Our flight through to TZ was smooth, with a long nap/Olympic watching stint in the London airport on the way. After a night at the Friendly Gecko hostel, we set off on a ferry from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. Although it was Brent's first immersion into the crowded, noisy, cell-phone infested, body-odor-permeating world of African travel, God has a sense of humour. On the tiny television set above us, right after chanting the Ramadhan call to prayer, an episode of Top Gear (one of Brent's favourite British shows about car reviews) came on.
Some of the highlights of Zanzibar have been:
-a spice tour. We saw many spices (cloves, pepper, cardamom, vanilla) in their natural form and got to smell/taste them. Followed by a delicious lunch sitting in a circle on the floor of a little hut and an afternoon visiting the "Slave caves", where slaves were hidden after the slave trade was abolished and the slave masters still wanted to continue trading slaves.
- We took a trip out to Mnemba Atoll for some of the finest snorkelling we have ever seen. The water was the colour of Blue Kool Aid and visibility was easily 30 m. We saw snake eels, moray eels, scorpionfish, stonefish, and many cool reef fish. From the boat we were able to see many sightings of dolphins jumping out of the water as they swam and played. On the boat ride back, we came across a sad sight... a large green sea turtle had been caught in a fishing net and was floating dead, bloated after a slow death. It was sobering for all of us. After our trip, Gabby spent the afternoon pampered by the "beach ladies", getting a massage, then a henna tattoo, and picking out a new african dress for her birthday dinner. All in all a great day!
Gabby's birthday! She's so relaxed, she can't even remember how old she turned.
Here we are on the beach... we got a little tanned but you can see we lost weight!
-One day we headed to the Jozani forest by local bus. Brent's second foray into the world of local transport.... he sat both ways on a plastic oil jug, in and aisle that is meant to fit a small gnome rather than a solid north american male. However, we have realized that the key to local transport is finding a female:male ratio higher than 2:1. The perfumes of the women will then overpower the body odor of the men. Jozani forest was a quick guided tour, but allowed us to get within touching distance (not that we touched) of the Red Colobus Monkey. They are super cute and fascinating to watch, especially the baby that was about 8 inches tall. 
-A big highlight has been observing the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr, the end of Ramadhan. It could be compared to Christmas for Canadians in its grand-ness. Everyone is sporting their brand new outfits, and there has been festive atmosphere in the air for the past 3 days. Last night in Stonetown we walked to the night marked by the port, where the plaza was packed to the hilt with families dressed in their very best, eating, celebrating, kids playing. We walked from stall to stall, getting little samples of food until we were stuffed. "Zanzibar stuffed pizza" is like a crepe filled with beef, tomatoes, onions, egg, then fried on both sides. Yum!! Also, samosas, beef kabobs, french fries, and for dessert the same Zanzibar pizza but stuffed with bananas and nutella, drizzled with chocolate. We rolled home happy.
