So firstly a great big HUZZAH for the arrival of Vikki plus my luggage on the continent, all in one piece (and adorably re-folded and tided by Holdsworth. Mummy W-D: "Gosh darling, you have such fantastic friends". YES I DO). Greeted Vikki with great excitement and a selection of dubious looking Indian food (deep fried potato sausage things anyone?) but as neither of us has been sick as yet they can't have been too bad. Also engaged in my first lengthy conversation with restauranteur, mostly centering on football. All subsequent conversation has mostly revolved around football too. Chelsea and Manchester United are popular. Think I may start lying and pretend I actually support someone just to prevent the look of disappointment when I confess my lack of interest.
Anyway, after a sleepless night in baking Dar es Salaam, we awoke raring to get the hell out this morning. Thankfully checked out where the Flying Seahorse offices were yesterday as it was something of a rugby scrum when we got to the marina - men surrounding our car etc. Bit unnerving to say the least. Favourite part being the man who offered us 'same price' for fast ferry - I query disbelievingly, 'What, 20 dollars?' His response - '35 dollars'. Errrrr..... Despite his firm belief that we were missing out on the bargain of a lifetime to pay 15 extra dollars to get there a whole 30 mins faster we politely declined and nabbed our VIP tickets. VIP = air conditioning. Win.
Zanzibar slowly appeared on the horizon (population 1 million - every time I go to an island I'm surprised by how big it is. It's as though I assume that an island by its nature must be small. Is this what people think about England?) - colonial style buildings clustering the shore, palm trees everywhere, and once we got off the ferry comparitively little hassle. Other than a man trailing us from hotel 1 to hotel 2, the lovely Hotel Pyramid which shall be our home for the next few days.
Room is lovely - high ceilings, old beams, four poster beds, fans. I may consider it less lovely if bitten to pieces by tomorrow morning.
We set out to explore and quickly realised quite what the guide book meant by saying Stone Town is confusing. It's like Venice, but narrower, and without any street signs. At all. Plus people hassling you all the time which doesn't encourage laborious searching of map to establish location. However we discovered (by accident and going in entirely the wrong direction to our intended one) the important things: the shops with the nice bags/sarongs/bangles etc in them. It's right by the sea so we should be able to find it tomorrow (she says hopefully).
Thus exhausted we spoiled ourselves with an evening in a bar called Mercury's drinking cocktails as the sun went down and planning the next few days. It includes dolphins. EEEP.
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