Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a lovely day wherever you are in the world and all your Christmas dreams came true!

Finally back having a hot Christmas and I am sorry to report Southern Hemisphere chaps but cold Christmas' are for me… it is just uncomfortable all this sweating and tanning - or in my case burning!

Started our day with breakfast of toast, jam and eggs to your liking, which for me was none, but hey ho they can't please everyone. My day of snorkeling then had to be cancelled, as unfortunately my stomach would not allow me far from a toilet for now. The thought of pooping in the sea or on a boat with no real toilet facilities just didn't appeal so had to have a slight change of Christmas plans. I gave Laura my underwater camera so that she could capture what I was missing and my day of relaxation and frequent loo visits commenced. Laid in the sun for at least half an hour, which if you know me is really rather a long time for me and then had a swim in the sea at regular intervals. There are quite a few little stingers in this area but they seem harmless apart from the slight sting when they first bite. It is lovely having your hotel room within 50m of the beach as you can easily have a quick wash off after swims to stop any stinging and limit the amount of salt and sand on your body. I am definitely a pebble beach fan and not a huge sand fan. It was hot today so was not able to hang on the beach for too long. Zac and I made an executive decision that the group would have dinner on the beach tonight and so we booked a table and negotiated a free cocktail on arrival.

Am loving my new found skill of setting my phone up as a mobile hotspot and then being able to use my phone to host my laptop's wifi. This will hopefully allow for some more regular blog updates. The only problem on Zanzibar is that the power cuts out at least twice per day and the internet seems to suffer as a result. Skype calls home today were patchy at best but was able to determine that Xavier was not impressed with one cricket shirt that he got but thankfully Aunty Jenna's present of a Carlton Guernsey made up for his rather disappointing cricket based present - hilarious how honest a 7 year old can be without the slightest hint of malice. Glad that he obviously got so many presents that he failed to notice that no presents tags said love Aunty Kelly!!

At dinner tonight we finally exchanged our secret Santa presents. Not sure I have ever waited till nearly 7pm before I opened my first gift on Christmas Day. Others were also suffering from present withdrawal. Although I can't complain too much as I was very lucky to get my terribly generous cyber gift from Jaye and Jake - thanks!! We had a USD5 limit on presents and on the whole the group did really well in buying person appropriate gifts. I got a small canvas of 3 Massai type people which I am very happy with as I have been looking at them in the markets. Dinner was a seafood mixed grill, there was unfortunately no turkey in sight on any menu we have seen anywhere in Africa! After dinner Laura, Yoshi and I went along the beach to some other restaurants to find some desert - it was Christmas after all. We found a warm chocolate cake with Devon custard and thought that our lives were complete. Three were ordered and saliva started dripping down our chins. The cakes arrived and we came back down to earth with a thud. What were we thinking - This is Africa - nothing is as you think it will be. No chocolate mud cakes in Zanzibar. We had envisaged our warm cake swimming in custard; in reality we got 2 dry bits of cold cake (which were a very weak chocolate sponge) and a small ramekin of custard which was varying degrees of warm between our 3 plates. But considering we have not had desert for quite some time, a quick adjustment of our expectations, a merry Christmas and we all enjoyed our cake J

We then looked for a party but were soon to discover that Nungwi just doesn't party like we had thought that they might. The resorts are really not that busy and the locals whilst saying they are having a party really don't realise that 10 people (usually all boys/men) and loud music are just not enough to make a party atmosphere that we just can't resist. So at midnight it was home to bed.