After a wonderful wedding, quite a lot of injections and a little help from our friends and family we were all set for our trip to Africa.
A rather long flight, though free champagne and then my first time on light aircraft we arrived in Zanzibar. A bit of culture and then a well earned rest by the coast! We headed to Stone Town and the Zenji Hotel. Stone Town is steeped in culture with its winding alleys, bustling bazaars, mosques and grand Arab houses and for Richard a wonderful amount of carved, wooden doors - there are more than 500 different examples, though we didn’t see them all. It really was a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, where the local people are glad to show you the way.
Our time in Zanzibar wouldn’t have been complete without some, chill out time on the beach. We headed an hour north and a very bumpy cab ride to Nungwi on the northern tip of the island. Nungwi’s beach is more a series of small beaches, but it has no seaweed and very little tide compared with the rest of the Island. We stayed in Flame Tree Cottages further away from the main tourist area and it was lovely, very quiet and had a great little beach restaurant.
Whilst on Zanzibar we tried snorkling off the most idilic island and had a great tour of the local village from Romeo (found most day on the beach near flame tree). We visited a turtle sanctuary where injured turtles and other marine animals are nursed back to health before being released into the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Though lets not forget the Dhou trip and seeing Dolphins, it was just great.
The second leg of trip involved more light plain journeys, before arriving in Selous the largest but least well known of all Tanzania’s game parks. We hadn’t even touched down and I’d seen my first Giarffe. Arriving to cool towels mango juice and a surprising game drive straight away, we knew we’d made the right choice with Selous Impala Camp. The camp was amazing and our tent was right at the edge of the Rufuji River. On our first night we awoke to a bull elephant tearing at the trees next to our camp, a scary experience. The food was great, our driver was great and we saw a massive amount of animals from lion cubs to kingfishers. I could have lived there!
A lass we had to leave and set fight for our last port of call The Tides on Oshongo beach. This was truly in the middle of no where, landing on a field where the whole local village was gather under a small tree to see us and the plain arrive. We drove through very poor areas of Africa to arrive at a beautiful palm tree beach on some unspoilt coastline. Our days were spent relaxing read talking to local children and more relaxing. Just what we needed at the end of our trip.
I just want thank all the people who bought us gifts and excursions relating to our amazing honeymoon, we loved them all.