Northern Beaches

Almost everybody except the party animals opted for the half day Spice Island tour. Sometimes African time can work in your favour. It was meant to be a 5 hour tour getting back at 2pm, but we didn't actually get back till 3:30, so we got our money's worth for a half day.

Started off with a short walking tour of Stonetown at the old fort which was Portuguese then Arabic then British, before the locals turned it into an arts and performance complex after independence. It's actually strange seeing all of the signs denoting the 'Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar'. You expect to see Fidel Castro emerging any minute, but it seems that the battle for independence was a bit brutal, so that's what it was called.

Wandered through the lanes of the town, past the house that Freddy Mercury was born in, to the Anglican Cathedral built on the site of the old slave market. Apparently it was the last operating slave market in the world until David Livingstone convinced the ruling Sultan to abolish it. It supplied slaves for the Arab world, India and countries around the Indian Ocean. It outlasted the slave markets in west Africa, who supplied Europe and America.

A bus was waiting at the cathedral to take us to the spice plantation. It seems that Zanzibar has the perfect climate and soil for growing spices, and we saw cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, tumeric, cloves, cardamom, chillies, cacao, coffee and chillies, as well as tropical fruits like passionfruit, jackfruit, custard apples and durian.

The highlight of the show was to watch the guy skin up the coconut tree to cut off a coconut, then serenade us with a song as he did acrobatics on the way down. After tasting the coconut juice, it was off to sample the spice teas and tropical fruit, before heading to the guide's house for lunch.

So you can see why we were late back. It meant that our afternoon wander through Stonetown never eventuated, but we were back on the bus shortly after for the drive to the northern beaches of Zanzibar. Nice spot with rustic bungalows, but very erratic power.

After the usual formalities, we all had dinner at a long table in the sand at one of the beach restaurants to celebrate Anna Lyn's birthday which was a nice surprise for her, especially the huge chocolate birthday cake.