Mwanza in March

During the last month since my adventures in Zanzibar there has been some ‘living in Tanzania is very annoying’ and ‘Wow! We live in an amazing country’ moments.

The living in Tanzania is very annoying moments have mostly been the evenings where we have had no electricity, the days and evenings when the internet connection has been so bad that it won’t even let you get onto any page let alone check emails or use Skype and very heavy rain just at the point that you need to walk to school. Although all these moments have been more frequent recently they have still been far out weighed by the ‘Wow! We live in a amazing country moments’.

Although I thought that I had seen most of Mwanza and eaten in most of the restaurants there have been some new discoveries recently.

 If you look up Mwanza on the internet the one thing that you will definitely see is Bismark rock, which when you get here is actually quite insignificant but I felt like I had to see it. The view behind of the rock is quite impressive. We also had to share the amazing view with the very ugly and massive Marabou Storks which we normally see scavenging in the rubbish…… we kept our distance!

 

We were also taken on a walk to enjoy the amazing views of the Lake Victoria. To get to the start of the walk we were driven up a very thin, steep and bumpy track which we then preceded to walk nearly all the way back down again. I was not liking the look of the very steep and rocky way back up to the top! After a lot of scrambling up rocks and through very thorny bushes we reached a view that was well worth the scratches and bugs down the t-shirt!

 

 We discovered that there was a church meeting at the top which we tried not to disturb but when there are 6 white people walking past, you do create a bit of a distraction. There was also a drama lecture from the university taking place…….what a lecture theatre! We all went for a well deserved drink at a unusual bar that had made little huts for people to sit in up the rocky hillside

I wish my uni lectures had had this kind of view.

Fun but quite a squash!

There are not that many restaurants to choose from and we have sampled most of them! Some better than others. We have been wait for a special occasion to try out Teppanyaki, Japanese cuisine. It was Ellie, one of the teachers, Birthdays so we tried it out. All the food was cooked on a grill in front us with a beautiful sunset over the lake.  It was quite spectacular watching it all being cooked and it tasted delicious.

There were a lot of ooos and aaahhs that meal.

I made the chocolate one.......don't worry my cake making skills have not been lost in the heat.

I would also like to introduce you to my 2 new flatmates. They always hang out with us in the evenings.  We love having them to stay as they eat all the bugs and keep us entertained as they run on the ceiling and play hide and seek behind the pictures on the wall. (Emily and Kate .......don't worry you will not even know they are there. It is only when you have watched them for 6 months that they become noticeable......I promise!)

Dec the geck. He is named after Dec from Ant and Dec
 because he is very cute but very small!
 I have only nearly stepped on him once when he flicked
 himself from the ceiling to the floor right in front of me.

This is Gordon the gecko. He normally joins us around
 tea time and helps himself to his dinner of bugs that live near our windows.

Half term fun in the sun!

Sorry it has been so long. I suddenly realised that 6 weeks of what has now become totally normal Tanzanian life had past and I found myself on holiday again! 

There has been some teaching fitted in as well!

Here are some of my adventures in Zanzibar…………..

It all started on a very small plane. There were only 14 people including the pilot and some lovely views. The landing was a little bit bumpy but the pilot delivered us safely to the beautiful island of Zanzibar.

 
We stayed just outside the main town of Stonetown. We enjoyed the pool and the gorgeous views as we ate our breakfast.

One of the reasons we had decided to go to Zanzibar was to enjoy the Music festival. We got to hear a range of music from all over Africa…….some better than others!

We spent a few days discovering the back streets of Stonetown, sweating lots and finding some great little shops. The trouble with Stonetown’s back streets is that they all look the same……….”Haven’t we been down this one was already” was heard a lot.

 Finding the way around the maze was good fun though. We managed to find our way out in time for some very unusual but delicious dinners.

Some of this was my dinner one evening!

This is an Ethiopian restaurant. It's all about the sharing. There are no knives and forks and it is all served on top of  what looks like a towel but is actually a pancake type thing that you use to eat all the delicious piles of food.

The highlight of the holiday was definitely our day trip to Prison Island. We were taken on a short journey by  boat to Prison Island.

 I managed to get a great seat right near the front……………I wasn’t loving it so much after just 5 minutes when I was totally soaked through from the slightly large wave splash back!  We arrived at Prison Island and after being amazed by the stunning views met the only residents of the island, Giant tortoises.

The random wet patch is from not quite drying from the extreme waves on the boat!

When we thought things couldn’t get any better we got back in the boat so they could take us to our picnic lunch spot. A white sand bank in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They announced as we arrived that we could enjoy some snorkeling to see the reef just off the sand bank while they cooked us a Tanzanian Style barbecue for lunch.

Snorkeling was amazing! Swimming  just above beautiful corals and alongside Nemo, Dori, and zebra fish was just  like being in Finding Nemo! I discovered very quickly that swimming in flippers was much easier than walking in them (I will leave you to imagine that because to my disappointment no one got any pictorial evidence of me looking ridiculous in my snorkel and flippers). The water was fairly choppy so I think I also swallowed half of the Indian ocean as it came down my snorkel.

