TANZANIA & ZANZIBAR
16th to 31st October 2008

Part 3 - Zanzibar - East Coast - Jambiani
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Thursday 23rd October

Our new hotel the Casa del Mar on the East Coast of Zanzibar.
Everyone had their own little house or rooms, and all that the hotel had was one very big room which doubled up as Reception, Non alcoholic bar, dining room and general lounge. This is looking up into the roof.
Friday 24th October

We set off at 10.00 am on a cultural tour. Our guide walked us around the village in the heat for almost three hours. Our first visit was to the school which serves the whole village including its various suburbs and has around 1,200 children aged from 7 to 19.

  
Each class has around 40 children. some classes are mixed and some are boys or girls only.

The teachers are appointed by the government who pay them a very meagre salary. Often one teacher will be supervising two classes. The Government can suddenly move a teacher to another school.  
Next we were taken to see the hospital where we were taken around by the chief doctor and were most impressed.
 
This is the doctor who works with herbs and plants. Skills handed down through the generations in his family. He and the doctors at the hospital work together as a partnership in perfect harmony.
This lady was most skilfully weaving strands to form one of the strips of the rush carpet seen below our guide.
Saturday 25th October

We left at 6.00 am in a mini bus to see the dolphins. Here we see Deborah and Georgie about to dive in.
 

 

  
 
 
 
   

Sunset over the forest  
Sunday 26th October

Our friendly tour guide took us in his mini bus to the National Forest. Here one of their own guides took us on a long walk through the forest showing us all the different trees and plants.
This forest is the home of the Colobus monkey which is special to Zanzibar and can't be found anywhere else in the world.
 
 
Our visit finished with a walk through a Mangrove swamp. These trees only grow in salt water and this was the end of an inlet from the sea. Our guide explained that we were only 3 km from the coast.
Monday 27th October

It rained solidly almost all the day. Apart from a brief walk in the afternoon before it started raining again, we spent the whole day in our rooms reading and playing cards.

Tuesday 28th October.

Today is Georgie's birthday. The sun was shining and after breakfast we took our last views of the hotel.
It was very low tide so we couldn't enjoy a last swim before our mini bus arrived to take us back to Stone Town and the Clove Hotel again.
On our way back we stopped off at a butterfly farm. This is a new project sponsored by the Government. We were taken round by an English student doing voluntary work and a Zanzibar guide. We saw some very beautiful butterflies.
They were all enclosed in a beautiful garden enclosed by fine netting.
 
Back in Stone Town again, Deborah bought some special biscuits to act as a birthday cake for Georgie. She stuck into them six everlasting candles.
Georgie's birthday cards.
Then, to celebrate Georgie's birthday we took her first to the bar at the very top of the Emmerson Hotel to watch the sun setting over the roofs of Stone Town
and to enjoy the first Gin we had drunk since leaving the Kunduchi Hotel at Dar es Salaam.
On the way out the two girls had to pose on this luxury sofa.
Then we enjoyed an incredible meal at the Two Tables Restaurant, which was literally two large table in a person's house. No menu. You just ate what he brought, but it was wonderful.
Wednesday 29th October.

Leaving Deborah & Georgie sleeping, Margaret and I had an early breakfast and then went down to the beach to find our boat to take us to Prison Island.
A journey of just 20 minutes in a small boat with a powerful outboard motor, Prison Island was once used as a prison and then as a hospital.
It is the home of some 100 or so giant tortoises that were once imported from the Seychelles. Their numbers dropped to only three or four at the end of the 19th century often due to theft, but due to careful control and breeding there is now a very healthy colony of them.
We were allowed to walk freely amongst them and feed them with green stalks that they like. They live for an average of 80 to 100 years.
The sea was beautifully clear. There is an expensive hotel on the island and people come to do snorkelling amongst the coral.
There were lots of enormous star fish. Many washed up onto the beach.
In the afternoon Margaret and I braved the hot sun to visit the Old Dispensary. Now a museum.
Margaret was taught how to play the Bao Game.
Then in the evening, for our very final dinner we visited the Monsoon Restaurant.
Here we had a live group of very professional musicians.
   
   
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