Arusha to Zanzibar - Monday 25th Jan

We headed off today to fly to Zanzibar for 3 days so before flying out at 1.30 pm we visited the local Cultural  Heritage centre which contains a huge range of wooden carvings, paintings, metal sculptures and restaurant.

Jo managed to find 3 nice oil paintings of the Massai people  so after a bit of bargaining to settle on the price we all had a very nice lunch and then the short drive to the airport at 12.30 . We all piled into the light aircraft for the 90 minute flight to Zanzibar

The itinerary has only recently changed to flying as before they would drive from Arusha to Dar es Salaam then by ferry to Zanzibar however the traffic is horrendous and wastes a couple of days in this process so the flight is a far better speedier option( unfortunately Jan misses out and stays behind in Arusha)

We arrive mid afternoon and are met by Tim our local guide for the couple of days.The weather is fantastic with tempatures in the 30's and high humidity very much like Brisbane in summer time much to our delight.

Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania and has been under the rule of Britain,Germany, Arabs and Portuguese over the centuries and between Zanzibar and Pemba Island their are approx 1.3m people. The island was a main port for slave trading and it only stopped in the late 1800's.

We are staying right in Stone Town which is  a world heritage site so we went up the main street which are all lined by souvenir shops mainly selling carvings and paintings. Jo also stopped to organise a local SIM card before going back to our motel which has a roof top bar so it was afternoon drinks at happy hour to watch the sun go down

View out from the bar at sunset

We then drifted off to a local seafood restaurant for a great meal and then a short walk back to the hotel to bed