MZUNGO!!!

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Hi all. Well we are currently sitting on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Dar es Salaam. The first week of our tour has flown by, and we have once again seen some pretty amazing things.

We spent the night in Nairobi after having to fork out $500US for flights back to Nairobi from Kampala (travel curse!!) as there were no buses available until the Monday afternoon. This would have meant that we missed the departure of our tour. It was a good flight, only took an hour and was a hell of a lot less bumpy.

We met up with 5 Aussies the night before leaving for the tour in the hotel bar so had a few drinks with them, and have remained close as a group since the tour began. There are a range of nationalities on board from us and the aussies, to brits, americans, a german and even two chinese who are halarious and get amongst it!Our leader is an Aussie guy and is about as relaxed as you can get and our driver is English/Welsh who likes to take his clothes off after a few beers...we are an interesting bunch!

From Nairobi we crossed the boarder into Tanzania where we drove to a camp about 30 minutes outside Arusha. We spent two nights there and did a Masai Village walk one of the mornings where we played with the local kids and looked through their traditional village. We left at 3pm by Jeep for a camp at the base of the Ngorogoro Crater. After an early start and a decent drive we got to the park gates where the top of the jeeps came off, the cameras came out and we were ready. The crater itself is huge - over 7000 square kilometres, and it supports a huge lake and a wide variety of wildlife. We were lucky to see Lions, Zebra, Wilderbeests, Gazelles, Flamingoes and Warthogs just doing their thing. We stayed inside the Crater rim for about 5 hours, and after lunch of Cucumber and Honey sandwiches (not our pick of fillings) we drove to the Serengeti national park. After leaving the park entrance we were overtaken by a normal town car flying along at breakneck speed and he clipped a rock on the side of the road, spun 180 degrees and stuffed his car!! He was going to receive a $400US fine for crashing within the park boundaries. On our way to the bush camp we were really lucky to see a Leopard sitting in a tree, a couple of Lioness and hippos wallowing in the pool of water and mud. From the bush camp we left early for what was a pretty quiet morning on the spotting front of animals. We met another tour on our way round who (being Americans) said they saw a kill of 20 lions happen right in front of them. We were gutted! Our driver was speaking to their Driver in Swahili and he told our driver that they had only seen a few Gazelle!

The drive back to Arusha was long and bumpy, but we saw some giraffes at the side of the road which perked us up a bit. They are so tall and graceful in real life and we managed to get some really good pics.

From Arusha we made our way down to Dar es Salaam over two days, crossed on the ferry and have been chillin, eating and swimming for the last 4 days. We hired a car and had a look around the island, did a spot of snorkelling and have been wandering around the back streets of Stonetown. We have been sharpening our bargaining skills and have quickly realized that, like many places, there are two prices. One for the locals and one for us Mzungos! Our Aussie mates have none of it and try to bargain them down, Scott and I just hang back and watch the masters at work! It really takes it out of you though.

Hope everyone is well, we'll update from Malawi.

Love Scottie and Kris xx

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Photos

Masai Shoes
Made from old tyres

Ngorogoro Crater View
Over 7000 square kilometres lies below

Giraffes
Crossed the road directly in front of us

Comments

[melissa]

howdy
hello my little white ninjas!!! how are you both going?? hopefully still having heaps of fun - wish we were still with you guys. keep us posted on what happens next. i have done the deed and notified work i wont be coming in after the BDO. looking forward to it already. keep having fun and safe travels melissa and sean xx

[seano]

jumbo mumbo
hello my sheep shagging friends. sure your having a great time. funny enough we miss you and the crew. love your choice of photos on your blog one of them is a piece of mastery!! ha ha. look forward to c-ing u in jan for bdo. rage and the machines are already on the bill. keep safe and go the mighty wallabies. sean and mel x