Jambo from Zanzibar

I'm in Zanzibar - WOW! It's amazing - all those white sand beaches and turquoise waters in the postcards are real here and it's a tough life coping with it... Yeah right! I've just got back from snorkelling at a live reef on the east side of the island and now the worst part of my evening is going to be trying to finish this post so that I can skip across the courtyard to see the sun set from the bar, beer in hand.

It's not all easy peasy, as Charlie and anyone else who's done camping and the overland truck thing will know. We're taking it in turns to cook for everyone else in allocated groups of 3 and of course it was my group's turn for breakfast the morning that we were in a rush to get a ferry from Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar - it was peeing with rain and we'd optimistically gone for a fry up. The most interesting part about cooking with people that you've only just met is the clashes in personality and how easily people get worked up. I'm included in this, as perfect as I am, I was a bit peeved when an 18 year old was getting stroppy with me for trying to tell him to get the carrots into the sauce at the same time as the onions or they'd still be crunchy an hour later!

Ah and I just managed to read all of your comments from the last post - thanks so much and I miss you all too!! There have been quite a few time since I left Judith that I've arrived at the dinner table and been disappointed not to find you all there - this trip would be a million times better if you were all her doing it with me and laughing about things that we find funny but it's too long or pointless to explain to the guys on the truck. That's not to say that I'm not having a brilliant time and that we're not getting on - I am and we are but I miss you all and know how much you would love being here too!

Before I get too mushy and quickly to catch up on the last week: we left Nairobi and Kenya pretty quickly on the way to Tanzania for the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, where we saw lions with cubs and with a freshly killed buffalo, loads of giraffes, buffalo, impala, Grant's and Thomson's gazelles, zebra, wildebeest, haartebeest, hyenas, a few elephants and a bat-eared fox. There was also a cheetah just at the side of road, front paws up on a rock looking for its dinner - that was my highlight :) It's towards the end of the Great Migration of the grazing animals across the Serengeti so we saw thousands of zebras and wildebeest with their month old babies making the trek so that they'll have food in the dry season, due to start in a couple of months. The whole experience was straight out of the Lion King - Simba even means Lion in Swahili! Jambo Simba! And every one says Hakuna Matata - no worries - all the time here!!

There's more but that's the most part of what I can remember for now - will get photos and more details up when I get a chance but access to the internet is rare and it's usually really slow so I've hit the jackpot with this place!

Keep letting me know what's going on at home - I want more gossip!