Zanzibar and Home

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We spent a couple of days just chilling out in Nairobi before leaving for Zanzibar. We spent this time sleeping a lot and sorting out our blog. We visited a shopping centre once or twice but didn't venture far as we didn't know our way around and didn't fancy risking it! Dan was also not feeling too peaky for a couple of days, possibly a bit of the bug the others had had but we were just thankful that it had happened once the trip was over and that it wasn't too serious.

We left the Comfort Hotel on the 9th and headed for the airport where we would catch our plane to Zanzibar. Unfortunately when we arrived we were told that our plane had been delayed (great!) and would be leaving about 4 hours late instead of at 12pm. This put quite a dampener on our spirits as we were so looking forward to seeing my folks and just being able to properly relax. So we wasted as much time as possible in the curio shops and finally found a seat in which to relax. Something was niggling at me about the change of our flight time so I went to double check at the gate and low and behold our plane was boarding at that moment and we had to rush to get on it!! Lucky I did check or who knows when we'd have gotten to Zanzibar!! The flight was fine and only took a couple of hours and then we had finally arrived in Zanzibar! Everything else smoothly the other side and we were soon on our way in the car mum and dad had booked for us. However, things turned decidedly worse when I began to feel terribly ill. We had to stop the car a few times for fresh air but eventually arrived at the hotel. Mum and dad were waiting for us and didn't heed my warning to stay away from me!!

The hotel was absolutely stunning! We were right on the beach which was beautiful white sand and turquoise sea. The grounds were full of palm trees and there was a covered area for the bar and restaurant and lovely pool as well. Our room was amazing! A great bit double bed, air con (so Dan was pleased!), balcony with an excellent view over the hotel grounds and a lovely bathroom. I pretty much spent the first couple of days just in the room but luckily we had some penicillin from India still so I took them and came around pretty quick. Unfortunately my Dad didn't have the same luck! He obviously caught whatever I had and it did him in for our whole time there which was an awful shame!

The rest of our time in Zanzibar was spent relaxing. We laid out in the sun, played quite a bit of tennis, went to the gym a couple of times (I was desperately trying to lose the weight I'd gained while travelling but it wasn't helped that my mum had brought out a big tin of Cadbury Flakes and two huge bags of chocolate M&Ms!!) and had a couple of walks down the beach (though it was pretty hard going when we were accosted every minute by someone trying to sell us something). One afternoon Dan and I went out on a boat thingy, well it wasn't really a boat but was something with a sail....as you can see I'm not too sure what this thing was but it floated on water and we sat on it and Dan sailed it around so it was good fun anyway! We also all took a day trip into the town, Stonetown, which was certainly interesting! The trip there was about an hour but we got stuck in traffic (!) because a car had gotten itself wedged on this little bridge that we needed to cross!! When we finally arrived we had a stroll around some curio shops, were again accosted by every person trying to sell us something and quickly ended up in the nicest hotel we could find having some lunch! Mum and dad really didn't enjoy our day out too much and I can see why their not so keen to go back to Africa, it's just a shame that they saw its worse side first!

After our week in Zanzibar we were all ready to go home. Dad was fed up with being ill and one of the waiters had decided that my parents were now his new parents and kept writing them cards and stuff! Just a tad strange!! Dan and I were also ready to head home, though actually a little nervous about it as well!

The day before we caught our flight for home we packed up and headed to Stonetown where we caught the ferry back to the mainland. The ferry was pretty decent though we stood out like 4 sore thumbs, but seemed to take forever!! We finally docked and tried to find our booked taxi we were accosted by dozens of people who wanted to carry our bags and take us to our hotel instead! It was a little stressful trying to keep an eye on all our bags and they disappeared off in all directions but luckily it wasn't long before our actual taxi did arrive and he certainly wasn't going to let anyone else take his fare!

The hotel was very nice but we were all too tired at this point to really appreciate it. We got showered then headed down to dinner which was again very good but a little slow in arriving and when it did we were almost asleep! That night we all slept well and didn't want to get have to up for our flight the next morning!

When we arrived at the airport we were faced with extremely long queues due to the computer system having crashed so everyone was having to be checked in on paper! This didn't bode well but it didn't actually take too long before we were at the front of the queue. We did have a little trouble with our bags as Dan's carry on was too large (he ended up just carry the contents on their own!) and they said that I had to put my rather large wooden giraffe in the hold. Now there was no way that I was going to do that as it'd end up with no ears or legs! So Dan battled with the check out person and point blank refused to put it in the hold! There wasn't much they could say to that, which is why it's four legs remain intact!

The flight was very pleasant. We were seated in premium economy class which meant we had lots of leg room (even more than mum and dad due to our seats!) and a stash of chocolate goodies which we could help ourselves to whenever we liked (unfortunately I didn't realise this until we were almost home!).

Arriving in Heathrow was extremely weird! While travelling I thought that I'd be really excited by it but in truth I felt quite weird. Dan's folks were waiting for us to land and it was great to see them. We all headed back to our place and then out for a meal, though my parents headed straight home as dad was still feeling rather poorly.

The weirdest thing about returning home after 9months away was that we had changed SO much and yet everything at home was exactly the same (apart from our new kitchen😊!

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