Welcome to our new blog!- it's still a work in progress
It was an incredible day and we can’t thank
everyone enough for all their help and support in the run up to the day and on
the day itself. It seemed like the day flew past but it was lots of fun and so
wonderful to have so many of our friends and family there.
After the wedding Morgan and I went away
for a couple of nights and stayed at a hotel by the Sabie river about an hour
from where we live. For the rest of that week, we spent time in the communities
with our families. It was a good time to do what we love but also for them to
get chances to go out into the communities to meet some of the children we help
to serve.
At the end of that week after the wedding,
we set off on our honeymoon to Zanzibar. We drove up to Johannesburg the day
before and stayed in a guesthouse so we could catch the early flight to
Dar-es-Salam in Tanzania. After reaching Dar-es-Salam, we caught a connecting
flight to Zanzibar but because the island is so small, the plane we got was
only a 10-seater plane! This was a first for me and it was cool but scary. It
flew very low because if its size but it also meant we could see everything on
the way in to Zanzibar.
After we landed, our host picked us up and
drove us to the cottage on the other side of the island that we stayed in for
the time we were in Zanzibar. It was amazing, the sand was white and the sea
was blue.
We spent lots of the days relaxing on the
beach, reading and just soaking up the sun. But other days we had arranged to
hire a car so we could explore some of the island. We spent one of the days on
a tour through a forest seeing some Red Colobus monkeys which are indigenous to
Zanzibar so was cool to see them in the wild and get so close to them. Right
next to the forest tour was a place where we were able to see some sea turtles.
The turtle handler let us hold one of the turtles which were cool but they were
very heavy. That afternoon, Morgan and I went on a local oxen cart which took
us around the local villages and it was a very relaxing way to see some
Zanzibar people in their environment. We also had the great opportunity to see
some dolphins in the wild. We took a wooden boat with a motor out to the dolphins
through the waves, which at times were really big and choppy. When we got to
the dolphins, it was really cool to see them so close. We managed to see the
humpback dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin. After seeing the dolphins, we did
some snorkelling near some coral and got to see some very colourful fish.
One of the highlights of the honeymoon was
the spice tour we did at one of the spice farms on Zanzibar. It is known all
over the world as a great exporter of spices. Our guide showed many different
spices and fruits and the plants they grow from. We saw the coffee bean tree,
turmeric bush,
henna bush, lipstick tree and the cinnamon tree. This was the
most impressive as the bark produces cinnamon sticks and the root is actually
used to make menthol goods like Vicks Vapour Rub. It was a lot of fun and we
were even given some hats, necklaces and rings made out of banana leaves.
We also ate out on a few occasions and one
of the restaurants we ate at was called The Rock. The name was very apt as when
we arrived the restaurant was on a stand-alone rock just off the shore. The
tide was high on the evening we went to the restaurant and we had to take a
small boat out to the rock. The food was delicious and on the way off the rock,
we were able to walk as the tide had gone out. One of the things we noticed on
Zanzibar was the high fluctuation in the tides. They would go very far out and
then come very far in too.
For the last few days, we spent some time
in the main town called Stonetown. We walked around markets which were full of
spices and also did a tour of the town. Our guide showed us all the famous
tourist spots and even showed us the place where the shortest ever war took
place between Zanzibar and Britain (38 minutes). We had a look around some of
the souvenir shops and also saw the place where Freddie Mercury was born.
After 11 wonderful days, we headed home and
left Zanzibar via the ferry port. It was a choppy journey across the sea between
Zanzibar and Tanzania but we arrived after a couple of hours on the ferry. Then
we got a taxi to the airport and flew home to South Africa where we spent a
couple of nights in Pretoria before starting back at work the following Monday.
In those couple of days, we drove to see the Apartheid Museum which was a great
insight to the history of South Africa. We also went to a farmers market and
found some homemade local goods, including some delicious muffins!
- Tommy
WE ARE ON THE MOVE On June 23rd we will be heading to Zambia for 6 months or so. It is an wonderful opportunity to go and be a part of the new growing Hands community in Zambia. It will be sad to leave our South African family behind but we are looking forward to this new adventure!
