Zanzibar

Four of us from my little newbie T-LED group decided to go to Zanzibar for the weekend. How exotic! It's a 1.5 hour ferry ride to get there; $35 each way if you are a non-resident and I think half that price if you are a resident. A lot of attractions here are like that, half price for residents, including safaris and Mount Kilimanjaro.

They played an Arabic version of the TV show "The Voice" but the kids version for the whole ferry ride... and if 2 hours of high pitched kids voices singing Arabic pop songs wasn't enough, they played the exact same footage for the ride back!!

Just over 24 hours wasn't nearly enough time for Zanzibar; there is so much to see on the island and we only hung out in Stone Town.



As soon as we landed we went snorkeling and went to a endangered tortoise sanctuary!! Oh man, hanging out with 142 year old giant land tortoises, the second largest species in the world after the Galapagos tortoises, was soooooo wonderful!! Also, hilariously, it is mating season so we were serenaded by tortoises getting it on!

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Apparently they like neck scratches? I was torn about it... it really bothered me to see the tourists harassing the tortoises.

 

  

There is a cholera outbreak happening on Zanzibar right now, so the market where all the food vendors can be found has been shut down. Most of the restaurants are also closed due to the outbreak and because it's low season; so when we tried to go for supper that night it was quite a frustrating endeavor! Luckily we found a gorgeous, but expensive, seaside patio that had the best music playing. A bushbaby was up in the tree and peed on my friend's head a number of times during the meal too!

http://www.awf.org/wildlife-conservation/bush-baby

The partying in Zanzibar was really fun :D

The next day we went on a spice tour, and it was the highlight of the trip actually!! We went to a government owned spice farm and had a guide tell us all about the spices and plants, while his helper got samples of all the plants and let us sniff and taste everything. If you've ever done field work with me you'll know that learning about plants and then smelling them is my FAVOURITE thing to do, so this was heaven!! 

We got to see vanilla (the world's second most expensive spice after saffron), ginger, tumeric, cloves (grows on a tree!), cinnamon (you can use the leaves, the bark, and the root which smells of menthol!), coffee trees, lemongrass, ylang ylang (my favourite smell; it's a flower on a tree), neem, curry leaves (again, a tree) and so many more. The helper made us little jewelry and bags out of coconut leaves, and Mr. Butterfly showed us how to climb coconut trees, then serenaded us from the top!

Lemongrass

Pineapples!

Curry tree

The seeds inside this cute little fruit are crushed and used to make lipstick

I'd love to go back to Zanzibar. It's a little crazy with the very persistent vendors who will follow you for ten minutes or more trying to sell you tours. It's a bit expensive, but it's so lovely.