Much to my enjoyment we awoke on the 20th to a bright clear morning and Kili was being shown off in all her glory. I am so glad we got to see her as it really is an awe inspiring site, something very humbling as I have never really seen anything like it. One day I would love to come back and make an attempt on the summit but time and money is against us so back we went to Dar.

Our next destination was Mafia Island and all its marine park goodness, so after another night in Dar we took our first local mini buses which were called 'dalla dallas.' If we thought coaches were pushing it these things are impressive. Essentially they're crappy little Toyota minibuses crammed with seats, a tiny engine and a madman at the helm! We managed our first without too much trouble to Mbagala just outside the town and were surprised to say the least when we got there. Chaos reigned and we spent the next 15 mins trying in vain to find a bus going to Nyamisati and which point a local took pity on us and helped us out.

As soon as we got on an incredible clamour erupted between everyone surrounding the bus, after a couple of minutes we realised we were the target and it was a negotiation over how much we had to pay, not only for ourselves but for the seat our backpacks were taking up. It was all good natured and quite hilarious in their broken English and our very poor Swahili. That settled and all there was to do was wait, and wait, and wait...intermittently interrupted with guys coming up to our windows laughing asking our names, if we were married etc and saying Mzungo, Mzungo. I of course kept a close eye on my wife as she got most of the attention.

To our surprise 23 adults and 2 children crammed onto the bus but at least we were off heading in the right direction. We hit dirt roads about 2 hours into the trip and consequently got covered from head to toe in dust until we reached the ferry port. When the guidebook had said this journey was 'albeit adventurous' we had thought nothing of it, but slowly we were beginning to come round to the idea. Unfortunately the ferry had already left and we were faced with a night in Nyamisati which caused us a problem as it was a tiny fishing village with about 10 mud huts! The locals were friendly enough though and after some impressive hand signals from us they pointed us in the right direction towards a slightly larger hut which had a spare room. No running water, electricity but I did find a new use for the Lonely Planet in spider hunting.

There was a large spider in the top left hand corner of the room and as I was about to squash it an even larger spider came out and ate it. I'm not a fan of spiders at the best of times but this had me spooked. I managed to squish it and if I had more space in my luggage I would have brought it home and mounted it, it was that big!

The boat arrived the next day to our relief. It was mainly open and had seats at the sides with a tarpaulin on the floor for people to sit on. We smugly took a seat at the side of the boat. Again we were the only foreigners on the boat but no one seemed particularly bothered about us. Only when we were in open sea and had been going for a couple of hours did we realise our error in choice of seating. The waves started to get quite high and we were soon drenched it sea spray. At this point our journey was becoming more 'albeit scary' as water on the deck was all disappearing into the boat. Helen quite sensibly took refuge at the back of the boat with all the locals while I donned my rain racket and rode out the high seas picturing myself as an able bodied Lieutenant Dan.

Sure enough we arrived safe and sound in Mafia and found refuge in the closest guest house that we could find.