May 14th We all had to wake up early to make it to Stonetown and catch the ferry on time, so we were on the road by 8am. The drive to stone town is a little more than an hour, and it cost only $7 a person for a private taxi van, good deal really. After leaving my cell phone in the taxi, (I was able to get it back, whew!) we went through immigration (a formality really, Zanzibar isn’t separated from government and country of Tanzania) we jumped on the ferry. This time around we were able to get some decent seats and it made the two hour journey seem to go a lot quicker, at least until the waves and the constant up and down motion sickness got half the locals on the ferry ... read more

May 11th Here’s a fun fact for you, did you know that Freddie Mercury is from Zanzibar? True story, the late lead singer of Queen was born on the island, he still holds local legendary status with pubs named after him actually. On the morning of the 11th I woke up early to make it down to Kendwa Beach, a few clicks south of Nungwi Beach. The PADI scuba class to become fully certified in open water was meant to be a 3 day course, one full day of classes, another half day in the classes, followed by a couple confined water dives, and then the last day would be the first “real dives”. Justin and I decided to take a 2/3 course because if we had done what Nicio did (get fully certified) then it ... read more

May 9th The ferry that would take the 8 of us to Zanzibar was to leave at 10:30 in the morning, so we were able to sleep in a bit more than normal. As a group we decided to take a couple taxis back over the bay and to the Zanzibar ferry, this was nice and quick, although a bit more expensive than going in a matatu. We waited for what seemed like an eternity to get on the ferry but the time did come. It took us about two and a half hours to get to Stonetown, the port for the island. My stomach wasn’t happy so it was nice to get some sleep on the side of the ship, with Wendy and Nico as my body guards. I was expecting Stonetown to be more ... read more

May 7th The mornings are getting easier to handle, especially after a nice hot tea with loads of sugar. We were out of Snake Park on time but the weather wasn’t on our side, it was rainy and muddy, but the show must go on! The whole group was together again and we were headed for Tanzanian coast on the Indian Ocean…awww bliss, beaches and snorkeling await us! First we stopped at the Cultural Heritage Museum and Shop in Arusha. This is a place for big spenders and collectors of all things African, art, sculptures, gems and tanzanite. This precious gem, tanzanite is only found one place in the world, at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. It is actually 1000 times more rare than diamonds. They are finding it difficult to find more of it right ... read more

May 5th We had such a big day in store for us on the 5th, so we woke up at the crack of dawn, literally. The Serengeti Six had a good breakfast consisting of french toast and eggs, with plenty of tea and coffee to go around. We watched the sun come up on the Serengeti and then we packed into the safari truck and began a day of game driving. At first there wasn’t a lot to see, most animals were still sleeping. But the longer the morning went on the more wildlife we began to see. Straight away we saw some lions prints on the road and so we began to follow them. Not long after, probably about an hour or so, Victor saw a male lion and we were all ecstatic. We took ... read more