Al Johari Stone Town

... bumpiest road in the world... and the suspension in our truck is very minimal... people bounce out of chairs, drink bottles fly out of hands... we arrived in Tanzania (which is my home for the rest of the year). A quick stop through arusha, which is a bit of a travel hub as its the base point for climbing mt kilmanjaro or heading out to the serengeti. A night at arusha snake park which you can view every deadly snake in and around the area.... and then it was off ...

... was a noted English Humanitarian who traveled through Africa and famously named Lake Victoria. Dr. Livingstone I presume" is perhaps a reference known well enough to site here.

The Church was constructed over the old slave markets and the underground passageways stand testament to the abominable actions of human kind which once existed took place there.

I made my way by bus to a spice farm just outside Stone Town. I chatted with the ...

... commission by taking us to a guesthouse; not helpful for group dynamics! We eventually solved the problem by hiding out in a cheap cafe; with food and a bit of rest we were much better able to face the task ahead! As a result, Dawn and I were motivated to look at just one last guesthouse ... Which turned out to be absolutely fantastic! It was called the Florida Guest House, was along Vuga road and just a 5 minute walk from the posh Shangani area, had a very nice proprietor ...

... it was fun interacting with the kids in this way. On one afternoon, we took a dhow trip to the nearby island of Memebe. This small island is privately owned and has only 1 luxury resort on it, frequented by the rich and famous. Anyone, including us riff raff, are able to snorkel on the reefs surrounding the island and the guidebooks say that this is some of the best snorkeling in Zanzibar. If it is, we didn't see it! There are 2 ways to do this trip ...

... delicious curry lunch, made from the spices. Yummy. And we are going to have a nice dinner again. The upside of Zanzibar is that the food is pretty good and the seafood is so fresh! I had grilled small squid salad (hmmmyummy) and Ern and I had a whole fish each. I had baked travelly (i wasn't too crazy about the travelly. It wasn't as clean and sweet tasting as I hoped) and he had steamed pili pili. Ern finished his fish. It was good. I do wish we could put ...

... will i be like the other 90% of the people who do the course and never dive again, hope not, cos its a lot of fun! (yes)

on friday we saw a HUGE sea turtle, and the corals here are crystal clear, 27degrees water, prisitine white beaches and beautiful turquiose water. when you go under, its like a scene from findingb nemo, clown fish, "dori" fish(cant remember the name, "just keep swimming") and loadsa zebra fish and all.

and today we saw an octopus. he ...

When we were calling hotels in Stone Town from Dar (with very little success), the guy in the Internet cafe asked us why we wanted to go to Stone Town anyway. Why didn't we just go to the beach? A lot of travellers spend a night in Stone Town before hightailing it out to the coast. I think this is a mistake: Stone Town is one of my favorite cities of the entire trip so far. If you're the kind of person that likes to lose themselves in alleyways and just ...

... you to buy them some food as well. One druggie looking guy even came up to me and said he wanted me to give him my malaria pills so he could give it to his children who are sick with malaria. It's just a scam. They take your pills and then sell it to other travellers. I just told him to stop wasting his time asking tourists for malaria pills and take his kids to the hospital if they really needed treatment. Some of these touts really think we're stupid. After dinner, I walked ...

... meal. Our drive from Iringa to Dar Es Salaam was ridiculously painful. We drove through Mikumi National Park, where I was one of the minority to miss spotting the elephants and the giraffes, only sighting impala. Dar is essentially the capital city of Tanzania in all but name (capital is Dodoma), and is meant to be the hub of the country. It also has an appalling traffic system compounded by potholed dirt highways and drivers taking road rules into their ...

... te zien, leuke sfeer. Ook hier zijn wel veel van die
jongens die je aanspreken, maar ze laten je wel weer met rust als je dat
aangeeft.



Vandaag heb ik lekker rondgedoold, je komt vanzelf telkens weer uit op
een bekende plek. En ik heb de oude slavenmarkt bezocht, waar een kerk
op is gebouwd door de man die heeft geholpen het ook hier af te schaffen
(als laatste ter ...