Safari and Zanzibar Tour Diaries – Second Week Recap

Our Tanzanian holiday has come to an end and we are very happy to be back home. We spent the entire second week in Zanzibar. After days of roughing it up on safari, waking up super early and dealing with cold mornings, it was nice to relax and enjoy the sunny beach weather in Zanzibar.

Here’s an overview of week 2

We flew out of Arusha (with Precision Air) and arrived Zanzibar pretty early. It took us about an hour and some minutes to get to our hotel in Jambiani. The rest of the day was spent around the resort.

We spent the entire day lazying around. We had breakfast, walked around the resort a little. By morning, the water level had been pushed back, so we were able to walk further into the sea. We had lunch later and got free mocktails from the bar. Wasn’t a bad day at all…

This day was spent day-tripping from Jambaini to Stone Town. We also did a Spice Tour of Zanzibar and took a boat to Prison Island. We left the hotel at exactly 8:30 am and rode for about an hour to a farm for the spice tour.

A guide took us around the farm showing us different spices and fruits locals use in their foods and cosmetics. Can I just say that I like the way tourism is packaged here? For me, it felt like I was walking through my grandmother’s farm back home, yet, I paid to do this.

After the tour, we had a Zanzibar-style lunch that managed to involve most of the spices we had just seen. The entire thing was quite interesting, a bit tiring in some parts but I would definitely recommend it.

Our next stop was Stone Town.

There, we hopped on a boat to Changuu Island (aka. Prison Island). Before getting on, I was pretty confident but once I was inside the boat, fear crept in. There were life jackets inside but we weren’t offered them. I’m usually extremely safety conscious but I didn’t ask for one either.

We rode on this boat for about 30mins before getting to the Island. We were riding against the waves on our return leg and that was a bit terrifying for me. To be honest, I’d have been very happy to pass this part of the tour up. I didn’t quite enjoy visiting this Island. I know a lot of people do though and they have good things to say about the turquoise waters and nice beach.

Anyway, we did a brief tour of the Island, spent some time viewing and feeding the giant tortoises before heading back to the mainland for a walking tour of Stone Town.

I had to go to the clinic today because my sister’s reacting to something. We don’t know what but it probably has to do with something she touched or ate during the spice tour yesterday. We got her some meds and she’s fine now. All is well that ends well.

Last night in Zanzibar and we treated ourselves to a lobster dinner. The four-course dinner was served on our bungalow balcony, romantic setting and all. It was certainly a pleasant end to a remarkable holiday in Tanzania.

I’ll be writing in details about the different places we visited (and what we missed) and will also be breaking down costs to help you plan your own trip. If you have never considered Tanzania as a holiday destination option, you totally should!