tanzania!!!!

Hello again Arabia to Africa followers! When we last touched base with you we were in Southern Kenya, loathe to leave the smiling faces, sunny weather and seafood! But leave we did.
On the way to the Tanzanian border we wandered accidentally into a tiny one horse town (or donkey for that matter) called Shimoni- the last vestige of civilization before the unknown of Tanzania. It’s a tiny sleepy fishing village with mangrove swamps, beautiful sunsets and great seafood- which martin and I caught ourselves on our newly acquired fishing rods.
So content to leave Kenya behind us we headed across the Lunga Lunga border without a hitch! So far Tanzania was a pleasant surprise!
Within half an hour we realized that all was no as smooth as we’d thought.
First we got stopped at a police roadblock for not having a working fire extinguisher in the car (one of course could be purchased for a fee from the cops) then 2 km down the road we got stopped and fined for not having a sticker that told the cops we had a fire extinguisher in the car, then 20 km further on we got fined for driving 10km over the 30km an hour town speed limit while leaving the very outskirts of town. Then again 20km later for not having our reflective triangle on display. Hmmm one day budget gone on cop fees. Irritated by the veiled corruption of the Tanzanian police force we headed in our yellow Nissan Xterra into Dar es Salam ‘City of peace’ and the cultural capital of Tanzania. We found an incredibly cheap, vibing backpackers lodge called Q bar and promptly fell to talking to the various waiters, expats and local Tanzanians. It turns out everyone in Dar knows everyone so within 5 minutes we had the phone number of friends we’d last seen in Zimbabwe now living in Dar and our night was filed with jazz music, drinks and dancing, Tanzania wasn’t so bad after all!
The next day we tried to get our Xterra onto a ferry to Zanzibar but it turns out a one way trip with a car will set you back 500usd! S we decided to leave Roxy the Nissan on the mainland and head over the Zanzibar armed with backpacks, the canon and jack slung around our necks and our snorkeling equipment and bundled onto the busy 2 hour express ferry.
Zanzibar is one of my favourite places on earth. It was one of the first ports of call on the slave route so the history of the island is a heady mix of Arabia and Africa with a distinctly Omani feel to it as the Sultan of Oman fell in love with the place and built palaces and bath houses for his and his many wives pleasure and turned it into the capital of Oman.
We wandered into the Africa House Hotel which is pretty much where every tourist in old stone town ends up to watch the sun setting over the azure waters, and ,if you’re lucky just as the sun hits the water, a traditional dhow will drift by to add a bit of culture to your postcard pics. Martin of course is over the moon as he films what we plan will by the end sequence for the TV series on our JVC prod camera. We fall in love with the traditional rooms, the friendly staff and the owner Denise and her pet monkey so decided to base ourselves at Africa house for the next couple of days and completely by coincidence there happens to be an HIV and AIDS fundraiser fashion show happening the next night at the hotel- perfect footage for our documentary’ cutting the red ribbon’. It’s all going according to plan!
The next day we clip the Sennheiser radio mike to our unsuspecting spice tour guide, Jackson as he takes us around various farms growing everything from nutmeg to cloves on the compulsory ‘Zanzibar Spice tour.’ My highlight was the charismatic coconut tree climber who insisted on serenading us for the benefit of the canon 5d as he collected coconuts from the highest point of the tree, performing almost trapeze like stunts as he sang! We’ll have that footage in the next webisode which I’m currently editing on the Mac so stay tuned to arabiatoafrica.blogspot.com!
The rest of Tanzania was a blur of Giant Aldabra tortoises on Prisoner Island, Lions at Selous Game reserve, (the largest in Africa and the place where Courtney Selous, the famous hunter, and Martins’ Great Granddad, was killed in ww1) Jacky Selous, Martin’s mum came to visit us as well which was a welcome and much needed bit of tlc from family, then onwards through Malawi to get to Mozambique for New Year! Merry Christmas, happy New Year and we’ll see you on the road next year!

kenya!!!!!

Hello followers of Arabia to Africa!

We lefts you last time as we headed towards Nairobi and then onwards to the fantastic pristine beaches of East Kenya!

After spending an incredible couple of days at lake naivasha at Simba lodges we drove through thick heavy raindrops into the bustling metropolis that is Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city.

Again the guidebooks have it wrong. You might have heard warnings about Nairobi being full of beggars and thieves ready to rob you at knifepoint at nay corner, darkened alleyways and grimy dirty streets. As we approached the capital, I could feel martin tense beside me as we readied ourselves for the Nairobi crime onslaught. Nothing happened. The streets were clean, well lit and beggar free! Nairobi had definitely cleaned itself up since I last visited 15 years ago! It was a lovely surprise! The only down side is the driving- the roads are jam packed with CRAZY drivers who think the colour of a traffic light is mood lighting and stopping is optional. Frazzled from avoiding countless accidents we pulled our bright yellow Nissan xterra into Dt DOBIE the Nissan dealer and fantastic service garage in Nairobi. After leaving the cars for a couple of days with them to give our xterra some tender loving care we headed back into the car armed with our jvc pro hd camera and got some city footage!

Driving to Mombasa on the coast was a breeze with our serviced xterra purring like a kitten! Mombasa is Kenya’s 2^nd largest city and is actually an island on the coast connected by bridges to the main land. It’s a bustling hectic vibrant place with hundreds of budget places to stay. We felt a bit overwhelmed with al the people and the lack of space so headed northwards up the coast to Watamu, to the ocean sports hotel that has a campsite behind it.

If you’re looking for a quick escape and some very friendly colonials then watamu is THE place in Kenya. The beaches are white sand, the diving and snorkeling is amazing and the atmosphere exudes Kenyan hospitality. We stayed 3 nights in our icon tent popped open on the top our the car dealing with mosquitoes and monkeys in the stiflingly humid heat while martin snapped pictures of stars on the canon 5d.

We’d arrived in paradise.

We honestly had to force ourselves to leave and sullenly drove through the Italian colony of Malindi- full of aging mafia men and there leather weather beaten wives to lamu island.

To get to the Lamu archipelago we had to say goodbye to Roxy the Nissan at the port and ushered hurriedly by 10 opportunistic Kenya’s, known as beach boys onto an outrageously expensive speedboat. We discovered later that the beach boys had completely fleeced us and there was a far cheaper ferry we could’ve taken such is life. Lamu is very similar to Zanzibar- the island is largely Muslim and we happened to arrive over Eid so the call to prayer echoed through the tiny narrow streets and as lovely as it wad, kept us awake all night. Lamu is a quaint character filled island lovely to head to for a weekend of dhow cruising, fishing or snorkeling. We managed to get ourselves onto a sunset dhow cruise with promise dhow tours. Sarah (a Belgian lady who had recently converted to Islam) took us out for a tour of the islands. Riding on a dhow is not for the faint hearted as whenever the wind changes the large sail tilts the boat until you feel like it might capsize. We never did and martin and I grappled to hold onto the jvc and canon cameras as Sarah told us about the history of the company easily over the breeze thanks to the sennheiser mike we’d attached to her abaya.

After a couple of days we were united with Roxy and are now headed down the coast towards Tanzania! I’ve just finished edited the latest article and webisode on the apple mac so check our arabiatafrica.blogspot.com to see our first footage of KENYA!

See you on the road.