Zanzibar

Apparently I've been terribly negligent of my blog this year... it's April and the only entry of the year is from January and I didn't even update the photos!

Ok... I've actually taken house photos now so will bring them in and upload a few.

Not much to say about life between January and April except that we've settled nicely into the new house. Still working through the list of repairs and upgrades but have definitely made progress and it's very cozy and home-y now.

Spent Easter weekend in Zanzibar. Zanzibar is only a 20 min flight from Dar (90 min by ferry) so it seemed completely unjustified that aside from a brief visit to stone town last December, I had yet to explore the island. Because this is technically the rainy season it's also low season pricing so we got a decent deal to spend three nights at Mtoni Marine which is just a few km north of Stone Town.

Mtoni was lovely - the rooms exceeded my expectations with flower buds placed on the bed every day and lovely little touches like that. It was a stunning pool right on the beach.

We arrived early Friday morning, dropped our bags off and went in to stone town for the day. We met up with a friend from Dar and did a morning tour of stone town. Learnt lots of interesting historical and cultural facts (even Chris learnt something new despite several previous tours). We took a lunch break and then continued through the little streets checking out the craft shops etc. Watched a beautiful sunset from Africa House Hotel then head back to the hotel to get into our room and have dinner.

The next day we rented a motorbike and rode 90 min to the north of the island. Turns out rain is quite painful on exposed skin on a motorbike but it didn't rain much and the ride up was lots of fun. Spent a few hours in the north with friends and then drove back to our neck of the woods to shower and change before heading back in to stone town for dinner. We wandered around stone town for a couple of hours checking out all the restaurants.

After two rather full days we decided to take it easy. We visited the spa in the morning - Chris got a pedicure/foot massage and I got a back massage. We had lunch in stone town - kept the motorbike for easy transport - and then returned for some time swimming and lounging poolside. We had fantastic weather all weekend except for the little rain we got on Saturday and the cloud cover kept it nice and cool. It was then back to Africa House Hotel to meet friends of a friend who were new to Tanzania - drinks and dinner and ice cream on the beach before heading back to the hotel. Monday morning was again spent lounging around - except unfortunately the sun was out in full force so I'm feeling the consequences now. I've got my first proper sunburn EVER. It's not too awful - only a few small areas are sore but I look rather lobsterish in the areas not usually exposed when wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Fortunately in most clothing you can't tell as the burn is over a dark base and I was smart enough to keep my face out of the sun completely. I think the trick now is to maintain this base tan so next time I don't fry so badly.

So, overall a wonderful weekend though I definitely needed at least a whole week to recuperate from so long with no vacation. Now finalizing travel plans for my parents' visit in June so checking out Serengeti tours with much excitement... only two more months!

(pictures from Zanzibar and from the last blog about the house to come soon!)