Day 105 to 110: Beaches to die for

Two long driving days brought us across the Tanzanian border to Dar es Salaam, the departure point for Zanzibar. Nightly rain was replaced with constant stifling heat, which didn't mix well with the choking stench of rotting fish wafting from Dar's fishmarkets.

We caught the ferry for a relaxing trip to Stone Town, Zanzibar's main town, where we were led on an amusing spice garden walk by "Ali T in da bush", a man who spoke like Ali G as he described the spices. We visited the old slave markets, now a church, and saw the awful cells slaves used to be crammed into before they were purchased.

From Stone Town we headed to Nungwi, where we spent two very chilled days on one of the most beautiful beaches we've ever seen. White sand led to vividly blue water where boats bobbed peacefully. However, the next morning the seas were rough and the boats were thrashing around. Our tour group had planned to go snorkeling, but none of the operators were foolish enough to set sail in such stormy conditions, except for one...By lunchtime we'd been approached by a company who was willing to take us out in a speed boat rather than a wooden boat and so off we headed on the roughest boat trip we've experienced. We did see lots of pretty fish and an intensely turquoise coloured sea like we'd never seen before, but as we began the trip back to shore I think we were all relieved to be approaching land. Conditions had become rougher while we were snorkeling and several times our small boat was nearly overcome by waves. After the engine flooded and plenty of water was bailed out, my trust in the boat owners judgment was quickly disappearing and I decided it was a good time to put on one of the life jackets lying around the boat floor. We made it safely to shore, but the waves were so strong that we had to anchor a little offshore. As the waves washed over the brow of the little boat, we jumped into the water and spluttered to shore. Our trainee, Arnold, hadn't grown up swimming and was very nervous of snorkeling in deep water, so nobody let him know quite how dangerous the trip had been until we were firmly back on land. Aside from that adrenaline-charged adventure, the rest of our time on Zanzibar was spent peacefully enjoying the beach, very affordable cocktails and good food.