Sazani Beach & Dive Centre Nungwi

... on Gabe&#8217;s shoulder and promptly fell into a blissful cough-free sleep.<br><br>When we arrived we gave our passports to Hieni to get stamped and I marveled again at how lax the restrictions are. Clearly matching our faces to that of our passport was of no concern. Then we had a choice &#8211; we could go on the &#8220;Spice Tour&#8221; which left straight from there, or, we could go to our hotel on the beach. We chose the beach. Before leaving we had ...

... style metal spikes to stop elephants (they're just being prepared a local told us... Zanzibar has no elephants). A3, T and myself wandered through the streets and loved it. Every second person would greet us "Jambo" (hello)and then would thank us if we even just stoppped to look at their wares ("Sante Sana" is thankyou, like the Lion King when Rafiki find Simba's fur in the wind "Sante Sana squashed banana") We had sunset in Africa House - lovely, wandered ...

... ready for our tropical island destination. The diet and nutrition in africa is really something.... having a diet of chips, chicken, rice and beans is regarded as perfectly fine... the teachers I work with freaked out when I bought to school some raw vegatables and ate them like carrot and tomato and lettuce. I think they are very used to cooking all veggies, which is fair enough when you think about the illnesses etc <br><br>So the Dar Express was long ...

... there exactly for the full moon. <br>The transfer took about an hour, we drove through the island. The scenery was just like in the Carribean - lush green vegetation and coconut palm trees. However, you could also see the typical African villages with the mud huts with thatched roofs. <br>After checking in, the first thing was to go to the beach. The water was a bit colder here, compared to Dar es Sallam and there were some clouds in the sky. The beach was long ...

Mmmm &#8211; white sand, blue sea, sunshine, hammocks, and a beautiful room with a huge mosquito netted bed and an ensuite bathroom &#8211; what's not to like. We did as little as possible, making the most of the hammocks, swimming, taking gentle strolls on the beach, collecting sea shells and eating coconut curries.<br><br>C.

... wind and current weren&#8217;t playing ball and the mission was aborted! Still we did get to see hippos scarily close up!<br><br>We&#8217;d been told of a reasonably priced beach resort close to Pangani and decided to check it out for a couple of nights before heading back inland to the mountains. Peponi beach resort is lovely (Peponi means paradise in Swahili!) and we rented a tent pitched under a bamboo shelter. The resort has its own dhow and run daily snorkelling trips which we took ...

... but still found it interesting! Lots of great architecture (don't worry...took TONS of pictures!) Then decided to head to the beach. Several people had offered to arrange a share taxi for me to take me to Nungwi, the beach in the north where I was heading, for a price range of $10-$30. I had heard it was possible to go by dala dala and it would be cheap. So I insisted several times and finally the guys that worked at my hotel helped me find it (I guess they ...

... with a swirling tide which now made the sea quite a bit deeper, John managed to slip on the rocks here and fall over, which wasn't so good as he doesn't swim too well, but we all came out the other side laughing, so alls well that ends well. We arrived back around 12.30 and decided to have banana smoothies in the shade - then John wanted to go in the sea again. Mum and dad had been worn out by the beaming sun and said they would meet ...

... skies. unfortunately we had to head back to Nungwi before the tide came back in or get a 10,000Tsh/US$10 boat back. In the evening a couple of bars have campfires and music, but apart from that it still wasn't as loud and brash as we thought it was going to be. karl was very bored of the choice of food - burgers, pizzas, chips, meat mainly (oh and seafood for about US$15 ) and there was nowhere to really just get a cheap snack. Beers ranged from 1500-4500Tsh and ...

... Needless to say stopped by Malawian police who book the kid and then fish for bribes...they pull Chris aside and say ''this overloading causes many problems...many many problems''. Chris pulled over for the second time this time by three cops - the main man then asks ''Chris...do you know David Beckham?''. Brilliant. We're not forthcoming with the backhanders so two of us get a pickup to the closest town before squeezing back in and heading to Chitimba beach.