Tue. 16th July 2013
So, here we are, 335 days gone and today is the last day of our trip before we start to head home. How can that be – we were just getting the hang of it. Tempting as it is to stay longer or start off on a second lap of the world, reality is calling at us. We have Steve’s graduation next week, family and friends to see, work commitments and a bank account that needs topping up.
We’d always described Cuba and Zanzibar as being the bookends of our trip. For so long we had been looking forward to the start and now we are staring directly at the end. Zanzibar has been all that we hoped it would be – warm, (mostly) sunny, white sand, turquoise sea and best of all time relaxing as a family. After so long with it just being the two of us it is odd to be thinking and planning for five people – but huge fun and so good to have the time to chat and relax and catch up with what has been happening in their lives. The only negative is that Lucy seems to be coming down with a cold.
The wind dropped this morning and so the first order of business (once breakfast had settled) is the family beach volleyball tournament. Not (quite) up to the standards of the beach volleyball at the Olympics – either on the quality of the sport; athleticism; or eye candy – but still a lot of fun. We did get better as we played a few more games / sets / whatever and, of course, ended up very sandy and out of breath.
As we’ll soon be home, I want to try to sort out telephone and internet access for the house. Its going to need doing and I suspect that there will be a lead time so I don’t want to leave it until we get back. My choice seems to be either BT or Sky. On the face of it, Sky has the better deal but I can’t order through the web-site (something to do with previously being a Sky customer) and so I try using Skype to call them. Unfortunately, the WiFi here isn’t really up to the job and after 20 minutes it drops out – just when I was starting to make some progress. Aaarggh! I know I’ll regret it, but it is going to have to wait until we get home now.
It seems only fitting that for our last night we have a big slap up meal – and Crazy Mzungos has just the thing. There is both a Crab Platter (crab with lime, avocado and chilli) and a Fish Platter (chock full of fish) on the menu, so we go for those. There is lots to share and we have lots to chat about. There’s also lots of laughter and this all continues after we finish the food and the cards come out. By now, the cards are getting quite competitive.
I’m absolutely hopeless at Cheat (I’d like to think it says something about my moral character – more likely, though, I just don’t think quickly enough); Sh*thead is quite fun; but it is Midnight Whist that kept us going and provided the right mix of fun and competition. Tomorrow we start our travel back but for now, we just enjoy our last night together. It’s all pretty perfect really!