After we went to Zanzibar, we got a boat back to Dar es Salaam. The boat rocked a lot. Some people were sick and it was very smelly. It took ages to get back to the Taniwha, because we went to the wrong place and then we took lots of detours to try and find the right place.

Then we drove to Mt. Kilimanjaro. This is the highest mountain in Africa, it is 5,895m high. But we didn’t see much of it, because it was always covered in cloud. We drove pretty much all the way around it. We couldn’t climb it because Genevieve and I are too young, and because it is too expensive. People live all around the mountain, and there were fields of pine trees, corn and potatoes.

We stayed at a farm called Simba Lodge Farm. There were little mini blue cars that Vivi and I liked to play on. You had to pedal them. We also bought lots of fresh veges! We could see Mt Meru, which is 4,562m high.

Then we went to Arusha. We went to hundreds of different supermarkets, but they aren’t like English supermarkets. Mummy and Daddy said they were very expensive and didn’t sell all the things they wanted. We went to a market and bought lots of fruit from some ladies. We had to speak Swahili!

Then we went to stay at the Meserani Campsite. We went to the snake park there. It was very good. The guide showed us lots of snakes like: pythons, cobras, adders, black and greeen mambas and grass/water/sand snakes. There was a rhino snake with a horn, and one that had eyelashes! He told us all about their venom. They are the only place in all of Tanzania that keeps all the anti-venom here and if you are bitten they treat you for free. They had pictures of a python that ate a security guard who fell asleep, it got caught on an electric fence.

They had some spotted owls. He said that people here believe that if you hear the owl cry, then something bad will happen to you. They had a white backed vulture and a goshawk. They also had some nile crocodiles and some slender snouted crocodiles. There was a nile monitor, and lots of fruit bats in the tree.

They had some tortoises and we got to hold them. The tortoise hid its head and legs and then poked them out. At the end we were allowed to hold a grass snake. Daddy put it round his neck. I was scared, so I just held its tail.

Tomorrow we are going to a Masai Museum, then we are heading to the Ngorongoro Crater!