SOME LIKE IT HOT - DAR ES SALAAM As we drove into Dar Es Salaam we instantly felt a change in the weather - the heat was immense - this had the one advantage of our morning coffees staying hot as they practically boiled when resting on the gear box! Dar is often avoided in favour for an excursion to the coast or the exotic sounding island, Zanzibar. As we had already visited Zanzibar on our honeymoon we were keen to see what the real Dar was like. Repor...

HEADING SOUTH - THE ROAD TO DAR ES SALAAM Leaving the Amani Centre for Street Children in Moshi was a difficult thing for us to do. Throughout our trip so far we had focused on getting to Moshi to spend time at Amani and had made some very special bonds with the children. Now we had to contemplate the next leg of our trip - one with no set deadlines, no places to be and no people to meet at certain times. For the next three months we would be our own maste...

AMANI CHILDREN'S HOME - www.amanikids.org We were so excited to finally arrive in Moshi - a town dominated by the looming presence of the snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro. Although most people come to Moshi to spend a week climbing to the peak, we had come for another reason - to spend a week with the children at the Amani Children's Home. We drove up the bumpy, potholed track to the big blue gates of the children's home where we received a wonderful wel...

Next up was the Serengetti...Africa's largest game park. We had to cross the park to reach Moshi but wanted to try to do it in the shortest possible timescale - due to the fact that it costs $170 per 24 hours for two people in a foreign registered car! Quite frankly this is a rip off compared to other parks - the roads are terrible, the camping facilities ($20 each) grotty with no facilities and the signposting non existent. We did, however, manage to see lots...

We left Kigali and drove on wonderful tarmac to the border with Tanzania. It was here that the road conditions changed drastically and became a corrugated red earth track. We had to cover a fair distance to make it to Mwanza for the weekend, to meet up with a great friend, Gus, doing voluntary dentistry work for a couple of weeks. We actually met Gus on our honeymoon when in Kenya so were looking forward to an African reunion... We should have been in Mwa...