I never imagined that I would ever be having a picnic lunch (Well it wasn’t really a picnic as they had bought proper tables, chairs and cutlery with us on the little boat) on the top of a white sandy island. The food was delicious including mouth watering coconut macaroon sweets to finish with. The Tanzanians certainly know how to picnic!

 

There was just time for a bit of starfish hunting before the boat trip back to Stonetown.

Yes the starfish is alive and the seconded pair of glasses are
 to protect my extra pair of teacher eyes from the  36 degree sun!

 Just to make the day totally perfect we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset while we were eating our dinner.

It had been a very exciting half term but just to finish it on a high we got to sit right behind the pilot in the tiny plane on the journey back to Dar.  It was slightly worrying when the pilot held his door open until the second we sped down the runway to take off and wrote on hs clipboard as we cruised over the ocean, but when you watch the runway get closer and closer as you land you realise that the pilot did know what he was doing!

I still have to pinch myself when I think about the fact that I live just 2 hours on a plane away from such a breath taking place. It has been a struggle to get your teaching head back on after such a fantastic week..........such a hard life! Only one more sleep until I am back with my lovely class.

 

A Tropical Christmas!

Happy New Year!  Mine started with views like these and adventures with Mum and Dad! 

Here is a little insight into our Durrant Christmas in the sun.

I met Mum and Dad at Dar es Salaam airport. The first challenge was to actually find the bus that we were going to catch to Tanga. Imagine a bus station with no helpful signs, hundreds of people just milling around (Staring at the lost white people!) and 30 degree heat, that was us for about 3 hours. We eventually located the correct bus stop, waited around getting very hot and squashed into 3 seats that were really made for 2 people, we were squashed but off to Tanga. We arrived in Tanga 7 hours later and were met by a taxi driver who took us the extra 42 kilometres to Bahari Pori…….it seemed like miles and miles as the taxi decided to cut out every kilometre or so!

It had been a very long day but we had  arrived at our house for the next ten days.  It was definitely worth the journey when I was woken up by the warm sunshine streaming through the Banda and looked at the beautiful view.

I never imagined that I would be swimming in the Indian ocean Christmas day! It really didn’t feel like Christmas day as we tucked into our fresh fish fingers for lunch but Santa did deliver to the Banda and we did play the good old Christmas afternoon games. ( And Mum and Dad had their afternoon nap!).

 Our days were filled with lots of sunshine and walks along the beach just a few steps from our Banda. 

Finding shade and a good spot for a nap!

Eating delicious food with an amazing view.

Walking through the Mangroves to investigate the rock pools.

 

Found shady spots to enjoy the beach from.

We did venture away from the beach some days. We travelled along the bumpy dirt track to the local town Pangani on local transport. This normally involved sitting or standing squashed into funny positions and holding on tight so you didn't fall into the many staring locals! 

One evening we took a boat trip up the river Pangani with a local guide 'Hot Hot'.

We stopped half way at a local village where they served us coconut milk that couldn't have been any fresher.

These were the coconuts being picked.

We had a little helper to carry them back to the village

The little helpers were very interested in my camera.

And these were the same coconuts being drunk a few minutes later!

After a very relaxing 10 days at the Banda we decided that it would be good to get back to Dar via Sadani National Park.  We hired a van, driver and guide, and got up at 5am ready for our journey. Little did we know what adventures were ahead of us. When we got to the national park we discovered that they had had torrential rain over night and even though he was warn not to venture to far into the park the driver was determined to show us some animals so off we went slipping and sliding along the muddy tracks. We were enjoying watching the giraffes and Baboons that we past. That was until we drove off the track and into the rather muddy ditch at the side of the track. The van was not going anywhere! We climbed out of the van bare footed into the slimy mud, helped to collect some large sticks to put under the wheels and give it a push out. 

The van was still not budging and the tyres were sinking fast into the mud. After lots of moving sticks about and trying to jack the car up the driver and guide and driver announced ‘we’re really sorry!’ and proceeded to strip off down to their pants! For the next hour or so the driver and guide were lying around under the van scooping mud out from under the van and did ask me what time my flight was the next day which was slightly worrying. The van still moved no where! In the mean time we had got very muddy feet and had a visit from a nosy family of Baboons. We also discovered that they had no reception on their phones so couldn’t contact the people that were suppose to be rescuing us. Luckily my trusty very basic Nokia phone had reception so after just 3 hours the park warden arrived to rescue us in his sparkling new 4X4 but it didn’t stay like that for long. It was still pretty hairy as the metal string which they were towing it with snapped a few times but eventually after lots of revving, slipping and sliding the van was eventually pulled out with only a coating of mud!

 Just when we thought we were on our way back to Dar we came across a crane on a lorry which was blocking the road so we had to wait for it to be unloaded before we could carry on our journey.

We did get to Dar eventually very muddy and tired! I flew back to Mwanza the next day and left Mum and Dad to more adventures in Nairobi. There were some many other funny, beautiful and relaxing moments but I didn't want to make you too jealous!

Term 2 here I come......I have just got back from day 1 and although I didn't enjoy getting up in the dark again it was lovely to be back!