It was an 8 hour bus ride (after almost missing our bus because we didn't realise it was the one we wanted!) to get to a town called Tzaneen. The bus ride itself wasn't very fun - one of those coaches with 2 seats on one side and 3 on the other, so all the seats are tiny. We did get to watch a Mr Bean film though :-S When we finally arrived, an hour late (which is apparently pretty good for that bus - some people arrive hours and hours behind schedule!), I was watching out of the window to [View Full Entry]

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It was a morning of sad goodbyes... Fiona and I, along with all the other people leaving the tour, got up early to wave off the truck full of new travellers, and a couple of our friends who were staying on the truck, as it headed off on its 3 weeks trip to Cape Town. After breakfast, everyone else started to leave to go to the airport for their flights home/onwards. Fiona and I hadn't quite worked out how we were getting to Pretoria, so we figured the best way was to take the free lift to the airport, which was [View Full Entry]

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Our final stop on the way south the Jo'burg was Pilansberg, where we spent a couple of nights. We did a day's game drive and saw loads of animals again - including a huge herd of elephant with some tiny babies, another leopard and plenty more rhino. We also spent a few hours in Sun City which is like the mini Las Vegas of South Africa. It was all quite tacky, but I did experience my first time in a casino (without managing to become a millionaire) and did a class where I learned how to play the African drums, which [View Full Entry]

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We spent a couple of nights in Botswana, but we didn't have much time to do anything as we had a couple of long days of driving. We did find time for a night drive in a rhino sanctuary, where we saw loads and loads of rhino, antelope and spring hares (which are like tiny fluffy kangaroos). I also took a flight over the Okavango delta, which was exciting! [View Full Entry]

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We only spent a few nights in Namibia, on our way to Botswana, but one of the campsites was the most interesting campsite of the whole trip. It had loads of different toilets and showers all in reed enclosures, and all with different themes. There was a throne toilet (Poo With A View) and a bath that looked out over the river (and yes, any boats sailing by could look up at you peeing!), a toilet in a tree house (Poopafalls), showers hung up in buckets in trees (Tarzan)... Quite hard to explain, but the pictures might explain more... The swimming [View Full Entry]

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This was the end of the first half of the tour - half of the group were leaving us and we were being joined by some new people. So for a final night out, we went on a boat cruise (nicknamed booze cruise - it had an all you can drink bar...) which was great fun. The following day some of us went to see Vic Falls - they were quite impressive, but as it was dry season, where wasn't much water. I think it gave us a better view though, because in wet season, there is so much water you [View Full Entry]

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We spent a couple of nights in an amazing campsite in South Luangwa national park. The campsite was called Croc Valley, and there was situated on the edge of a river that was indeed full of crocodiles and hippos. Within a few hours of arriving, there were 4 elephants wandering through the campsite - we were so close to them! The next day we had a couple of game drives - one first thing in the morning and the other one in the evening after dark. We managed to see a whole pride of lions snoozing within a couple of metres [View Full Entry]

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We spent a few days by Lake Malawi, which was incredible. The lake is so big that it looks like the sea, because you can't see the other side of it, and there are waves. The only difference is that is it fresh water, so much nicer to swim in! The first night was spent at Chitimba beach, were a few of us went for a walk to a clothes market but never really made it because we got distracted by loads of wee children to ran out to see us and hold our hands and get swung upside down between [View Full Entry]

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After a couple more days of long driving, we arrived on the coast of Tanzania in Dar Es Salaam in order to get the ferry over to Zanzibar. Zanzibar was amaaaaaazing. We spent a night in Stonetown, which is the main town on the island. It is full of narrow streets lined with touristy shops, with people trying to drag you into them - "looking is free" "I give you good price" "hakuna matata"... We had dinner at a food market right by the sea, which was incredible - around 50 food stalls selling lots of different foods. We tried these [View Full Entry]

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Our journey from Nairobi to Arusha, Tanzania, took hours and hours. The roads were AWFUL! They were being resurfaced for miles and miles which meant that half of the road (the parts that were finished) were lovely and smooth, and the other parts we were taken to a rough road alongside the main road which was basically just a rocky path. Inside the bus we were being thrown about all over the place, even though we were only travelling about 20 miles an hour. Fiona and I were at the back of the bus - behind the back wheels - so [View Full Entry]

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