I arrived on Zanzibar using the "fast ferry" which was $10 more than the slow ferry and in the end only half an hour faster - ah well that's life. The view approaching Stone Town is beautiful. Stone Town itself is strange, it has a front of grand buildings (many of them now in disrepair). Behind that is a labyrinth of weaving streets with hundreds of little houses interspersed with cathedrals, a mosque and other large religious/historical buildings.

I had a guided tour of the city, including a visit to the old slave market. The hostel I stayed at was lovely for what we were paying and there were lots of other guests to chat to. I went for dinner to the Fordohani Gardens fish market with one of the guys from the hostel. It was lovely, really bussling, the food looked great and tasted great (with hindsight it wasn't great as I didn't feel great the next day, neither did Craig, also they all claimed to have cought the fish that day but every stall had a very wide selection of fish....hmmmm....and they all claimed the others froze their fish and reused it - I think that is true of all of them)

The rest of my 4 days in Stone Town were all about diving. I spent Saturday watching DVDs, doing quizes and then went out to watch the most amazing sunset followed by quite a few beers and a meal in a VEGGIE restaurant (I know who's have thought it) with a very extensive menu but none of it was actually available onlt the starters available to order (I guess this is typical of veggies). I also visited Mercury's bar - which is potentially connected to Freddie Mercury (who was from Zanzibar and I think that may be the only connection) - and has a lot of pics of him around. Sunday was spent in the pool doing my closed water dives, and then Monday and Tuesday were my 4 open water dives. These were amazing, the coral was spectacular, I saw some blue spotted stingrays, lionfish, stonefish, had myself a fight with a clownfish (don't worry neither of us came to any harm, we were just messing around). I really really enjoyed my diving - really got the diving bug now!

I really enjoyed my time in Zanzibar, mainly due to the diving and the poeple I met. There are a lot of touts and people trying to seperate you from your money which can at times be very trying, but in the main the people are very friendly and it's a great place. From Stonetown I'm off up the coast to Kendwa for some beach time and perhaps some more diving.