Africa - Zanzibar

Hello all

Here we are in Stonetown on the island of Zanzibar

This is an amazing place. We went scuba diving the other day...we might as well have been in a National Geographic documentary. The fish and plants and coral - it's like being on another planet

The people are very friendly here...we speak to them in English but we also try to speak some of the Swahili we pick along the way, like: Jambo! (hello) and if they ask "Mambo" (how are you?) we say, "Pua" (cool) or "Nzuryi" (fine)...it's fun! and we make friends at the same time!

The food is really good. They use the best spices like cardamon, cinnamon, clove, cumin...their palate isn't hot at all, just tasty. We went to a spice farm yesterday and learned all about where our spices come from - it took a couple of hours and it was fantastic. I did not know, for instance, that pepper is a vine. Little pods on a vine in the forest. And ylang ylang is a leaf as well as the spice All Spice, it's a leaf! I thought All Spice was a blend of different spices, not so...I had a little cut on my foot from sand rubbing in my sandle, we passed a tree that's sap provides iodine! my foot is fine now! nature is so wonderfully plentiful and amazing, what a learning experience it was. And the work it takes to harvest all those spices! I'll never shake pepper again without thinking about the people that had to deal with allll those little pods, then dry them, then peel them, then grind them....

We also took a tour around Stonetown, an old port town built in the 16th century and where slaves were captured and imprisoned before being shipped off...it all happened here, not a movie not a book, we've seen the history right here. Our travels have included some pretty grim places but that's one of my favourite things about travelling - is learning about the past in the place that it happened, very rewarding...you get transported in time. Makes you really take stock of where you come from...

I have lots of stories to tell about Africa so far and we've only been here a week...we are off to Dar Es Salaam today (3 hour ferry ride) then we set off on the safari tour in the Serengetti.

We probably won't have a lot of access to internet for the next couple of weeks, but if we do, I'll drop another line or two!

LOVE
A&A