follow her, and she would find out about the lap pool.  She found a spa manager (?) taking count (?) in a storage closet well-stocked with towels and linens.  I could see the deserted and inviting lap pool from the hall where we stood.

The manager explained to me very politely and at some length that only spa guests could use the lap pool.  I decided not to press the point, although, clearly, I was the only guest in the entire spa.

I walked back to the resort’s central pool and swam 50 laps, dodging some young French kids who were playing with a ball.  We were the only Americans at the resort while we visited — everyone else seemed to be European.  The large number of children in our family and our general high energy level stood out, and I would venture a guess, not favorably.

After my swim, I found most of the rest of the family on the beach.  The girls and I decided to check out the resort’s gift shop.  We were hoping to buy some new colorful clothes (anything but khaki safari clothes) to wear for the New Year’s Eve celebration that night.

Back to the front desk.  Again our request caused some confusion, but it was sorted out and a woman detached herself from the group of staff that continually hovered behind the front desk.

“The shop is closed, but I’ll open it for you,” she said, and we followed her to the elegant resort shop.  It smelled heavenly.  The aroma of spices from Zanzibar — cloves, cinnamon, cardamon — filled the shop.  We tried on and chose some bright skirts and tops and brought them to the woman at the counter, expecting to charge our purchases to our room.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but you’ll have to pay cash and the register is locked right now.  Also, I don’t have the key.  Only the shop manager has the key.”

Hmm.  Maybe she could have told us about the shop’s limitations a littler sooner.  We were beginning to figure out how new this resort actually was!  We arranged to return later in the day with money.

We spent a happy afternoon swimming both in the ocean and the pool, playing Scrabble and taking a stroll along the beach.  The tide went way out in the afternoon, exposing the coral reef Dwight and the kids had snorkeled over in the morning.  We could see fishermen spearing octopi from their dhows — rough, primitive dugouts — but I didn’t have my camera with me.  I took this picture a couple of days later.

Remarkably, the shop manager met us in the late afternoon, so that we were able to complete our purchases.

Here we are, all dressed up in our festive attire:

and the boys, who obviously copied our blue theme, and who also, obviously, should have applied suntan lotion more liberally.

We had a fantastic and exotic New Year’s Eve, dining and talking in the warm night air, under the stars.

Once we’d seen in the start of 2009, the girls danced their way back to our rooms.  Happy New Year!

This morning, Jimmy drove us to the airstrip, only a short distance from our tented camp.  Here he is (on right) chatting with other guides:

and another view of our airstrip:

We had a layover in Arusha, en route to Zanzibar.  To our surprise, we were met at the airport and given a driving tour of Arusha, interesting because it is the site of the Rwanda genocide trials, as well as the point in Africa that is midway between Cairo and the Cape of Good Hope.

The photos below were all shot from our small van, as we drove around Arusha:

Tyler spotted the local Montessori school:

A Maasai strides toward town.

The United Nations building where the Rwanda genocide trials are being held.

This clock tower marks the African midpoint between Cairo and the Cape of Good Hope.

Men hawked newspapers in the square around the tower, and we gladly purchased several.  New and current reading material was a welcome treat.  We drove past Arusha’s busy marketplace:

where there were Obama cloths for sale:

A tailor at work in the shade:

On the way back to the airport, we passed a Shoprite (!).  I wish this picture showed more of the man in front of the grocery store, pushing his handcart of tomatoes.

After an unexpectedly long wait in the Arusha airport, we boarded our plane and flew to Zanzibar, arriving in the late afternoon (below).   We still had yet another hour drive to our beach resort, but the drive was pleasant and interesting — lush and tropical, in stark contrast to the Serengeti we’d left behind just this morning.

For those of you who don’t know (and I didn’t before we planned our trip), in 1965, Zanzibar and Tanganyika joined to establish the republic of Tanzania.  Actually,  Zanzibar and its smaller sister island Pemba are both part of Tanzania. They lie in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Tanzania.

A little of Zanzibar’s history:   Zanzibar was originally famous for its trade in both spices and slaves, but its slave trade was abolished in 1873.  In 1890, Zanzibar became a British protectorate, and gained its independence in 1963.  The following year, the African majority overthrew the country’s elite ruling class — the Arabs, who had first arrived on the island in the 10th century.

When we reached our beach resort in Zanzibar, we were greeted by Moses, a manager, who was soft-spoken and welcoming.  The resort was lovely, comfortable, clean and brand new– we didn’t know just how new until we’d been there a day or so.

Moses was Kenyan; he had trained for the hospitality industry in his home country.  His shaven bald black head gleamed above his long, white immaculate caftan.  He told us that he would be our personal representative during our stay at the resort — if we had any needs at all, we could call him 24/7, words I believed, and he would soon come to regret, I fear.

Here’s a picture I took by the resort’s pool a couple of days into our visit (it’s blurry because my lens hadn’t adjusted yet to the difference in temperature and humidity between our air-conditioned room (!) and the heat outside).  This place didn’t seem like it could exist on the same planet as the Serengeti!