June 6, 2015

Our 2nd and 3rd days in Zanzibar where even better than our first day.  After a morning of relaxing by the beach and building sand castles, we went to the Natural Aquarium where there is a tide pool with Green Sea Turtles where you can swim.  It was really awesome.  There are over 20 turtles that permanently live in the tide pool, and the aquarium feeds them and takes care of them.  We had a great time swimming with them for a couple of hours.  It is certainly different than the US because I’m sure that you would not be allowed to touch/kiss/ride the turtles anywhere at home!

Swimming with turtles

Tons of turtles!

Swimming with turtles

Kissing a turtle

Our group with the turtles

After a few hours in the water, we went back to the hotel for dinner.  It was nice to stay in a real hotel for a couple of nights after all of the camping over the last 5 weeks.  The hotel had a nice restaurant, so we have been able to get some real food for the past few days.

The next morning, we spent another couple of hours on the beach before we went snorkeling out in the ocean. The water was beautiful and there were tons of fish, but there were also tons of tiny jellyfish that were stinging all of us!!  It was pretty painful, so we were only snorkeling for a short while.

Snorkeling in the Indian Ocean

We had another good dinner that evening and went to bed early after the past few days in the sun.  This morning, we got up to head to the ferry to get back to Dar Es Salaam.  On our way back to town, we stopped to get Hayden a tattoo before we left.  He wanted the Dark Mark from Harry Potter, so we each got one!  They should stay on for about 3 weeks (Henna).

Getting inked

Hayden’s first tattoo

We almost missed our ferry to get back to the mainland, but we made it after a quick run to the port.  Unfortunately, it was a VERY bumpy ride back to Dar.  The boat was like a 2 hour long rollercoaster…Hayden loved it, but I was getting a little queasy by the end.  We sat in the very front, so we had a nice view and with wind right in our faces.  Hayden’s hair was pretty much standing straight up by the end!

Crazy hair!

From here, we continue north in Tanzania up to the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater…we’re very excited for the next week!!