Day 01 - Stone Town

A good day scouting around Stone Town - this place is very confusing to the newly arrived....we managed to walk for 30 minutes and arrived back at our hotel thinking we were about a mile away...have got much better now but still not too sure at night (no street lights)...

Went down to the forodhani gardens for some cheap eats...loads of barbecued food, chapatis, zanzibar pizza ( a little omelette full of, er, stuff), prawns on skewers, meat, cats (not on skewers, just wandering around)...a really lively place where even the masai come to sell their curios.

Jon got a bit burned but that's what comes from walkng around in bright sunshine all day without any suncream...lesson learned.

Went to the tourist office and booked a boat trip to prison island for some snorkelling and to see the tortoises swim..should be good if our captain turns up!

Moving to the Karibu Inn tomorrow...what a comedown after the Tembo - but we knew it would never last.

More updates on the tortoises tomorrow - plans to go to Nungwi on thursday....

Day 0 - London to Nairobi

The start of the trip..we spent a lot of time trying to get through security at Heathrow, discarding liquids and anything dangerous like contact lens lotion, only to be allowed to buy more when we got 'airside'. What a con...

After being told we would need to pick up our luggage at Nairobi, we went through customs, got the entry stamp and waited at the carousel...and waited....and waited....as they turned out the lights (actually the power did go at one point...Heathrow, all is forgiven)...we realised the clerk has been wrong and our bags were going direct to zanzibar...at least we hoped they were....

After a mammoth 6 hour layover in Jomo Kenyatta airport...lots of nodding dogs around...we got the express to Zanzibar and landed...to be greeted by the entire taxi force of Zanzibar town...in blistering heat and without any sign of the taxi we'd booked to pick us up from the airport..

After a few phone calls, the taxi was flying to meet us (literally, after the return journey when the driver said 'no, seat belt for me, not for you'...we even had to pull over to let the President of zanzibar pass (going the other way!).

All the taxi drivers seem to treat other road users with complete disdain and using the car horn is a national sport in stone town...

Anyway, after quick swim and sleep, we headed into stone town for a well earned beer and now we're off for food...

til tomorrow...

J And E

Saturday 23rd september 2006 - Day -1

A few pictures of the removals team after a sweaty afternoon moving all our gear from London to Chichester...

We leave for Nairobi at 8pm tomorrow night...