Arusha to Dar

After spending 4 days at Snake Park on the outskirts of Arusha , a nice enough campsite but with little to do other than look at killer snakes ( in tanks thankfully) , crocodiles and tortoises we hit the road on Chui, the big yellow truck. Chui is Swahili for leopard and is the nickname someone gave the truck. It's equipped with a table, camping chairs, gas stoves, cool boxes functioning as fridges and more tins, herbs, spices and condiments than our kitchen at home.

The reason for so long in Arusha is that everyone else in the group headed to the Serengeti but due to minimum time being spent here for the $700 pp price tag and having spent four days in the northern section of the park- the Masai Mara, we stayed behind to recuperate from Kili and sort our washing & life out. It did mean we could explore Arusha, which we needn't have bothered doing and so instead spent 7 hours in 3 coffee shops trying to get a decent wifi speed so we could upload the blog & do some banking. Wifi in Tanzania has been excruciatingly slow. I imagine it will only get worse as we enter Malawi where until recently, you couldn't even get oil for the truck. Compared to other continents I've travelled, Africa has limited infrastructure. The industrial revolution seems to have passed by many places too and everything is still done by hand, including smashing up Tarmac and carrying out road works. Back breaking work from what I witnessed!

Getting the 25km back from Arusha to the Snake Park proved 'interesting', trying to catch the local bus. It took us an hour, feeling very vulnerable and exposed to successfully manage this. Perhaps waiting until rush hour to try and figure out which of the 100 mini vans to catch in a rather crowded bus station when we'd just been to the bank wasn't our best idea. It didn't help that some locals were telling us to jump on this or that bus, which we knew went in the opposite direction! Finally we found someone who did help us and 5 minutes later we were on our way.

It's taken 4 days to get from Arusha to Zanzibar, we could have flown in a couple of hours from Kili airport but hey ho. We returned with the truck to Marangu, the village we'd visited to see the school being built. This time we spent two days in a campsite with tropical flowers and a pool with a rare glimpse of kili being offered when the clouds lifted one evening. We explored the village on foot visiting the chaga museum, the caves where the chaga people hid in the 18th century as civil war between the Masai and chaga tribes roared on and descended steeply to the base of a 65m high waterfall. We wish we'd remembered to take our swimming stuff, instead we just had to watch three of our group play around in the tempting pool at the base of it. Our guide then took us for lunch in a local restaurant where we had the staple rice with some beef followed by banana beer- the most revolting drink I've ever come across. The cloudy mixture was served still bubbling and fermenting away with the whey still present so it was a thick mixture that smelt of yeast. Tony drank it, I passed on it scared for how sick it would make me feel! Apparently another bar then sold bottled banana beer which was actually rather nice and probably more akin to the drink we've had at home.

It was my turn in cook group so we made home made Mexican burgers with a fresh salsa, guacamole and jacket potatoes. We also baked a chocolate birthday cake for the bar man at the campsite who turned 30. It's amazing what you can do on a BBQ and with 2 gas burners! He rewarded us by singing a couple of songs- amazing voice.

We hit the road once more, stopping en route at the side of the road to make a simple bean salad for lunch, passing the Uluguru mountains heading to the White Parrot campsite in Korogwe. We arrived early afternoon so it gave time to do the chore of hand washing as we ran out of clothes. Access to launderettes is proving difficult on the road so hand washing the dust out of our clothes is all we can do. This time it was Tony's cook group who made sweet potato and bean chilli with rice. I absconded the campsite with Adam, Brad and Michal and went to a local bar for cheap beer- about 60p for a large bottle and watched the footie. Michal & I were the only females present in a group of local men watching the Spurs match.

The next day was an early start, up at 5am and on the road by 5.30am after limited sleep due to two competing discos across the road blaring their music out until 2am. Luckily there is quite a lot of space on the truck so we could curl up and sleep until the sun started to rise at 6.30 when it would have been rude not to take in the red and orange changing skyline- beautiful.

Battling the traffic in Dar can take hours hence the early start. As it was Sunday it wasn't as busy as usual and we arrived at our campsite by the sea late afternoon. We spent the next couple of hours sunbathing by the beach side pool drinking beer before taking a cold shower, packing our bags for Zanzibar and returning to watch sunset sat on the beach with another cold beer- whilst having a finance meeting and updating our spreadsheets- romantic!

The camp was guarded by 4 Masai carrying machetes and spears who walked around continuously. Combined with the dogs I just hoped I didn't need the bathroom in the middle of the night as I didn't fancy coming up against a knife to my throat as they quizzed me as to who I was!

Monday brought another early start with tents down by 6.30am ready to head off to Zanzibar at 7am- can't wait. This is the first bit of the trip with luxury and 'normal' honeymoon relaxation, although to be fair, camping is ok- at least we know the beds are clean which in some hostels, is debatable!