07.48 It is a new week and a new month. Here in our little house at Demani Lodge, Zanzibar (http://www.demanilodge.com/about-us) I slept really good. A shower in lightly salted water is followed by some reading on our little porch.

08.32 I am reading while Christer is taking a shower.

09.01 Now we are going to leave the house,for some breakfast. Our house is one of those that is furthest away from the reception and restaurant so it is some walking in the sand back and forth.

10.20 It was more than a small breakfast. It was a hearty and absolutely perfect breakfast. We got coffee, juice, pancakes, pineapple, watermelon and banana. Yes that's right, a turquoise snake was also included. It wasn't a part of the breakfast. Instead it coiled quickly up on a chair and then quickly sneaked up the beam and then disappear up on the roof. We barely had to react before it was gone. It was impressively fast and extremely thin. Christer noted that it was the second snake he had seen in the wild in his entire life. The first was a swimming snake in Germany. Snakes are often shy creatures.

Christer outside our house at Demani Lodge.

A quality breakfast is a good start of the day.

Peter is having breakfast in a wonderful surrounding.

We had a cat and a snake around us during breakfast.

10.34 Fortunately we have internet connection here. It does not work in our house but you can surf around the front desk and the restaurant area if you have the right code. We tried Google to see what kind of snake we had seen. It is always good to know if it is harmless or dangerous snakes around the breakfast table.

10.53 We have now gone to something we visited every year we´ve travelled since 2005 with the exception of 2009. We have simply made it to the swimming pool here at Demani Lodge to sunbathe, read, enjoy, and to take a swim, a bath.

11.27 It is quiet and calm around us. The sun is hot and it is good for the body to stretch out in the pool's lukewarm water.

12.34 It is nice to just relax, read, sunbathe and take a dip in the pool. We think we deserve this after the uncomfortable bus journey to Dar es Salaam and all the anxiety and hassle with the lost passport. At least a day of just relaxation, sun, swimming and good food. When we came home to our house again our door was wide open. Had I forgotten to lock? Not, it was cleaning time. Now the floor has been swept and the beds are made. We are home for a shower. We do not want to eat lunch with clorine on the bodies.

13.17 So, we are finally sitting down with two Kilimanjaro again, in other words, two cold beers. We are waiting for our newly ordered lunches. It works like this, you go to the reception desk, check the menu, tell them what you want to eat, pick up your drinks (beer) and then sits quietly waiting for the food preparation which is going on in a building next door.

Relaxing by the swimming pool.

Typical holiday behaviour, being lazy under a tropical sun.

Beneath the blue sky of Africa.

Peter in the swimming pool.

The bar at Demani Lodge.

This is where we are.

13.48 In anticipation of the lunch we have at last found the snake we saw at breakfast. Well not the snake it self, and not just here at the table. We have found this species when we searched further on the internet, Speckled green snake, Philothamnus semivariegatus. Everything is available on the internet. There was even a Facebook page about snakes in Zanzibar.

14.46 Once again we got heavenly good food. We checked about a possible tour tomorrow to the Jozani Forest, Tanzania's smallest national park which is located a bit to the north. There are unique monkeys, mangrove swamps, and other things. We got to hear other information than what is written at Demani Lodge's website. The price for the excursion rose from US$50 to US$65, and the offer fell from a guided tour and transport to only one car transport and then a walk on our own. Smaller range at a higher price. We are hesitating.

15.46 I have rested, slept a bit. Christer has charged his mobile. Now we are going to see a bit of the area outside of the area, so to speak.

16.00 We have crossed the road and walked along a stone wall and followed the signs pointing toward the "Beach". In front of us the Indian Ocean can be seen. The beach, the little that exists, is not immediately inviting. It may be due to it is high tide right now. It is sharp waves that throw themselves against the shore and it is only a narrow strip of sand you can walk on.

17.42 We are back inside Demani Lodge. After we had been at sea, we have been thinking and planning by the pool.

The entrance to our accomodation.

Walking to the sea.

Flood during the afternoon.

A small tree and the Indian ocean.

The regional flag of Zanzibar can be seen on this registration plate.

18.37 It is not possible to plan around the pool when darkness falls on. Well, of course it's possible but we got bored. Instead, we are back in our house.

19.35 We are sitting on a bed. It is time to make a decision on what we shall dine this evening. We remember the menu quite well and we also have a copy of it here in the room.

19.55 Behind me English is spoken and a cat cried out. On the table are two pieces of Ndovu. It is a beer with an elephant on the label. Can Ndovu be Swahili for elephant?

20.28 The African tradition to wait a long time for the ordered dinner continues. Just tonight, it is mostly because we are far from alone.

21.42 The food was worth all the waiting. Hmm, it feels as if I have written this before on this trip. The coffee was quite to my taste. It was hot, black and strong.

23.33 We are zapping around between the radio channels on our portable radio. We have, among others managed to tune in to stations from Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, and the French island of Mayotte. According to the last plan we made about tomorrow, we will do something we have done on earlier trips in Asia and North America, but never so far in Africa.

