Tanza Week 3

Day 14. Woke up as per usual in Moshi with a nice treat of bacon and sausage sandwiches from Benny the chef! (He was a legend and came out clubbing with us one night along with Robert who never took of his baseball cap!) Packed up all our things and got on the hot hot bus for a long old journey to Tanga. Took so so long and we were all busting for a toilet break which never seemed to arrive. Had to stop for ages at a strange sort of truck stop come service station thing as the other Camps International group were supposed to be in convoy with us but we kind of left them behind then they broke down... Oops. Played lots of card games and ate biscuits for a couple of hours while we waited. When they'd caught up we came across an overturned lorry which delayed us further. Took 9 and a half hours in the end to reach Tanga. The campsite was super cool, on the top of a 30ft cliff with beach view! Quite hot and sticky here though when no breeze. Saw the moon rising over the sea. Possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Day 15. The village near our campsite is very religious. Mostly muslim so lots of calls to prayer at all hours of day and night consisting of a guy doing a crazy song over a meggaphone. The ones at 3 and 5am were the hardest to ignore... At this camp site we were staying with another group of about 20 students from around the UK. Mostly a year or two younger than us but a great bunch, we had some fun over the two weeks together so this day I said hello. We went down to the school where we did lots of project work. It was a 40 minute walk along the sandy track passed all the palm trees to the school. There the headmaster greeted us and showed us round all the classes. Our task was to build some new toilets as the school of 600 kids only had 4 toilets. Set about work clearing the grassy area with a hoe. Very hot indeed here so you can guess where my nickname 'The Shade Seeker' sprung from! Saw some cool wildlife like very hairy caterpillars and praying mantises. Did some carpentry, making door frames, in the afternoon. Ndjoko the cool carpenter guy was pretty chilled but we actually had a work bench this time! Luxury. Plus we could work in the shade of the trees which was nice. Walked all the way back to camp. Hot hot hot. Then we went down to the beach. (About a five minute stroll as you had to loop round the camp to get to the access step things) IT WAS AMAZING> The water was just so so so warm, like a bath. It was incredible. We stayed down there for ages. Showered back at camp with the much more civilised shower facilities. Cold water but with a proper shower head and woven cubicles made from palm leaves. They had proper toilets that flushed here too! Washed some clothes then dinner was some strange bean based thing which I was unsure of. Stayed out chatting with the new folk all night and had a great laugh. Sun rise was at 9pm tonight exactly one hour later than the previous day and just as mesmerising.

Day 16. Managed to sleep through the call to prayer today! Woopee! 3 Weetabix and a couple of jam sandwiches for breakfast (Should do the job you'd think) Cloudier today but still very warm. Walked down to the school and did more work constructing the toilets. Built a wall which was pretty cool learning how to lay bricks from the mason guy with a plumb line and mixing cement and everything like that. LifeSkillz yeah! Pasta and veges for lunch. More work on doorframes. Straight in the sea when we got back. Lovely refreshing swim and good way of cleaning yourself too to be honest since having applied factor 50+ suncream three times a day then working in the dust and mud you get pretty filthy!! Had a meeting about our up and coming PADI lessons and had to complete the first three chapters of the text book for the following morning! What a bummer on the evening but it wasn't too bad as we 'helped' each other. :) Beef curry followed by mango for dinner. Yummo. Had a camp fire and had some fun but got bitten lots by mosquitoes!

Day 17. Rained during the night for the first time this trip. Woke me up but we had to get up early anyway for the scuba. A very strange morning was spent hanging around waiting for the scuba guys to get stuff ready and take us down to the hotel in Tanga (30 mins on the bus) then set up the DVD player to watch the information video of all the stuff we'd covered in the homework. It wasn't that it was too terribly organised it was just odd doing so much hanging around after all the hard work we'd been used to doing. Plus we really wanted to get in the pool and do some scuba practise! Had to do a 200m swim which was easy enough for everyone. Lunch at the hotel was amazing. Chips, rice, veg, fish, chicken, beef stew, salad and all sorts. And a free coke! Got in the pool with the scuba kit after lunch. Learnt how to clear the mask underwater, swim about and find each other's regulators. Pretty enjoyable even in the pool really. Such a strange experience breathing underwater! When we got back to camp I played some frisbee with the villagers and some of the group. Brilliant fun but pretty warm! Then joined the group heading down to the beach for a swim! Such a good day. Burgers and potatoes for tea too! ...Don't ask how but I ended up teaching everyone the Christmas Pudding Song at pudding. Quite bizarre but they loved it. Did some more scuba homework then had a camera masterclass from James. He's one of the Camps International leaders from the other group who came with them from England.

