From the Deep Blue to Dar

Hi folks, thanks for all your great messages, we love reading them. It's rather strange to hear about christmas parties going on, I'd forgotten people have those. Here, the odd shop has christmas decorations but not many and we still haven't found any mince pies - oh no! Gem, congratulations, you are the sole entrant into the 'guess that theme tune' competition and are most definitely correct (the competition was of course for you in the first place!). It is the Littlest Hobo song and we'll be singing it again tomorrow morning. But first a bit about the last week or so.... When we last wrote we were about to drive across Zanzibar from Stone Town in the west to Paje in the east. We didn't get to stop off at the forest to see the red colobus monkeys as arranged, and we didn't stay in Paje as camping is no longer allowed anywhere on the island and their rooms were too expensive. Red colobus monkeys, by the way, are indiginous only in Zanzibar, as is the Zanzibar leopard. The fellow passengers in our minibus taxi, three Americans, were heading to Jambiani, another little village on the east coast, and a place called 'The Red Monkey' so we thought we'd try our luck there. It was great so we booked for 2 nights. Our room was one of several with verandahs leading out to clean about 50 metre width of concrete walkways bordered by lovely flower beds and finally leading to steps onto the beach. Dave bought food provisions in the village and was introduce to whole families as he made his way around. I went for a much needed swim and sunbathed! The shore on the east coast shelves very shallowly so the sea goes out for miles and it means that when the tides comes back in it is so shallow it warms up to bath temperature really quickly. This is not necessarily what you need after lying in the sun. But like Tiwi Beach it means there are lots of interesting rock pools to explore, although not as much marine life as Tiwi. The next 2 days were taken up with much relaxing, eating swimming and not a lot else. At breakfast we were visited by the resident red colobus monkey so it didn't matter that we hadn't stopped off in the forest on the way. Our last night was also the last night of the Americans, Cary, Chris and Steven, and Chris' 30th birthday. The other 2 had organised a surprise for him and arranged for a group of locals, mainly children, to build a beach fire and bring their drums and have a sing song. After being invited to share their whisky we joined everyone on the beach and had a great time boogieing and singing. Dave was master bongo player, finding that it didn't matter if you ended up playing to your own rythmn as the others soon drummed at your pace! It ended up being a very late night (2am is the latest so far) and quite unfortunate timing as we needed to catch the minibus back to Stone Town the next day. Luckily the breakfasts here were the best; loads of fruit with a big pancake almost like pastry in consistency and an egg. Yum. Back in Stone Town there was an underlying vibe of aggression. I don't know why but it may have had something to do with upcoming election. Later in the week we did hear that violance had errupted in Stone Town. Luckily we were in Kendwe on the north coast by this time and enjoying a different type of sea. The beach shelved steeply and so was wonderfully deep, often with quite a swell. Lovely. We stayed in a member of staff's beach banda on our first night as the rooms were full until the following night. It was good fun as it was directly on the sand and we shared the outside shower and loo with the staff as well as a myriad of insects. On our first day we walked along the beach north to Nungwi, the more touristy part of the northern coast with lots more hotels, one very big, posh one with its own jetty restaurant, cafe and bar. Too expensive for us at over 4$ a beer. It's the most tastfully developed tourist area with all the hotels, restaurants and bars built with lots of natural materials, straw rooves etc. and the coast was beautiful all the way along. We knew that you couldn't get to Nungwi at high tide along the beach and that high tide was at 2pm. At 11am we set off (late as usual) and the sea was coming in scaringly fast so we started to head back. Then we changed our minds and decided to have an adventure, so we made a dash for it and got pretty soggy in the process but it was good fun! We bought provisions for a couple of meals as Zanzibar is the most expensive place to eat out at so far, and passed time in a local bar or 2 waiting for the tide to go out. About 5pm we tried to get back through but a few locals had already turned back so we decided to wait and I went for a long splash in the sea. We then felt brave and gave it another go (even though locals were still waiting!) and managed to get through with a few exciting quick runs. The coastline was carved up coral leaving overhangs that you had to duck under while avoiding the crabs. The following day we arranged to do 2 dives off local reefs, Dave made a delicious kidney bean casserole and we lazed around for the rest of the day. We met up with the others diving at the Scuba Do shack, kitted up and headed off on their big fast rib to our