Hotel Ras Michamvi Zanzibar

... unpopular. The Swahili rebelled repeatedly until the Sultan retreated to Zanzibar. Slavery, ivory and the spice trade made Zanzibar one of the richest cities in the world. When the British destroyed the slave trade the Sultan finally lost power. Upon gaining independance from the British in the 1960s Zanzibar united with Tanganyika, and formed the state of Tanzania. There are numerous activities available including a tour around this ...

... and chocolate pizza(more like a pancake). One word - WOW!!! Tried to find some after dinner drink place big enough to accommodate like 15 people but had to break up a bit. 10 of us settled on a hotel bar which was a bad choice. We kind of had to ask for them to seat us and then as soon as we sat down a local guy from the bar asked all of us if he could sit down. We kind of looked around at each other and finally said okay to him. He pulled in a chair ...

... which I didn’t know beforehand. Tried a few of the fruits and some teas: vanilla, lemongrass with vanilla essence and massala. Watched a local climb a coconut tree and singing his song.

Had lunch in the village, it was good and the local kids came around to see us.

Went back to the hotel and looked around the curio shops, bought myself a beautiful sunset dhow painting for $30, went back to the African House Hotel ...

... a moustache and an impressive black and gold outfit was reading out a Press statement to the nervous gathering. The bad news was there would be no public screenings of films. There was to be no music, no entertainment, and no children’s events. I was 34 but felt 12; back at my primary school convent school, listening to a Catholic nun with a moustache. Oh, but there would be classes - I mean film workshops.

“What about all the bands and ...

hey all!!!
Mambo from Zanzi!!
after a sea sick of a ride yesterday on the ferry, i wasnt bad but nearly bad one of the worst ferry rides ever apparently its worst on the wy back, man i hope not!! the ferry to Zanzi leaving the port in Dar took 2hrs and lests just say hollywood filsm are 1000 times better than african films, ive never watched sucvh a poor film in my life and im not the only one saying that either mind you!!

Zanzibar, Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania courters

... t even learnt this most crucial bit of info. So, I quickly ask my drivers what "no thank you" is in Swahili. And after much "No thank you" "No, no thank you" "No i'm not interested" - "Hapana asanti" does the trick.

We drive out of Stone Town (the "capital" of Zanzibar Island), Buri, the guide tells me a bit of the people and the island history, but it's hot, thank goodness he had bottled water and a damp cloth at hand, I'm hungry, tired, and as ...

... in the end. We had a clutch of taxi drivers hanging on to us yelling their prices as we tried to look at the map and walk. Jim kept telling them to leave us alone, and they dropped away one by one. There was one man who was very polite and really backed off when we told him to, and I was somewhat impressed that he listened. Later, however, I saw a man hand him a badge that said, "Official Taxi Driver" and I realised he's yet another scammer. The tourist guy told us not to ...

... to Zanzibar. Sandy climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with another group as a medical research subject on altitude sickness.] We left the lodge at 3:30 with all our swimming gear. The boat that we sailed on was a twenty-two foot locally built dhow sailboat, but it did have a small out board motor. We motored out into deeper water then hoisted the sail. The guides hoisted the sail using a block and tackle. It was really cool. We sailed around to the other ...

... around $1000 a night. We borrowed a camera from the dive shop and did some underwater photography. This was more difficult than we thought as you need to get quite close to them to get some good pictures. Small fish does not like big fish with lots of bubbles to close to them - go figure! We dived for a total of 3 days and saw so many cool and funny fish - really super experience. In the ...

... as I was trying to get my BCD off in the water. Luckily one of the guys came to my rescue and stretched me out and I finally clambered on board.....however, I was soon to be not so lucky! As soon as we got on the boat a dolphin pod started swimming around us. We all snorkeled up and quickly got in the water. I swam within 5 metres of these beautiful creatures (and hopefully have a couple of photos on the disposable camera to prove it). The highlight was ...