And the rest of Tanzania...

I thought I was doing really well with posting every few days in Africa, but then after the Serengeti I broke the second of my two charging options on my nice camera (!! Still need to work that out..) and became generally lazy about writing things down..so here is the synopsis of the rest of the time in Tanzania.

After the Serengeti we returned to the camp we stayed at on night 2 near Mto Wu Mbo.

We visited a street children's home where we had a tour, some played games with the children and there was a football game.

Mo in action at the football game.

Chantal and Kylie learning 'knuckles' which is quite similar to jacks..just with rocks and a piece of fruit!

That night we stayed in a home stay in Marangu (still camping). The next morning we took a short hike for a clear view of Kilimanjaro.

You can't tell, but Kili is in fact in the background here.

We then did a walk through the village to learn about their education program.

Learning about masonry..

Then we drove quite a while into the Usambara Mountains. We stayed 2 nights at a camp site (such a luxury to not take down the tents for one day!) where we had an unexpected dance party at their bar. We took another village walk (14kms) the next day where the highlight was the lookout point where you could jump out onto the rock for a good photo! 

We had a picnic lunch where they provided homemade rye bread, cheese, jams, and veggies.

The next morning we got up at 430am for an epic drive to Dar Es Salam. Epic means we arrived at our camp site after 4pm.. Once we got into Dar there was some pretty bad traffic, so we entertained ourselves by playing charades in the truck for about an hour and a half!

The campsite was beach side, so we jumped into the Indian Ocean upon arrival and played a game of catch with the football Mo bought at a stop along the way.

We got a photo that night with Wilson, our amazing cook!

So this was the night where it really went down hill for me. Notice in the photo my legs look semi normal, bar the one spot where I ran into a banana tree stump a few days before. That night we must've had some ants in our tent because I got absolutely attacked! More on that on a bit.

We again go up the next day at 430 to put the tents down one last time and say goodbye to our truck, driver, and cook. With all luggage with us, we got onto a short ferry, public bus, and a longer 1.5 hour ferry to Stone Town in Zanzibar. I'm not sure I can describe the level of stress is journey involved. The first ferry left no more than 6 seconds after we set foot on it, there were hoards of people, we squished onto this "bus" for a short ride and with 9 minutes before departure arrived at the ferry terminal. Note it took a half hour to push through to security and get onto the ferry. But TIA.. It was an experience.

We arrived in Stone Town and dropped our bags at the Safari Lodge and headed out for some food and a walk around. We got slightly turned around, but hey, we saw some more of Stone Town. Kylie arranged a dinner for all of us (great little planner!) and before dinner the four of us girls went out for a drink together - first time on the trip we'd done something just the four of us.

Us at 6 degrees south Zanzibar for a pre-dinner drink.

Part of the dinner we shared at The Spice House.

After dinner some people went to the night market while others went to Mercury's bar. After the bar Mo found us a local disco for some dancing!

The next day was meant to be the Spice Tour, but around 5am I woke up to over 200 crazy itchy bites all over my legs! Ouch. Took a day for those bites from Dar to really come out! So, I decided to skip the tour and Mo didn't let me make my way to the next hotel an hour away by myself. Our guide arranged on very short notice a shared taxi for us. We learned that we can pack our bags in 8 minutes, a shared taxi is not limited by the number of seats, a van can drove for over an hour on E, and in Zanzibar a car can do whatever it wants as long ad you honk 5 times first!

Either way, we made it to the sunset bungalows in the northern beaches by 10am where we'd spend the next 3 days. These were by far the nicest accommodation we stayed in on the tours. The rest of the group made it by 2pm and we spent the day on the beach and had dinner together as a group. Our tour leader was quite surprised as he said most groups disperse in Zanzibar, but we stuck together! 

Again the next day we spent time on the beach in the morning and then we did a snorkel/sunset cruise that two of the girls in our group organised with some locals. We had dinner at the restaurant and stayed at the bar that night for quite a while! There were a lot of tired faces the next day. This was the day that some people started leaving. Mo and I had the whole day there as our taxi was organised for 12am. Midnight. Ouch. 

Probably the most painful flight times ever! We took an hour taxi ride to the airport, our 325am flight was delayed an hour, a 2.5 hour flight to Ethiopia, a 5 hour layover and then a 3.5 hour flight...but we finally made it or of Africa and to Dubai!