Zanzibar and Namibia?

As I've often opined, my life sounds much more interesting than it really is, although I suppose that we always view our own life as tedious while simultaneously exoticizing the lives of other people.  As has been extensively chronicled, my friend and colleague Steve Wehmeyer and I led nineteen students to Zanzibar last March on a very successful trip.  Next year we want to up the ante and make the trip part of two linked interdisciplinary classes, with a longer trip over winter break.  So, in preparation for this experiment we're hoping to head back to Zanzibar in May to do even more extensive research and planning.  This got me thinking about my planned student trip to Namibia, which also needs some background work.  So, I'm thinking of piggybacking on the end of the Zanzibar trip (essentially abandoning Steve in the Dar Es Salaam International Airport on the flight home) and catching a flight instead to Windhoek for a few days.  So the itinerary would be something like Boston-Istanbul-Dar Es Salaam-Zanzibar-Pemba-Dar Es Salaam-Windhoek-Dar Es Salaam-Istanbul-Boston, which, I think, would be second in perceived coolness only to the Abu Dhabi-Doha-Nairobi-Dar Es Salaam-Zanzibar-Dar Es Salaam-Nairobi-Doha-Abu Dhabi itinerary of my first visit to Zanzibar.  Now, I say "perceived coolness" because these trips are also always plagued by endless hours in airports and on buses and in budget-challenged hotels and the thousand and one obstacles that make them decidedly less cool than they seem from the itinerary.  Still, if I can pull if off it would still be a pretty epic trip.

My students Michael Manfredi sent along this picture that he snapped of me in Zanzibar, which he simply refers to as King Coconut.  There may not be a less dignified king, ever, anywhere, at any time.  We were on the spice tour and the touts would make items out of coconut fronds and then "give" them to you.  I was just about as appreciative of the attention as the picture suggests.  Still, the spice tour was pretty cool, and I owe a post on that.

I'm still tracking down the corresponding citation on this picture, which I borrowed from a list of amazing global pictures that my ex-student and friend Tina posted.  As Wehmeyer would say, of course I would naturally end up wanting to go someplace with a desert.  This is a shot of the extraordinary sand dunes of the Namib Desert.