Time has suddenly stood still. I am in Zanzibar, the spice island. I had not planned to visit here when I started this adventure, yet I am now loath to leave it.
So much so that our week long stay has slid into a second week. We spend our days wandering round the alleys of Stone Town, stopping for coffee – wonderful coffee – and to stare at the amazing buildings, all 1700 of them, that were build by at the height of the island’s trading power in the late 19th century.
At night we eat fresh fish and drink passable but expensive red wine before falling into a deep sleep, enlivened by vivid Malarone induced dreams.
I have started dressing like a 21st century hippy, floppy trousers, flip flops and beads. I have stopped blow drying my hair and no longer get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t check the BBC and Scotsman news pages every day.
Even when I do log on, it takes so long for a website to open that by the time the headlines show up, I am already bored. Scotland seems a very long way away.
And yet it is not. I am sitting in a beach side bar, facing the Indian Ocean. It serves great food, good coffee and has free wifi. It is also the exact spot where David Livingstone’s body lay while waiting for a ship to take him home for the final time.
Tomorrow we head to the island’s east coast. I may be gone for some time.
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