Eventually even I realised that I would have to at least lift my head from the pillow to get to Zanzibar.
John, my new father-in-law, arrived at the arranged time, ready to taxi his new family to Heathrow Airport. Pippa's initial enthusiasm for packing was now beginning to wane, even though we were sharing the task, after all I had just carefully written both luggage tags. Running through our travel checklist of tickets, money, hotel vouchers, keys etc we reached the point that I am sure many couples reach when preparing for a trip "If we haven't got it, we'll go without". What Pippa really meant was 'If we haven't got it, we'll buy two or three more to replace it when we get there...."
The cases were loaded into the leviathan 4x4 and we were on our way to Heathrow, only the M1 contra-flow and M25 bank-holiday traffic now stood in our way.
Arriving at the airport four hours before departure is quite a novel experience for us, as in the past, last minute check-in has been our motto, just leaving enough time for a swift vodka before boarding. However, increased security at Heathrow following the recent averted terrorist attack on US bound flights was abundantly obvious. With more guns on display than a John Wayne shoot-out, the police presence was haevy and almost intimidating. As we queued for check-in we discussed the security measures and Pippa said how difficult it would be "to get a bomb through this lot..." at this moment, I had visions of Pippa being snatched from the crowd and pinned down and searched at gunpoint..... in fact nothing happened, but I did ask her not to use the 'B' word again. 
However, after check-in and whilst waiting to pass through security, Pippa was singled out by a female security guard and whisked away to a cubicle.
To describe a 4250 mile trip on a Boeing 777-200 is both pointless and boring, suffice to say movie, meal, drink, suduku, sleep, movie, land.
6am at Nairobi airport, 3 hours to wait, I could picture a thousand other places I would rather be, however, here is where we were and it was a neccessary juncture en-route to our dream honeymoon.
Duty-free shops the world over over, sell the same trash, just in different currencies. Why anyone arriving or departing from nairobi airport needs a suitcased-sized bag of Toblerone is beyond me. What felt like days, marching from end to end of the terminal building was in fact only a couple of hours. Our departure gate expedition ended in the Java cafe, where we both fell asleep over a cappucino.
Finally, the flight to Zanzibar was announced, 30 minutes ahead of schedue, whihc was most welcomed. We had now started to wake from our zombie-like state as we realised we were on the last leg of the journey to our honeymoon hideaway.
The travellers constant fear with any transit flight is the successful transfer of suitcases from one plane to another. However, the canny Kenyans have developped a fool-proof system to cope with such potential dilemas. They line up all the luggage on the runway, adjacent to the departing plane and ask boarding passengers to identify their own luggage whcih is then loaded, piece by piece.
The 85 minute hop in a turbo-prop ATR 72 was uneventful, with only the 18 page inflight magazine to pass the time. Precision Airlines obviously have little more than a word-processor, without spell-check, to produce their in-flight material.
As we started our descent into Zanzibar, various small island groups became visibile, so did the dark rain clouds that covered the sky like a black hessian duvet, keeping Zanzibar all snuggly but damp. We dismissed the slate grey clouds as a passing tropical storm, whihc it sort of turned out to be, it just took a bloody long time to pass.
The contrast in security between Heathrow and Zanzibar was incredible. I'm sure if we wanted to, we could have got off our plane, strolled to another and taken a quick trip aroun dthe island without anybody raising an eyebrow or missing the plane. Neither Pippa or myself hold any form of pilot's licence so this was not an option. As we left the aircraft, a few people said hello but gave no indication as to where to go, although there was only one large cow-shed type building to head for, so we followed the flock.
With no visibile passport control or security, we collected our bags and made the 30ft journey to the outside of the airport. The Kuoni luggage tages on our slightly battered new suitcases was the only indication the 'tip-hungry' smiling African cahppie needed to identify us as part of his 'group'.
"Welcome Zanzibar, you Hobbs Richmond?" we pointed out that we were the Hobbs party and we were asked to wait with our cases until he found the Richmonds. Rain is an absolute bummer at the best of times, but when it starts as you touch down on your honeymoon on a tropical island, its a real shit. However, Pippa's eternal optimisim shone through, after-all she married me!, so she really does look hard for the silver lining. The Richmonds arrived two minutes later, a late twenties couple, eminating from somewhere near Coronation Street, but with Brookside names, John and Stacey. We all followed the happy African cahppie to our 1980's 8 seater mini-bus, complete with ornate lace seat covers. The first of the dollar tips were handed out to those that carried the cases and a couple of tips for those that watched the cases being loaded.
The dwellings became more sparse in numbers and even more humble in construction. Open sewers at the roadside, which was also occupied by filthy malnourished chickens, tethered cattle and piles and piles of what can only be described as rubble.
When you see poverty on the TV at home, you shrug your shoulders and think 'but what can I do about it...' but when poverty is ten feet away, mile after mile it is jaw-droppingly real and pangs of guilt regarding how much we had spent in the last four days on weddings & honeymoon haunt you. Yet in true western-world style, we self-justify by telling ourselves that our tourist dollars do help the local communicty in a small way. Pippa and I have both seen poverty in Rio and Jakarta respectively and now we saw this together. It became apparent that as with everything in life, poverty comes in degress of severity, these people were poor, dirty, with no running water and apalling living conditions but they had food but most of them smiled constantly. Poverty with food can be a life and evidently a life with relative happiness, however the smiling stops when the food is scarce, luckily Zanzibar was exhibiting happy poverty.
Just like in central London, where you have 'retail zones' for clothes, high fashion, jewellery etc, the road running from the airport to Nungwi was also zoned, there were meat areas, carpentry areas but everywhere small tables of fruit and veg could be seen. The pattern of shops and houses repeated themselves approximately every five to six miles, which identified a village, these villages were clearly punctuated with a msulim school or 'Skuli'.
At a couple of points, midway up the island we did slow down for a very durimentary police check point, consisting of a swing gate across the road and a small hut by the roadside with a hand painted 'Polisi' sign. The purpose or function of these check-points was unclear (guidebooks indicate something regarding the prohibition of smuggling cloves from the south to the north of the island?) but they seemed to mark a move from the south of the island to the nort with a no-mans land in the middle.
About 8km south of Nungwi, our final destination, the poorly tarmacced road came to an end. It was to be replaced by a compounded dirt, lunar-style track. To avoid the largest of the pot-holes, the driver would snake the mini-bus from side to side trying to avoid the occasional on-coming traffic. The suspension on the bus showed bone-skaing signs of having travelled this road many times before and having been some time since calling into a Kwik-Fit for a check up.
