When we pulled up to reception at The Residence, it literally took my breath away. It’s the most beautiful entrance I’ve ever saw. It’s a open reception with hardly any walls, overlooking the gardens, a huge infinity pool and the ocean. The breeze lightly swooped through reception, just enough to help you breath in the heat. Zanzibar has amazing weather. It’s never cold :)
I checked into the Residence and was sent to the Dining room for another breakfast as my room wasn’t ready yet. I was eventually taken to my room – a king size bed in a room the size of probably 6 korean flats. When I arrived at the room, my butler was standing outside waiting for me. By this point my luggage was already in the room. My butler took me inside and explained all the features of the very luxurious room. I entered into a living room with leather coaches, a flat screen and a small kitchenette with complimentary tea/coffee and biscuits. Next the butler opened big wooden sliding doors to reveal the bedroom. There was a king size four poster bed covered with tied mosquito nets. Behind the bedroom was the bathroom – a massive bathroom I might add. The bathroom had two separate basins and a deep stand alone bath. There was an inside and outside shower as well as a separate glass toilet cubicle. The entire room was finished off with local wooden cabinets and weaved baskets.
The bedroom and living room opens out onto a wooden deck outside where I found my very own infinity pool. I estimate it was about 6-7 metres long, enough for a good swim in the morning and a lekker cool off.
I was in Heaven.
Another cool feature is that each room has two bicycle’s parked outside. The entire property is so big, that you need an alternative mode of transport. You will die if you have to walk up and down in that heat all the time.
I went up to reception to meet up with Tessa and the clients who finally arrived. They settled in, we had lunch and went on a quick site inspection.
I forgot to mention the spa – the spa has a total of 6 gorgeous treatment rooms, a fitness centre, a sauna and steam room and a jet pool. All of these are available to all the guests without having to book treatments. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make it to the spa :(
Late afternoon Mohammed picked us up and took us to Stone Town. On our hour transfer he gave us little snippets of Zanzibari History:
- 93% of the islands inhabitants are Muslims
- Zanzibar and Tanzania is basically one place, but has their own presidents and own flags
- The shortest war in history happened in Zanzibar and only lasted only 38 minutes
- Approximately one million people live in Zanzibar
- The island is famous for slavery ages ago and now more for the spices. Cloves are known as the king spice and cinnamon as the queen spice.
- Vicks comes from the root of a cinnamon tree
We arrived at Tembo hotel in Stone Town and set off on a Dhow sunset cruise. This time there was an actual sunset to see and we had a musician on board. The sunset was stunning and truly something to remember. The musician not so much :) He was a local violinist and I’m not sure that his violin was actually tuned. Nevertheless it was a cool experience. We had some refreshments and before we knew it we were back at Tembo Hotel.
Dinner was at The Residence at one of the two restaurants. We had dinner at The Pavillion. It was Mediterranean night and the buffet was something you can only dream of. Something of everything was on display.
Once again I found white chocolate mousse for dessert. I went to bed happy :)
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