Sunday 29th June,  Found another great little restaurant on the water front last night....all the kids play soccer on the beach and talk about swim...a lot of the time the ball goes in the water so they are swimming and playing soccer..all the restaurants on the waterfront put up a net as often the ball lands in the restaurant...it was a superb sunset again and what amazed us was that about 6 of the boys (17/18 year old,s) knelt on the sand and prayed for about 20 minutes and then went back to playing soccer...and so Sunday morning we left Stone Town and we were driven for about 40 minutes to our new hotel on the north east coast of Zanzibar....Diamond Dream hotel and what a place...right on the beach...food, wine, beer and spirits all inclusive and talk about service...it was unreal....we wandered in the grounds and then walked along the beach to a little village....not a tourist in sight, just us....beginning of Ramadan today so the village quite quiet but oh boy these people are so poor.....all the hawkers on the beach but once in the hotel grounds they are not allowed to come near you and what blew us away was  that some of the hawkers were Masai men...Michael is having such fun as he knows a few Swahili words now and has them all on..so lovely then to sit by the pool and order a wine and decide which of the 6 restaurants we would go to for dinner...lots of buffet but the food incredible...the spices on Zanzibar are so good and this is reflected in all their dishes....a good driver this morning so learned more...80% poor on Zanzibar and 50% unemployed but they never go hungry..it really is the Garden of Eden and they always have a smile on their face...Zanzibar is lots of islands but the 2 mains ones are Ugunga which has 65% of the 1.3 million population and was the island we stayed on...bigger population here for the tourism....Pemba is the other island with 35% of the population....and correction..90% Muslim (not 70%) with 8% Christians and 2% Hindu....main export is spices (80%) and the main spice exported believe it or not is cloves...the spice farms are all co-ops and they have to sell to the government who does the exporting....from what we could see Tanzania is bleeding Zanzibar in that they are governing them and not putting anything back into the place and most folk in Zanzibar what independance from Tanzania...AND China has built a big sugar factory for Zanzibar.....Monday 30th June....Had a lazy get up...wonderful breki...lay by the pool...walked the beach...our first day with no boots and to put our feet in the sand and salt water was marvellous...had more fun with the hawkers on the beach and just generally enjoyed the 12 acres the hotel is set in....Tuesday 1st July.....We had transport back to Stone Town and so to the airport to fly to Dar es Salam...lots of village markets on the way and a really big market in Stone Town...everything so lush and green, great food, all in all a great place...we really enjoyed our few days here....they stung us for 26,000 Tanzania schillings leaving Dar es Salam, a new tax they say but you just have to pay...or we could have paid US$18 but the Tanzanian schillings was a better way to go...you have to always calculate the conversion rate they are using...and so to J/Berg from Dar es Salam....got there with all 4 bags thank goodness...always a bit of a worry but we claimed them in Dar es Salam as we changed to South African airlines for the flight to J/berg...a big airport and went to change money for some Rand...very expensive as they charge commission and a fee even though we had $US cash....we tried all the money changers but there was no getting away from the commission and fee....and then about a 2 hour drive to Sun City..we didn't know we were in for that but our driver often was travelling at 140 km per hour but motorway most of the way...we got here about 2030 exhausted so didn't bother with tea....washing, catching up etc but then we were both so tired couldn't sleep....Wednesday 2nd July...Lovely lazy day today as this is our last one before the 2 hard safari's with long days and poor accommodation so we have made the most of it...Sun City is an amazing place...the most fabulous breki this morning...probably the best ever (even NZ kiwi fruit) and then we have walked all day..been to all the hotels, the Casino, the wave beach...when we first went walking this morning we couldn't work out this great noise and shaking and dust but then realised that every hour they fake an earthquake...it was amazing and so real that we are sure glad that we have not experienced the real thing....this Sun City is truly amazing though...covers acres and acres....but I think we have pretty well covered it today...tomorrow we transfer back to J/Berg to the hotel we begin our safari from...internet could be a real problem from here so don't be amazed if there are big gaps in our blog....we've found a nice restaurant for dinner tonight...probably our last nice one for a while....Something we have noted in all our travels so far is that it is Europeans and Asians travelling...hardly any Americans...amazing the American crash how much it must have taken out of the tourism market world wide...met 2 Kiwis in Rwanda otherwise we are pretty thin on the ground!! M & F