Day 31

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We spent the night at Dar Es Salaam on our last day with the truck, on a campsite at the beach. The weather was very hot and humid and so I upgraded to a banda (beach hut) because I couldn't be bothered to put up my tent! There were two other trucks from the same company there with us (and they stuck with us in Zanzibar as well) so we had a big party on the beach with all of them.

The next day we got a ferry from our campsite across to the main ferry port, and then a ferry over to Zanzibar Island - it was a very rough and choppy crossing, and a few people were seasick. When we arrived we travelled straight to our accomodation at Kendra beach near Nungwi, where we all stayed in gorgeous bungalows - luxury! The beach is absolutely gorgeous with really soft white sand, and the most amazingly turqouise sea - I have been swimming in it quite a few times as the temperature is absolutely perfect. The weather at the beach has been pretty hot but with a nice sea breeze so that we don't get too overheated. I spent two days relaxing at the beach, getting massages and henna from the muslim ladies, and just generally chilling out. We had a 'booze cruise' on the second evening which consisted of as many drinks as we could drink on a dhow (sail boat) going out to the nearest island and back again - good fun!

After three nights at the beach we travelled to Stone Town (the main port in Zanzibar) and had a spice tour on the way. We were shown around one of the spice farms on the island, where they showed us lots of different spices in their natural form, and tried to get us to identify them - sometimes more successfully than others. They also took us to look at what used to be the slave market in Stone Town, and then gave us a meal at a local restuarant of spiced rice and fish.
In the afternoon we had a wander round Stone Town and looked at the shops, and went out to the fish market in the evening for our last group meal together. The fish market consisted of lots of little stalls with all sorts of seafood on them, which you chose and they barbequed - I tried some octopus and some tuna kebabs, both of which I enjoyed, and then I had a chocolate and banana Zanzibar pizza, which is a bit like a crepe but more crunchy (nothing like a pizza at all).

In the morning I travelled back to the beach along with a couple of other girls from the truck, and the rest of the group headed back to the truck to continue down to South Africa, or went to the airport to get a plane home. I'm in Zanzibar on the beach now until the 18th, when I will travel back to Stone Town to spend a night before getting a flight to Mombassa the next morning.

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