Day 18. I love waking up to the sounds of the sea and then the beautiful sea view as the sun rises! Fishermen are always out on their little boats too. (Fishing seems to be one of the few things the men of the village we were in did during the day. Othertimes they can be seen sitting... sitting playing games, sitting chatting or just more sitting while the women did 45,793 jobs around the place. Saying that, it's all pretty chilled. This Is Africa!) Another chilled out day of scuba education at the hotel pool in town today. Learnt the backwards roll into the pool, sharing air, removing the weight belt, removing the BCD (Buoyancy control device), maintaining neutral buoyancy and swimming about. Took a fair while, we did stop for ice cream after though whilst the cool monkeys bounded about the place with their bright blue bottoms, returning to base about 6pm. Soup then spaghetti for dinner then more mango! Not half bad. All the girls discovered how bad their sunburn was from earlier at the pool. I did tell them to cream up but would they listen to Uncle Chris?! :o) Ali the dive instructor popped by and did some cool card tricks. Stars are incredible. I like just looking up for ages at them. You can see lots of satellites if you're still enough. 

Day 19. Sausage sandwich for breakfast. Got the bus down to the yacht club at half nine then hopped on Eric's boat called The Beast with all our scuba gear. Rode out to the dive site just off the island we could see from our camp. Spectacular stuff. Amazing conditions, blue sea and ski. Took about 20 minutes of speedboating to drop anchor and get in the sea with our gear. I didn't start off so great as I forgot to undo the on valve so was spluttering about trying to breath and inflate the BCD. Ooopsy. Ali saved me though so it was all good. Then we had a great time diving down to about 10m. Found the pressure hard on the ears to start then realised equalising requires more of a squeeze than I'd thought and was fine from then on. We did more practice of the technical stuff then swam about looking at all the fishies and the reef. Water was amazingly clear, looking up at the surface from so far down was quite other-worldly too. Really loved it! Great boat trip back then we took our exam back at camp. Got a cheeky 98%. Job Done. Played some football with the locals on the pitch across the way from our campsite. Very very hot and sweaty at right back! Then played some frisbee with the kids from the village. Went down for a swim in the sea. Colder and shallower today though. Bought some cool material from Pam (Eric's wife - they own the campsite and live nextdoor. Really nice family) Soup then meatball and veg then mango for tea! Showered, washed more clothes. Excellent day!

Day 20. Painful shoulder this morning. Must have pulled something playing sports previous day. Left camp at 7am to go diving. Headed out to the same spot as before and the water was even clearer this time! Did an emergency swimming ascent which was pretty fun - look up at the surface, deflate your BCD and shout Ahhhhh all the way as you kick up! Did some orientation with a compass then swam round the reef. Down to 18m this time. Incredible sensation indeed. Saw a puffer fish and lion fish and loads of other cool stuff like a giant blue star fish! I was amazed how light it still was down that deep. When we got back to shore I asked to go snorkelling off the boat when the next group went and did their dive. Best result ever, had such a good time exploring the reef for a couple of hours. Had a chilled afternoon at camp. Tried out Ugali for dinner which is the local staple meal. It is just maize and water mushed up together like a cross between mashed potato and dough really. Not my favourite I have to say. 

Tanza Week 2

Day 6. Woke up at 5am in the pitch dark and cold of Ndarakwai camp for the last time. We said our farewells to the staff then got the coach to Arusha. A good 3hour drive. There we changed some more currency and got into our Toyota Land Cruisers which we'd be in the next two days on SAFARI!!! The group split into three but I got on really well with the bunch in my jeep so it was awesome. (To be honest the whole group are really lovely so would have been happy anywhere) In Arusha we stopped off at a supermarket quickly where I bought the all important flannel! (Washing inches of mud off with just your hand and a bucket was pretty hard work!) Stocked up on snacks and bits there too. Then we had a long ride down to Tarangire National Park. Best Day Ever! Saw some impressive 400 year old Boaboa trees which were SOOOO wide! Godfree, our driver and guide, was really great at stopping and telling us about everything. The park was incredibly vast and so much to see! Zebra, wilderbeast, dikdiks, Elands, Impala, giraffe, elephants, buffalo and lions! Seeing the first elephant was incredible then the lions were awesome! We witnessed a big stampede as the lions hunted the zebra and wilderbeast! It was immense! Lots of monkeys, warthogs, mongooses and baboons everywhere but nothing jumped up in our van or anything. They were all pretty passive - must be pretty used to safari people by now I guess! That night we stayed in a pretty cool camp site up by the rift valley. There was a very impressive sunset over the mountains with a very purple haze. The facilities were the best of the trip here. Proper beds in the tents, showers and toilets which worked. Although only if you were lucky enough to time it right when the generator was on like me! Woop. After dinner we joined some local dancers in a good old sing and dance! Fantastic stuff.

