Zanzibar

After 4+ weeks of traveling around the world, including our most recent endeavor of climbing Kilimanjaro, we were ready for a few days of lounging around on the beach! Zanzibar is an island just off the coast of Tanzania, and it is actually part of Tanzania, though I think the islanders like to think of Zanzibar as a separate country. We flew on a small prop plane from Kilimanjaro airport to Zanzibar. Frank, the owner of Karibu Adventure, had arranged for a driver to meet us at the Zanzibar airport. We decided that we would like to do a "spice tour" on the way to our accommodation in Nungwi, on the Northwest tip of the island.

Abdul picked us up and took us to "Hakuna Matata Spice Farm", where Saed was our guide. This was quite possibly the most awkward touristy thing we did on our entire trip, but it was fun and it was interesting. We walked through the farm and stopped at various trees/plants and played a game where we guessed the spices. Some of the spices we saw growing were nutmeg, turmeric, vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves. Zanzibar is famous for exporting spices. After the spice tour we had a fruit tasting, which was definitely the highlight of our visit to the spice farm. The fruit was too-die-for! During our time in Tanzania, both on safari and on Kilimanjaro, every time we ate pineapple, we could not get over how delicious it was. The pineapple in this fruit tasting was equally as tasty, and we also ate other yummy fruits such as papaya, watermelon, custard apple (which might sound disgusting but tasted amazing!), jackfruit, and orange (which are green there?!).

Nutmeg!

This guy climbed trees to gather spice plants.

Between the tour and the fruit tasting we watched a guy climb a tree on the farm to pick us a fresh coconut. I absolutely love fresh coconut water, so this was another highlight for me!

This guy was singing while climbing.

During the tour, Erik and I were getting "points" for correctly guessing each spice plant. At the end, I was the winner, so I was crowed queen of the spice farm tour. Again, super touristy, but fun!

Crazy tree with thorns

We got back in the car with Abdul and headed towards Nungwi. We arrived late afternoon, just in time for happy hour! We were greeted with a cold towel and a fruity drink, met the general manager (which I thought was a nice touch), and were given a tour of our accommodation, The Z Hotel. Our room was really nice and the rate included a tasty breakfast buffet where the view from our table was gorgeous!

Our room

Ridiculously awesome breakfast view!

View from my chair at the infinity pool...a spot I never really wanted to leave.

The hotel had two restaurants and we tried both. The first night we ate at Cinnamon, and I had delicious fresh fish (kingfish). On the second night, we tried the more "upscale" restaurant at the hotel, and unfortunately the food did not sit well with me. Figures that during 3 weeks in Africa I get sick from the most expensive meal of our trip! At any rate, it was not a bad place to be feeling ill, as we did not have much planned except to lounge by the pool and take walks on the beach. I'm pretty sure they had Bob Marley's greatest hits on repeat at the pool, which was good for relaxation purposes! I never got tired of the views from my pool chair.

Daytime by the pool

The restaurant with that gorgeous Indian Ocean in the background.

View of the Z Hotel from the ocean.

Another great happy hour + sunset.

We spent 3 nights in Zanzibar, and though I wished we could have stayed longer to explore more of the island or perhaps do some scuba diving, we were ready to go "home". Five weeks of living out of a 55 liter backpack will do that to a girl!

One last walk on the beach.

On the last day we had Abdul pick us up a bit early so that we could tour Stone Town before our flight left for Nairobi. Highlights of that walk including standing inside of a slave trading house, walking into The Old Fort, and winding our ways through the narrow streets checking out the "doors" of Stone Town.

Inside the slave trading house

Narrow alleyways of Stone Town

One of the cool door decorations we discovered on our walking tour

Not sure that this wiring would be up to Westernized standards?!

We were pretty impressed with the location of this tree!

Vibrant doors are common in Stone Town.

Inside "The Old Fort"

Walkway in front of Forodhani Gardens

We ate fish and chips for lunch in Forodhani Gardens before heading to the airport. Our experience at Zanzibar airport was quite an interesting one. Upon reaching security, we learned that the x-ray machines were broken. At that point, the security officer asked us what was in our bags, and that was the substitution for an x-ray machine! We told him we had clothes and sleeping bags in our packs. He looked at us suspiciously and then let us go, ha.

Surprisingly the security officer did not seem too concerned with our sketchy duct taped bag. We brought this on the first flight of our 5 week trip, the one from Melbourne to Hawaii, because we packed snacks for our flight inside. However, it remained useful for our entire trip, and we ended up using it as a checked bag for our hiking boots. Amazingly, it made it back to Melbourne in one piece!

We were on another prop plane to Nairobi, and we boarded from the tarmac. The plane actually left 20 minutes early, as apparently when everyone who has booked a ticket is on board, the plane departs. Maybe Westernized countries could adopt that stance more often?! Our flight took us past Kilimanjaro, however, she was surrounded in clouds, so we did not get a good glimpse of the mountain. Flying into Nairobi, we flew over Nairobi National Park, which is a game reserve just outside of the city. It's amazing to think that animals live so close to such a big city, and we could actually see safari trucks cruising around the park. We could also see zebras from the plane, but could not identify any other animals.

So long, Zanzibar!

Our flight back to Melbourne did not leave until the next day, so we had one more night in Nairobi. I could not find any reasonably priced accommodation close to the airport, so we stayed about 20 minutes away at a place called Nairobi Stopover House. The people running the hostel were very friendly, and they had a guard who walked us to get dinner at our first African fast food chain, Steers. We were served a delicious breakfast in the morning, including our last serving of mango juice (on the safari and on Kili we often had mango or pineapple juice...yum!) before heading off to the airport for our flight. Our stopover between Nairobi and Melbourne was in Abu Dhabi, but this time it was a short layover, just enough to stretch our legs before the 13 hour trip back to Oz.

Zanzibar was definitely the perfect way to end our African holiday!