The travels of Tim and Megan: Africa Safari: Tanzania

Day 21: Dar Es Salaam to Stone Town, Zanzibar

Unsurprisingly, it was another early start on Friday, although we did have four days in paradise to look forward to. After packing up all of our stuff, we headed down the road to catch the short ferry across to the city side of Dar Es Salaam. We then a got a bus a short distance to the main ferry terminal, where we caught the ferry to Zanzibar. It was a very nice boat and the ride was smooth and enjoyable.

Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, which consists of several small islands and two main islands, Unguja and Pemba, about 25-30km off the coast of mainland Africa in the Indian Ocean. Unguja is the main island and is often referred to as Zanzibar. Arab and Portuguese traders visited the region in early times, and it was controlled by Omanis in the 18th and 19th centuries. Britain established a protectorate (1890) that became an independent sultanate in December 1963, and then a republic after an uprising in January 1964. In April 1964, Zanzibar joined Tanganyika (the mainland part) to form a new republic that was subsequently renamed Tanzania, in October 1964. The capital of Zanzibar, located on the island of Unguja, is Zanzibar City, and its historic centre, known as Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.

Our ferry arrived at Stone Town at about 11.45am, but we then had to wait around at Immigration for over an hour, while our passports were stamped - unsure why, when we had not changed countries! It was super hot and humid in Zanzibar and we were grateful for any breeze coming in off the sea. We went straight to our hostel in the centre of Stone Town to check in and drop off our bags - we had very basic rooms, but ours at least had its own toilet and shower. Bonus!

We had lunch at a vegetarian place with a few people from our tour. We had delicious samosas, spring rolls and a vege curry. After lunch, we strolled about Stone Town, checking out the shops and trying to avoid the constant harassment of the street vendors, without much luck! Stone Town was a noisy, colourful and vibrant place, a little dirty in parts and a few of the locals looked a little sinister, but it was fun nonetheless.

The local bottle store had some amazingly cheap booze, so we stocked up for the coming days with a bottle of vodka and a bottle of kahlua (for black russians) and we also bought a bottle of Konyagi - a Kenyan / Tanzanian favourite, that we had been introduced to by Mwangi during our Serengeti excursion. We could never tell if it was vodka or gin - perhaps a hybrid - and the label on the bottle just called it "alcohol"... But it was delicious! And insanely cheap.

We did a bit of souvenir shopping and then headed back to the hostel to meet up with some of the group for drinks. A crowd of us sat in Troy and Sara's room and got stuck into our Konyagi - very funny times. At 7pm, we met the rest of the group in the lobby and we all headed to Stone Town's Night Fish Market. There was an incredible selection of fresh seafood - African king fish, barracuda, mussels, prawns and more. We also tried the special Zanzibar beef pizza and chips, which was also brilliant. It was a really fun experience wandering around the bustling, noisy night market and the food was superb.

Day 22: Zanzibar

We started the day with no showers, as there was no running water - nice. The phrase "TIA" (this is Africa) was starting to be used more and more often to explain away things like that! However, breakfast at the hostel was pretty good and then we caught a mini-van up the west coast of the island to a little place called Kendwa, very close to the northern tip of the island. If Stone Town was noisy, colourful, vibrant and a little dirty, Kendwa was the exact opposite - peaceful, beautiful, clean. It was paradise!

We had the next three nights at a beach resort called Kendwa Rocks. The accommodation was nice enough and the facilities were excellent - a much needed laundry service, bars and a restaurant on the beach, fast internet, etc. We lay on the beach for a few hours, enjoying the hot sunny day. Eventually we brought our vodka and kahlua down and with the help of some ice cold cokes from the beach bar, we made some delicious black russians. Later in the afternoon, we went to next bar along the beach and watched Chelsea v Arsenal - a game we were not likely to win. It was a cracking match and Arsenal scored two late goals to win it 5-3, courtesy of a Robin van Persie hat-trick. The small crowd of Arsenal fans watching the game in the bar went mental over the last two goals - those African boys sure enjoy their football!

After the football, we had a swim in the sea (the water was so warm, not to mention clean and clear). We also made our very own "sunset booze cruise" by drawing the outline of a boat in the sand and then sitting inside the "boat" and drinking while the sun set. The heat and the black russians made us do it. It was a lovely evening and we saw a sensational sunset. In the evening, a group of us had dinner at a little restaurant along the road from our resort. It was decent food, although it took a long time. The power went out while we were waiting, so we're not sure how they managed to cook it...

After dinner, most of our group went down to the bar for the Halloween beach party. There were hundreds of people there and it was actually pretty fun. Quite a few people were dressed up in Halloween costumes and there were some (pretty average) Michael Jackson impersonators who performed Thriller and a few other MJ songs - one was on roller skates, which none of us could make much sense of. We were all pretty hammered by the end of the night, but quiet little Roselin took the cake, she was in fine form! We did not mean to stay for that long, but eventually got to bed at about 3am.

Day 23: Zanzibar

As you probably guessed, it was a slow start to the day on Sunday. We made it to breakfast just before it ended at 10am - as it turned out we wish that we had just missed it. We got a slice of pineapple, two bread rolls and a fried egg that wasn't cooked so it was all runny and looked a bit like a sneeze. Then we lazed on the beach and chatted to the others.

