After a long overnight flight we stumbled out of Dar es Salaam airport to the sounds and sights of an African choir celebrating our arrival. Well, I admit it may have been for the president of Tanzania, but I prefer my interpretation of events! We had prepared ourselves mentally for the often arduous task of getting to the city centre, but in fact the only people who approached us were two official taxi drivers who quoted an official price illustrated at the rank. Momentarily shocked at the ease of it all, we hopped aboard and started our journey towards the city. The culture shock was exhilarating - from the dusty, humid heat, the vibrant colour of our surroundings to the hundreds of people sitting and watching from the roadside, everything was just so completely different.

Anyhow, after arriving at a pretty reasonable hostel and taking a well deserved nap we went in search of future plans. The city itself was pretty small and easy to navigate and so we found ourselves at the docks in no time. Booking a place on the next day's ferry across to Zanzibar we then took refuge in a French-style bakery with air conditioning and toasted sandwiches - well we had to ease ourselves in slowly! Actually very few people in Tanzania go out to eat so were weren't exactly spoiled for choice, but when we found them, Tanzanian restaurants were in fact really very yummy. Local food is a mixture of Indian (chipatis and baltis) and African (maize and wheaty porridge) influences, with lots of fresh fish along the coast.

Weather-wise, it's been in the late 20's and pretty muggy, the sunshine is strong but we've also had a few bouts of rain and cloud. Needless to say we both got pretty frazzled during the first couple of days, but hey, it's colour of some sort at least! The vibe in Africa is so laid back, only taxi drivers really took any notice of us and people are generally incredibly friendly and helpful. Most speak basic English but Swahili is dominant and we can so far only manage 'jambo' (hello) and 'habari gani' (how are you?), but all the kids say to us is 'give me sweet' so we're pretty much on the same wavelength at least!

A basic attempt at setting the scene I'm sure but you get the idea, so we stayed in Dar es Salaam for the night and watched Alien on Jack's PSP - cultural! The next day we got on the ferry to sunny Zanzibar...........