Well, it's been a while since I've been able to update this blog. I'm now on the beautiful Kande beach in Malawi. So much has happened in the last 2 weeks though, I've flown in a hot air balloon over the endless Serengeti plains, seen the big 5 (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino) as well as lots of other animals, bush camped amongst grazing buffalo, bumped into an elephant near the toilet, heard a hippo fart, been driven round the Tarangire, Serengeti and Ngorogoro crater national parks by Lawrance our Rastafarian boy racer/safari guide, relaxed in the beautiful tropical paradise island of Zanzibar, and crossed yet another border. Phew! It has once again been fantastic. It was amazing to see the big game in their natural environment, although I did feel like we were invading their privacy a lot. At times it felt like a big zoo with no bars. They didn't seem to care much though and just looked at us with wonder. The giraffes had the best facial expression for us. They always stopped to stare with amusement at the 4 wheeled metal beasts with the funny pink fleshy things hanging out of them.

Anyway, we did 2 nights bush camping in the Serengeti and it was so much fun, yet a little scary. Our charming driver scared us with the story of the time when he was sitting down at the campsite with people and buffalo turned up being stalked by lions. Thankfully the buffalo was the object of interest, not the humans so all were ok. There were no lions roaming around but apparently we did get visited by hyena in the night, and lions and leopards were heard in the distance. I was blissfully unaware of this as my sleep was pretty coma-like. There was a freaky incident in the lovely squat drop loos one night, when the chap in the next cubicle suddenly remarked on the presence of a snake. Only a little one though. Hmmm...not sure I would have been so calm. :-)

The night before we visited the crater, we camped up on the crater rim, so it was pretty high and cold. The first time actually that I've been really cold out here. We were warned that there were bush pigs around and if you had any food or anything that smelt like food they would eat through the tents to get to it. We may have been being paranoid, but we didn't even have toothpaste in the tent that night. My tent buddy Steph and I did however, spot an elephant on a late night visit to the loos there. When I came out of the loo I saw Steph trying to tell me something, but I couldn't hear so replied with "I'm just going to wash my hands, I'll be there in a sec". Turns out she was saying "There's an elephant over there!". D'oh! Being the observant person I am I didn't even notice it at first. It was dark, alright! :-) It was amazing though, about 20 metres away from us and so big and beautiful, with it's tusks gleaming in the moonlight. Not wanting to scare it we hid in the shower block and watched it till it got bored and moved on. It was still hanging around in the morning though, but much further away. That night one of the guys also saw a buffalo grazing right outside his tent. Africa doesn't do health and safety.

There was a nasty stomach bug going around too while we were on the safaris, and it hit about 10 people across the 2 trucks. I luckily escaped, but it was nasty. One girl got that and then developed malaria straight after, Nice! She's fine though.

After the long days of safari we made our way to Zanzibar, the spice island just off the coast of Tanzania. The ferry was so rocky it turned into a bit of a vomfest with some of our group and even I had to sleep though it as I was feeling crap and I can't remember the last time I got sea sick. It was worth it though. We spent 1 night in Stonetown, where randomly I bumped into 2 couples that I had stayed with at the volunteer house in Moshi. We also went on the spice tour, where we saw lots of spices being grown, got to taste and smell lots of yummy things and saw the assistant climb a coconut tree while singing the jambo song with only a rope tying his legs together to help him. After stonetown we made our way to the white coral sandy beaches of the north. Mmmm...white sand, aqua blue sea...the place was like a postcard. There were lots of activities to do, but I decided on the hammock in the shade option. Oh, I did get a massage on the beach too. There was a lively bar there so we chilled out in the day and partied into the early hours with the locals. It was a lot of fun. After Zanzibar we slowly made our way down south and crossed the border into Malawi yesterday. It was quite amusing, we turned up and there was no one there as they were all in a meeting. Their vision statement talked about being efficient and their mission statement talked about maximising revenue in a fair and just way. Wish I could have taken a picture. I decided to upgrade rather than camp here so tonight I'm in a cute little hut on the beach overlooking lake Malawi. The lake is so huge (takes up a third of Malawi apparently) that it looks like the sea from here.

Anyway, there's a hammock outside with my name on it so I need to go. I will try and put the rest of the photos up later. The last time I only managed to get a few on before my time was up so hopefully I'll have more success this time.
Take care,
Sandra xx