Zanzibar - Stone Town

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How's it going Travelfeeders and Steemers?? I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and NYE 🎉🎉

Once again we are on our end of year trip. We chose an African overland safari again as we had so much fun on it last year! I have had extremely limited WiFi and now hopefully this post will work here in Kenya.

It all started on Christmas eve. We boarded our flight headed to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from Brisbane, Australia to embark on our three and a half week overland camping truck safari to trek for the gorilla's in Uganda.

24 hours later we arrived at Dar Es Salaam. We found our driver, then the moment we left the airport the street was shut down by the army with Ute's that had mounted machine guns with guys wearing balaclavas and heavy armoured trucks with military hanging of the side of the truck weapons drawn. We are definitely not in Brisbane any more haha.

This was the convoy for the president of Tanzania as he arrived at the airport the same time we did.

Our first camping spot was Kipepo beach village. We checked in and checked out our beach shack then waited for our truck to arrive.

The meeting time was 5pm but the truck was stuck in traffic in Dar Es Salaam and didn't arrive until after 8pm. The camp ground was on the beach and it was Christmas day. There were hundreds of people on the beach enjoying the holiday so we just relaxed and enjoyed a couple of drinks while we waited.

The following morning we were headed to Zanzibar! Our jet lag was in full effect and we woke up before the sun was up only to realise we were under attack the entire night by bed bugs 😢. Which is not the best Christmas present or way to start the trip but hey it's the dice you roll when sleeping in a beach shack. Being awake at sunrise isn't a bad thing as sun rise will be the wake up time for this entire trip.

We went to the truck for breakfast and to meet the crew Mwangi, Reuben and Issa and the other 8 people on this adventure.

The truck sits 29 people so it was great to hear there was only 11 of us on the truck! Nice and roomy.

Reuben is an amazing cook and breakfast was delicious. We then headed to the ferry to get to the boat terminal to make our two hour boat ride to Zanzibar.

The first night we spent on the island was Stone town.

This old city is filled with tiny streets that is like a maze cause they all look the same. It is super easy to get lost.

One thing that does stand out is the cool looking doors everywhere. They have spikes on them which is Indian influence to keep the elephants out and not rub themselves on the doors.

We find our hotel for the night,

then they took us on a spice tour. Zanzibar is known for their spices and it was a very informative tour of the plantation.

Once we headed back into the city they gave us a quick tour which took us to the House of Wonders. Which was under construction. The House of Wonders was the first building in Tanzania that had electricity and the building is huge!

The next stop was the old Arabic fort. Zanzibar was the major slave trading spot when the Arabs had control over the island.

This fort has an apitheater and is now home to all of the tourist treasures.

We checked out the waterfront

Then headed to the house where Freddie Mercury grew up. Zanzibar is an Islamic state as being gay is illegal here. So they say that he was a very flamboyant singer.

It was a big day and time for a beer, so we headed to the sunset bar to enjoy a cold beer as the sun set over the ocean.

As we left the bar the smell of street food was in the air. The night markets were kicking off and all the seafood and meat sticks were available on the BBQ.

I tried a tuna steak and shawarma and @terrybogan had a Zanzibar pizza. They were all delicious! The spices were on point

Now it was dark it was time to get lost in these little streets and try and find our way back to the hotel. What a mission that was!

The African Adventure to be continued 😊 Untill the next strong WiFi spot. Happy travels!

[//]:# (!steemitworldmap -6.163492 lat 39.190411 long d3scr)

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