Today promises to test our endurance, leaving the hotel at 9:00 a.m. and driving back northward to explore another site important in the historical slave trade.  After slavery was abolished, it was driven underground (literally) for several years, and one can still visit a cave and a holding cell cut into the rock in both of which slaves were hidden before being shipped off the island.   Just as with the slave chambers back at the Stone Town church, we stand in these structures and try to envision them crammed full of hopeless and desperate human beings.  It is a very moving experience.  We also stop by the ruins of a Persian bath built in 1850 on the highest point on the island, but it is in such disrepair it’s hard to discern the original beauty.  Lunch is earlier for a change, at another secluded beach side resort, and this time we are on our own, choosing and paying for whatever we wish.  A small meal is in order for all of us; these huge lunches and dinners are starting to wear us down.  Plus a cold beer, of course.  Today was also supposed to be a swimming opportunity day, but the tide was out which made that not feasible.

Back in Stone Town, we meet at 4:30 in the hotel lobby for a sunset cruise on a large dhow.  Drinks and hors d’oeuvres are included, and local musicians play and dance for us and other passengers.  We learn from Job that it is easy to know when a boat is a dhow, motorboat, or canoe.  It’s a dhow when it’s under sail, a motorboat when it’s being motored, and a canoe if you have a paddle in your hand.  Seems simple enough.  For about half of this sunset cruise, then, we are actually on a dhow, and the quiet with wind in the sails is wonderful.  So are the wine and local cuisine, not to mention the raucous dancing engaged in by the crew and a terrific sunset.  Back at the hotel for our final farewell dinner around 8 p.m.