Christine, who also lives in Malawi, and I flew from Blantyre to Dar es Salaam on the 21st, and after spending one night in the city, we boarded the ferry to Zanzibar. The ferry docks in Stone Town, the main town on the island, which is really beautiful as the architecture is all a mix of Africa, Arab and Indian influences. We actually went straight up to Nungwi Beach where we plopped ourselves down for the next 10 days. Sounds a bit lazy to spend 10 days on the beach, but somehow I managed to fill my time :) The place we were staying was absolutely gorgeous. We had a great spot in some little bungalows which were on the beach, and the water was an amazing colour of turquoise... I hear that the actual beach and water on other parts of the island aren't really that great, so we did well at Nungwi - definitely recommended! The only problem was that the beach bar was right next door, attempting to sleep anytime before 2ish was like trying to sleep IN the bar, but like they say: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" Christine and I took this to heart, and made ourselves fixtures at Cholo's.
Most of the days were spend eating fresh fruit for breakfast, swimming, walking, reading, tanning, eating and more swimming, reading, tanning and eating. It was great that there was such a good crowd to hang out with - never boring! I haven't seen some of my IPMP friends since June, and we just fell back into the swing of things like no time had passed.
Christmas got off to a bit of a slow start, as we were all up VERY late on Christmas Eve. We did manage to have our own little Christmas morning though, complete with Secret Santa and a mini Christmas tree. Laura got me a lovely Kikoy (sarong) from Uganda, and some paper beads made by a women's group. A great choice as I was totally admiring the ones that she and Colleen had! For Christmas dinner, we had planned to go for a seafood buffet which kind of fell through because we didn't reconfirm our booking. Instead we went for dinner at a nice restaurant - good food but the waiter was actually laughably horrible... It is quite funny, looking back now..."The waiter who ruined Christmas..." lol.
We managed to get off the beach a couple of days and spend boxing day on a snorkelling trip to Mnemba Atoll. Mnemba island is a small private island just off the coast of Zanzibar, which has an $800 a night resort on it! We didn't get to stop on the island, of course but the reef around it was amazing - the coral wasn't that bright but there were loads of really cool tropical fish. We had a delicious lunch of ginger and garlic tuna on the boat too!
As Zanzibar is known as the Spice Island, we decided that we should probably go on one of the many Spice Tours on offer. I honestly haven't really thought much about where spices come from, so it was pretty educational - Cloves grow on big trees, Cardamom grown on vines on the ground, Turmeric is a root and cinnamon is rolls of tree bark. Cool. One of the guides even climbed up a coconut palm to get us a fresh coconut - I wasn't sure a coconut was worth the chance of this guy falling 50 meters to his death, but he was fine and the coconut was delicious! We had heard that sometimes on the tours, the guides make you spice wreaths - no spice wreaths for us, but better yet! Our guide made us frog necklaces out of palm leaves - Spice Frogs!
The same day, we went to look around Stone Town. We didn't really do any of the tourist things (eep! I think the first time I have been to a city and NOT visited the museum!)but rather just wandered around the shops and got lost is all the twisting alley ways. It really is an amazing place - loads of interesting history and a really cool blending of cultures. It's worth another look - maybe Zanzibar again in May? Interesting fact: Freddie Mercury from Queen is Zanzibarian and was born in Stone Town. There is a bar called Mercury's in honour of him, and we felt it fitting to honour him too, with a drink at sunset :) We stayed late in Stone Town specifically to go to the evening seafood market - I was flooded with memories of traveling in Asia - I LOVE evening food markets. This one was amazing, with loads of fresh fish - just pick what you want and they'll grill it up for you!
Our bungalows were quite close to Nungwi village as well, so we spend some time exploring the town. After quite a few nights of slightly overpriced food fro beach restaurants we discovered the very cheap and very delicious street food in town. Who doesn't love meat on a stick?
On New Years Eve, we went to a huge beach party at Kendwa Rocks. Kendwa Beach is just down from Numgwi beach, and has the most beautiful picture-postcard long stretch of white sand beach and clear water. The party was amazing, with fireworks at midnight, and as always an eclectic mix of travelers, Rasta men and Masai Warriors. lol. Good times. The last thing I wanted to do on January 1 was get on a ferry to leave the island.
Happy New Year Rupen!
I've done a lot of traveling, but it has been a long time since I've actually just gone on a HOLIDAY. It was fabulous, and I'm missing the island and my friends already... A great end to 2008. It has been a good year - finishing up school, moving to Africa and getting a start on what I want to do with the rest of my life. 2009 is looking good as well.
Happy New Year everyone!
For more pictures, make sure you check the link to my Picassa web album - there are some great ones!
http://picasaweb.google.ca/annaejbrown
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