Hey people.

I'm back in Mombasa. The journey back was probably the most interesting thing about the whole trip to Zanzibar.

We ended up stood in the street to watch Man. Utd v Liverpool. It was a great game to watch surrounded by all these African men in a street in town round a TV.

We met some other volunteers in Tanzania whilst watching the football - these 4 girls. They were getting the same Ferry back as us but they were in first class and me and Chuck were in economy.

If you remember, I mentioned when coming into the country they might try and charge Chuck extra for being Irish (because Tanzanian people get charged more to go to Ireland) but they didn't so we were happy.

Well they did on the way out.

Chuck was about to go crazy and so I started arguing with immigration. There was no way we were paying an extra $50 because he was Irish. He had the money but we weren't paying. The guy spoke decent English but I spoke a bit of Swahili (to show we weren't rich tourists). Then Chuck started arguing again but calmer. We just told them we didn't have the money, that we had asked the Tanzanian consulate in Mombasa and he said we didn't have to pay. We told them we were volunteers, and if we had $50, we wouldn't be catching the night ferry and a bus back to Mombasa. They just let us through after about half an hour of friendly arguing.

When we got on the Ferry I decided we were going to try and wing our way into first class after the argument had stressed us out. No-one challenged us because we were white but one guy who HAD checked our tickets shouted "Economy! Economy!". I was like 'Oh, we asked for first-class' (we didn't), so I pulled a $10 bill and gave it to the guy. He led us to first class but then came back and took us to VIP. The volunteers we met in the street ended up in there aswell.

The people in Economy slept in the alleys or on the seats or outside on mattresses. I wish I had stayed there. I stayed up until about 3am and then went to sleep on the floor, no mattress. It was too cold because of the air-con. I bribed my way into VIP and then slept on the floor cold. The people who were economy slept on mattresses warm outside.

When we got off the Ferry at 6am we didn't even say bye to the girls because I was about to be sick. I ate a bad burger (was a bit pink) and it wasn't playing well with me. First place we saw in Dar es Salaam was the hotel which was like...the most expensive poshest hotel in the city, but I didn't care and I ran in to throw up...nice!

Me and Chuck decided to walk to the bus startion...it was only a 30 min walk. Or so we thought.

Turned out to be 2 hours! After an hour an a half on the same road, we were going to miss the bus and had to hop in a taxi. We can't believe we misjudged it so badly. That road was SO bloody long we were knackered.

Bus was cool on the way back and we had no issues with visas or customs, but it was a slow bus back and we got back about 7:30pm...24 hours after we left Zanzibar.

7 new people in the house and lots of people left. But most of them seem nice and are here for Christmas.

We are doing secret Santa. I got Ed, whose been here longer than me or Chuck. Theres a 200 shillings spend limit (about £1.50) but I have no idea what to get.

I'm uploading some pics from Zanzibar now, and I'll have some more when I get Chucks pictures.

Merry Christmas