Zanzibar

I'm writing this from Zanzibar. Sound exotic? It's even better than that.

My first three days were spent in Stonetown. It's the old quarter of Zanzibar town. It has beautiful architecture, a very interesting history, and lots of very friendly people. There are also a lot of "beach boys" - hawkers who want to sell you something, or show you around, or beg money off you. And I think that I have the word "sucker" written on my forehead. The first day, I just walked around town, waiting formy duffel bag to arrive - my luggage ALWAYS gets lost. Unfortunately, my comfortable shoes were in the bag and I totally destroyed my feet.

The second day I visited the tourist spots in town: the museum which explains the history of the island during the rule of the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar, the old arab fort, Freddy Mercury's house and others.

The third day I took a spice tour. The spice farm grows cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, tumeric, lemon grass, nutmeg, vanilla, and others. It was interesting to see how each of these grows, and how they can be used in cooking and for medicinal purposes. We visited a cave where slaves were hidden (slaving was a big business here until the 1890's). Most of the people went down, looked, and came back out. A few of us had the bright idea of going down the end and then climbing out a chiminey at the end. It was loads of fun, but we got pretty dirty. Fortunately, this was the moment to go to the beach, so we got to wash off.

Some of the people on this tour told me about the Full Moon Party in Kendwa beach, which was the next night. It sounded pretty good, so I decided to go. It was awesome! It occurs every full moon. Tourists and locals from all over the island come. Good music, good dancing, good drinking. I woke up on the beach at 7:00 in the morning (this is 1:00 Swahili time) with some new friends and we went to have breakfast - Safari beer.

Before coming to Kendwa, I planned to stay a couple of days there and then go to the east coast. But it was so beautiful and peaceful (after the party) that I decided to stay until the end. I did do some snorkeling. It was a full day trip, leaving at 9:00 and coming home at 5:00. After passing a school of dolfins, we continued in our dhow to the east coast and had a couple of hours swimming in what appeared to be a giant aquarium. There were huge corral reefs and fish of every color. I'm really glad I did it, although my back is still pretty red as a result. After this they fed us on fresh tuna, rice and a vegetable sauce that the cook prepared on the coast while we were snorkeling.

The rest of my days were spent walking on the beach and in the villages and eating seafood and drinking beer.

I met some really great people like Nicola from Germany, Trolles from Denmark, Ben from Israel, Tal from England, Katie from the State, Haroub and "Big Nation" and Masoud from Stonetown, and then my friends from Kendwa: Dende, Msigawa, Ali and Moudi. Because of these people I had one of my best vacations ever.

If you want to spend your vacation in paradise, come here to Zanzibar. You'll never forget it.