Zanzibar

• The Cape Escape - Cape Town
• My Mountain High in Cape Town - Cape Town
• The Drop Zone - Cape Town
• On the trail to true adventure - Johannesburg
• The great es-Cape - Cape Town
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• My Zulu Extravaganza - Durban
• Up Close and Personal - South African Safari
• Tracking Big Game - Kruger National Park
• Sleeping with the Lions - South African Safari
• A Safari with real pride - South African Safari
• Where the Lion King comes to Life - South African Safari
• Our guide to the top 10 safaris - South African Safari
• A Roaring Success - Victoria Falls
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• The Worlds Most Beautiful Road? - The Garden Route
• Zipping off to Zanzibar - Zanzibar, Kenya
• Africa's catch of the day - Mozambique
• The Cape escape… and it was right up my Street - Garden Route: South Africa
• The nation kissed by a rainbow - South Africa
• Our wild silver wedding! - Kenya

FLOATING BY CANDLELIGHT with your lover in the warm petal-strewn waters of the Sultan’s Pool seems an impossible distance in time and space from fuming in a traffic jam in the rain on the M25.

But just 12 hours and 4,700 miles earlier that is where I was, desperately trying to catch the Kenyan Airways Magic Carpet to the spice island of Zanzibar for what I had promised my wife would be the most romantic weekend in the world.

Behind us in this thatched palace ringed by waving palm trees on the shore of the Indian Ocean stand two lissom African masseuses. The scent of cinnamon and cloves hang in the thick tropical dusk as they prepare to anoint us with precious oils.

Soothed to paradise

Over the next hour, expert hands smooth away any lingering cares that have accidentally accompanied us here to paradise.

As my eyes close on the edge of sleep, I can hear the distant sound of waves breaking on the coral reef beyond the white sand beach. ‘Zanzibar? For a relaxing weekend?’ my wife had exclaimed.

‘That sounds like a stressful idea.’ No, I assured her, not if you fly overnight Premier class with Kenyan Airways. Flat bed seats allow a night’s sleep in both directions.

Longitudinal travel with just a three-hour time difference means no jetlag. We can leave Thursday night, spend nearly three whole days in Zanzibar, and be back in the office by 8am on Monday - fully rested, with a suntan and a spring in our step.

Zanzibar was once capital of the slave trade but the name conjures up an exotic perfumed cocktail of Africa and Arabia.

‘Every stranger, at first view of the shores, proclaims his pleasure,’ wrote Victorian journalist and explorer Henry Stanley. ‘The earth rises before him verdant, prolific, bursting with fatness. Palms raise their feathery heads and mangoes their great globes of dark green foliage, fragrant cinnamon and spreading bushy clove diversify and enrich the landscape.’

Reality was even better than expectation. As soon as we had parked at Heathrow, stress levels began to fall.

Club class tickets do not come cheap, but for those of us used to travelling in the back of the bus, the advantages of joining the elite are immediately apparent. At Premier check-in we were ushered through the fast-track lane for a glass of champagne in the VIP lounge.

The sea is ever present

The flat beds really were flat and accompanied by exemplary cabin service. We watched a movie and slept soundly. Nothing warms the heart like an East African sunrise. A change of planes in Nairobi and we marvelled at the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro before touching down in the tropical heat of Zanzibar.

The newly-built Palms is the height of hedonism, a beachside hideaway for just 12 couples tucked away on the south-east coast near the village of Bwejuu. British weekenders apart, East Africa’s first real spa resort has the wealthy apres-safari market in its sights.

After four days at a first-class camp in the Serengeti or the Masai Mara, the idea is to chill out on the beach at a similar level of luxury. All food and drink is included in the price at The Palms.

Within minutes of arrival, we were sitting down to a lunch of fresh lobster and frosted white wine in a beach banda with the endless expanse of the Indian Ocean lapping at our feet. The sea is ever present.

You can even see it from the oversized four-poster bed that is the centrepiece of each of the six thatchroofed villa.

Gleaming hardwood floors scattered with seagrass rugs blend with cool coffee-and-cream interiors and giant bathroom to create a fusion of African comfort and colonial grandeur. Each villa has an extra bedroom and bathroom to cater for families, but children must be 14 or over.

The heart of the resort is Plantation House, where you can enjoy a Dawa cocktail (honey, lime juice, vodka and ice) before dining exquisitely on dishes prepared by the self-taught Tanzanian chef.

After a night beneath a giant mosquito net - Zanzibar is malarial, though mozzies seemed few and far between - it was time for breakfast on the verandah and plan a Saturday of doing absolutely nothing.

The Palms is one of only four hotels on the 20-kilometres of white sand beach in this corner of the island, reached by an unsurfaced road from the highway. Four-star Breezes is just 50- metres away and owned by the same Kenyan family of Croatian- Italian descent.

A private banda

You can share Breezes’ facilities, including watersports and the Frangipani Spa with its Sultan’s Pool, but their guests cannot share yours. But it’s difficult to tear ourselves away from our private banda except to swim and experience a further massage at The Sanctuary, The Palms’ beachside spa.

Apple, a deceptively strong masseuse from Thailand, deftly climbs on to the massage couch to pound and pummel to perfection. On Sunday we visit a spice farm before exploring the labyrinth of Stone Town.

A crumbling mansion clad in bougainvillea marks the way into narrow winding alleyways crowded with craft and food shops, and veiled women bargaining excitedly.

The Zanzibari - Swahili is their first language, followed by Arabic and English - are fiercely independent, unfettered by tribal allegiances. The Anglican cathedral was built on the site of the market where 16,000 slaves were sold in chains each year from 1830 to 1873 after being captured on the mainland.

The appalling cramped dungeons, below ground but not far beneath the surface of the national psyche, are a chilling reminder of this inhuman practice that did not finally die out here until 1907.

It’s Sunday evening and we are at the check-in desk at Nairobi. A glance at my wife is rewarded with a smile the size of a slice of coconut. Romantic weekend in Zanzibar? No problem.