At about 2pm, we went up to the road to grab some lunch. We had to wait for 45,000 years to be served and then we had to compete with 45,000 flies to see who could eat it the fastest - the flies or us. Our Irish vet, Andrew, was convinced that there must be a dead animal close by, or there would never be that many flies. A comforting thought as we tried to eat our lunch in a hungover state.

Later in the afternoon we organised a proper sunset booze cruise (on an actual boat) - it was $US20 per person and included either 8 beers or 4 ciders each. In reality we got about 3-4 beers each - ripped off again! But it was otherwise a brilliant boat cruise with a beautiful sunset and we all had a lot of fun! At the end of the ride, we got to jump off the top of the boat into the sea - from probably about 3-4 metres height. We had several jumps each and it was awesome - aside from the mouthful of salt water.

We had a lovely dinner with Kirsty and Andrew at the resort restaurant on the beach, which was a lot of fun. We were pretty shattered after dinner, so we went to bed around 10pm. A few people in our group had had upset stomachs over the last couple of days - not unexpected in Africa. Although it reinforced what an amazing job our chef Mwai had done, as nobody had got sick at all from his cooking over the past three to four weeks and now within two days, loads of people were getting sick.

Day 24: Zanzibar

Monday was another perfect day in paradise. We had a sleep-in and then sat on the beach for a while. Then we went for a long walk along the beach heading north towards a town called Nungwi, right at the northern tip of the island. It was uncomfortably hot and muggy. We were sweating so much that the sunscreen we had smeared on ourselves was dripping off our arms amongst the sweat. Ewww.

We saw lots of crabs scampering over the sand and rocks on the beach and we also lots of tacky stuff for sale at stalls dotted along the beach, but aside from that it was a lovely walk and the beach was just beautiful. Back at our resort, we sought some shade in the resort restaurant, where we had a decent lunch. In the afternoon, Megs did some snorkeling and she found Nemo! There were hundreds of colourful little tropical fish in the water! Tim lazed in the shade, like a lazy lion.

In the evening, we met up with the rest of the gang, most of whom had been on a full-day snorkeling trip across at another smaller island. We had a few drinks on the beach and watched another beautiful sunset and got some pretty cool photos. We saw an amazing "shooting star" (satellite) that zoomed across the sky for ages before eventually burning out. It was so vivid and clear in the sky - it looked like a comet. The stars in Africa are so incredible - having lived in London for so long, where you rarely see any stars at all, it was such a treat to see the sky absolutely packed full of bright stars every night.

The gang split up for dinner. We, along with four others, went to a great place along the beach and the food was superb. We had calamari for starters and pizza for mains. Since it was Halloween, Jeanelle told us a spooky story about her neighbour from her childhood - a very strange and scary old woman. After dinner we sat on the beach and had a drink before calling it a night. We were pretty tired - all that lazing about on the beach takes its toll on you eventually!

Day 25: Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam

Unsurprisingly, we woke to another glorious day in paradise on 1 November. We had an omelet for breakfast, departed the resort at 10am, and drove around 1 hour south to Stone Town. We stopped at a cafe in Stone Town for lunch, where we had beef on pilau rice, and then we caught the ferry back to mainland Africa. The ferry ride was a bit bumpy but otherwise fine.

It was a scorching hot afternoon and we were dripping sweat by the time we got off the ferry in Dar Es Salaam. To make things worse, we had to walk for twenty minutes in the intense heat, carrying our heavy packs, to get from the main ferry terminal to the small ferry to take us back to camp. We were pouring sweat by the time we got back to camp. We downed a couple of ice cold cokes in the camping ground bar, pitched our tents and got our gear all sorted.

It was our chef, Mwai's birthday, so Megs and Tim bought him, Mwangi and our driver Nick, a round of beers. Mwai had had four days without us, so he pulled out a gem of a dinner for our return - juicy beef steak, potatoes, beans and carrots. We also had a slice of Mwai's birthday cake for dessert. We went to bed around 9.30pm, as we would have a very early start tomorrow! It was another disgustingly hot and sweaty night in the tent in Dar Es Salaam.

Day 26: Dar Es Salaam to Iringa

Day 26 was a huge driving day. We woke at 3.30am, showered, packed up our gear and tents, had brekkie and hit the road at 5.15am. Aside from having a lot of distance to cover, we wanted to get a speedy ferry crossing to the city side of Dar Es Salaam and avoid the morning traffic.

We drove south-west across Tanzania to a place called Iringa. We arrived at 5.45pm, making it a 12-hour journey and a rather unexciting day. It was, again, very hot and uncomfortable on the truck. The scenery was varied - there were patches of dry, dusty dirt, then there were patches full of plantations and odd-looking trees. We also passed over a mountain range, which gave us some good views. The highlight was passing through a 50km stretch of Mikumi National Park, where we saw some forest elephants and some giraffes.

We stayed the night at a campsite called the "Old Farmhouse", close to Iringa. It was described in our itinerary as "rustic and charming". This meant there was no electricity. But it was charming. It was surrounded by bush. The bathrooms were actually pretty nice (just no hot water). The bar was a small round hut with candles for light and tiny stools to sit on. It was another fairly early night for all!