Still alive...

...post-tonsilitis.

Now staying in a place called the Malindi Lodge, near the Zanzibar docks. It's quite a small room with two huge beds, the window arrangement has been carefully designed to allow no light to penetrate within, and they've stuck a very helpful notice on the door with several pieces of advice under the heading "GENERAL INFORMATION". The first has already proved useful:

1. PLEASE AVOID SUMMING ON ANY BEACH IN THE TOWN AREA

Suddenly my decision to leave my calculator at home seems much less foolish. But does that also mean that if we play games, we must not keep score?

The staff there are very nice, though, and they make a competent cuppa and fried eggs, so not too much complaining. I think I'm the only one staying there tonight, actually (the other four left this morning).

We didn't actually go to Bwejuu on Saturday - by the time we were ready it was the afternoon, and Min, Helen, Hannah and Elin were already winging their way over from Dar. So we stayed, ate pizza and ice cream (not at the same time) at Amore Mio, and went to dinner at Monsoon with Hannah and Elin, which turned out rather disappointing. The atmosphere there is really nice, but the portions were a bit small and the "King Prawns" were tiny. Then before we left, we saw a mouse, so we told the manager (we didn't see this as a big problem). He deftly side-stepped the minor complaint by at first denying there were any mice, and then joking hilariously that it was a "special mouse that carries no diseases". Another blow struck for customer service!

On Sunday, we did go to Bwejuu, but the others decided to hang around Stone Town, so it was just Lauren, Althea and me. Lauren had seen posters for full moon parties in Nungwi on Sunday, so we reckoned there would be one at Paje too. We left most of our baggage at Nina's (Lauren's friend) house, and then went to the daladala stand to find transport. Eventually we shared a minibus taxi with two Spaniards who work for a tour company. After about five minutes of discussing what we each do, we established that these were the same Spaniards whom Adam met in Kigoma. They were very nice: Adam remarked how he would have to revise his book of national stereotypes, and I too feel obliged to follow suit (my previous version was based entirely on my second year flatmate at uni).

We stayed at the Evergreen bungalows at Bwejuu - it's very nice there: nothing much but lots of quiet guest houses/hotels along the beach, which stretches for miles. The sea is very shallow there: the beach slopes very gently so when the tide goes out, it really goes out (people farm seaweed there). We managed to get a large round banda with four beds in it for 35,000/= between the three of us (being residents got us 10,000/= knocked off).

In the evening there was no full moon party, but instead we walked down the beach for about half an hour to a Japanese restaurant that's supposed to be very good; it wasn't, or at least not for us, it wasn't. We found out you have to book in the afternoon, so there wasn't enough food for us. Tired, we stopped for a drink anyway, and during that time the waiter came back and told us he had "fought with the kitchen and found a solution". What we got was a relatively small amount of fairly plain food for 4200/=, when the set menu, of which this was a small part, was only 5000/=. We didn't have much choice, though, because it was a bit late to find somewhere else.

We came back to Stone Town yesterday morning, and found out Helena and Wendy had also arrived, and that Sandy, Jenny and Stuart were going to arrive in the evening. The Malindi Guest House (where everyone else is staying) was full so that's why I'm round the corner at the Malindi Lodge. Last night we all met up for drinks in the Africa House Hotel, and then we went to Forodhani Gardens to eat. I managed to upset someone later because I asked him how much some fish was and then he cooked it; I got some from another stand, so he was rather upset when it was done: even though I hadn't actually said that I had wanted it.

And today, there's still no room in Malindi Guest House, so I'm staying put.