Well, we arrived after a very tedious and sleepless 9½ hour flight. My first impression was, well, let's just say things are basic. After getting off the flight and waiting what seemed like an eternity for our luggage to be offloaded, we were then taken to the salubrious sounding Flamingo Cafe where we had to wait for the others to arrive on the next flight. After they'd arrived, we waited for our bus to whisk us off to the port at Dar Es Salaam where we were to pick up the ferry to Zanzibar. Everything seems to run in slow-motion here, I guess it's the heat, but Africa makes the Spanish "Mañana, mañana" attitude seem positively racy!

The bus ride was an eye-opener and when it arrived, I thought it looked like an old burnt out shell of a bus with only slightly newer tires. It turns out this was in quite good nick compared to the other buses that the locals were squeezed into. A list of some of the things that that I saw on the bus ride that made me smile are:

1. A man cycling furiously along the 'motorway' on a battered old bicycle with the most enormous stack of eggs perched on the back of his bike that I'd ever seen;
2. Women riding side-saddle on the back of their husband's mopeds with no protection, other than their full Muslim dress and an old builder's hard-hat;
3. An open truck crammed full of cattle with a poor young man nestled in between them trying to keep them calm with the aid of a long stick and some harsh words;
4. Groups of little kids, dressed in their finest and having a great time playing in the dust and waving at tourists.

We had to offload our own bags from the ferry as the porters had set up their own little enterprise of fleeceing the tourists for money before even going near our luggage. The fact that they were quick enough to stow it in the staff-only section when we embarked didn't come into it. Zanzibar is interesting, in a way that the slums of London are interesting to those of us looking back at thanking whoever that we didn't have to live in them. We're off to the North of the island in about 30 minutes to spend a couple of days on the beach and do a bit of snorkeling. I'm looking forward to that.

PS - Everyone seems so happy here for some reason. I'm guessing it's the slower pace of life but the words 'Hakuna Matata' are said a lot, so I'm guessing that there really is 'No Problem' with anything...