Zanzibar

So the safari was over, we flew back to Nairobi and then on to Zanzibar, now I have to admit I love flying and I'm not a nervous passenger (unlike Cath) but even I was a scared landing in Zanzibar, I kept thinking any minute now the pilot is going to slow down, but he didn't, we hit the runway full pelt, the plane swerved all over the runway, then I kept thinking again..... any minute now he's going to put on the brakes......but no we seemed to be going full speed for ages and I seemed to remember that the island of Zanzibar wasn't THAT big so the runway couldn't be very long. However we did eventually come to a stop, when I left the aircraft I was tempted to kiss the ground like the Pope but did stop myself. We left the airport, found a taxi and went to our Hotel in Stonetown, the greeting was wonderful, another hot towel, another cocktail, and as we had been delayed for four hours in Nairobi an apology that all the places to eat were closed. Still we were tired and it was almost 11pm so we went to our room, grabbed a quick shower and went to bed. The next morning we got up and went down to breakfast, the hotel was beautiful, very Moroccan in style, the breakfast room overlooked a lovely white, icing sugar, sandy beach, and we were given champagne and a wonderful breakfast, while we were eating we watched the boats as they went past.

It was extremely humid in Zanzibar and I suppose doing a walking tour at midday was a stupid idea but unfortunately we were only in Stonetown for one day, I have never sweated so much in my life ( I know women are supposed to "slightly glow" but trust me I was sweating like a glassblower!) the architecture was beautiful if a little run down, the people amazingly friendly, we walked through the town, went into a small museum, and then got to the Anglican Church which was on the sight of the slave market.

We were showed the room where the slaves were kept, and told stories of how badly they were treated, so many were put into the rooms that many of them suffocated, we went into the church and saw the location of the whipping post, there the slaves were whipped and if they cried out their price would drop as they were classed as weak, if they didn't cry the price would go up as they would be strong slaves. It made me sad, and I was glad to get outside, we were then shown the monument to the slaves.

We left the slave market, and then our guide said he would be taking us to the local food market, now being a "foodie" I as quite excited by this, however we were over half a mile away from the market when you first caught the smell, mostly very bad fish, we got to the market, I told Cath to breath through her mouth, we saw fish being gutted, the blood running down onto the floor we were walking on, there were flies everywhere on the fish, I was hoping our hotel didn't use that market as it's preferred supplier! After the fish, we moved onto the meat, exactly the same hanging meat covered in flies, blood everywhere, it was like a scene from the Texas chainsaw massacre, I was VERY glad when we moved onto the spice, fruit and vegetable section. The spices were wonderful and extremely cheap, cinnamon, saffron, nutmeg, mace everything you could think of.

The tour was over, we returned to our hotel had a very welcome drink and then got our guide, who was also our taxi driver to take us on to the Breezes Resort for 5 days of sun, sand, sea and relaxation.

There isn't much to write about Breezes because that's all we did, spent the mornings on the beach, walked out over the reef to watch the fish, had lunch, spent the afternoons by the pool, listened to Ipods, had dinner and relaxed. We met some lovely people, had some lovely food, some great entertainment, far too much wine, and an awful lot of sleep. It was the perfect end to a perfect holiday.