So off we were once more. This time it wasn’t exactly going to be a 5-6 month trip but cut down to 6 weeks as I am now at school part time. 6 weeks is short for all of us, so believe it or not it was more of an effort packing than for the usual 5 months 😂.

We didn’t get off to a fine start as once we arrived at the airport it turned out that our connecting flight from Istanbul to Dar Es Salaam (in Tanzania) was cancelled due to the weather (so they say). So we hung around the airport and later on we finally sorted out to stay in a hotel for the day around Manchester airport. Later on that evening we were finally able to board a plane to Dubai and then to Dar Es Salaam.

You are probably thinking why Tanzania? Well we don’t really know ourselves, I guess we’ve all wanted to see more of Africa ever since we visited Egypt which is quite different to the south (and we wanted to do a safari). The airport in Dar Es Salaam was small, suffocating (as there were no fans/air con) and unorganised so we were glad once we had finally collected our visas which took about an hour.

The taxi waiting for us drove us out of the city, about an hours drive away. Frankly I have no idea how it went as I was out like a light. I woke up as we were half way from driving down a bumpy road through a local village full of unifinished plain concrete houses and colourful curious locals. Our accommodation (Nuru’s place Airbnb) was located in the centre of the village in a courtyard full of cats and chickens.

We stayed here for 5 days. We were about 10 minutes walk away from the beach which was untouched by tourists and rubbish. The white sand shone as bright as the sea under the hot sun and stretched out for miles in both directions. The sea was warm, the sand soft and the locals were friendly and inquisitive.

Every evening the beach got busier. The women, men and children played football, showed off their front/back flips, danced (this is the first place I’ve been where you can see anyone dancing in a fun free way) and splashed in the sea. We were the only tourists so we got a lot of attention and it felt like we weren’t just seeing we were part of it all.

Unfortunately Jedi got burnt even though he was covered in suncream so a couple of the days we stayed here we had to stay in so he could recover. Our host, Esther, was helpful in treatment for his burns and anything else.

One of the days a few of the village children came to play and me and Jed set about showing them the art of sticker fun.

Unfortunately we only had a few days in this lovely village before we headed off for our safari adventure.