Day Trip to Zanzibar

Wow! Zanzibar was absolutely amazing. I have never seen water as clean and felt water as warm as the Indian Ocean. It was heavenly!

We started off on a ferry boat ride which was torturous to me due to motion sickness. After arriving on the island, we encountered a number of locals with an interest in selling us everything and anything. The tourist attractions, though interesting, are lacking appeal because of the many locals standing around looking for your money. We walked into the Palace museum and I immediately noticed what the lack of preservation of architecture and the lack of intervention from the government can do to a historical building. It is deteriorating rapidly. The palace museum had some information on the sultan and his children but lacked charm. Quick fixes to the roof, inability to preserve detail and the lack of regard towards history made the palace museum quite a sad site. We then walked over to Stone Town but under the hot sun, and the bombardment of street vendors turned us off and we headed over to a beach resort in Zanzibar. As we drove over, I noticed the true beauty of the island and the potential to become a great tourist destination. Except I feared that if I big investor was to take part in developing the island, the eager and money deprived locals and government would disregard environmental impacts to the community and the developer would leave the island less pristine and beautiful. I also wouldn't want to see a community of tourist come in and destroy the place.

I can't say enough about the water in Zanzibar. It truly was a sight to see. I can only say that the Indian Ocean is so beautiful. Staring into the Hudson River can never compare.