The Spice Island of Zanzibar

It's a tough job, but someone has to do it...
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High expectations today - off to Zanzibar for four nights, three in the north of the island and one in Stone Town to the south.

Our trip leader had arranged for the camp site staff bus to take us to the ferry port for us to cross from the peninsular back to the main part of Dar. The bus was pretty ramshackle and we couldn't quite work out why one of the staff was riding with us in the back of the bus until we got to the port and the door dropped off. Turned out his job was to hold the door on whilst travelling.

A touch of style at the Africa Hotel.
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We travelled across to Zanzibar with around a thousand boxed live chickens - the sort they feed live to the snakes at Snake Park so more a holiday by the seaside for them than an animal rights issue really.

When we got there we needed to go through passport control even though Zanzibar is technically part of Tanzania and then got a taxi up to the hotel. What a pleasant surprise. After the flea pit  of the nice before, the place we've come to is a real delight. Nice rooms, fans, mossie nets, big showers, it's great. And at only 20$ per person per night, its a bargain. right on the beach with beautiful Indian Ocean water.

The view from the terrace of the Africa Hotel.
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Darren, the trip leader warned us to watch out for the sea urchins which was accurate but unhelpful. What he should have done was warned us to wear lead boots like deep sea divers. First time in the sea I got spines in both feet and two of the others in the group also got spined.

As I limped manfully and hugely bravely back to the hotel I came across some locals who insisted on fetching the local doctor and from nowhere, James turned up. He turned out to be the local bush doctor and proceeded to squeeze and poke the spines like you would a splinter and then applied a combination of pawpaw paste and lighter fuel to the spines. He promised they would stop hurting within five minutes, which they did and that they would disappear overnight.

Stonetown - a world heritage site.
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So anyway, next morning it was out with the needle and tweezeers!

To be fair to James though, I needed the needle and tweezers for the spines we'd missed the previous day. The ones he treated were fine.

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Update Friday, 21st December

We have just had three lovely days in the north of the island at Amaan Hotel at Nungwei, followed by an overnight stay at the Safari Lodge Hotel in Stonetown. It cost us $15 per person in Stonetown - and even that was a rip off. The hotel room was clean enough but felt damp and Stonetown itself, although a World Heritage Sight, is a bit of what can only be called a dump. For a far better experience, have a look at The Africa Hotel which has a great terrace and bar over-looking the sea

We went out to Mercurys for dinner last night, a restaurant themed on Freddie Mercury from Queen who was born here and lived here for about three weeks before moving abroad. Vastly over-priced, and poor quality. We should have known really. It was recommended to the group by nineteen year old Australians  (its always Australians) who think culture is a six pack on the beach.

Come to think of it, so does Rachael, the first person in the group to score. She  was caught out coming back to her room at six in the morning because Annette was outside recovering from her seasickness from a boat trip we had done the previous day.

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Well thatès it. Finally managed to upload some photos from an internet cafe.  Sorry if they are a bit dark, they seem to lose some of the brightness in the compression process but at least youèll have a flavour of what happening out here.

Off to the ferry back to Dar es Salam.

Cheers

Dave and Annette