Zanzibar Airport |
The flights over the Atlantic and Africa were rather uneventful except for a 55 minute delay at Newark airport.
Interesting fact: When the airline brings in the wrong plane to your gate and unloads it, then has to have it towed away while having your plane towed over at which time they have to stock it with food and do all the cleaning and preflight stuff before you can get aboard. do you know what they call that? "A SEVERE WEATHER DELAY". You have to love the airlines.
After a one hour stop in Zurich, Switzerland and another in Nairobi, Kenya we made our way to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. We scored some inexpensive business class tickets so we had the lay down seats the whole way across. I must admit after traveling long distances on C-130's during my career, I can really appreciate that particular perk. And surprisingly, the food was not bad.
We contracted with Breakdown Safaris in Dar es Salaam to handle the logistics and transportation for us until we board the train. Kathy Phinney and Fanuel Mateja did a great job of meeting us at the airport and getting us to the Upepo Garden in Mbezi for the night. More about the hotel later. We only had a short night sleep and we were off to the airport the next morning for Zanzibar.
Zanzibar Island
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The Zanzibar Archipelago is located 25 to 50 kilometres of the west coast of mainland Tanzania. With a population of 1.3 million people it covers roughly 930 square miles or 2461 square kilometres. Ha Ha, again with the metric system and I even used that weird European way of spelling kilometres.
After a 22 minute flight on a very small plane we made our way through customs and into town. The Zanzibar Palace Hotel is in the middle of Stone Town about 2 blocks off of the waterfront. The building itself dates back to way before any housing records and it really did have a wonderful, old world feel. Mr. Frans Fiegge is the director and he and his staff made our stay there as easy and relaxing as possible. With a 20 foot ceiling covered by many century old logs, middle Eastern lanterns, brass beds with mosquito netting and giant tile bath tubs the place was old world cool. Tending the dining room and the bar, Iddi was "The Man" when it came to taking excellent care of us. Thanks to everyone there for the great stay and hospitality.
No bugs tonight
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Iddi |
Ye olde ceiling fan. |
Church and Mosque |
Inside the Church |
Dr. Livingston's Cross
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Moving Piece
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Next we went on to the market and to our other tours. That we will cover in the part 2.
Cheers,
James and Pat