After the coffee farm we drove to Dar es Salaam. It took us a long time! First we drove through Kitulo Plateau National Park. It is famous for its plants, but Daddy thought it looked a lot like New Zealand (round Golden Downs) There were lots of pine trees and you could see people drying planks of wood at the side of the road. They cut their trees into boards in the forest, rather than take the logs to a saw mill.

There were also some big rock hills that were formed by volcanoes. We did two sneaky wild camps.

Then we got to the Indian Ocean near Mtwara. We went to a supermarket, but it didn’t have any fresh veges or fruit. I think people here buy fruit from little market shops. We stayed at a farm, where the owner didn’t speak much English. Daddy had to talk in sign language. The owner gave us a bowl of fruit – we weren’t sure what it was called. Daddy thought it was like a crab apple. It tasted sour and floury, but I liked it. We also collected some pretty white shells and painted them. We got a big fright when one of the shells got some legs sticking out of it and it started moving!!

After this we drove up the coast and spent two nights near Kilwa. It was a lot of fun swimming in the ocean. It was very shallow but nice and warm, like a bath. People here were collecting seaweed from strings tied to poles in the water. We also went on a hermit crab hunt. It was fun, they leave trails in the sand that look like bicycle tyre prints. We collected lots of shells too.

Then we drove to Dar es Salaam. On the way we got stuck in a big traffic jam. It was crazy. There were rickshaws and motorbikes weaving in and out of the cars. We ended up getting off the road and going through some very narrow village roads. We went to the Sunrise Beach Resort and on the way we went through a ford. We thought it would be quite shallow, but the water went over the bonnet of the car! It was a bit scary!

We had another nice swim in the ocean, then we went to a storage place for our car. Tomorrow we are going to Zanzibar. I can’t wait!!