20250107 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 43/96 - Zanzibar, Tanzania Day 3/3

Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 43/96 - Our third and final day in Zanzibar - We Went Ape (well, technically, monkey)!

The endemic Zanzibar red colobus monkey

This morning came too early. We had to meet at 7:45 for an 8:00 departure for our monkey tour. The Colonnade didn't open until 7:30 so that meant Room Service for breakfast. After a quick meal, we headed up to the Grand Salon where nearly all tours meet. We were assigned to Bus #1 and in just a few minutes, we were on the bus and on our way to the Jozani Forest Reserve, Zanzibar's only national forest.

 

Soko la Mwanakwerekwe

It is a huge market on the outskirts of the city

You never know what you'll see on trucks here

Zanzibar High Court

After about an hour, we arrived at the Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park

As soon as we got off the bus, we spotted our first blue monkey.

It was doing today's shopping out of the trash can

Do my feet smell?

Ugh, yes

This tree had recently fallen - the water in the root hole is not rain, but from the water table - the water is less than three feet down here

Ready...

Goooooooo!!!!

This hooded crow was the only bird we saw the entire day

Their faces are so expressive

A few more showed up and were playing all over the trees

Nice tail!

Owwwwwww!!!

We encountered a single red colobus monkey as we walked through the jungle area.

The red colobus monkey is endemic to Zanzibar and found nowhere else in the world

That face

We continued on our walk.

More blue monkeys

A creepy-looking grasshopper

Walking, walking

The monkeys watched us

We took a walk along a boardwalk in a huge mangrove swamp

It was 3.5 kilometers down this canal to the Indian Ocean

The knotted roots of mangroves are amazing

We spotted several interesting crabs

Mangrove roots peeking out of the water

Because I'm a...fungi

Enormous leaves

We never found more red colobus monkeys - a huge disappointment. Our guide took us to a new spot to look for them and we struck out again. Oh well, it was time to head back to the bus. And then...

We spotted another red colobus monkey in the trees

Where there is one, there are usually more, and there were

A baby red colobus nursing on its mother

Oh...the drama

There were several red colobus monkeys in the trees

Check out that tail

This guy posed for us as a great finale

We were about a meter from him

Oh, wait...one more

Also, we saw some Shameplant and I took a video of this cool behavior.

With all the fun behind us, we boarded the bus for the hour-long ride back to Sojourn.

An interesting mosque

Arriving back at the port

We competed in a Name That Tune - this time was all about show tunes. It was not our best genre. We scored 23/40, trying to name the song and musical that it was from. It was good enough for second place, but the winning team, obvious musical theater fans, scored 33/40 - an impressive performance.

We pre-gamed dinner in the Observation Bar before heading to The Colannade for their special ribeye dinner. It was a fixed-menu dinner.

The dinner was OK, but we've had better

We sat outside and enjoyed watching our sail away from Zanzibar

Of course, the sun was setting

Tonight's show was another Seabourn Six repeat show from the first leg of this journey. We saw it the first time so we skipped it tonight. We both could use a good night's sleep so we turned in early.

We got our detailed itinerary for our one-week off-ship excursion into Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana. It all looks good and will be a busy, but fun week, filled with waterfalls, game drives, and luxury lodging. More details will be coming soon.

Tomorrow morning, we will dock in Dar es Salaam on the Tanzania mainland.