Tanzania

I have almost completed a full circle arriving back into Tanzania where my journey initially started.  It was exciting to arrive back into Tanzania which has a soft spot in my heart.  We had a lot of long driving days whilst in Tanzania with a lot of land to cover to get us to the other side of the country and over to Dar el Salaam.  Most of our days were spent on the truck driving anywhere from 8-12 hours a day, we saw a lot of villages on the side of the road and lots of street markets which were very colourful and crazily busy.

Tanzania from the truck on one of our many long driving days.

One of the roadside markets where we picked up some fresh produce for lunch.

We stopped beside a field of sunflowers for lunch and couldn't resist some photo fun.

On the 8^th May we left our campsite in Dar el Salaam and boarded our ferry over to Zanzibar, the ferry ride was good and only took about an hour and a half.  We arrived at lunch time, had a quick bite before taking a walking tour through Stone Town.  Stone Town is an amazing city, very old world and historic, it would have been an amazing city in its prime with stunning architecture, narrow cobblestone street, bustling shops and all near the beach.

A view from the ferry as we left Dar el Salaam.

Stone Town with its amazing views and stunning architecture

Stone Town is full of cobblestone streets and winding alleyways.

The spice markets, also located in this complex is the meat market, fish market,
fruit ad veg market and general curios

After just one night in Stone Town we headed north to the beach area and our beach bungalows for 2 nights, despite the rain the beach was amazing and so were our bungalows, it was nice to ditch our tents for a few nights and live it up with a little luxury.

Our resort for 2 nights

Due to the rain a group of us decded to spend our free day at the beach back in stone Town, it was just over an hours drive from where we were staying and worth the ride.  We spent the day exploring Stone Town further, relaxing in cafes and soaking up the bustling town whilst shopping for curios, we were also lucky to have sunshine and blue skies while in town, the others that stayed at the beach said it rained for the best part of the day.  We arrived back at the bungalows late afternoon and decided to go for a swim, the water was so nice and warm (being that it is the Indian Ocean) we decided to hang around the waters edge and watch the amazing sunset.

Me and team Canada

Stunning waters of the Indian Ocean - Zanzibar

Zanzibar sunset

After 3 amazing days in Zanzibar it was time to head back to the mainland, we suffered through a grueling 3 hour ferry ride where half the ferry suffered sea sickness before reaching our camp for the night to recover.

The 13^th May saw us head off to the base of Kilimanjaro where we camped for 1 night, it was wet, cold and cloudy whilst at the camp so we were not able to see the mountain but went for an early morning hike the next day to try anyways.  The rest of our morning saw us take a walk through a small village where Intrepid work closely with one of the school, we met a few of the teachers and were told about the work they do and how Intrepid helps support it all.  It was a very interesting and informative day.

Views out to Mount Kilimanjaro on our early morning hike

The day ended when we reached our campsite for the night about an hours drive outside of Arusha.  It was this campsite that our Serengeti journey was to begin from, and being that it is the Serengeti it gets a post all to itself – stay tuned.