Leaving Zanzibar

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We've got about another hour left on Zanzibar before we return to Dar Es Salaam, and I think we all could have easily stayed on for a few more days at least. Zanzibar is gorgeous - the water is incredibly blue and clear, and the weather has been fantastic since we arrived.

We did a really good tour of the old Stone Town on the day we arrived, and went to someone's house for a traditional Zanzibar meal - it was great. Afterwards we went to a spice plantation, and it was surprisingly interesting, and really interactive (particularly when we got to sample things!) Stone Town is amazing, and we all wish we'd been able to spend longer exploring - the Arabic influence is very distinct and completely different from anything we've seen in Africa to date. We transferred the next day to accommodation on Nungwe, one of the beaches up north, and that's where we've been since then.

Two days ago a few of us did a day-long snorkelling trip, which was so so so cool. I've only been snorkelling a few times, and am somewhat afraid of water, so I was very pleased that I coped as well as I did. Two of the guys who came along, Chris and Adam, have a lot of snorkel and dive experience, so to break me into the actual diving (rather than just floating on the surface with my face in the water!) pulled me down with them so I could understand how to do it properly, and how to equalize the change in ear pressure. I'm honestly so pleased that I started to get the hang of it! (Although I suppose people who can easily do it woudldn't find my little experience that impressive, ha.)

Yesterday was just spent lazing on the beach, and then we spent a few hours sailing around the island on a dhow, which was really, really cool - so much better than going anywhere on a motorized boat. We also had a fairly big party night after snorkelling, so last night was uncharacteristically quiet.

I think the last time I wrote a proper entry was when we were in Zimbabwe, so I'll do my best to catch up from there. I think the day after I wrote we did our Walk With Lions trip, which was, in a word, amazing. The company that runs it is called ALERT, and their mandate is to raise lions from birth, and slowly reintroduce them into the wild in four stages, gradually reducing their contact with humans, and increasing their need to hunt naturally. It's really interesting how they do it, and it's been quite successful. It was really something else to be able to interact with the lions, though - you actually literally walk beside them, and you can pat them, and we have lots and lots of photos taken of us with them. It's a little unnerving though, since they are HUGE, and still fundametally wild animals, so they do instruct you to make a lot of eye conatct with them, and never to step backwards, so that they can understand that you are dominant. (In theory, anyway!) I've got no chance of posting any photos, but at some point I'll load them onto Facebook and will send a link, but probably not until we've left Africa.

The next day was spent lazing around Vic Falls, bargaining at the markets, and eating a cream tea at the posh colonial hotel in town. We said our goodbyes to most of the group that night, and our hellos to the new people, and the next two days were spent driving and driving and driving through Zambia until we reached Malawi.

Malawi has definitely been a trip highlight. We spent nearly a week there, at two different campsites right on Lake Malawi, and it was a thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable time (although we did wake up one morning to rain - the first of our trip - and a few of us found ourselves in puddles in the morning.) We spent a fair bit of time in one of the markets nearby, and bargaining was actually a pleasure - no hard sells, so mind games or anything, just friendly chats and a lot of cool stuff to buy. We spent some time on the beaches, and went to a couple of villages to look around. We visited a couple of churches and schools, and my favourite part was visiting a school for deaf kids - they were THRILLED to see us and have their photos taken! We were given their address so will definitely send the photos we took of them to the school, as some of them don't have any pictures of themselves at all. It was also a bit lucky for me that I can do ASL finger spelling (courtesy of my sister's childhood interest in sign language), so the kids were very excited when I spelled out the names of everyone who came to visit.

After we left Malawi, we spent two days doing LONG LONG LONG drives into Tanzania and to Dar Es Salaam. We had a bit of an adventure when we went to cross the border into Tanzania: we crossed a police checkpoint, and one of the officers pulled us over. The driver got out and sat with the officers for ages, until Kat (our leader) also got out. Turns out our driver's license had expired a day ago, and although in theory there is a grace period when the licenses expire, the police officer naturally wasn't having any of it. The extra annoying part of the whole ordeal is that apparently you can't renew a license in Kenya until a week before it expires, and as Biggie (our driver) had been driving up from Cape Town, there wasn't any chance for him to renew it. So after lengthy negotiations and the offer of a "tarrif" to pass, the police officer said we would need to go back to the town we'd come from to attend court and determine a fine. This would have added about three hours to a twelve hour journey and no one was pleased about this. Finally, our cook, Malinga, got out of the truck, said that we weren't going that way, slapped $50 in the guy's hand, and we were off.

That just about takes us up to today. We'll be back in Dar Es Salaam this afternoon, and head to Arusha before Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti. We've also juggled our schedule somewhat - we were supposed to end the trip in Nairobi next Saturday, but there is an optional Masaai Mara trip we can do for two days afterwards, so we're hopping on that with most of the others we're currently with. So we arrive back in Nairobi on Tuesday afternoon, and fly out midnight that night. Should be fun!

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