October 13th

Up early pack up the tents and a 250km truck ride to Dar El Salam past more poverty, although some places were starting to show signs of some wealth (all comparative though!). Damn that place is a s*** hole! A wild goose chase exchanging traveller 's cheques, and finding some local outfits for $5 later and we headed for our camp site out of town in Karibu Inn by the beach. Finding those outfits was not easy though... a guide took us to the market which turned out to be a 40 minute walk in 32oc heat through areas the guide described as "not very safe for white people'... needless to say we stuck close together! Back in one peace we headed for the campsite where we were to meet two new group arrivals Zoe and Rob (GB). On the way we witnessed what must have been half the Tanzanian Army marching quick time up the main highway (bearing in mind the heat and their equipment I can't believe there weren't more dead bodies!) A few of the guys decided to take pictures... oh dear... they went mental. Apparently if you photograph a Tanzanian you steal their soul. If you combine that with their highly secretive approach to their military you can begin to see the problem that arose. A few heated negotiations later we headed onto the campsite. The lads took their first Indian Ocean swim whilst the women prepared dinner. I'm not sure if it was the long drives, the warm water or the knowledge that the girls were slaving over a hot stove but god damn it, that swim was amazing in the moonlight! That night we all exchanged our $5 outfits with the names of people in our group we had drawn out of the hat and spend the rest of the night drinking beers in our Muslim dresses on the beach - god knows what the newbies must have thought of us! - lovely.

October 14th

Guess what.... up early and pack tents... we had an 8am ferry to catch to Zanzibar, which involved a 20 minute truck dive, a 10 minute different ferry ride, and a brief bus ride just to get to the Zanzibar ferry. Finally we made it and 2 ½ hours of Rasta music later we docked in Zanzibar ready for our next passport stamp. Whisked straight to our hostel in Stone Town - which was now luxury compared to the previous 6 days, we arranged our spice tour after some local lunch. The spice tour started in a prison cell, went via a chief's w**** house where he had 'comfortable times with the ladies and finished in a spice farm. The formed was dull as dish water - partly to everyone being knackered and full up with lunch and partly due to it being very very hot (even the locals were sweating!) The spice farm was extraordinary; I've never seen the following grown - pineapples, vanilla pods, cinnamon, cumin, ginger and many many more. Needless to say we ate lots of strange stuff but the highlight was our guide... 'Ali T on da Bus' (not 'Ali G in da House') I can't even begin to describe him but try to imagine a Zanzibar local who spends half the talk mocking English regional accents, throwing in cockney rhyming slang among Ali G phrases combined with bulging eyes and a cheeky smile and you might get close to him... another legend.

Spice tour over we went for sun downs (South African for evening beers) in a bar overlooking the famous Zanzibar sunset where approximately 1,000,000 photos were taken by the group in a 30 minute window. For those who were still awake we headed to the market street for dinner where everything is served on a stick and finished in a Zanzibar curry house.

October 15th

A lay in and a real bed! Our Prison Island tour started at 8.30am so we grabbed a Dahl and headed out in the rain. Prison Island is a bit of a miss sell... when it was finally completed they used it for quarantine for all the international shipping that went through Zanzibar so not really much to see there on the 10 minute whirlwind tour! That was apart from the giant Tortoise! It was feeding time so we were able to hand feed the big (and when I say big I mean big) b******s. I found one who liked his neck being scratched so he got the majority of my leaves to munch. They do smell though!An attempt at sun bathing on the small Island was thwarted by rain so we went straight out for our coral snorkel. Whilst his was amazing in the rain (beautiful fish, coal blah blah blah) most will remember it for 10 minutes of relaxing swimming followed by the realisation of how far we had drifted, and 50 minutes of frantic swimming back to the Dahl as the crew certainly had no intension of coming to pick us up!

