LEAVING KENYA

Today we fly to Zanzibar, not sure why but it has always sounded like a fascinating place.

We get to our hotel Warere Town house at late lunch time – traffic is just incredible and takes a long time to go no-where. 

It would actually in reality be quicker to walk as the traffic is so dense.  Warare Town House is a nice old building, 4 storeys high with a rooftop restaurant and sea views.  We spend the afternoon wandering around the small lanes and alleys of Stone Town.  We did not go in the museum or fort as we were all a little over the numbers of people.  One building was very ornate – the “OLD DISPENSARY” and a few along the front were interesting but a lot is getting knocked down and new things built. 

Or they are just hidden among buildings fitted in at every gap.

Went to Freddie’s restaurant on the front – set up to honour Freddie Mercury who was born in Zanzibar (not that he lived there for long).  We also saw the house he was born in – now a tourist gift shop.  The prices here are ridiculous and it was crowded and noisy so before long we all just wanted to get out of town.

Off to Jambiani beach – the other side of Zanzibar – and another slow drive as yet again they are building a new road so it was chaos. 

Pakachi beach hotel was lovely, we had a cute two storey hut on the beach, in fact the best part of the beach with no stone walls. 

The gardens were well cared for with trees and flowering plants.  It was run by an Englishman and his Tanzanian wife.  The food here was so we were informed by numerous people the best on this beach – certainly we only tried one other place which was awful and enjoyed the food we had here.

You cannot really swim off the beach as it is very stony with lots of sea urchins. 

Took a trip out to Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park – what a disappointment. This is the worst NP that I have been in anywhere.  You start with a park guide who when you say you are interested in seeing birds and reptiles says “too hard”.  You then walk through a field with a couple of buildings to a large vegetable patch (we did see 2 interesting birds and one lizard on the way).  In the vegetable patch were lots of Rare Red Colobus monkey’s. 

We had about 20 mins here, then on to a “Nature walk” through the forest.  Now this is a large park and we only touched a corner so hard to judge the rest.  Anyway on the nature walk the guide pointed out all the foreign trees – Eucalypts from Australia, and others from about every place on the planet.  Apparently a long time ago they planted lots of species to provide all the needs of Zanzibar – so trees and plants for boats, medicine, rope etc.  No idea where all the native stuff is – if there is any.  The walk was all of 10 mins and not a living thing was found.  The guide just wanted to get you in and out quickly to see the monkeys and then get another group. 

From here we went to a turtle rescue place – not appealing but they are doing a good job.  They buy the turtles from the fishermen when they catch them and hold them in pens until Marine Scientists think they are up to  being released.

We had planned to go to butterfly place but it started pouring with rain so back to the beach it was.

We did a morning trip (Chris and I) on a small sailing dhow to go snorkelling which was enjoyable, but there is not much coral left.  Apparently huge amounts of sand disappeared in the Tsunami taking hotels down too and that is apparently what happened to the coral.