Zanzibar for Christmas

We woke up at 8am to a very hot and humid Christmas morning. It was 29 degrees by 7am so by the time we wok up we had to get a wriggle on to get out our bungalow. Our one little fan there wasn’t doing the trick in the slightest.
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Now, we don’t do presents so when you read through this hoping that I will write about what we each bought each other. It was nothing. We have treated ourselves to a round the world 12-month trip and don’t have time more energy to buy gifts. Instead we treated ourselves to a beautiful early morning walk as far as the eye could see into the lagoon which was on low tide. We saw an array of starfish, urchins and wished all the locals Merry Christmas, despite them all being Muslim, so they don’t celebrate it.

​From there we were served breakfast which I have got to say was a little disappointing, but we made it work. The staff here are lovely, beautiful, kind hearted souls but they just lack training and management – mostly because they have never been out for dinner let alone left the island to see how hospitality works. We watched the chef try to toast bread and instead of putting it in the toaster as 1 whole piece he halved it first then toasted it, therefore wasting a whole load of time … and this was just one example. 

​Jambiani is very laid back, in fact so much so they take ‘island time’ to a whole other level. There is also not a whole heap happening here which is amazing if you just wanted to enjoy the beach, sunbathe and drink cocktails, but we have a mountain to climb in a few days so we went for a walk. And my god did we walk. 13.5 km’s to eb precise along the white sandy beach in hot, humid 33 degrees. It was amazing! What a way to spend Xmas morning. We were joined by various doggles along the way, children from the Village and others who just wanted to stop and chat. It as actually lovely, now, yes there were locals trying to sell you all kinds of tat but we just politely declined and kept powering on.
On the way back, I had sweated through all my sunscreen, swimsuit and was dripping so made the call to stop at a bar for some refreshments. We had the best juice ever! I don’t know whether it was because I was dying but this Hibiscus, lime, mint and soda was the best I have ever tried, my god it was FRESH! 

Life here is great, the afternoon was filled with swimming, sunbathing, reading and drinking before we made our way for Xmas dinner at the lodge. Again, the food and service let this place down drastically but we both found it is difficult to be rude or unkind to these people working here as they are the friendliest kindest humans around and they just don’t know what they are doing. We even asked for a nice Xmas photo of us having dinner, but the poor guy chopped both our heads off and focused mainly on the floor and my feet, so we have no evidence of our Xmas dinner at all, ha-ha.
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Overall, one of the best Christmases we have had. It was so chilled and laid back, with no pressure for anyone or anything. Truly magical, hot, sweaty and spent with my favourite human! What more can you ask for really?