Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar

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Our shack on the beach at Dar Es Salaam was across the harbor from the ferry docks so we had to cross on a short shuttle ferry then catch the fast ferry to Zanzibar. Fortunately it was Sunday morning so the shuttle was not handling work travelers. The fast ferry was fast and smooth and comfortable but very full. Zanzibar is two hours away across open ocean. Kayla and Richard stayed inside and watched Rowan Atkinson in The thin Blue Line on TV so the time passed.

We arrived in Stonetown and were met by Hamim our guide. He had a waiting Mini bus to get to our hotel. Then we all agreed to take the "Spice Tour" for $25 each. This started with lunch at a local diner. It had good tasty hot food. Richard was not able to check out the kitchen because the waiters turned immediately right through the kitchen door. Nobody smoking, mostly male clients and all male waiters in tee shirts and baggy pants. 

Then onto a five acre spice farm wrested from an Arab owner during the 1963 revolution and now run by Africans. Our guide Ali was funny and very knowledgeable on the spices and their uses. Clove, cinnamon, pepper corn, cardamom, nutmeg, lemon grass, tumeric, vanilla beans, ginger all growing in small patches. We ate fresh and tasty custard apple, pineapple, passion fruit, drank 3 types of tea, and saw coconuts cut from above and cut open for the milk and meat. Great value for a "tour".

We had only enough energy for an excellent Indian restaurant and then to bed in a real room with a real ensuite shower and toilet with a seat. In the alleyway outside our hotel front door sat two security guards in army dress and rifles over their shoulders. Tanzania takes the security of tourists very seriously. Our room had windows with bars and mosquito net hanging over the bed. We made sure to take our daily Malaria pills.    

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