We were assured that our bus from Dar' would not only leave on time, but would take 8 hours to reach Mombasa, Kenya, the sixth country of our safari kubwa. Of course this was promised before Africa time was taken into account and after leaving only a modest hour late, we arrived in Mombasa at approximately 10pm, making it yet another 14 hour travel day. If only we didn't have to stop every 10 minutes for the driver to buy fruit or for every second passenger to load on and off their lifes possesions, or even for a border official to [View Full Entry]

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We'd been pre warned in Dar' that both the official and unofficial currency of Zanzibar was $US, so although we didn't like it we had our greenbacks ready. Even the dodgy customs official who stamped our passports made it clear that bribes were preferred in hard currency and on several occasions we had to ask local stall holders and shop keepers which country we were in when they would ask "Shillingi. What are they?" After fighting our way through the crowd of touts, taxi drivers and opportunists that were milling around the port, again we had been forewarned, we found a [View Full Entry]

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This blog is especially dedicated to our good friends Michael, Sue, Harry and Ruby. Thank you so much for your generous gift. We loved and appreciated our time on Chumbe and still to this day it remains one of the highlights of our trip. From our hotel in Stone Town we hiked the 7km to the Mbweni Ruins Hotel. By the time we arrived we were ready to accept a ride from one of the hundred or so taxis that stopped and told us that it was too far to walk on this hot day and that they would be happy [View Full Entry]

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Once again we offered thanks to the Swahili transport Gods for allowing us to arrive at our destination in one piece. Whilst maintaning a low level flight path our driver (pilot?) madly honked on his musical air horn at any vehicle, person or animal that dared venture into our path, whilst also managing to hit every pot hole between Moshi and Dar'. We seemed to spend as much time on the side of the road waiting for the bus to make repairs as what we did travelling. At the dodgy and still out of town Ubunga bus terminal we then displayed [View Full Entry]

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We decided to escape Moshi for a few days to give Dani a chance to recuperate in some semblance of peace and quiet, not from the malaria, but instead the large quantity of Larium she had to take in the space of 12 hours. Right from the outset though we were convinced we had made the wrong choice. Even after explaining to the mini bus tout where we wanted him to drop us we ended up way past our stop. We had to wait for the mini bus to fill up again for the return journey and when we did manage [View Full Entry]

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We'd had a great time in Arusha and made some good friends, so it was a little sad leaving, but alas the show must go on. Thankfully it was only a short journey of 70km to Moshi. We had expected Moshi to be in the same vein as Arusha and as far as getting swamped by touts flogging all the usuals, it was. But there was something about Moshi. It just didn't have the vibe or atmosphere that Arusha did and they certainly weren't as used to seeing mzungus. Maybe it was that they didn't understand the value of the tourist [View Full Entry]

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And wow did Ngorongor turn it onOur excitement at going on the first safari of our African adventure easily outweighed our disappointment (and hangovers) resulting from the previous nights Kombe la Dunia action which saw Brazil defeat Australia 2 - 0. In Swahili, safari means journey, so our holiday so far had been safari moja kubwa and although to date we hadn't seen many animals of the four legged variety, we'd certainly encountered many of the two legged variety, both local and mzungu! Before we could get started however we had to make several stops to buy food supplies and [View Full Entry]

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Amongst the hordes of touts and commission seekers that had us surrounded from the moment we arrived in Arusha, all the while shouting at us that their guesti house was the closest and cheapest, or pulling us by our backpacks, or holding onto our arms, Jack casually said that his Fathers Guesti was just around the corner and he'd be happy to show it to us if we wanted. If not, "hakuna matata, salama safari" (no worries, safe journey.) So taken aback were we that we had to ask him to repeat himself and sure enough, he had said what we [View Full Entry]

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We'd so far endured some pretty crazy and scary transport experiences in Africa and even our previous journey from NTHN Mozambique to the border where we were taunted by AK47 wielding militia and had our passports held to ransom by by border officials, only to be stopped and searched no less than three times by corrupt police looking for pocket lining on the Tanzanian side, paled in comparison to the journey we took from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam. (For the benefit of our mothers' blood pressure we have decided not to blog that particular journey, but you can certainly message [View Full Entry]

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After spending days at a time travelling between destinations in NTHN Mozambique, our journey from Ihla do Mocambiqe to Pemba was refreshingly straight forward, not forgetting ofcourse the standard fight for a fair price and resulting argument over change with local vendors and conductors keen to try and pull the wool over our eyes. Even after misreading the map in our guidebook and walking the long way to Russells Campismo, about 10km long, we still managed to arrive mid afternoon. Russell was an expat Aussie from the Sunshine Coast but he wasn't around when we arrived. The only other guest [View Full Entry]

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