Walkabout - The long way home

I realise now that one of my original posts - about why I'm doing this trip and blogging about it as well has been buried deep in the menu on the right hand side. This has left at least some people with nothing better to do than read about my travels a bit lost. If you feel this description fits you, give this a read and thanks for the support! I ended up staying about a week at this horse safari place (called Ndarakwai), helping out where I could (basically sorting out computer issues - anitvirus etc...). The elephants were great - extremely intelligent things with an impressive repertoire of tricks and commands they  respond to (/understand!?).  On one of the days I was quite keen on joining one of the horse safaris but I think both Carlos and I realised that my equestrian skills would be stretched too far if we happened across a herd of wild elephants or a cheetah! I did get a chance on the last day to ride however, and did some game viewing - I saw a herd of impala ...

After the relatively expensive Zanzibar, I was keen to get back into the cheap life on the mainland. So when a family friend offered me a bed in Dar for a couple of nights, I would've been crazy to turn it down. I ended up having a really good time there, living the high life - electricity, running water and good TV - poor Chileans by the way!! And they turned out to be really nice people - very funny! Well it was really nice there, but apart from meeting up with the Brits again after they were done with Zanzibar for a couple of drinks, one crazy Mexican themed party at the Irish pub (random? yes, but the tequila made it seem perfectly natural!) and a wander around the big market full of Chinese knock-offs of famous brands; nothing major happened. After about four nights at this guy's place, I got a bus to Tanga - one more stop along the coast before heading inland. It was extremely hot, but otherwise a very nice town. I spent two nights there before moving on to Moshi. M...

Luckily Franko (the guy from the bus) did offer to show me to a cheap place, because Dar is crazy!! The matatu/ dalla dalla system is much worse than Nairobi's! Anyway his wife was waiting at the bus-stop with a Taxi (which they kindly insisted on paying). It turns out that the place he showed me to was literally next-door to his house and they invited me round for dinner after a quick but essential shower! Franko and Lucy (his wife) then insisted on taking me to see a concert, which didn't work out in the end - the band was 4hrs late and I was really tired! The next morning, again on Franko's insistence, he showed me to the ferry dock, where we'd already missed the early one and had a few hours to kill. He showed me round the fish market then we ate some soup and chapatis then he left. While waiting for the ferry I started talking to a Dutch couple - quite strange people. Like me they'd paid for the full VIP lounge on the 'slow' ferry (the man in ...