Evening at Demani Lodge.

The swimming pool lights up the African darkness.

Tuesday 2nd of August

08.08 Again it is morning here in Zanzibar. I have been sitting leaning against the railing to the porch outside our house and read a little in my book. Now I sit leaning against the same railing writing this. Today is a little outing planned.

09.13 Breakfast, breakfast, good friend! A delicate start this morning.

09.54 It is, in truth, a calm atmosphere and slow days here at Demani Lodge. It is certainly nice to do almost nothing but now we must take hold of ourselves so that we do not start having charter trip behaviour.

10.00 We are temporarily at home in the house again. It soon becomes time for a walk down to the sea.

10.31 Once again, we are at the beach. We took the same route here today as the quick visit yesterday afternoon. We want to see how the sea and the beach looks like when it is low tide (ebb). Yesterday it was the wild surge of the waves in the afternoon. Arriving at the beach, we noted that the sea receded a bit. Now, the waves breaks close to 100 metres further out from where we stand. It was not so much better than yesterday's, if you think of going for a swim.

Ebb along the east coast of Zanzibar.

What can be found when the sea is away?

We are back at the swimming pool.

The beer is here. The lunch will arrive soon too hopefully.

11.05 Where the sea once was, and soon will be again people walked around. Some took the opportunity to walk on the extra wide beach, others searched for things the sea left behind as it withdrew. Some just walked around, someone shouted to us. A man cried out the to often said "Jambo" and "Hakuna matata". Do they really think that we tourists will be satisfied and happy just because we get to hear these phrases? He wondered where we were from and if we spoke Swahili. We left both the man and the beach. Now we are back at the pool, a pool I had just come out of after a short dip.

11.17 Christer has just made a heart warming act. He has saved a life. He has arranged so that there was not a drowning insect. Some kind of wasp was splashing around in the pool. With the help of a leaf it were brought up on firm ground. It soon flew away. Now, he found just yet another victim. The process needs to be repeated.

12.23 It was warm in the sun by the pool. Now we are at home to shower before lunch. At the pool we heard a generator. Are we out of power?

12.36 The lamp light disappeared during my showering, lucky that they came into light from the outside. The humming has stopped. What about the lunch? Do they have a gas stove in the kitchen?

13.18 We are sitting and waiting for the lunch. Just now it was panic for some of the other guests. They had none, and the bar could not offer one. But they were able to arrange with a lighter, unfortunately. For a while, we were hit by tobacco smoke. They moved and the smoke stench was switched to the enjoyable food aroma instead.

13.51 Lunch has been completed. Now we are going to change 10 US dollars against the two means of transport.

We rented two bkes. We are heading south.

Christer has reached the village Jambiani.

The sky is blue and the road is long.

Christer doing a bike tour in the burning sun.

We are heading back again.

14.13 We are now out biking along the main road here in the southeast of Zanzibar. We have just stopped at the sign to the village of Jambiani, the first village we reached since we left the Demani Lodge, which belongs to another village, Paje. It is time to pedal. This is not the first time we look around from a bike saddle. However, it is the first time we cycle around in Africa. In the past we have used bikes in Asian and North American countries. We have rented bikes in Panamá, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Indonesia.

14.20 A local guy rode up with us, talked and asked lots of questions. Finally he disappeared down towards a restaurant at the beach.

14.33 A new village sign was seen, Mfumbwi. We have just come to a decision. It is time to turn back. There is not too much more to see in this direction in addition to more kilometres of the road. A part of the decision is that we are clumsy enough forgot to add sunblock before this excursion.

15.23 It was as usual easier to make it home. It is easier when the road is familiar. Now we are drinking a Fanta each here at Demani Lodge. The staff thought, surprised, that our bike trip was short and there is some truth in it. The main thing was that we got to look around a bit.

16.07 Laziness, literature, and a little more starting on l can be squeezed in now.

18.00 The idle time in the house is past. Now it has become time to walk towards something else, the sunset.

The sun is on its way down. We are walking to the sea.

Peter is taking photos before darkness arrives.

Christer is walking along the beach.

Wood and water.

18.14 I am right now standing barefoot in the sand at the beach. Behind me the sea creeps away from the rocks we stand by. Soon the darkness will be here.

18.27 We have taken various photographs, Christer has filmed a little and we have enjoyed the sunset down here at sea. After a while there appeared some masai men who walked along the beach to sell souvenirs. It was a signal to us to walk home again.

18.34 We returned to 114, thus our house. Not much of the planned remains this day.

19.56, We have positioned ourselves for the evening's dinner. While waiting for the food I have ordered a Bush baby. It is a drink that contains vodka, amaretto, orange juice and lime - and orange slices.

21.13 The delicious food was topped with excellent coffee. During the coffee, we heard a strange noise around us. We came to the conclusion that birds tend to be silent in the darkness. The sound was not beautiful. Suddenly our driver Haji, arrived. He came to our table and asked how we were and what we liked about the place. We praised everything and booked tomorrow's transport to the airport with him, Moreover, he knew what it was that we had heard. It was actually a bush baby, not my drink, my cocktail but a small mammal called just that. They sound quite often like an infant, a baby, hence the name.

