Spiders in Tanzania

There were many sights Stone Town  that I might get around to sharing someday.  However the one thing they had that definitely caught my eye was giant spiders (at least in comparison to US spiders).

The first one that I saw was in Stone Town, the oldest settlement on Zanzibar.  We were walking along when I spotted a spider in the middle of his/her web and decided it was photo op time.  The result is below. A person passing by told me to watch out, that it was a black widow.  However I doubt it since I have never heard about them being large.  I have yet to Google images of black widows but I will if I remember.

After shooting this picture I walked about 50 feet further and there was another one just as big hanging out in the middle of another web but I passed up the this opportunity.
Two days later at my hotel, I came across two more big spiders in the same web.  The first picture below is another closeup of one of the spiders.  He was just as evil looking as the one in Stone Town

The next picture is not so close up so that you can see both big spiders, but if you zoom into the picture you can see a much smaller version of the type of spider farther down in the picture.  There were even smaller babies in the web but I did not get them in the picture.  You can also get an idea of the size of these guys by their size in relation to the leaves in the picture.  I am just glad that they did not decide to come and visit me in my hotel room.