Sun in the sky, sand under my feet.

Zanzibar is beautiful. That is pretty much all you need to know.

For the first two days I stayed with some other volunteers in Stone Town, the heart of Zanzibar. The town is a maze of little alleys enshrouded on both sides by tall three story buildings. On one side, you have the water; on the other, you have the market and dala stand. We arrived in Stone Town in the morning, taking a one and a half hour ferry from Dar Es Salaam, costing us 20,000 shillings (£8) as we were residents with our Permit Cs. I arrived in Stone Town to a phone call from my roommate telling me that the previous night, there had been riots and a church had been burned down. The authorities were advising people to stay away from the place. Always good to get off to a positive start. We met our guide outside the harbour and he took us to the hostel we would be staying in called Jambo Guest House. The hostel was really nice, triple rooms with fans and mosquito nets. We paid $15 per night each including breakfast. We dumped our stuff and proceeded with a tour of Stone Town, with the guide showing us the different ornate doors that front some of the houses. The doors are huge rectangles boarded by carvings, sometimes chains to signify slavers, sometimes circles to signify pearl divers. Across the Indian influenced doors, metal or wooden spikes jut out three to four inches in order to prevent elephants destroying the door.

We were shown the old palaces and the beach front before being taken to the market. There were three parts to the market. Fish, fruit and spices. The fish market reeked to high heaven, the fruit market smelled like heaven and the spice market was an amazing assault on the senses. Our guide took us straight to one stall, which he said was the cheapest one. The owner, Saleem, was extremely friendly and the prices were unbelievable. 1000 (40p) Tsh bought you a small bag of coffee, tea or spices. 3000 (£1.20) bought you a big bag. I didn't have enough money on me at the time so I told him I would come back the next day with some other friends and, as a gesture of good will, he gave me a free small bag of coffee. Sure enough the next day I went back and bought 28000 (£11.20) shillings worth of spices, including some garam masala, fish masala, a big bag of saffron and twenty vanilla pods for 10000 shillings (£4) each. I also bought some spice boats as presents for 2000 shillings each and got one free. When I went back the next day to buy some stuff for the girls, he gave me two packets of chilli powder. What a nice guy!

On the second day in Stone Town, we went to Prison Island, a small island used as a quarentine centre in the past. Nowadays it is a luxury hotel and tortoise sanctuary. Again, due to our permit Cs, we only had to pay 2000 shillings to get in. Seems like I'm making some of that $500 back! After taking in the island we headed out into the rain and rough seas for a bit of snorkeling. Now I've never been snorkeling before, so it was a new experience for me and, being pretty much blind, I realised that if I ever take up snorkeling or diving as a hobby, I needed to get my own stuff made. However, it was a great experience and seeing all the brightly colour fish and starfish was brilliant.

The third day, I joined two of the volunteers on a spice tour where we visited a plantation and were provided lunch. As it rained heavily during the tour, we were forced to take shelter and it gave us time to meet some of the other people on the tour. There were three British lads who had just been to Kendwa with the other volunteers and they could not speak highly enough of Kendwa. They and the volunteers pretty much convinced me to go. Anyway, the spice tour was a good waste of a day; it was interesting enough but not anything special.

In the evening on all three nights we went to the night market, which was a collection of stands out by the harbour selling food. I tried the Zanzibar pizza, multiple seafood kebabs (baby shark, tuna, kingfish, lobster, octopus), samosas and a shwarma kebab. The prices were not particularly cheap for Tanzania, the market clearly being aimed at the huge number of tourists that grace the island, but the food was good enough and didn't make me sick at least.

On my fourth morning being in Zanzibar, I parted ways with the remaining two volunteers who were heading back to Dar and over the border to Kenya before one of their permit Cs ran out. I headed north on a privately hired shared taxi, which was pretty much a luxury dala. Pulling up in Kendwa, I headed to Kendwa Rocks where I was told to book a dorm in order to avoid paying an entrance fee to Saturday's full moon party. I booked my dorm and was given a card. The card was the way of paying for everything while using the restaurant, bar or internet while staying at Kendwa Rocks. Its is extemely handy, that I can leave all my money in my bags, but also, for some, it can be a very easy way to spend a lot of money. Thankfully, it's not all irresponsible as the resort does give you receipts with every purchase letting you know how much you are spending.

The first day I was there, I met a local guy from Usa River who showed me up and down the beach, where to eat locally and where the supermarket was. At lunch, I headed to the restaurant with my book to finally have some sushi again. I had eight pieces of tuna sashimi and eight pieces of kingfish nigiri for 15500 shillings (£6.20). I read my book some,while trying to rid myself of my T-shirt tan, and then met two Danish girls who I had gone on the spice tour with when I headed to the bar for happy hour (or four as it lasts from 3-7pm, cocktails 5000 shillings (£2)). For dinner, I had soup and chicken chapatti, which is basically a chicken wrap with chapatti replacing the tortilla. We then headed over to the neighbouring bar which had music and people. When I say music, they played Rihanna's discography separating each song with another European chart hit from six months ago. I left at about two and got back to my dorm where I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

My second day in Kendwa began with a buffet breakfast, which wasn't much of a buffet because I arrived too late to get more than one helping. No matter. Spotting the two Danes again we hung out for the day, lying in the sun and swimming for a bit. I got burned but not badly. I had tuna teriaki for lunch and a few cocktails at happy hour, ginger mojito being highly recommended. The Danes left to continue their travels and I headed back to the dorm for a rest, a shower and to get ready for the full moon party. Back in the dorms, I met two Canadians and an Australian, who invited me down to dinner with them where we joined a few others. It reminded me somewhat of when I had first got to Arusha. You find a bunch of people with something in common, language, living arrangements, how little time you've been in the country. The night started with a special barbeque grill, where I treated myself to half a lobster and buffet for 38000 shillings (£17.20) which was delicious. Then the table took it turns to get to know each other and what we were all doing in Zanzibar, which turned out to be a mixture of volunteers, travellers and people on breaks after business trips. Traditional dancing, drumming and an acrobatics show followed, which wasn't anything I hadn't already seen in Arusha or on safari at Lake Manyara. Then there was a dance crew or three and a Michael Jackson...dance-a-like? He was okay, though it was annoying that he mimed everything. Why pretend to sing like MJ if you can't? Just give up the pretense and conentrate on dancing. However, once that had concluded the party really got started as the DJ broke out dance classics like Karma Chameleon and various songs by Wham.  The full moon party began to get going at midnight or thereabouts; I've taken to leaving my phone back in my bags so I had no idea what the time was. Before I knew it is was three o'clock, or at least that's what my last receipt says. I think I went to sleep pretty shortly after but it might have been anywhere from 3:15 - 4 a.m. It wasn't what I had expected. I think I had expected it to be one of the Greek islands, possibly due to the number of Brits in Kendwa, in Africa. But in fact it was a lot more chilled out than that. Most of the people here were here to chill rather than get blind drunk.
I've really enjoyed my time in Zanzibar so far, and on Monday I head off to the east coast to join the other volunteers. From what I hear the east is devoid of people and a great place to just chill and relax. All that I need to do is find a cheap place to stay. Until then.