Goodbye Zanzibar, Hello Mombasa

My last full day in Zanzibar was spent as a sort-of tourist. I've done all the regular tourist things in Zanzibar so just spent the morning roaming around through the alleyways of Stonetown trying to see if I could get lost :-) I remember the first time in Zanzibar when I felt some anxiety about getting lost in the warren of buildings. This time I was armed with a friend's cellphone number so if I really did get lost I could phone to be rescued. It turns out that it is a little more difficult to actually get lost that I originally thought and I had a really enjoyable morning exploring the alleys, avoiding all the touts trying to sell trinkets and tours and looking at all the old buildings.

 




I ended up at the market and made the mistake at going into the fish section to see what was for sale. The smell was beyond description and I was very hard-pressed not to present the seller with my breakfast. I don't think I have every smelt anything that bad! I decided that since I was going out to dinner in the evening, I would give the meat section a skip so that I could face some meat without thinking of where it came from.

From the market I went to WIOMSA to visit my friend Kizzie to see if he had finished his work and could make afternoon drinks. It was great to hang out in his office to cool down a bit. I also found out that the electricity was off again and was thankful that we had wrapped up our work on Thursday. Even though WIOMSA was running their generator to Internet provider was down so we would have not been able to work at all. Kizzie was still busy trying to get through his work so I left him to it and went to the Africa House Hotel for lunch and some drinks.
 

After a brief attempt at a siesta (it was too hot to sleep), I packed my suitcase in preparation for the move to Mombasa. Kizzie had finished his work so we went for drinks at a local pub called the Rock Cafe - a dark and dingy little place but it was nice being off the tourist track. Later we met up with the WIOMSA Executive Secretary at a really great Chinese restaurant called Pagoda for dinner. It was a fun evening filled with good food and great company and we were the last to leave the restaurant!

It was a little difficult getting up this morning for my flight to Mombasa - I was glad that I had packed my suitcase before going out last night. My flight was once again with Precision Air and despite everyone's pessimism regarding whether the flight would leave on time, it left early.

It is only a 45 minute hop across the sea so the flight was over almost before it began. I think that I possibly spent more time in the taxi on the way to the hotel than in the aircraft getting to Mombasa. The Voyager Beach Resort where I'm staying is a fairly typical tourist hotel for Mombasa. It is frequented mostly by British tourists and is quite luxurious compared to the place I stayed at in Zanzibar. I get to watch TV again but I'm not sure that is such a good thing as the first thing I watched was the Sharks lose to the Brumbies - our 5 straight loss!

My last photo is of a door in Zanzibar and is specially for Jo - I'm sure that if you go through the photos from our trip there is a photo of this same door among them. :-)


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