From the beach to the town

All good things must come to an end, and so we had to leave our little beach front paradise. It was sad to say goodbye, and I had to go around taking some photos of the place before we left.

This was my bed in our room, along with the little "sitting room" area. It was a huge room, actually, which was really nicely arranged with an extra dressing room and a bathroom with a nice big, hot shower. Here's a view of the front of our room - we had our own little verandah on which to sit.

And this is where we ate our meals (we were on half-board, so got breakfast and supper there, and we normally foraged for snacks in the village for lunch).

And here's the pool, which I only went in once because it was so cold! I was really feeling sorry for all the Europeans who had come for a nice hot, tropical beach holiday - but for us, it was SO wonderful to be able to actually be in the sun and not melt into a puddle!

Anyways, we were soon on our way, hurtling down the "highway" of the island in a mini-van, freezing in the A/C! It was quite a nice van, and scenery on the way was interesting - lots of little villages and farms, and lots and lots of trees. It's a pretty lush island, let me tell you. And I know we were on the main road, so it's probably different if you get "off the beaten track", but most of the little houses and towns didn't look that bad off. I mean, even the mud huts looked to be of a higher standard than what I'm used to seeing here. The children running around in the yards were all fully clothed in relatively clean and tear-free clothes, there was lots of stuff in the shops, and fields looked like there was lots to eat in them.
Eventually, we made it to our final destination - Stone Town. We stayed in a hotel near the ferry docks, which was handy. As soon as we settled into our hotel, which was in an old building in the middle of the town, on one of those narrow alley-ways, we went next door for some lunch and a latte.
And then we just started wandering through the streets to see what we could see. It was so cool! We had a bit of an idea of which direction to head in, as we were armed with our Lonely Planet guide book (don't leave home without one!), and we stumbled upon some really amazing scenes. The winding little alley ways, complete with the stereotypical old wooden Zanzibari doors were everywhere! I kinda had in my mind that the "Zanzibar door" was a thing of legend - something that they write about in the tourist brochures to lure tourists there, but that there would only be, like, one or two in the whole town. But I was wrong! There were doors everywhere you turned! And they hadn't all been made into tourist attractions - most of them were actually just doors to people's apartment buildings or shops or whatever! I was so impressed, and my tourist cynicism was quickly put to rest. And yes, I took one or two photos of the doors. I don't know why, but I was completely fascinated by them.


We wandered around for hours, and it was just amazing to see all those old buildings, just exactly as they had been built a couple of hundred years ago, in the era of the sultans. And then, of course, to pop into a few little souvenir shops, full of beautiful clothes and batiks. So many colours and patterns - true eye candy!
But one of the real highlights was some God-given eye candy. We were treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen in a really long time. Of course, just at the right moment, a dhow sailed by, and well, I took one or two photos.

This feast for the eyes was followed by a feast for our bellies at a wonderful little Italian restaurant. I ate a giant portion of the most perfect lasagne, followed by a trilogy of the most deliciously rich desserts (don't worry, the three of us shared the dessert!). The dessert was so good, I had to take a photo of it... and what blog would be complete without a picture of my food?!