22.47 Now we have heard yet another bush baby. This time it is in the trees behind our house. We hear it but can't see it.

A lizard on the Zanzibar map.

Dinner in the dark.

Wednesday 3rd of August

09.08 While waiting for the breakfast we have with the help of the internet learned that the animal bush baby is named galago in Swedish. I prefer bush baby.

09.41 The time has come to pack our things again. We need to check out from our small house this morning. Within a week we´ll be home again. But that is then, now is now.

10.32 We have left our nice house, sand walked to the front desk and paid for everything that we have eaten and drinking during our stay here. Our backpacks have been placed under a table in front of the door to the office where a blonde guy sits and takes care of all the paper work here at Demani Lodge. Now we are in the sun loungers by the pool and feel good for a while. We shall not go away until tonight so the day will be one of those days when you do not have a home. We had such a day in Arequipa, Peru for almost exactly a year ago, too. Days like this can be quite long and boring.

11.17 Pool dip and reading crime novels. This is holiday!

12.33 Despite the fact that we feel so good we still get hungry. Lunch is now commissioned and we are currently waiting for it to be cooked and served. Future food prices we have to pay directly after the meal, now that the food bill for our stay here has already been paid for.

The last morning here.

13.20 Once again it was delicious food on the plates.

14.24 The lunch ended and we switched sofas. Now we shall leave Demani Lodge for a while and walk towards the village. The village we are referring to is Paje. We stay a bit away from the village centre where there are shops and other things.

14.31 Outside our accommodation and later, along the way there were cattle on the move. It is hot and the road is long, but it is just to endure. We intend to buy drinks and snacks to have with us during the evening and night transport.

14.59 We went into Paje village and went into the Supa Duka Supermarket. It mostly offered beverages of all kinds as well as pasta. It was a little less variety than what we had hoped for. We wanted to, like I said, buy some edibles to consume between the upcoming flights. In any case we bought a number of beverages for the walk back and the next trip.

15.33 It went quicker to walk home. Now Christer showers in one of the shared showers here at Demani Lodge. I guard the possessions as well as writing this.

16.52 When Christer was done I went and showered myself. We are now consuming our last Kilimanjaro beers. This is done while waiting for the ordered dinner, the last meal we will eat here.

Animals gather outside Demani Lodge.

The road is long and boring.

Many are out walking today.

Christer has found Supa Duka Supermarket in Paje.

17.45 We continue to wait this waiting day. Now we are waiting for Haji, the man who promised to drive us to the airport at 18.00. He acts as guide and driver here at Demani Lodge.

18.00 The wait is over. More waiting awaits us. Haji didn't show up, but two younger guys who he had hired. He could not come himself. Now we go to the north while the daylight slowly disappears.

19.19 The transport went well and along the way we got to see a unique red colobus monkey when we passed the national park Jozani Forest. Our driver drove into the various streets of Zanzibar town, and we wondered for a while where he actually was going. He knew, however, what he did, and eventually we arrived at the airport, Abeid Amani Karume International Airport. Well here at the airport it was badly signposted, but we have finally found the right place to enter. Now we are waiting to check in.

19.42 We have just visited msalani, the toilet. There a guy was sitting and wanted us to pay for the visit, I left a 200 shilling coin. From Christer he wanted to have a dollar. He did not give it. The toilet was of course free. It was just one of the cleaning staff who wanted to have a bit of a tip.

20.38 A small purchase in the cafeteria here in the waiting room gave us two paper cups hot, strong coffee and a Mentos roll. Cost was 12 000 shillings. Airports can charge.

20.55 Funga mkanda wa kirichako wakati umekan ou Jaketi okozi liko Chini ya kiti cahko it on the seat in front of me. You should use belts during the flight and under the seat there is a life jacket. This feels familiar.

21.46 The flight from when the wheels left the ground until the re-contact with the ground took 16-17 minutes. We flew the backpacker trips shortest flight with Precision Air. We are now back on mainland Africa again, namely at Dar es Salaam´s airport, Julius Nyerere International Airport. It has become time to find the next flight that will take us from here to Nairobi in Kenya. It is not visible on the monitors. To top it all, there isn´t any flight code on the paper that we have printed out.

We are waiting for the last dinner on Zanzibar.

We are waiting at Zanzibar´s international airport.

23.11 Despite the very slow Wi-Fi Christer opened his mailbox on Hotmail and found the flight code. Now he is at the self check in. We'll see how it goes. We also wonder how it'll go for the gentlemen who are about to remove parts of the ceiling here next to us.

23.19 We managed to checked in at the machine and we´ll leave from here at 04.45. The boarding pass has been printed exclusively to Christer and only to Nairobi. Well, the flight is and we is checked. Now Christer is trying again. The ceiling men carry on.

23.43 New bid. According to the monitors, we´ll leave already at 03.45.