Day 7. Woke up to some impressive bird calls and amazing sun rise. Got back into our safari van with Godfree and off to the Ngorogoro crater today! Best Day Ever. Took us 45 minutes to get to the national park but a slow 20km of bumpy tracks to the ridge of the crater then down into it! Spectacular views of the mountains, forest, vast plains and maasai villages though. Pretty cold up here this morning. I was actually wishing I had a jumper! Went past a cactus which has milk inside which could blind you! Saw some really amazing things this day. Thompson Gazell, warthogs, zebra, wilderbeast, Martial Eagle, HIPPOS! Loved that, they were sleeping in a little oasis with a heron perched on one of them! There were flamingo on the alkaline lake and we saw them flying too! Grey crowned cranes, white stalks, sacred ibis, Hyena, Kori Bustards, Hartebeast. A serval (Cool little mini cheetah thing) More lions and waterbuffalo, ostriches and best of all a black rhino! There are only about 100 in the whole of the wild so we were pretty lucky to see one! There was a big lake where we ate lunch with tens of hippo just chilling out in which was really awesome cool. I also saw my first of many GIANT butterflies. I mean really big. Like everything out there actually. Just missed out on seeing a cheetah as we went past a group of jeeps who just saw it walking from a carcass now covered in vultures (which are enormous by the way) and hyenas. The journey back to camp was even pretty good. The views were incredible. It was weird because you see that sort of thing on the tv all the time but seeing it with your own eyes was just phenomenal! We stopped at a big souvenir shop on the way back and I did some recreational bartering but didn't buy anything. Gwyn bought a cool chess set which we played later on. Had a good night having a laugh with everyone back at camp Haven Nature. Couldn't believe it was only day 7. We had done so much by now it felt like months since we were in Godalming.

Day 8. A very average day compared to recent excitements. Mostly spent in the jeep getting all the way to Moshi. There we stayed in the back garden of the keys hotel just outside the main city. We had toilets and a kitchen/mess area thing but the showers didn't work so great which was a blow. Staying in same sorts of tents as first week. We could use the swimming pool though which was fantastic for cooling off. It was a lot hotter in Moshi than up in the mountains! Very stuffy.

Day 9. Started our project work for the week. We were based up at a school 20 mins up the road from the hotel walking, in the hot hot hot! We got set the task of making more furrows. This time for drainage for the playing field so they don't lose all their grass in the rainy season. Such hard work getting rid of the roots and the soil was pretty solid as it was just compact red dust basically! It was great to be in amongst all the kids though. They were all pretty crazy. Trying out their English on us was funny. "What is my name?" but we did our best to speak some swahili to them which we'd picked up from the camps staff. Walked back to camp for lunch for nice lunch of rice and fried fish. Headed back to the school for 2pm where we whipped up some cement to fix rocks to the side and bottom of our new ditches. It was so hot I had to stop and seek shade and water every few minutes. Sam and I got chosen to give an English lesson to the kids on Friday morning which was exciting so we went to meet the teacher and find out what we'd be doing. On the way back we walked the kids home, they all wanted to hold hands and things and made a friend called Barrack Obama. He was 10 so much just be coincidence! Straight in the pool to cool down at camp. Met lots of people who has either just been or about to climb Kilimanjaro. Did some much needed clothes washing. Most of it was stained brown by now from all the dirt everywhere! Charlie H's birthday today so had another little party which was good fun! Saw a goliath beetle which was like a massive stag beetle the size of a water glass! insanity!

