Tessa & I spent the morning exploring the narrow alleyway streets of Stone Town. We started by walking along the waterfront, looking at art galleries, taking photos of architecture and declining offers for guides around town. We relished the opportunity to do our own thing. We strolled into the old Fort where we discovered Judy a local woman we had met the night before when she was advertising her henna business. She was thrilled we remembered her name and were both embraced gleefully. Having extricated ourselves we wandered into the narrow winding streets that are reminiscent of Morocco. Doorways are intricately carved, balconies nearly touch each other as buildings appear to lean over the alleyways. We found a lovely cafe where we had lunch before making our way back to the hotel.

The drive north to our beach huts which are home for 3 nights took just over an hour. Our room is lovely, spacious, clean and with a wide porch we can sit on sipping our drinks. A few minutes stroll takes us down to the pristine white sandy beach where crystalline waters lap the shore. We went exploring - first to the right where we got turned around after 15 minutes at the private beach of a large hotel and secondly to the left where we noted which beachside restaurants appear to do real coffee. We had an early dinner in our hotel's restaurant. A lovely chicken & mango salad with some local fishcakes that tasted mostly of char-grill.