Quick update on Zanzibar Arrival

Hi All,

 

We are now in Zanzibar  - it is Wednesday evening around 9pm...which is Noon Central Time.  We've had an interesting (good interesting) past couple of days as we toured DAR for 3/4 of yesterday before catching our 3:40pm flight to Zanzibar.

 

DAR was cool....and I have a great blog typed out on my mobile...ready to post when there is wifi, but our hotel only has normal PC connection in the lobby - so we will be a little out of sequence once I can upload that posting.

 

Meanwhile, in Zanzibar, we have a nice hotel room with a balcony overlooking the pool, beach, and the Indian Ocean.  When we checked into the hotel, they gave us a suspicious look when assiging us a room...and we got to the room  to find that it has 2 single beds in the room...each with its own mosquito netting.  We tried to switch to a room with one bed, but it wasn't available...but we'll have a LOT of up close and personal time in a tent for about a week...just  a couple of days from now, so that will counterbalance the separation for these 2 nights.

 

Anyhow, Zanzibar is known for a few things..one is spices, another is the former slave trade, and the last is the nice beaches.  Last night we walked around the town and found a  nice hotel bar with a view of the ocean where it's  considered the best place to viea a sunset on the island.  We checked it out - was nice - and a the bar a woman introduced herself to us as a journalist writing a story about people's reasons for coming to Zanzibar...and she'd overheard us talking and said she needed to find an American for input into the story.  We shared some entertaining anecdotes with her, and we got along very well so we grabbed a beverage with her and chatted more - turns out that she's from Australia and has been taking a "walkabout" Africa for the past 4 months.  Anyhow, it was an interesting conversation.

 

Then we fell asleep early and got up for a good hotel breakfast followed by getting registered for a group "Spice Tour" trip on the island followed by a Stone Town Tour.  More to come on those shortly...