Zanzibar - Tuesday 26th Jan Australia Day

 After a leisurely brekkie we zipped up to the post office and sent off our Kenya SIM cards to Debs as they don't work in Tanzania even through it's the same phone company in both countries!!.
Imagine having to change your SIM card as you travelled through all the states and territories in Australia.

We made a quick face time to home to check in on the days activity and Dan was enjoying an Aussie Day beer fest with his mates whilst under supervision by Char and Nadine.

Tim picked us up at 9 sharp to travel about 40 minutes to local farm to conduct a spice tour. Besides tourism , spices are the main industry in Zanzibar with the main produce being cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and black pepper. The farm we visited is a community farm so Muhammad was our guide and proceeded to show us around the farm with his helper called 007.Muhammad can speak Spanish , English, Polish , French and of course Swahili . We saw about 12 spices and 10 fruits being produced where he explained how each one is grown and types of uses with touching and smelling being a main part of the experience. One of 007s mates climbed up the coconut tree so we could have a refreshing coconut drink.

They also grow a seed that they use for lipstick.. 007 and Jo are demonstrating the product

As we were travelling around the farm 007 had been making various woven palm items for each of us

Hat,tie and ring for me whilst Joey got hat,basket,frog necklace,ring and fan - nice photo of the 2 dorks with their local wear.

Next up was a taste test of the local fruit grown which was very Queensland  like ( banana,water melon, pineapple,mango, durian ) and then followed by a lunch of rice and dried fish with a final visit to their spice shop.

Tim dropped us back to the hotel for a quick rest before he meet us at again at 2pm for a tour of Stone Town.
Stone Town's acrchiture has a number of distinctive features , as a result of Arab,Persian,Indian,Eurpoean and Africian traditions mixing together. One of the main house features of the buildings are their doors, this one is Indian as it has a round top . Muslim ones have squares tops  - 95% of the population are Muslim.

We visited the tourist markets followed by the locals market then onto the meat,fish and spice markets

On the way back to the motel we dropped Joey off to the local spa house for a bit of r+r whilst I ran the gantlet walking back down the laneway of gift shop sellers trying to relive me of dollars.

Amanda , Jo and I all meet up again for happy hour at the roof top bar watching the sun set graciously in the background whilst the Muslim pray chant was echoing in the background.

We decided to head off to Africa House for dinner tonight which was very quiet on the tourist front. We enjoyed an excellent meal of lobster for Jo and tuna  for me accompanied by a nice little white sav blanc from South Africa .

Charlotte had been hassling me on many foreign trips to grow a goatie so after 2 weeks I decided  to relent and have a shave. Jo has been calling me Colonel Sanders all day.