While we were at the house in Msambweni one of Pat's friends turned up, an author and ex-journalist called Michael Holman. He was extremely kind and as he was leaving on the same day as us he insisted on paying for a taxi to Mombasa and then a flight to Nairobi for all of us! We're staying in the city centre which is a pretty safe area and very Western in style, everyone is extremely friendly and always willing to show us how to get places and haggle good discoun...

After we got back to Dar from Zanzibar we booked ourselves on a bus up to Msamwbeni in Kenya. Despite getting off the coach too early and having to walk 6km to the place we were staying (which gave Alice massive blisters!) we got there fine. We stayed at a house called Jinchini right on the beach. A friend of mine (Jack) from the time I spent working in a PR company, Pat Orr, kindly lent us the house for free. It's a stunning place: the swimming pool has a reside...