diving destination. On our way out we spotted a pod of at least 10 dolphins, taking it in turns to leap out of the water. They then turned round and headed off so we followed them a short way. They seemed really chilled just gliding along pole pole (slowly slowly) occassionally breaking the surface, so we left them to it and continued on our way. So it was already an amazing trip. The first dive was lovely, great coral, loads and loads of fish, very relaxed with loads of time to explore. At the surface we went ashore to visit a turtle sanctuary, an added bonus arranged by Tammy our dive leader and co-owner of Scuba Do. They have a big pond that it attached to the sea by a narrow channel full of older green turtles. Young ones are kept in plastic tubs until they are big enough to be transferred into the pond, when abigger one will be released into the sea. We had a lovely time hand feeding them seaweed and feeling their flippers and shells, really beautiful. The second dive was good too, but it is still my ambition to sea a turtle under water! That evening we ate out in a beach bar/restaurant and were joined by Frank and Anna, a lovely German couple who had been staying in our guest house. We had our own 'Full Moon Party' as it was a full moon. The guest house was having their own full moon party but on Saturday, when there was no full moon, which we found very amusing. It sounded like it was going to be good though with dancing and acrobats, but we had to leave on Friday. Frank and Anna, if you're reading this, please send us a review of the party and we also want to hear about your Friday dives! Hope you had a great time. On Friday we headed back to Stone Town and caught the eferry to Dar es Saalam, after a hearty lunch in Mercury's (Freddie's bar). As usual when trying to find transport/hotels/your way home, we were mobbed by touts. Each trying to out do each other in volume and a weird tout dance. This particular one was turning nasty with some serious shoving and macho displays. We had to tell them all to go away, until they calmed down. We did finally manage to find the 'manager' of one of the boats who gave us a good deal on the 'only fast boat out of Zanzibar'. Sitting in Mercurys waiting for our departure time, we did notice some other fast boats leaving in the direction of Dar... This time round the boat was pure luxury, it apparently was one of the old Portsmouth ferries. A fast cat, with TVs, air conditioning, and not a chicken in sight. The boat cruised into Dar, in the early evening, and we made our way around the various hotels, lodges, and asylums, before finding something habitable. A rather nice place actually, classified as a 'Hilton +', as it had soap as well as the loo roll. We just dumped our bags and made our way to the nearest eatery for dinner, and lemon juices. In Dar, we have been housekeeping, changing money, rehydrating, buying more shampoo (although we could not find any of our favourite 'Nice and Lovely' shampoo, must be a Kenyan thing). We have booked tickets tomorrow for the Tazara, not quite the orient express Linda and Kevin but good guess on the next transport mode. The Tazara is a once weekly train that goes from Dar to Lusaka in Zambia, although we are jumping of before then just north of Malawi, in a place called Mbeya. The train runs slowly through the villages and towns of rural Tanzania, through the Selous game reserve, and takes about 24hrs to reach Mbeya. Unfortunately the cabins are single sex, so we sleep apart tomorrow night. Dar es Salaam, is a great city. Its coastal, with wide streets, with trees and a general good vibe about the place. The streets are dirty and pot holes feet deep. But it really feels like an African city, few cars, people powered carts, small street stalls selling all manner of things, hidden bars (we found a great one last night!). The city is also one of the most modern we have seen so far, new developments everywhere. We visited the National Museum, which has the largest collection of Hominid fossils in Africa, mostly from Leakeys finds in Olduvai Gorge, and a very thought provoking cast of the earliest hominid foot prints, a pair of foot prints captured in volcanic ash around 3.5 million years ago. There was also a very good section on the slave trade, and Tanzanian history, including German East Africa and the colonialist era. Today we have been submersing ourselves in a different culture, that of Harry and his friends at Hogwarts...a great film once again, and we have wound ourselves up in an excited frenzy looking forward to the Narnia film, being released here on Xmas eve. Hopefully Malawi has a cinema. If we dont manage to find another internet cafe before xmas, have a "Very Merry Christmas One And All!". We are expecting our xmas to be chilled, possibly off the beaten track on the Tanzanian side of Lake Malawi (Lake Nyasa). We are now off to search for those elusive mince pies. Lots of love Jo and Dave xxx. Martin/Chris thanks for the update on the Xmas bash, but lets hear the juicy goss. Smudge you'll be pleased to know it was 3kts not 5kts, as we found out from another skipper. Tray and Tarel, lets keep the love going with the cats. Make sure Mittens gets her share of the turkey.