The journey home begins

This morning we left  Zanzibar on the Kilimanjaro III,  a very nice new passenger ferry that takes two hours to travel to Dar Es Salaam.  The morning sun lit the old Arabic and Portuguese buildings as we sailed out of the port, passing by Freddie Mercury's restaurant (he comes from Zanzibar).  We arrived here in Dar Es Salaam and got a taxi driver to take us to the aiport.  As we  were leaving the port, we were held up briefly by the President's convoy of vehicles speeding by.  I wonder what it's like to be a president and always get to speed through city streets without any traffic...

Our last night in Stone Town was perfect.  We returned to the same room in the Tembo Hotel, savouring the air conditioning, the big wooden four poster beds, the carpet and the blue tiled bathroom.  We also savoured one last sundowner at Livingstones with our friend Doris who works there, and then a really nice Swahili meal of kingfish and rice spiced with Zanzibar spices.  Yum!    Howli, the taxi driver we used on  Zanzibar gave us a free ride to the ferry and we had a touching good bye with him, with many wishes for luck and happiness all around.

Now we retrace our steps to Rome, through Doha on Qatar Airways.  I'm personally really excited about watching the last episode of the Killing, a really good series that I've watched completely on airplanes -- half of it on Air Canada on my last work trip before vacation, and the other half between Doha and Dar Es Salaam.

We return to the Lancelot Hotel in Rome for a few days, including Palm Sunday which might be interesting.

We are very happy travellers.