So from the amazing animals of Ngorogoro and the Serengeti, we went onto the beaches of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. Not only were the beaches spectacular, but it was probably one of the first times we actually had time to chill out and actually feel like we're on holiday! We stayed on a beach just outside of Dar for just over a day before getting the ferry over to Zanzibar. The ferry was surprisingly nice (with air con, comfy seats and a film to watch), and the sea was luckily pretty smooth. We visited Stonetown first and went shopping :) - its quite a cool city with interesting architecture and a nice vibe. We then travelled onto Nungwi beach at the north of the island, which was our base for Christmas. Not only was the beach beautiful, we also stayed in a hotel which though basic, was such a treat and relief from camping. We spent most of our time just chilling out on the beach and venturing into the sea to cool off (though the jellyfish were pretty evil)! Christmas Day we spent snorkelling off a deserted tropical island which was just stunning - we managed to see dolphins playing just off our boat on the ride there which was cool, and it was a really nice way to spend my first hot Christmas. It was bizarre in that it didn't feel like Christmas, but I definitely enjoyed the presents Mum sent out (especially the food hehe!). From Zanzibar, we started another 3 days worth of driving to enter Malawi. At present, we're in Kande beach on Lake Malawi where we've been for a few days and where we spent last night (New Year's Eve). We had an amazing hog roast last night, and then we had our New Year's Eve party - the theme was bad taste and we had to buy outfits for each other. Lets just say that mine was bright pink (which was good), but looked like an 80s bridesmaid dress gone wrong, with velcro all the way down the front (btw I've acquired the nickname Nymph, so the guy who bought it thought it was appropriate). We had more punch (and lethal vodka), but I managed to contain my drinking to an appropriate level. I did end up dancing on the bar, flashing my bra at everyone in the bar (though my friend decided to go one step further and flashed my nipple at a local, from whom I then had to run away), practice 90s dance moves with another friend, and go for a 3am swim in underwear (apparently the lake has crocs, but luckily we're all still alive!) so all in all, a pretty fun night. We then decided to start on the vodka again at 10.30am today, but the first one didn't go down particularly well, so I decided to remove myself from the drinking and update all you guys!

So that's my life at the moment - I actually feel I'm reverting to my early 20s again with some of my behaviour which is a little interesting, so hopefully 2013 will carry on that way and I won't act like I should going into my 30th year! From here, we're travelling onto Mozambique and then to Zimbabwe in the next couple of days, which should be fun.

I've also bought a smartphone (finally), so I'll probably get another local sim card in the next few weeks, so if you send me your numbers I'll get on whats app hopefully again soon.

Anyway, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and great New Year - let me know how everything is going, I hope everything is well. I'll try and update the blogs more frequently in the future, but I can't promise that you won't have another essay in the near future! Also as I'm not really uploading photos (its just too much hassle), one of the guys, Yuma, has uploaded a number of videos with photos and I'm also trying to tag myself in other people's photos. So if you do want to see any, just click onto Yuma's profile!

Love you all xx