Location: Stone Town, Zanzibar

The aforementioned 2:30 AM wake up was abhorrent. I am not gonna sugar coat this day: it kind of sucked. I woke up stuffed up and sneezing like crazy. Looking back I’m not at all surprised to have picked up a bug when I’ve barely been sleeping. I mean… I’ve basically been broadcasting my weak immune system to the universe.

We filed onto the bus and I am jealous of all the people who were able to fall back to sleep. The bumpy ride and constant high beams in the front window weren’t really conducive to napping, so instead I spent the next 8 hours sneezing and becoming increasingly hot and uncomfortable. Near the end of the drive I am positive I was fully over heated so I chugged a water bottle and followed Pauline, just putting one foot in front of the other.

At the ferry terminal we said goodbye to Emelion and hello to our new guide Dula. It was extremely chaotic getting through security as nobody lined up for anything, just shoved their way into open spaces. Thank goodness Dula did all the heavy lifting with the paperwork to cross the border and ushered us onto the ferry! I sat down and just intended to let the wind cool me off for the two hour crossing but was a bit of a miserable bag. Sorry Pauline!

I don’t know how much I registered what was going on around me because I was feeling really bad by the time we arrived and everything was taking much longer than anticipated. I remember thinking: this will all be nice to see tomorrow when I can look at it.

I hate to say it but the pace of this tour has been a bit much for me – which is saying a lot as I’m usually pretty go-go-go when I have control over the itinerary. Both Pauline and I needed to relax so we opted to skip dinner (as did about half the group). All our group mates were pretty tired too and you could tell nobody had a lot of patience left by the end of the day. I fell asleep almost immediately upon entering the hotel room, and other than shuffling to the rooftop restaurant for a quick dinner with Pauline and our new Canadian friend Kayla, I did absolutely nothing except doze.

I’m going back to bed and hoping that tomorrow I wake up refreshed, or at least ready for the walking tour they’ve booked for us in the morning! I hate being sick on travel days and I am actually really excited to explore Zanzibar.

Fingers crossed!

Sav