sea sickness, rain and spice tour

The trip to Zanzibar started with a boat trip, where Karl tried to get away paying residents prices (22,000 Tsh/11 pounds) instead of the foreign fare (US$35/18 pounds) - but we were caught when they inspected the tickets and our residency permit was requested and obviously we did not have it and were therefore sent back to the ticket office. As Karl had 15 mins he ended up paying the difference in TSh at an exchange rate of 1400 instead of the banks 1200Tsh. The moral of the story is be honest and pay in US$ in the first place! After all this we had the joy of sea sickness - since we found out that June and July are renowned for rough seas to Zanzibar - would have been nice to know!

girl guides

I was expecting Zanzibar to be a lot like Lamu in Kenya - since they are both Swahili towns. They are in the fact they have narrow streets , similar architecture and the way of life, but from a tourists point of view Stonetown is a lot larger, with many more tourists, restaurants, souvenir shops and prices to boot. US$45 was the cheapest room we could find and meals were about US$10+, which isn't too bad if you are only there for 2 weeks but it is a lot more than we are used to paying. Also, I guess it was a little shocking to be in the midst of so many white faces after all our travels. It definitely didn't feel like a working town like Lamu did. Karl thought it was too brash and had changed a lot since he was there 12 years ago and really didn't like it. That was probably due to the beer costing between 2500 and 4000 TSh depending on the place you went!

kids in zanzibar

It was , however, beautiful watching the sunset having a drink on the seafront of a posh restaurant - with all the dhows in the foreground.

I went on one of the well known spice tours with 60 other people! it was interesting to see all the spices , but I think that the old guys who used to do the tours that were funny and made the stories have all retired now so it just is a money making scheme. perhaps I am a little cynical... since it was informative and well done. The afternoon we were taken to the slave caves but it wasn't until we were underground in the dark trying to walk to the back of the cave with one torch between 10 that they thought we wanted to walk the 3km to the road!!! Funnily enough we decided to head back up to the beach!

lipstick

pineapple

relaxing having a beer

slave trade museum

street sellers

sunset in stonetown

back street