Vomit comet

Our return to mainland Tanzania yesterday was a bit of a testing journey.

We left Jambiani at 10am and made the 2 hour trip across Zanzibar in a fairly sensible minibus. That part of the journey went to plan apart from being stopped a total of 5 times by different police patrols for backhanders . . . Er, I mean driver and vehicle documentation checks!

We got back into Stone Town at midday with plenty of time to get the 1pm ferry back to Dar es Salaam. Well it would have been if the bloke in the ticket office could have been bothered to sell us a ticket. However he decided that he couldn't be arsed so we had to buy a ticket from another ferry operator whose boat didn't leave until 4pm. Just the 4 hours to sit and wait with our bags then. Thank god that Mercury's bar is next door to the ferry terminal.

After waiting for three and a half hours we made our way to board the ferry to be met by the World's biggest scrum. Three passenger ferries had docked at virtually the same time and were simultaneously trying to unload and load their passengers and cargo from a single pier. It was absolute pandemonium.

After another hour of waiting, queuing, being pushed, pulled, squashed, squeezed, elbowed, jostled and hit with various pieces of luggage we eventually made it onto the pier just as they pulled the gangplank away from the boat that we were trying to board.

Thankfully we only had to wait another 20 minutes for another boat to dock. This was again followed by more pushing, shoving and using luggage as weaponry in order to try and get on board.

The ferry that we caught was advertised as a fast ferry, and for once they weren't joking. This was a REALLY fast ferry . . . regardless of the fact that the sea was rough. We were going so fast the catamaran felt like it spent more time out of the water than in it. This of course led to the vast majority of the passengers being sick. However; because we were going really fast over a really rough sea they were really sick. Not just a bit sick, but a whole lot sick. The sounds and smells were just horrific.

Liz has sworn never to go on another boat again . . . She was just like Steve Redgrave when he gave that infamous interview as he got out of the boat at the 2000 Olympics after he won his 4th gold medal!

Just as we thought the day couldn't have got any worse . . . It did! There were no rooms left at Jambo Inn which meant that we had to check back into the dirt at Safari Inn down the road. Thankfully our room this time was cleaner than the last one we had (well lets face it, it couldn't have been any dirtier)

After a traumatic days travel we headed off out for dinner to be met by some rather unusual menu items. Monday's special of the day was "Bheja Masala (minced brains of cow cooked in gravy with capsicums, onions, tomato - medium spice)". There were also his n her's deserts on offer; "macho nuts" and "big cups". Stop ye tittering at the back . . . They're ice creams!

Stone Town

Even though it's barely more than 20 miles from the coast of mainland Tanzania, since the mid 16th century up until the mid 1960's, Zanzibar was predominantly under the rule of Omani Arabs. Due to the huge influence of the slave, ivory and spice trades the Sultan of Oman even moved his court here in the mid 1800's where it remained until the 1964 revolution. Apparently the last Sultan of Zanzibar, Khalifa bin Barghash, is alive and well having fled to Portsmouth of all places!

Walking around Stone Town, which is the heart of old Zanzibar Town, feels more like being in the Middle East than Africa. Most of the buildings are 2 to 4 story Arabic houses built around the tightly twisting streets, most of which are too narrow for cars.

The buildings of Stone Town are most famous for their elaborately carved wooden front doors. The doors used to be a status symbol, the more fancy the carving the more wealthy the owner.

A lot of the doors also feature rows of large metal spikes which are to keep elephants from damaging them. The spikes must be very effective at scaring the elephants as none ever been seen on Zanzibar.

We've spent most of our time here just wandering around the streets soaking up the atmosphere.

During one of our wanderings we paid a visit to the Palace Museum, which used to be the sultan's former palace.

It's possibly the only palace we've been to that's in a worse state of repair than the average African budget hotel room. In many of the rooms the electricity didn't work making it quite challenging to see. Those that you could see in seemed to be kitted out with really bad 1960's furniture. Lets just say that it could do with a little T.L.C. in order to restore it to its former glory.

Unfortunately a lot of the buildings in Stone Town, i.e. those that aren't owned by banks or luxury hotels, are in a similar state of disrepair. It's a real shame as there are some really interesting old buildings that are just crumbling away.

For once our accommodation is actually really nice. We're staying at a place called St Monica's which is housed in a beautiful old Arabic style building built on the site of an old slave market.

The slave market here was the world's last open slave market and was finally closed in 1873. Some of the old slave holding cells are still accessible in the basement under our hotel.

Zanzibar's other, less notorious, claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of Freddie Mercury. No one's really sure where his former house is but we can thoroughly recommend a visit to Mercury's Bar for a nice cooling bottle of Kilimanjaro beer.

Here's a thought that will make any Queen fans instantly feel old. This November it will be 18 years since Freddie died.