The tour officially begins on the 15th in Zanzibar. The eight of us from Pemba where late for our the start meeting because of airport issues. But finally we were all together Ross and Dawn where in a day early and were well settled in. Judy and Lucas had arrived very early that morning. Now we are 12.
The first order of business was meeting the guides. I had meet Khalifa at the airport he is the one in charge of the tour. In addition we have Isa who will be the bicycling part of the tour. Khalifa will be with us as well but Isa will be leading. We will have a third guide on the bike tour, but we will not meet him until the we get to the mainland. We also have a couple of guides that are just for Zanzibar. Muumin is based here in Zanzibar. I believe that he runs his own small tour company. He is assisted by Mohamed who does most of the presentation on history etc. They take very good care of us. One is always at the front of the group and another is sweep. And they are a lot better at it than we are. You can’t get behind the sweep.
On Saturday the 16th we did a tour of Stone town (that is the old section of Zanzibar). We went to the old slave market and looked at the various monuments to the ending of that horrific practice. We visited the catholic church built on the center of the old slave market that was erected to celebrate the ending of slavery in Zanzibar in (I believe 1873). We visited a couple of the chambers where the slaves were held awaiting auction. From there we went to the market. It is a very large market. My impression is that it is more of a wholesale market. The tour also took in the several other sites such as the old fort. My apologies for being short of details but I had to drop out of the tour and get back to the hotel. The tour culminated with what I am told was a fantastic lunch. A local Indian family opens there home to tours and other groups. I recall going to the same home when I as here eleven years ago. The crowd was apparently very impressed with the meal – some 7 courses of it.
After lunch it was bike assembly time. Tomorrow we ride. (A modest ride to the spice farm and back). The guides were very helpful in assembling the bikes. Which is good thing since there were some issues. Dan and Robin drew the short straw again. They had a local bike shop box they bike in preparation for the trip. I suspect there me be a discussion with that shop when they get home. Pedals were just thrown in the box. And as we all know boxes get holes in them. You guessed it – only one pedal made it. Unfortunately it was a Speedplay, so no chance of replacing it. However Morman was able to scurry around and find replacement platform pedals. I think there were several other issues as well, but the real kicker was the skewers. They did have 2 skewers. That is the good part. The bad part is that the weren’t the one for their bike. Both were rear skewers and of course a rear skewer is way too long for a front wheel. Poor Morman is off again in search of a skewers. This time he wasn’t quite a lucky. Thinks looked pretty bleak. Enter white knight sir Pringle with spare skewer in hand. (Who carries a spare skewer? Apparently John and Bernie). In the end all was good and we are ready to roll tomorrow.