How to sum up the place. Spices, hot, lovely people, good fish, dirty streets, pretty stonetown, bargains shopping, nice coffee, lovely beaches.
Went on a tour of a government run spice area with Lynne and Darryl. It was not regimental growth as expected but a random covering of all sorts of exotic spices. You could smell the spices in the air when you entered Zanzibar. Whilst going round the tour George was weaving us some gifts – head dresses, rings, a tie for Darrys and nicklaces of frogs made from banana leaves.
At the end of the tour we were offered every kind of fruit you can imagine including, pineabpple, jack fruit, banana, golden mango, Zanzibar apple, grapefruit etc. Then a man went shinning up the nearest coconut tree to cut down some coconut for us to drink. No harness or safety rope just shinned up. He then proceeded to cut the outer edge of the coconut away – made us some spoons, cut the top off and asked us to drink the contents, then to eat the nut inside which was slimy and soft quite unlike coconut I have previously had. After the spices we visited a cave (Coral Cave) where they used to keep slaves once slavery had been banned by the British.
Prison Island
Friday took a boat to Prison Island to see the Tortoises which are very large and not indigenous but smelly! There are lots of them. We got a motor boat over to the island (about 20 mins) then had to wade to the shore. Paradise Island used to be a sanctuary for people with different illnesses and it was used to quarantine those travelling to Tanzania by boat who were seriously ill before they reached the mainland. Went to Africa House in the evening to watch the sunset. Lots of blue jelly fish which bite but are apparently not poisonous.
Stonetown – Night market
Went into Stonetown one night for the night market. This is loads of stalls all set up selling the days catch on BBQ or in omelettes or pancakes etc. They had all manner of things to eat which were warmed up on the grill before being given to you. A very novel experience.
Stonetown during the day was a bit disappointing for me it is a labyrinth of small passages and alleyways down which are numerous shops all selling similar wares where you can barter the prices down to more or less 1/3 of the starting price. There are lots of elaborately carved front doors in the town which add to the charm. The Zanzibar coffee house sells lovely coffee and is worth a visit as are many of the old colonial style hotels in the centre.
Christmas day
Pongwe – a lovely deserted beach where we spent a day at the Queen of Sheba hotel.
Swimming with Dolphins – boxing day – quite unconventional but good fun and amazing to see so many dolphins in one place.
New Year’s Eve – bought three different types of cheeses in Kigali (a rare and expensive treat and not one we do often without a fridge!) and a bottle of wine (another rare treat at £10 per bottle) and played charades, chatted and made our own fireworks with paper bags and watched the countdown Rwandan time before singing and dancing around the room singing Auld Langsyne.
We had a great guide called Francois who has worked in the national park for 31 years. He showed us how they peel the bark off the trees to get water from the stems and told us all about the trees and flowers that the gorrillas ate.
