Dear all, Me and my friend left from Rome the 22nd of September 2009 with the air company "Air Italy". we stopped in Verona and then directly to Zanzibar. I booked a week at the Coral Reef Resort, an hotel situated in the north-east side of the island of Zanzibar (more or less 50 minutes driving form the Capital Stone Town). The hotel is not so big, and its confortable also if is simple.. we met a lot of people over there and we became in a very short time friends. The hotel is entirely managed by italians and the food [View Full Entry]

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Hello again! I bet you thought you'd heard the last of Long Distance Laura. Well, I never got round to posting photos of the last phases of my trip: an unforgettable week on Zanzibar with my sister Rachel; a couple of crazy weeks travelling around Lake Victoria with my friend Yvonne; and going on safari in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. As most of you know, after a summer of freelancing, I am about to start a new full-time job at IMG Artists in West London, so it's time to knuckle down once more - until the next adventure. Some of [View Full Entry]

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Well you will be pleased to hear we arrived safely in Tanzania! The flights were really good, but very long! I forgot how long 12 hours in a plane actually is - luckily we got to spread out over 4 seats so took turns sleeping. Flying into South Africa was strange for me. It brought back all sorts of memories of flying out as a child of 8! (like 100 years ago). Part of me felt like I was coming home - loved hearing people talking Africaans around me and swapping easily between it and English several times in a conversation! [View Full Entry]

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Ate: 84 delicious curries in a row before being ill after opting for a ‘western dish’; guinea pig for 1 GBP; Christmas Day lunch at a street stall; luke warm bee grubs; steak with red wine for a month… beautiful Avoided: other travellers as much as we could; telling people what I did for a living; malaria… I hope; the worst of the recession… I hope; not a lot else! Canoed: through 5m flooded Amazon rainforest; in bull shark and crocodile infested waters; 1m away from giant mating green turtles; across, not along, hippo channels; int [View Full Entry]

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Read a lot this year, as you do with so much extra time and without the criteria of ‘something escapist for the tube’. Think that this might be interesting for me only to look back on but do have, any case it is of interest to anyone short of something to read, a top five to recommend! Top Five Reads: (in no order) The Gate - Francois Bizot Written twenty years after his personal experience as a tortured captive of Khmer Rouge and then last days of the French embassy in Phnom Penh, absolute gripping yarn that you have to keep [View Full Entry]

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Lahdin varhain sunnuntaiaamuna bussilla kohti Dar Es Salaamia. Mayalla vei minut bussipysakille ja saattoi oikeaan bussiin. Bussi meni Shingidan, Dodoman ja Morogoron kautta. Bussimatka kesti vahan yli 15 tuntia... Lonely Planet ei suositellut tuota reittia, mutta suurelta osin tie oli ihan hyva kuntoinen eika bussin kyydissa tarvinnut pelata. Mayalan serkku oli vastassa Dar Es Salaamissa. Olin aivan vasynyt kahden lyhyen yon jalkeen... Valitettavasti epailyni Safari Innin varauksen suhteen osoittautuivat oikeiksi... Varausta ei ollut. Kuudennesta paikasta loytyi majoitus, ihan ok, tosin paika [View Full Entry]

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Day 9 - Zanzibar - Stone Town - 7/8/09 Woke up today by the sound of rain drops on the tents. Great! Got up, got dressed and took the tents down in the rain. We were on the truck by 0630, headed for Dar Es Salaam, we were chased all day by a really dark cloud. Eventually after 9 hours of driving we reached Dar. Moses gave us 2 hours to wonder round Dar. I went off with Duncan and Cat; we simply decided to have a beer. We stumbled on The Kilimanjaro hotel so we went inside and had 2 [View Full Entry]

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Hey Guys, So we've departed Malawi and have promised ourselves to come back since we both enjoyed it so much, the people as well as the lake. Our travel plans were going to be a full day overland trip from Malawi to Mbeya, Tanzania via any vehicle with wheels possible! Once in Mbeya we met up with Allan our friend from Malawi and got ourselves a second class cabin on the Tazara Train to Dar es Salaam. We ended up meeting up with Allan's friend Lonnie and she joined us in our cabin since we had extra space. We were pretty [View Full Entry]

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Die letzte Woche unseres Trips hat begonnen und wir sind einfach nur traurig. Zur Aufmunterung erfuellte ich mir daher einen langehegten Traum. Wir gingen nach Zanzibar. Von Dar Es Salaam nahmen wir die 3stuendige Faehre nach Stone Town auf Zanzibar. Das war eher ein Alptraum, dieses kleine Schaukelboot (zur Erinnerung -- Schiffe mag ich gar nicht, v.a. wenn sie wackeln). Aber wir kamen gut an und fanden eine bequeme Unterkunft. 2 Tage erforschten wir die schoenen Gassen mit den tausenden von Laeden in Stone Town. Ein wuseliges, kleines Staedtchen, das rein muslimisch gepraegt ist und eine [View Full Entry]

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After two weeks of waking up before the sun to carry sloshing 18-litre buckets of water on our heads to fill the big blue water bucket, after calluses and blood blisters and even a scorpion bite incurred as what was an empty field in the Shamba countryside became a building, Zanzibar was what most would dfine as paradise - pristine white beaches and clear turquoise ocean, groves of palm trees waving in the spice-scented breeze, coffee, and flush toilets. I spent every day wondering how the next thing on the schedule could possibly be more luxurious or fascinating or delicious than [View Full Entry]

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