Zanzibar weekend

This past weekend Angie and I traveled to Zanzibar to celebrate our 25th anniversary which is coming up next week. We had a great time on the north coast at a place called Blue Bay Beach Resort. It reminded us a bit of Siesta Key in Florida, but with beach boys who keep trying to sell you things. We arrived on Friday around noon and were there until Sunday afternoon. Micah stayed behind in Nairobi and we had a friend stay with him at our house. We had a good time relaxing on the beach and also took in a couple of tours including a spice tour as Zanzibar is known as the "spice island", and a tour of stone town which is a very old part of the city. It used to be a major slave gathering and sale point. We got to tour some of the areas where they were kept and sold. They used to whip them to see how strong they were and by that they knew how far they could ship them with them still surviving.

The resort was pretty cool with great food and a nice pool to lay around as well.

We stayed in the unit on the left. We could see the beach which was full of blues and greens similar to what you can see in the Caribbean.

The spice tour was pretty cool. It was a walking tour where we walked all through an area for a few hours learning (and tasting) where the spices come from.

This is a nutmeg. I had no idea that they were actually seeds in an apple like fruit and that they are surrounded by a red cover that is used for mace.

Next are cloves which grow on pretty big trees. There are a number of different qualities which you can tell just by looking at the growing plant before it's picked and dried.

This is peppercorn. I did taste one of these. It was pretty warm! Even green and raw.

And here are some samples of what all we saw. We enjoyed the tour.

Then we were off to Stone Town where we walked the narrow streets and found a number of interesting historical things to learn about. It was pretty fun and ended up sitting on a balcony having a coke at the old British Officer's club.

It was a great weekend.