Then we got on a boat called Mr. Bean and rode for maybe 40 minutes to just off the coast of another of Zanzibar's islands and put on all of our snorkeling gear (which by the way was a huge challenge with this hair) and got to go into the water and see all of the coral reefs and fish and it was sooo amazing! I saw so many different kinds of fish including a lot of the kinds of fish from Finding Nemo lol. I don't have any pictures of this part of my journey because I was paranoid about getting my phone wet even when we were in the boat, but I know some people got some pictures so if they put them on Facebook I'll put them in here later. We snorkeled for quite a while and early on I felt like the flippers were being more counterproductive than helpful so I took them off and put them in the boat, which turned out to be a mistake because it was so much harder to make it to the beach which was quite a ways from the boats, but I did eventually make it waayy after everyone else. Then I collected some really beautiful shells and thankfully the boats came to pick us back up so that we didn't have to swim all that way back with our shells. Next we rode to yet another island and it was so beautiful too and I will have other people's pictures to post eventually. Here we got to see some of the biggest turtles I've ever even imagined possible, the oldest of which was 198 years old! I got to hold one of the younger ones and will get that picture eventually.
After this we headed back to the hotel and changed for lunch, then went to another hotel for that. It's Ramadan though and Zanzibar is 95% Muslim, so we all had to go to the one hotel which was the only place serving food because Muslims can't eat or drink anything during the day during Ramadan, so we kind of overwhelmed the hotel. Next we went on a tour of stone town, the area of the city where we're staying. This is the museum, which the guide said was at one time the biggest building in East Africa (it was one of the first Sultan's palaces):
Then we went to the site of the Zanzibar slave trading center, which now has a church built over it:
We got to see the slave chambers in the underground area which had been preserved and it was incredibly sad. The guide told us that 75 women and children were kept in the teeny tiny room for two days without food and water and that 50 men were kept in the other even smaller room for that long before the sale. They frequently died of starvation, heat stroke, and other ailments and the other slaves just had to stay in there with the bodies. Then they were taken to a whipping post located where the church is now and were whipped mercilessly and if they cried the price was lowered because they weren't strong. It was truly terrible.
Next we saw the other main Christian church here:
And this plaque about Freddy Mercury, who was born here:
After this we went on a sunset cruise and it was amazing:
Lastly we got henna done and went to dinner at a street vendor place:
I really love my henna and want it to be permanent, but I know that that will make it very difficult to get a job in the future.
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