Zanzibar, Tanzania. Africa's gem.

Zanzibar island in Tanzania is about the sixth girls' trip  I've done overall and the second international girls' trip. It's also the second African island I've been to (after Mauritius). I traveled with the same friends who were with me on the trip to Namibia the previous year. Namibia was my first trip with these particular friends and we enjoyed it so much we decided we will make these trips an annual thing and that's how Zanzibar happened. Namibia and Zanzibar happened with very little effort. From deciding where to go right up to actually taking on the trips. The 2 friends I traveled with had a mutual friend who lives in Namibia. I met her for the first time when she visited them in Johannesbug, South Africa, and I liked her. On the day that we met, the other two friends kept talking about how they've been planning to visit their friend in her home country. I asked them about their 'plans' and I soon learned that 'plans' actually just meant 'discussions'. They had discussed going to visit their friend in Namibia but they never got to the actual planning of the trip. When I heard that I told them 'Ladies, there's a long weekend coming up in 2 months, how about taking advantage of that. I will join you'. By the way, I wasn't inviting myself on the trip. The girl from Namibia sounded like she had lost hope in having her friends visit her because she had heard about 'the plans' for a while now. So, she said to me 'maybe you can give them a push and you'll be more than welcome to visit too'. I did not think twice. They probably took it for granted that it was just a fleeting conversation until they received quotes in their inboxes just days after the conversation. I had put 'the plans' in motions! Long story short, Namibia happened 2 months later but that's a story for another post, another day. For now, I wanted to indulge on the Zanzibar encounter.

As I mentioned earlier, Namibia was just so much fun it was not surprising to have another girls' trip was on the cards before we even left Windhoek! I don't recall how Zanzibar became our final choice of destination but I know it was a unanimous decision. Again, our travel plans progressed without much effort. We even had my two sisters join us near the tail-end of our plans. We ended up as a group of five. We had the most amazing time. Two of us were turning forty in a couple of months and we basically turned Zanzibar into a big, week-long celebration. We had surprise birthday dinners, fun bikini photo shoots on the beach. We were such a vibrant bunch other hotel guests were enquiring through the hotel staff about our profiles - who we were, what line of profession we were in, which country we were from..? We would dress up for ever single dinner. The most amusing incident was when one of the guys at the pool bar came by and said 'the people at that table wanted me to ask if you ladies are in the modeling business'. I decided to have fun with that question (LOL). I said 'Yes, we are!' I introduced myself and Sanele as the models, my sister as the agent and I forgot what roles the other 2 ladies were portraying that night.

I love creating memories and I also like documenting my experiences in pictures, hence the photo shoots. I had prepared the ladies beforehand and they were such a great sport! Whenever we reflect on our Zanzibar trip, those photo shoots bring the most laughter.

We landed in Zanzibar around midday after a short albeit uncomfortable flight from Dar es Salaam (because the aircraft is really tiny). The heat was already making us wish for the pool. The drive from the airport to our hotel was one of the most fascinating. When you visit an island like Zanzibar, it's more than likely you will have only been exposed to pictures of perfection. You only get to see the clear, blue ocean and pristine beaches with white sand but much like Mauritius, you will first have to drive past poverty-stricken areas before you get to that perfection. You will see anything from locals who've set up businesses on the side of the road to run down mud houses/shacks. That drive will have you feeling a tad guilty about your trip but you also get to appreciate what you have. Our driver made us all feel uncomfortable because he was driving so fast and yet there were small kids on the side of the road, some crossing haphazardly. My friend tried to tell him to slow down but he would do it temporarily only to revert to his original speed. We accepted our fate and decided not to allow this seemingly negligent behaviour to spoil our arrival. So, we focused on the music that was playing in the car at that time. Music we could sing along to. Once we changed our focus, the drive became less painful. We were filled with excitement and expectation and after some time on the road, the views were starting to look a lot more promising. The vegetation was suddenly looking a lot greener and richer. there were fewer hoses on the side of the road. We were clearly now heading into a different part of the island. The air started to feel a lot more humid. Everything just looked a lot crisper in colour and texture. Shortly, we arrived at our home for the next 6 days. This was the picture of perfection we had been anticipating and counting down to for a while.

We were welcomed by the very friendly staff of Dream of Zanzibar. We waited at the reception area to be shuttled to our respective rooms. Three of us were staying in a villa and my two sisters shared a junior suite. Checking into our villa was like a dream!  The villa opened up to a private pool with a beautiful view of the ocean past a few coconut trees. We felt right at home. This is where most of the mornings started and where the nocturnal activities ended. If the walls of that villa could talk!

I want to share more pictures from this trip but I'm still having a difficult time choosing which ones to share because I think the collection of pictures from this trip are by far the most beautiful of all the pictures from all the trips. It helped to have such a stunning backdrop. I probably have videos somewhere of the time we went into the ocean during low tide. This is a funny and scary event. We had met some locals on the beach who enticed us with the idea of experiencing the low tide. What they meant was not only to see the low tide from the beachfront but to actually go deep into the ocean when the water levels were low. The water practically only went as high as the knee after walking about 500 meters in. What they didn't prepare us for was the fact that the water will start rising to its original level within a certain period of time. So, while we were still fascinated by all the marine life we discovered during this expedition - I even held a star fish in my hand - we started to notice the water rising up. Only three of us went on this adventure. The other two ladies were up to whatever they were up to. Before long, the water was getting to my hips. In panic mode, we wanted to rush back but guess what, it was only a matter of seconds before the water rose up to my waist. I'm the tallest. So, you can imagine how the other two ladies were feeling. None of us are swimmers, let alone swimming in the ocean! I was already seeing the headlines back home. Yikes! 'Okay, calm down. No one is going to drown'. That's the conversation I started having with myself. The actual conversation with my friend and my sister was much more humorous because we simply couldn't contain our trauma from what was happening. The guys had accompanied us into the ocean, three of them. There I started thinking 'this was their plan all along. There must be some kind of agenda'. I started to play out scenarios in my mind. Luckily for us, none of those guys understood our home language (Sepedi) so we could discuss them without them knowing. When I say the conversations we had amongst ourselves were humorous, it's because we were asking ourselves how we could have possibly been so gullible! They tricked us but we were failing to understand what it was they stood to gain or what they were planning to do for that matter.

From a distance, this is what the picture looked like: Three young men and three women walking hand-in-hand, making their way across the ocean. This is how I imagine the picture looked from a distance but the reality was, at this point the water was up to my chest. It would be much scarier talking about the level of water in relation to the other two ladies but the plot twist in this story is that those guys had no malicious intent at all. They wanted to show us the beauty of the ocean. They wanted to show us the creatures that live in the ocean. The ones that you won't see unless you go scuba diving because they live deep in the ocean. We saw all of that. We even held some of those amazing creatures in our very own hands. We took lots of pictures. And that's the story behind the cover picture of this post.