On Day 2 I planned to do the Palace Museum, the old Dispensary, get some fabric for my mother and to explore the island on my way to Kuza Cave. I unfortunately had to spend an hour at Zanzibar airport as my flight to Arusha was somehow cancelled after I booked and paid online. This was rather frustrating but guy at the airport sorted it out and gave me a pen to apologise. I did manage to see a few places around Stone Town like the Palace Museum and the Old Dispensary which were quick tours that were not that interesting to be honest. I then headed out onto the road. SIDE NOTE: There are so many interesting doors in Zanzibar and you can actually do a door tour. I took so many door pictures but yet to do anything with them :-).
Driving in Zanzibar was interesting there are so many motorbikes that you have to watch out for and they do not paint their speed bumps so always be on the lookout for speed bumps or be ready for a thump every now and then. The traffic leaving Stone Town was rather hectic and going over 50km/hr was not possible. The road conditions were OK with a few potholes here and there. Better than what I experienced in Dar. I got to Kuza Cave at around 3pm and pretty much immediately went down to the Cave to have a swim. The Cave is pretty awesome and the pool is 6m deep at the deepest point. With a diving mask you can do a swim in a short tunnel which is pretty cool. There are little white insects in the one part of the pool that do bite which gives a little sting but nothing too dramatic. At the bottom of the pool there is a fossilised human femur which is evidence of early human life. The Kuza Cave is a great place to visit and Natalie who runs the Non Profit is awesome. I highly recommend a visit if you are going to Zanzibar.
For dinner I went down the coast to Blue Moon resort for dinner with Amy and Sigmund. The resort was amazing and the staff so friendly. The resort is built right on the beach and the dinner was very good. We ate and drank and spoke and spoke and then spoke some more. I ended up only leaving at around 1am.
The next morning Natalie arranged for me to go out on a traditional dow with an old fisherman and her young son. We went out to the reef to do some snorkelling and then some fishing. The experience was awesome. Natalie’s 11 year old son had a homemade spear gun that he used to catch fish while he was snorkelling. Unfortunately the tide was quite high and so the snorkelling was not as good as it could have been and you had to dive down quite deep in order to see things close up. Once we finished snorkelling we did some fishing with hand line. I caught one fish and we caught 13 in total. We were out at sea for about 6hrs and I added to the sunburn but it was worth it. #SunscreenInnovationRequired
I got back to the Cave and pretty much immediately left for my last night in Zanzibar which I spent at La Madrugada Beach Hotel & Resort. I found a 70% off special which I booked 2 days before visiting. The resort was a little dated but was very comfortable and the pool was very inviting. I put my bags in the room and headed straight to the pool for a sunset swim. I had an early dinner, a vegetarian pizza which was great. The staff at the resort were awesome and I had many interesting conversations. I jumped into bed early as I had to leave just before 5am in order to catch the ferry to Dar. Oh just a word of warning the resort accepted a credit card but they added 5% to the amount paid and so you should factor this in. This was quite common on the trip.
The next morning I got up really early and took the drive to Stone Town. About 20min into the drive while it was still dark I saw torch lights in the distance and it turned out to be a bunch of people singing and jogging down the road. Seemed like a protest. They asked me to turn off my lights and drive with my emergency lights only as they ran past. There must have been about 100 people. #Strange
I arrived in Stone Town and dropped off my rental car and waited at the gate for the ferry to open. The ferry left on time at 7am and we were off to Dar. Check out the next instalment to hear about my interesting drive to the airport and my safari…
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