Zanzibar - Jiggy Jiggy Robert

I met Robert about two nights ago at the grill market outside of the Old Fort. He was talking to some South Africans who I had met on the bus earlier in the day. He's from Santa Cruz, California so we chattted for a bit about surfing and took in a movie at the Zanzibar International Film Festival.

I ran into him again last night at the same market on my way to grab a sundown drink at Mercury's (in honor of Freddie Mercury of Queen). I invited him along and we grabbed a drink and dinner. Robert is a 54-year old surfer guy who does cement work on interiors (for example, he'll make a countertop or sink). He's got floppy gray hair cut like a old surf bum and talks like one too. Since he runs his own business he'll work for a bit and then travel the world. He told me he recently completed the founder of O'Neil surf boards house in Santa Cruz. I got a full description of it over dinner.

Afterwards we headed to the film festival. It was the last night of films. We took in a really good Danish film called Overcome. It's about a boy who challenges a schoolmaster back in the day of corporal punishment.

Robert had been talking about this club called Bwawani. He said that was the happening place on Sunday night. I was pretty tired after the film but I gathered that Robert was not the type of guy to roll into a place on his own and would rather someone go wtih him (He wanted to rent a car and drive to the beaches in the north but no one else watned to go with him.) Robert promised to pay for the cab ride out there and I said I'd check it out. He told me there would be a good mix of locals, tourists and "a good place to meet ladies."

We arrived at this place and it was all locals except for two other white guys. The place was pretty cool because it was on a roof top with a huge outdoor pool. However, the pool did not have water in it and was casual roped off. Gotta love African safety standards.

Now, Robert claimed not to be a sex tourist but man he has a nose for prositutes. These two girls came up to us right away and Robert just started chatting. Robert ordered soem more food and then we sat down at this table. The men sat across from the men and the ladies across from each other. It was funny because the two girls were trying to figure out how interested I was and I wasn't at all. They decided to try a switch and see if that worked. The one talking to me talked to Robert etc but nope it didn't. Not my style.

Then all of a sudden Robert tells the ladies, "We can't be with you all night. We want to talk to other girls." Not two minutes after making his pronouncement, Robert walks off and snags another one. Then he says to me, "Let's go downstairs to the disco." We headed down but the cover charge was a bit too steep for me and well Robert already got what he wanted. He did some negotiating and we shared a cab home. Robert and his girl hopped out at his hotel and the cab driver mumbled something. I asked him what he said and he snickered and mumbled "Jiggy jiggy" as he drove me to my hostel.