So the tropical paradise we've been in the last few days has felt completely non-christmas like - and absolute bliss! Yesterday Sue and I went snorkling whilst the boys went diving on a reef very close to where we are staying. By all accounts it wasn't the best diving/snorkling we've done, but nevertheless it was a very enjoyable way to spend xmas day and I'm happy to report the sea was lovely and warm.
Christmas dinner consisted of a choice of turkey or seafood. In an effort to make myself feel a little christmassy I ordered the turkey - I really should have questioned this as I haven't seen any turkeys on Zanzibar - in fact I haven't seen a turkey since leaving Europe. So we weren't hugely surprised when the waiter came over and said 'chicken' as he put my plate down. A little white lie there I think - but it was very tasty so I didn't really care.
We've also seen quite a lot of wildlife on the island, including Red Colobus Monkeys, which are only found on Zanzibar. I think one even got in to the lodge earlier today and deposited a little brown present next to our bed. I dont know what it is about primates and shit with us - whilst on a trip to Bornea a few years ago some wild oragutans actually went one step further and threw their poo at us. Bloody charming. As well as monkeys we've also seen lots of lizards and also these rat-like creatures that have incredibly long noses.
However the 'best wildlife prize' on Zanzibar has to go to the Dolphins that we swam with today. We were extremely fortunate that at about 11 this morning a pod was swimming very close to our Lodge. The nice chap from the dive school told us to grab some snorkels and fins and jump in the boat. We motored across and found them very quickly. We then proceeded to spend over an hour in the water with them. Frankly I would have been happy to see a couple in the murky distance, but what we got was so much better. There were around 25-30 in total, all different sizes, swimming all around us. One particularly frisky one even had his manhood (dolphinhood?) out and was desperately trying to mate with another one. They would swim below us and every few minutes all come up to the surface together to take another breath. 
We had heard reports of the dolphin trips being very hit and miss with many people telling us that you sometimes get 20 tourist boats around them scaring the crap out of them. Happily this wasn't our experience as we were the only group in the water with them most of the time and they didn't seem bothered by us at all. I think we were incredibly lucky.
Ric and I also took a walk in to the village close to our lodge this afternoon. Kiminkaze is a lovely little place with extremely friendly residents. At one point we had two little boys (about 3 years old) come up to us, grab our hands and walk all through the village with us. It was extremely cute. We must have looked like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt - apart from we're both better looking obviously!
So tonight is our last night here and we'll be very sad to see Pops Mc and Sue go. We'll go back to Dar tomorrow to pick up Monty before we say goodbye to the Indian Ocean and head 'up-country' (I love that phrase!) to the Serengeti for, hopefully, some more wildlife spotting.