Tanzania

We headed to Tanzania next and the landscape of Tanzania was very different to Zim, Zambia and Malawi.It was now much more typical of the Africa that we were expecting. The Acacia trees slowly started to emerge and it was alot more barren.

We pretty much made our way straight to Dar es Salaam en route to Zanzibar.We had to get a ferry to one part of the city to get to our campsite which was an experience in itself.There were so many people getting on and off these ferries it was crazy and they would run for their lives when the ferry docked - it was mayhem.

We got the ferry over to Zanzibar the next morning which took 2 hours and arrived in Stone Town.We pretty much did a tour of Stone Town straight away with the most bizarre guy.He had been trained in English by a guy who was from Balham, London who clearly had a really cockney accent.So this guy had a mixed African and cockney English accent but alot of the time he ended up talking like Ali-G (all abit put on but funny all the same!).His name was Ali and clearly took the whole Ali-G thing to a whole new level for us tourists (even mentioning 'me julie' a few times). He took us to the slave traders place which was quite full on.In a tiny room they housed up to 70 people waiting to be sold.It was abit grim.Stone Town had a strong African/Portugeuse feel to it but also has a very strong Arab influence as well.It was totally not what we expected but we really loved it. It reminded Stef of Fez in morocco with the small alleys and very old buildings.Later on we went to a spice farm which was really interesting and again, this was taken by Ali-g so it was quite amusing.To finish the day off we went to Africa House on the waterfront and had a few drinks.

We visited Prison Island just off the coast and it was stunning over there. White sand and the colour of the water was just stunning - that lovely 'aqua blue'. We went snorkelling straight away and then we then took a wonder up to the island and saw the tortoises - they were massive!!! They were just amazing to watch closely while we fed them though - so old and wrinkly!! We then headed to the north of the island to Nungwe to stay for a few nights and pretty much just chilled out on the beach and did quite abit of shopping.We bought loads of art here - very, very hard not to as it's so stunning but our house is going to be a shrine to Africa one day!!! And if it wasn't the art that was hard to resist, it was the nice summer dresses!! Will definitely need to come back with an empty suitcase next time.

We came across our first Masaai's here - they're very striking human beings.So tall and slim with their amazing jewellery and clothes although the ones we saw weren't too 'authentic' - they were drinking beer and playing pool.... not quite what we had in mind.

Our next highlight was the Ngorongoro crater just outside of Arusha.Our guide, Ameer, picked us up in his jeep and we headed to our first stop for the night right on the rim of the crater. It was a cute little B&B that overlooked a village that reminded of us of a typical village we have seen in the movies before.We got up way to early (again) for our game drive in the crater.Our jeep was a Landrover with an open roof so we could stand up and get a 360 degree view. The drive to the tip of the crater was amazing, very luscious and green compared to the bottom of the rim.Bit of a bumpy drive but we got there in one piece and the drive down into the crater which was unbelievable. It was quite surreal to look up and see that you were actually in a crater and able to see the entire rim surrounding you.Our first animal to spot was the buffalo followed by the ostriches.The buffalo were quite amazing and massive animals. We then ended up spotting zebras, wilderbeest and loads of other animals including the gorgeous lions - they are such beautiful animals and it was very surreal to get our head around the fact we were not only seeing these animals so close but they were in their natural environment - we were on their turf and they were wild animals.We saw quite a cool chase with the buffalos and the lions with their cubs.It was great to see in 'real life' given we've only ever seen that sort of things on Mt Attenborough's numbers. We saw a black rhino but it was quite far away and looked more like a grey blob really.But the highlight of the area was a watering hole which attracted so many of the animals. There were hundreds and hundreds of zebras, buffalo, wilderbeest, birds, gazelles etc all around the one watering hole where there were loads and loads of hippos bathing. It was such a surreal sight. We had some lunch down by another watering hole where there were quite a few hippos and ate lunch in the jeep.Stef proceeded to dangle his chicken bones out the window to attract the birds which were huge, nasty looking mumma's who then proceeded to come down and swoop us in hope of snagging those bloody chicken bones.Honestly, that boy!!

We drove to the Serengeti in the late afternoon and found our bush camp.There were no fences or guards around so we were literally out in the wild. Stef decided that it was a good idea to sleep at the end of the row of tents!! We got the low down on the area and that if we saw eyes through the night that red was bad and yellow was good.I swear I saw about 6 sets of yellow eyes through the night but at the time couldn't remember which colour was good and which was bad, so I stayed in my tent and avoided the loo. Stef slept like a baby. What a surprise.

The next morning we did Serengeti for the day.The Serengeti is amazing and is very different to the crater.There are massive wide plains of nothing in the Serengeti which makes it so unique.We saw plenty of animals including our first cheetah.That was amazing.We and also saw a leopard in a tree which was great coz they're really hard to find.