Abort Abort Abort !

we touched down in Zanzibar a little after 9pm local time, after nearly 21 hours of airport suffering (Josie particularly enjoyed the non-stop bumpy flight from Dubai to Nairobi) not quite knowing what to expect of this little island... however, as i had finished my book by Dubai, I spent the last 6 hours devouring the lonely planet guide...and of course focusing on the scams, ripoffs and dangers. Let's see them pull the wool over our eyes...

Stepping off the plane was a lot like coming home to Townsville ...walking through the tropical air, heavy with humidty and with a lovely sea breeze (what southerns call walking through soup). So we expected the airport would be pretty bad with the touts...and were ready to grab our bags and defend our US dollars with our lives...but this is Africa, and things don't always work like that - as the guys grabbed the bags off the plane, before we even saw them !! Then our transfer was not there...hmm, getting dodgier by the minute...so taxi time, after tipping our 'baggage handlers' a dollar a piece. Cab ride $10... me feeling like the scammers 2, brad 0 !

Into a taxi we went and headed into Old Town, the major city on Zanzibar. After about 15mins he stops the cab in front of a very dark alley, with plenty of dodgy looking blokes and says "We go down here, one of you stay with the car". Yeah right buddy, you all know what chance he had of us following that plan. So we said 'we both go', and I am wired to the eyeballs...ready to throw some quality Rudduck haymakers (last used in Grade 5) at the foes surely about to leap from the shadows.

Now, I had spent some quality time reading about the town, and in my head pictured these cobbled streets and close knit white arabian fronted places...interspaced with internet cafes and backpackers. The streets were not what I had carefully constructed in my head... But we got into the backpackers ok, and the room was good. We thought maybe a late night snack before turning in. Our fella at the backpackers says not a problem, 5 minute walk and gives us a map that needs a NASA magnifying glass to go with it. Josie, is feeling quite brave and insists we give it a read hot go. So we tried, but the alleys are dark, about the width of your arms, not marked and we are watched sinisterly by men sitting at every intersection. We make about 3 turns before the directions we are given no longer make sense - and hightail it back to the backpackers to wait for the sunlight.