Day 10. Sausage and beans for breakfast! What a result. Had quite a few mozzy bites by now but no malarial symptoms so the tablets doing the job or just been lucky! Saw some hornets sleeping on the floor on their backs then wake up and take off. Very odd. Massive, scary things but so common that we were just used to them by now. The goliath beetle of yesterday was found decimated. Apparently by ants... Don't want to angry an African ant! They are big boys. Bit of cloud cover today to my relief! Still very sweaty though. Today I did lots of woodwork for the new dining hall. We built window frames and a shelving unit. It was great how limited health and safety or any sort of useful tools there were. The nails were really soft and we just had hammers, chisels and hand saws so most jobs took ages. Putting the shelves up was fun. I had to just climb up 8ft off the ground and hammer the top shelf in while sitting on it with no support! Great stuff. The local carpenter, Bando, didn't speak much English but we still learnt so much from him about carpentry. He could do one handed press-ups on his knuckles... What a legend. Managed to get the frisbee out and play with the kids for a bit before sam got out his football which would inevitably win them over! Still great fun though as they all just charge after you or the ball with no game rules just chasing essentially! Shakira one of the staff was very funny that day demanding I get her water and things. She didn't speak very good English either but enough to have a good giggle. Swam again back at camp. Played a quiz that Adam and Amy (our teachers) had sorted. Good fun.

Day 11. Had to lug some bags of heavy cement up to the school this morning. I did more carpentry when we got there though, building a few doorframes and a door. Much hotter today so glad to be inside. Saw a snake on the way back for lunch (flat and dead on the road though) lunch was lush, rice and beef stew! I always found I was more hungry at lunch and not at all at dinner. Explain that?! That afternoon we finished our door and I made a special stool. Had to finish it off back at camp though. Had a kiswahili lesson with Anderson and planned my lesson with Sam for the morning. He learnt 'if you're happy and you know it' on the ukulele. We all played card games and had a good fun evening. (Forgot to mention there was a bar at the hotel we could go and get drinks from so that was great)

Day 12. Best Day Ever. Sam and I had to leave for the school early with Amy and Adam to teach Temu's class. Amazing experience. There were about 25 kids aged 8-11. We introduced ourselves in swahili then took the lesson in english. They had little old text books which we set work from. We were looking at the daily routine so we read and did actions for things then got the kids to read out loud to us. Then there were some questions we set and went round marking. They were all so attentive and wanting to learn it was amazing. Some of them were really very good at English too whereas others struggled more. We did our happy and you know it song and they all joined in with the actions then a girl called Mary sang us a song in English. She had previously been to international school and was by far the best at speaking. She told us she wanted to be a pilot! After the lesson we were back to work cementing the drainage tracks. Cloudy again this time which I loved. Didn't even put on any suncream! After lunch we carried on as before then, since it was our last day, we all gave out little bits and bobs to the kids and we basically started a riot. My arms took days to recover from the scratches! It was mental mad! After that had calmed down a bit though we arranged for the worlds largest hokey kokey. I've never shouted so loudly in my life! There must have been at least 200 kids and us lot in a bit circle! Brilliant fun. Then the children sang their national anthem which was really sweet. I gave Temu my stool and she was very grateful saying 'now I will never forget you'. What a sweetie. Straight for a swim back at the keys hotel. Had another swahili lesson with Anderson. Much better this time, we had a good laugh too. Nice pasta and tomato sauce for tea. Went out at 11pm to a club in town called Club la liga. 10 mins drive in 4 taxis. Such an immense club, massive dance floor with screens and speakers everywhere. DJ's booth was a VW van and we just danced away. However I had a bit too much Konyagi (Locally brewed gin) so was a little worse for wear by 2:30 and I can't really give much of a description of what happened after the dancing! Great fun though I'm sure!!

Day 13. 'Rest and Relaxation' day today. Thank goodness because I was tired! Had to wear the policeman's hat of shame today. It was really hot too which was a disaster. Also we went into town shopping and so I got some pretty interesting looks! Bit of a waste of time unfortunately going into town. Although good seeing a few things it was mostly all just really basic market stands and we were walking round for ages and it was so hot and all we wanted were souveniry type things not everyday things that the locals get. But oh well, the view of Kili was pretty spectacular! Then on the way back we found these really good souvenir shacks where these guys had done really great art and craft things. I bought a couple of paintings and bracelets and things which were all really cool. That night I had to do a few forfeits 1. Dress as my favourite safari animal. 2. Paint yourself as a zulu and sing I'm a little tea pot then 3. Do the makarena... Crazy times. Had another good night getting Konyagi sachets a plenty from the bar and Anderson gave us another fun quiz.