The crossing was incredibly rough and many of the group found it extremely difficult particularly those who had recently suffered illness. With great relief all round we arrived at Dar es Salaam port to be reunited with Piet and the truck. A slow drive fighting traffic followed before we stopped at a rather out of place but highly welcome modern mall complex where we were given 5000Tsh each (around £2) for lunch. We had an hour to buy some lunch and get oth...

After the short journey back to Stone Town we relaxed in the room for a while (well I had a nap) before we went out for a wander. We had a coffee and ice cream in a restaurant and I got my lightning bolt henna tattoo to match some of the others on tour. We went to a local market and wandered around smiling as everyone shouted 'Jambo' at us. It was such a hot day so after a fairly long look around we started to walk back to the hotel popping in the odd shop....

Once on the road we arrived an hour or so later at the spice plantation where we had a little tour planned. The spice plantation was full of weird combinations of fruit and vegetables and Salum did a good job of pointing out the various trees and shrubs and giving us a smell or taste of all the different spices. It started to rain quite heavily just as we got towards the end of the tour so we rushed the finish of the tour (to the great relief of many!) ...

After breakfast we all jumped into the waiting tuk-tuks and made our way to the local ferry port. It was a very calm ride compared to those we have taken in India! We were herded onto a ferry for a 2 minute crossing before getting off and into a waiting minibus to take us to a different ferry port. At this ferry port we were show to a very posh waiting area (with air-con, Wi-Fi and free drinks!) where we waited till we could board the ferry to Zanzibar. About an ...

Today was to be the longest driving day of the trip. This was why the alarm rang at 3.10am! Stumbling around in the pitch black trying to be quiet so as not to wake up the other campers we were all packed up and ready in the truck at 4am. And off we went. The first section was fairly non-eventful as it was in the dark pre-sunrise and most people continued sleeping. After the sun came up we passed the town of Moshi, the gateway for Mount Kilimanjaro but w...