No window frames... but card games!

It was absolutely fabulous seeing my sister in Zanzibar. She arrived on an early morning flight into Dar es Salaam and we all immediately got a so called 'fast' (it ook about three hours instead of the promised hour and a half!!) ferry over to Zanzibar.
Spent our first day and night exploring Stone Town, shopping and enjoying the first of many 'sun downers' (am I the only person never to have called a sunset drink this before?!) together!

The next day we headed for the beach - we'd had a bit of trouble trying to book accommodation in advance as there were three of us, it was NewYear and as usual I'd left it to the last minute. Our room, if you can call it that, was up a steep set of steps above a circular shop which the owners wife used as a workshop for her retail business. It had a roof and that's about all - no walls, doors or windows- just timber poles supporting the roof and curtains hanging in between them. It was fantsatic - the views were amazing and you got a fabulous sea breeze at night!

Spent our days sunbathing (obviously!), fishing and cycling. Cycling along the beach was great on the way there when the tide was out and we could cycle along the hard wet sand. Coming back however when the tide was in and our only choice was the soft, fine sand wasn't so much fun and really hard work!! We also hired a car one day - well it was actually a taxi - the owner worked out he could earn way more if he just gave it to us for the day instead of trying to get his usual fares. Before we left we obviously needed to fill up with fuel and as the nearest petrol station is over the other side of the island the owner said we could have some of his store. We expected him to come out with one of those little petrol tanks you keep in your boot but instead he arrived with about 15 half full water bottles containing petrol. He then spent the next 5 minutes pouring the contents through a funnel into the car- only in Africa!! Spent the day exploring the island- in our taxi driven my Adam - with our Bongo Fleva CD blaring out authentic African tunes (cheers Liz!). At one point we were pulled over by the police for a routine check- we thought we'd have difficulty explaining why there was a mzungu driving the taxi instead of the real taxi driver but the police weren't at all concerned - weird!

The days we spent together were fabulous but I think I speak for all of us when I say the highlights were definately the evenings. With our swahili and masaai language skills we managed to befriend some of the local Masaai who worked at one of the neighbouring bars as watchmen. We spent a couple of evenings chatting to them and trying to teach them card games - it was absolutely hysterical!! After the first game the picture cards came out - they were way too complicated!! Our limited language combined with cards they had never seen before and a few cocktails turned snap and chase the ace into the worlds most complicated games. To try to make it easier for them to understand the games had to be renamed- snap became simba as you had to pounce like a lion (their idea!) and chase the ace is now know as mbaya (bad) as you didn't want to be left with the bad card!!

Was really sad saying bye to Katy at the end of our stay - we were also kind of worried as one of the Masaai men had taken a bit of a liking to her and was wondering if she'd like to go to his hut that night - she politely refused but of course had no way of bolting the door to her room as there wasn't one and so spent the night in fear!! Really looking forwards to catching up with her again in Oz!!