Back on the main Island we made friends with some weird local (actually from Nigeria) and headed off to the North of the Island for out 'down time'. Our hotel, Paradise Beach, may as well have been heaven. Rubbish shower and basic room but it was 10 metres from the sand of Nguwi beach and crystal clear sea, but more importantly they did all of our washing for the equivalent of four quid! A nice sleep on the beach and a dip in the water later we had a group meal overlooking the sea then went for... guess what...more sun downers! Our beach had tree bars and was only 100 metres long so as they say here we had 'Hakuna Mata tar' (no worries) in sourcing more beer. We met some Masai in the first bar playing pool and drinking beer (very traditional). Jacob was on the Island to sell curios to tourists to raise money for his tribe back in Arusha where we'd just come from! (No Masai live in Zanzibar normally) so I promise him a game of pool before heading off to the livelier Rasta bar. These Rasta guys were cool - the epitome of Rasta - big hair, big smoking utensils and were so laid back they were vertical. This place was different though - not the Rasta music but they used a toilet for a cash register and a bath for a toilet- crazy.

October 16th

Lazy start again but still a hangover. We realised heaven was actually quite smelly at low tide and even more seaweed had arrived. Nikki had a pedicure (tough this place) and after waiting for the tide to raise and make it really difficult to walk along the beach we decided to do exactly that... walk to the next beach. Silly tourists... 40 minutes later and quite a hairy walk clinging to the cliffs, we eventually made it to Sunset Bungalows (after meeting Jacob along the way who showed us his beach shop, several crab near misses on the rocks, a few big waves and Nikki almost losing a flip flop to the sea). This place was worth it though... beautiful. Lee, Ben, Rob, Nick and I decided to treat the locals to our version of volley ball. The waiters had a good laugh at our expense, but I still stand by the excuse of having sun cream, sand, sweat and the sun in our eyes for that performance! We stayed in Sunset Bungalows for dinner then got an 8 seater cab home with 13 of us squeezed in. That was an uncomfortable bumpy squashed ride but after handing the local police road block a little cash advance we were soon making good progress back to our resort and the Rasta bar again! Whilst in the Rasta bar Jacob came and found me! I felt quite guilty for not buying anything from his shop so I let him win - that and the fact that he had a massive machete under his belt which he took pride in showing me - that and I was rubbish!

October 17th

Travel day. Up early! But clean washing!... the simple things! Said goodbye to Chris, Sophie and Gillian (not everyone is doing exactly the same trip so there will be a fair few hellos and goodbyes) and travelled back to Stone Town bit of free time, where our new Nigerian friend found us again started a topical debate about how the slave trade as never really finished. Having got rid of him we then grabbed ferry back to Tanzania, a cab to the next ferry then after that a truck back to the beach campsite Karibu Inn (having put Emily in a cab for the local airport and home) for another swim this time in the slightly choppier waves outside of Dar El Salam - still so warm! A few more beers at the campsite bar for old time sake but it was an early night as everyone was shattered.

October 18th

Up early! Tents down. All aboard the truck of doom for 300km of quite bumpy roads to Baobab Valley. We had to stop to let the Tanzanian President's motorcade past but other than an attack of mosquitoes just after sun own was a pretty uneventful trip (wrote this diary actually!). We arrived at the Crocodile Camp in time to pitch our tents in the dark again but roast chicken was on the menu so we soon got on with it. A few beers and mosquito bites later and the tent bed was calling. October 19th Sunday = day of rest = a lay in! How nice it was to have a slow get up and breakfast and a shower was amazing. Found out that the dog barking that night was apparently the campsite dogs challenging some grazing hippos fresh up from the nearby river - don't fancy their chances to be honest with you but they did a good job of protecting us as everyone was accounted for at breakfast. Lounging in the African sun that morning was real tough, broken up by Ben emerging from the toilet drenched having had the cistern fall on him and a few lizard sightings, followed by a banquet laid on by Jennifer the camp owner. Truck time! All clean (my definition of clean is very different to when we started by the way so in place of that word read 'only slightly very dirty') 120km pop over to our Farm House campsite outside of Aringa. Tents up we made dinner and headed for the really cool bar made up of local thatched hut stuff, where the girls had hot chocolate and brownies whilst sat around a fire in their jumpers (we were still in the African desert at this stage by the way). Long drive tomorrow so an early night in prep for the.... surprise surprise... early start!