The Ruins!

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Part two of my first trip to Zanzibar! We were very busy the few days we were there meeting with Zanzibar Airport officials and consultants from France and South Africa to work on the various projects we have on the go there. As I mentioned before, Zanzibar's main industry is tourism and as part of the development of the country they wish to improve their Airport facilities to be pleasant for tourists. Currently, the airport is very basic so we are consulting on the items necessary to get it to standards western tourists would be happy with.

In Zanzibar, time is very fluid and meetings seem to start late and run late and I found meeting with people well after 8 and having dinner at 10 PM. This left very little time for the usual tourist activities, but I did make it out to have a business dinner at the Mercury. Zanzibar is very proud of having been the birthplace of Freddy Mercury. The food was excellent I had a local dish called Kuku Wa Kipaku which was basically a stewed chicken coconut and spice curry over rice. YUMMY!!

I did get the chance to go to the beautiful ruins near the hotel before I left, I let Amina decide where to drive me so I could see something before I jumped on the plane. We only had an hour to explore the beautiful coastal hotel and the ruins. The buildings were destroyed in 1964 when Zanzibar had it's revolution. On January 12th of next year they will celebrate their 50 years of independence and so that is the timeline for the project we're working on now! I'll let you enjoy the photos and will update you on my status back in Nairobi tomorrow!

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Photos

Zanzibar Drainage Covers..
are even interesting to me! You can see my gold pedicure too :) one of the luxuries I allowed myself while I waited for meetings to happen

Morning View
Overlooking the ocean while we have breakfast at the hotel on the rooftop patio

Dad in the Window
Waiting for meetings under the trees...

The Atrium at Seyyida
The walk through that beautiful little garden leads to our room.

The Tembo Hotel
In Swahili Tembo means "Elephant"

My Bedroom
In the evenings they come through and pull the mosquito netting, I just loved getting into this bed!

The Sultan's Cemetary
It's been a long time since this was used or taken care of so the feral cats have no problem taking refuge from the sun there. this is the view from my window at the hotel

Stone Town Streets at Night
This is the view from an awesome Indian Restaurant we had yet another meeting at, it threatened to rain all evening!

Blue Crabs on the Pier
I just loved chasing these crabs around, there was a bunch of them all trying to avoid me but I caught this one on camera. If I had more time I would have rolled my pants up and waded around

Dad and Amina
you can go all through the ruins, i'm sure it's completely unsafe but it was fascinating with staircases to no where and little crumbling rooms!

Comments

[Dancing Dave]

Ah...the memories
On a truck safari from Nairobi to Jo'burg my wife and I had 4 days break from tents and booked the Presidential Suite at the Tembo...ah...the memories. You have yet again transported me to Zanzibar...to Mercury's...to Stone Town. Thank you. I look forward to your next instalment.