Advertisement
Published: July 11th 2013
Edit Blog Post
As I write this blog we are sitting at the Zanzibar international airport ready to head to Nairobi for one night before we board the homeward bound plane tomorrow afternoon so I guess this will be one of the last blogs for this trip. You can all sigh a collective sigh of relief! I wil catch you all up with what's been happening since the last time.
After we finished a night at the snake park we headed down towards the East coast of Tanzania and the city of Dar Es Salaam (Dar) which took two days of continuos travel. We arrive on the outskirts of Dar at about midday and were told we had about 10 kms to travel to the seaside camp ground so should be there by 3pm? The population of Dar is about 3 million and they all like to drive so for the last ten kms it took us three hours to travel. If ever I complain about Auckland traffic again please remind me about this. For some reason the traffic moves off from the lights fast and then stops for a break to recover before the next sudden acceleration to the next
set of lights which eventually change about ten minutes later when you again speed to the next set and wait again...you get the picture.
We eventually arrived at a gat camp ground right on the beach so had a well deserved swim in the Indian ocean before dinner. The following morning we caught a passenger ferry across to Stonetown on the island of Zanzibar. The previous day it had become very apparent that we had entered an area with a strong Muslim population and Zanzibar is no different . Apparently 80 to 90% of the population are Muslim which mean a couple of things. The first is that the woman in our group had to be real careful what they wore. I.e. no short shorts and the second is that if you are planning on sleeping in past 5am then you are out of luck as the call to worship is broadcasted on loud speaker systems right throughout the country.
Stonetown is an amazing place where East meets West which in turn meets Africa! The town has a long history of Arab trading and hence is very Arabic in flavour. The town itself is
like a rabbit warren of small alleys interconnected by bazaars and other shops and as we found out in a real hurry if you want to go somewhere fast you need to have either a local to guide you or just do like the locals and relax!! Zanzibar is world famous for spice production and so on our first afternoon we took a spice tour. We drove into the inner island and visited plantations which grow a variety of spices. It was amazing to see where all the spices that we buy in little sockets come from and some were quite a surprise. On the way back into town we visited the site of the last slave market in Zanzibar which was in the basement of a local Church. It was a very sobering visit and one which we won't forget as we also visited a monument to the slaves just outside the Church which was very poignant.
The next day we sailed across to an island off the coast called prison island, where they have the biggest population of tortoises and of course as the name says, an old colonial prison. The tortoises were amazing and
there were literally hundreds of them ranging in age from babies to ones that they estimate to be over one hundred and fifty years old. We also got to do a spot of snorkeling off the coast which was great. That night Anita wanted to go to the night food markets in old Stonetown so after much discussion about the ills of buying street food we decided that "what the heck" and so sampled some of the local fare of spicy food etc. The following morning we were all still in one piece so all good!
For the next three days to finish off the holiday we headed up to a beach on the northern tip of Zanzibar called Nungwi beach and stopped at a shabby little resort?? called Double Tree Resort. This place was owned by a little known hotel chain called......oh yeah The Hilton!! Hey I guess Steph probably deserves some kind of nice treatment after 7 odd weeks of camping. It was a nice treat to have flushing toilets and the amazing thing was that when you turned on the shower this real hot liquid stuff called hot water came out...who'd have thought!?
The last three days we have just lounged about on the beach and done nothing at all except an evening sunset cruise of a local dhow boat. The beaches there were fantastic with the whitest sand and the warmest water possible and it was a nice break to just kick back and relax with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Which brings me back to the Zanzibar international airport departure lounge where we sit awaiting a flight to Nairobi.
So by the time you read this we will probably be either in another departure lounge or in the air from Nairobi to Joburg to Perth to Auckland, where we should arrive at 5 am on Sunday morning after a series of flights over a 30 hour period..Can't wait for the jet lag!!
So onwards and upwards and homeward we go!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.239s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 22; qc: 94; dbt: 0.0819s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb