Zanzibar and White River

Our alarm went off at 3:30am. A truly ungodly hour, yet we had to get up. We had a driver coming to pick us up at 4:15am to take us to the airport, yet again. This time we were off to Zanzibar! Although we were both exhausted, thanks to the unhuman wake up hour, we were also extremely excited. This was something totally new for both of us. Both Harrison and I have never been out of South Africa, and gone into the northern parts of Africa. It was going to be a culture shock for both of us! After (about) a four hour flight we touched down at Zanzibar international airport. We stepped off the plane, and slammed into a wall of heat and humidity. By the time we made it into the airport I was drenched in sweat! The airport was really tiny. We all filed in to get our passports stamped and collect our bags. The airport is so small that they don’t even have baggage carousels, the staff just unloaded your bags by hand and put them in a room for you to come and collect. When we left the airport go meet the shuttle that would take us to our hotel, about 20 different airport staff pounced on us asking to carry our bags and help us. They basically insist, so we reluctantly accepted and walked very close to the guy carrying the bag, keeping a close eye on our bag. Luckily he actually did just want to take the bag to the shuttle, but then promptly asked for a tip. That was the first experience with very pushy people trying to make money. Fortunately our shuttle had air con, as it was quite a long trip to our hotel. We stayed at the Paradise Beach Resort. It was really beautiful! We were greeted with a cold glass of hibiscus juice, which we had never tried before. It was good! We checked in and took our bags to our room. The room was so cute. We had a four poster bed, which had mosquito nets draping off it. 

There were flowers and flowers petals on the bed, it was adorable. And the best thing, it had air conditioning! We left our bags in the room and made our way to lunch. For meals at the hotel, there was a big buffet. They had food for you to dish up yourself, and then food that they could cook for you how you wanted it. For lunch they had pasta, fried rice, and fish on the grill, salads, soups, fruit, vegies and dessert. The food was always delicious. We were both totally exhausted from the early start and the day of travel, so we had a nap in the air con. Once refreshed we got up and made use of the pool bar! We got a drink and sat by the pool, and then wandered around exploring for a bit. 

That night for dinner they had a traditional Swahili dinner. I think it was my favourite dinner that we had! There were all sorts of traditional food to try.     

The next day was spent relaxing. We had breakfast, and sat by the pool, went swimming, had lunch, went to the bar, sat by the pool, sat by the beach, had dinner. There was a lot of eating during those 4 days. One of my favourite parts of the hotel was the bar that was out on the water. There was a pier out to a little open thatch roofed building, where there was a bar and comfy chairs.

It was a great spot to watch the sunset. 

After dinner some of the staff put on a traditional dance show which was really cool to watch! Zanzibar is a malaria area, which was a bit scary for me. But we put on mosquito repellent religiously, and didn’t seem to get bitten at all. The next day, we booked to go on a walking tour of the old town, called Stone Town. I was particularly excited to see the town. We were the only ones going on the tour that day, and it was a bit scary getting into a taxi with a man that doesn’t speak good English, you don’t know where you are going and the roads are totally chaotic. We just had to hope that he was actually taking us into the town, and not off into the forest somewhere to murder us, or that we didn’t die on the roads. Our worries were unnecessary, and we arrived unharmed in Stone Town. Our guide first took us to the place were salves were bought and sold in Zanzibar. He took us into the basement of the building and showed us where they were made to live. It was horrific to see. The rooms they lived in were tiny and smelly. The next stop on the tour was my favourite. We stopped at the local markets. First we saw the fish market. 

I didn’t really enjoy this one. It was gross! It smelt of death. They had the fish on these concrete slabs in a medium sized room. There was no ice to keep them cool, and most of them were covered in flies. It was yuck, but it was an experience! I have never seen anything like it! Next we moved onto the fruit market. There were rows upon rows of stalls of all sorts of different fruit! Fruit I had never even heard of! It was incredible! 

Next was the spice market. The spice and fruit markets were set up together under a series of tarps. The stalls were made of cardboard and tin. Our guide took us to one spice stall and we were able to smell all the spices local to the area. 

They smelled so amazing, I just wanted to buy them all. It was very dark and dirty in this part of the market, and it was packed with people. But I just loved it. It was something I had never experienced in my life, but to these people it was an everyday thing. I felt that there was so much energy in the little space of market. There were so many new smells and sounds. It was incredible. 

After the markets the guide took us through the streets of Stone Town. They were absolutely tiny and filthy, but they had such character. He showed us the elaborately decorated doors that Zanzibar is so well known for. We learnt that the doors with circular tops were Indian doors, and the square ones were Arabic. 

We spent a long time just wandering around the streets. Thank goodness we had a guide with us, otherwise we would have gotten totally lost! We walked down to the waterfront, which had incredible blue waters.

We also got to see the house that Freddie Mercury from Queen, grew up in! 

We had walked for a few hours and it was extremely hot, so although I wanted to see more of the town, the end of the tour came as a relief. I also loved driving through Zanzibar to get to the hotel. It was so fascinating to watch the local people get on with their everyday lives, and see the mud houses and children playing in the streets. It is just so vastly different to anything I am used to, or have experienced before. I loved it.

The beach at our hotel was a little disappointing. It was a tidal beach, which meant that every day it went out in the morning and didn’t come back until late afternoon. And when there was no water it was just thick, smelly mud. So we had hoped to lounge by the beach, but during the day you really couldn’t do that because it was too smelly, and there was no water. Even when the water was there, it wasn’t very appealing. However, that didn’t really matter! There was an awesome pool, and we still had an amazing time! The next day was once again just spent relaxing. There were two adorable little monkeys living at the hotel, that were tame and people were allowed to touch! They were so cheeky!

Zanzibar is definitely somewhere I would love to go back to when we have some more money. There is just so much we didn’t get the opportunity to see because we couldn’t afford it, or we couldn’t get to it. It is such an interesting and beautiful country. Too quickly, the time came for us to leave. We made our way back to the airport, and were very impressed with how quick we got through check in and security. For such a small airport, they are very well organised with check ins and whatnot. The flight back was slightly shorter than the flight there, and we made it back to Joburg safe and sound. We went out for drinks that night with Lyndsay at a place called Hell’s Kitchen. It was a really cool place! There were lots of people and it had a buzzing vibe.

Harrison, Lyndsay and I have seem to come down with a stomach bug! The two days after getting back from Zanzibar we were all quite ill. It was not fun! Luckily we are on the mend, but not quite 100%.

On Tuesday, Harrison and I were woken up to be told that Alyson’s dog Rosie, had had what they thought was a stroke. We had to get up and say our goodbyes, because they thought they were going to have to put her down. It was so sad. Rosie was such a sweet, old dog. But she was very old, and so being put to sleep was probably the best thing for her. She was in a lot of pain with arthritis, and it looked like she had indeed had a stroke. It was her time to go. We had only known her for a few months, and it was still so sad to see her go, so I can’t imagine how sad it would have been for my family. But she is in a better place now, and not hurting anymore.

Later that day, Harrison and I got on a shuttle to a place called White River, which is where my grandpa lives! I was so excited to see him! We got there during the evening and had dinner with my papa. My papa loves the guitar, and has an electric guitar at his house. Harrison was super happy about this, as he also loves guitar and hasn’t had the opportunity to play since we left! So within the first hour of being there, the guitar had been pulled out and he was strumming away happily. 

It was very cute. Our first proper day with him was yesterday, and we went on a drive called the panorama route. It is a beautiful drive through the mountains with lots of things to stop and see along the way. First we stopped at Mac Mac pools, where natural pools have formed in the rocks. It was beautiful! I just wanted to jump into the pools, they looked so inviting! And we would have, but we hadn’t thought to bring costumes, and it was quite cold. The next stop was just up the road, Mac Mac Falls. As the name suggests, it is a very large waterfall. On the walk to the waterfall we found a little kitten in the bushes! It was so cute, and just wanted to be patted. We think it must have belong to one of the ladies running stalls at the start of the walk. We finally made it to the waterfall, and it was incredible! It was huge and very powerful. The stream of water coming off the falls and hitting the water below created a rainbow of colours in the mist coming off. It was so beautiful. We jumped back into the car and had a bit of a further drive, to a place called God’s Window. It is a viewpoint on top of a mountain with absolutely incredible views of the valleys. Everything in this area is so green, it is so beautiful. We looked around at some of the art and kitschy stalls around there and then headed off again.

The next stop was lunch! We stopped at a place called Harrie’s Pancakes, which is a famous pancake restaurant. They had all sorts of different pancake flavours, it was amazing! Harrison ordered a pancake filled with milktart, my papa had one filled with bacon and cheese, and I had one filled with chocolate chips, banana and peanut butter! They were so delicious. 

Possibly the best pancakes I’ve eaten. Papa also ordered a pancake filled with lemon meringue which was delicious as well. After lunch we looked at the shops around the restaurant and then headed home. Today we went to a place called Nelspruit. We went to a shopping centre there to look around, and papa needed a haircut. We had been in there all of 20 minutes, when they started evacuating everyone for a security drill! Poor papa had to stop halfway through a haircut! It was very annoying. They said that the drill would go on for up to an hour, so we just left the centre. We also went to visit one of my dad’s cousins. He wasn’t actually there but we got to meet his wife who is a very good artist. We chatted and got to see some of her art and her studio. It was nice! We had lunch at a pub and grill at Nelspruit. I had calamari and chips. It wasn’t very nice. We spent the rest of the day at home, me personally writing my blog posts. Tomorrow we are going into the Kruger National Park! Both Harrison and I are very excited! Hopefully we see lots of animals!