Goodbye Zanzibar...

I woke this morning to the realisation that i had a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in. Tommorrow I should be on the plane to India, yet I have no passport or plane ticket, and i'm still in Zanzibar. This issue really needs resolving.

I packed my gear (chucking yet more useless stuff away) and caught the local transport, a Dala Dala, down to Stonetown. Chucking my bags in the reception of the lovely Jambo Guesthouse I immediately made my way to the Indian Consulate with the help of a very kind man who gave me a lift for free. When I arrived at 2am I was made to sit for half an hour before someone came out and kindly informed me I'd have to come back at 4pm if i wanted to collect a passport. Even though I could see it on his desk. A bit annoying, but there really is no arguing. I blagged a lift back into town and proceeded to try and find a way of getting money from my bank account. This is becoming an issue, but hey, there's always a way when you're desperate.

After a quick stop down by the ferry terminal to purchase a ticket back to Dar Es Salam, I headed back towards the embassy, this time by taxi. Upon arrival I was told by the lady that she didn't recall a UK visa being issued recently so I had better come back tomorrow. This was slightly alarming seeing as my flight was tomorrow from Dar Es Salam. After explaining to her that it 'wasn't possible' for my visa to be delayed, she eventually decicded to go look. Five minutes later she returned with my passport complete with (to my strained mind) a beautiful looking Indian visa all stamped up and ready to go!

I have just had lunch with Helen from Chesterfield, another traveler who i've crossed paths with along the trail, who had so many wonderful tales of woe and hardship from her travels to India that I started to wonder what I'd got myself into. She seemed to be the most perfect anti-advertisement f0r the place. But her final words were 'I bloody loved it' so i'm feeling better again.

Now I sit here trying to kill the last two hours before my taxi leaves for the ferry terminal, to catch the overnight ship to the mainland. So in a few hours it's bye bye Zanzibar and Hello Dar Es Salam.

Next stop MUMBAI.

It burns!

Today I spent most of the day hiding from the sun as my face and shin burns became the focus of my world. How can a half hour walk on the beach result in such pain? However I didn't learn a thing as by midday (the worst time possible) I was out again.

The full moon seems to have had a rather strange effect on the ocean... it's dissapeared. The tide was so far out yesterday lunchtime that I litterally could not see it. This did however afford me and Surbian/American Aleks (who happens to be staying in the same guesthouse as me) the opportunity to go hunting out through the rock pools to discover some wonderous starfish and sea urchins. The starfish came mainly in two flavours: Dull blue and Vivid red. The red ones were the best as you can imagine, and I spent a great deal of time taking hundreds of photos. Then without warning the sea reappeared in the space of about 10 mintues and it was up to my knees. We decided at this point to make a sharp exit to the beach, which was also rapidly dissapearing.

The rest of the day was spent sunbathing with towels over my burn victim wounds. A strange sight, but pretty effective. That only came to an end when the sea rose to the final streatch of beach and covered me and my towel in cold slaty water.

The day tailed off with a few drinks and some chat, which resulted in our little gang of travellers getting chucked out of Bawa Willys Bar at 3 am for being the only ones left in there, asleep on the beds.

Full moon and pirates

Last night was the full moon party at 'Kendwa Rocks' beach. The big dilema as always was going to be the cash flow situation. Everyone we spoke to warned that drinks prices were jacked up for this special event so we had to invent a way to do this on the cheap whilst not missing out on the fun. The solution was to get a local guy to go to a bar earlier on that evening and buy us a bottle each of the local spirit at locals rates (5000Tsh each) and then transfer this into empty drinking water bottles. To the outsider this just looked like a normal bottle of water, but to the enlightened it spelt an extremely cheap night out. Bottles of Sprite at the full moon bar cost 500Tsh a pop (pun intended) and the night slipped by beautifully.

Dance music all night long to the light of the moon with the locals out-numbering the tourists about 2:1 and really throwing some serious shapes on the dancefloor. As the night drew on people dissapeared and some passed out on the beach. After one particularly lengthly conversation with an american lady named Alex I wandered along the beach to find Giles and Fergus passed out spooning each other rather romantically on the shoreline. I quickly relieved them of the rest of their grog and rejoined the party. I eventually found myself alseep on a random hammock where I stayed until the sun rose this morning.

I spent the morning in the company of another Alex, this time a modern day Pirate from Switzerland (!?). Having spent most his life on his parents ship, he moved to Madagascar where he bought his own twin sail ship on which he has lived for the last 20 years, now with his two daughters (6 and 7 years old). He just happened to be passing the beach when he saw the party and weighed anchor. Now I found myself in a random group of people finding out about this fascinating mans life. He is quite clearly insane, and pretty darn tough, but appears to be a good guy at heart. I have been invited to help clean the barnacles off the underside of his boat tomorrow. Sounds like a crazy enough plan to me... lets see if it happens.

I have also managed to burn my entire face and right shin in the sun today. Looking goooooood!

Where is the moon?

Tonight is the night of the full moon party. People have been talking about this for weeks and everyones getting quite excited.

However...

We woke this morning to an overcast sky and most of the morning was a write off due to scattered showers. The afternoon was spent trying to find new, and cheaper lodgings so that we might prolong our stay. Our best offer was from a local barman who offered us his own house for just $3 a day each. We would have jumped at this change to 'live local' if his house had not been at the end of a very long and very treacherous rock path which would almost certainly have caused one of us some kind of nasty injury eventually. We decided the best option was to stick with the very nice Nugwi Guesthouse but to arrange a preferential rate of $6 instead of $10 if we promised to stay a week.

Now all that was left was to watch, wait and pray for the skys to clear, afterall, how can we have a full moon party with no visible moon?

We had dinner at our new lodgings which provided a chance to meet a bunch of new people and learn of the fortunes and misfortunes of their individual journeys through East Africa. One girl had just come down with some flu like symptoms and had dropped in to the local clinic for a checkup only to find out she had the beginnings of a malaria infection. Not very nice, but she was given plenty of drugs to cure it and as it was caught early it did not pose any real threat other than a few days in bed.

After dinner we all headed off for 'Kendwa Rocks' for the P A R T Y! We were very pleased to find that a small break in the clouds had revealed a lovely full moon, and just in time. The party was ON!

From Stonetown to Nungwi

The guys left this morning for the perfect beaches on the northern most tip of Zanzibar. A place called Nungwi. I had stayed behind as I was having a few money issues (I couldn't get any out) which needed resolving, and I also still had an Indian Visa to obtain. Last nights evening activities had unearthed a rumour that Zanzibar had it's own Indian consulate, and today I was going to find it.

By midday I had obtained some cash and located the Consualte. It was indeed there and, joy of joys, they were able to issue Indian Visa's to UK passport holders. However this was going to take 4 working days. Thats Tuesday, my flight is on Wednesday. Nothing like the last minute is there. Looks like I'm stuck on Zanzibar for almost a week! I can think of worse places to be stuck.

By 2pm I was in a Matatu on my way up to Nungwi. I spent most of the trip comparing stories with other East African backpackers, and the journey flew by. When I finally reached the beach I arrived to find not only Giles, Ferg and Katie, but Tess, Tim, Laura and Vikki too. A mini Quest reunion. How cool.

We finished the day in a very cool open air bar called Bawa Willys. The place has thatched umbrellas, swings at the bar and beds to lay on. Such a good idea. Perfect for watching the sunset, even better with a cocktail. But only one; I'm on a budget.