Tanzania - Safari

We arrived to Tanzania instantly the vegetation changed. The soil here is rich and volcanic, there is an amazing crop diversity. Banana's (green, yellow and red ones) Tea, Coffee, Kasava, Maize, Onions Tomato's. All around it looks lush and green. We drive through many high mountain passes of villages etched into the mountain side surrounded by misty mountain tops and rich green foliage. It is amazing place, especialy Zanzibar where we spent 3 days. (Seperate post on this because its quite different form the rest of Tanzania)
During our time in Tanzania Sofi was still recovering from Malaria, at one point on Zanzibar her heart was racing and had a high fever we needed to call another doctor and she had to change medication, the first set was far to strong and was doing more damage than good. But by the end of Tanzania she was almost fully recovered.
After we spent 10 days in Tanzania: Dar es Salem and Arusha.
Tanzania is really amazing, the Massai culture is really passionate, the fabrics are stunning: electric blue, red, pink, purple. The jewellery also, intricate work with beads, so many vibrant colours.
Sophie has been dressed in a traditional Massai outfit!
We visited the local village where the people lived in the same way as the Maasai have always lived as nomadic catle herders.
But they seam happy like that.
We were quite sad to leave Tanzania and will come back for sure.
Also we didn't go with our group to Serengeti national Parck( $440 each) because it was out of our budget but when we saw the pictures to our friends we will go back one day definitely to see this. Instead we spent 3 days in Arusha and learned about Tanzanite a blue saphir like gem stone. In the picture aprox $7 million dollars of Tanzanite (only a few sleep security guards around there was a lot of temptation to do a runner, the thought of an African jail soon subdued this urge). Pretending to be affluent young travelers Sofi tried on a £2000 ring.

 We also took a local bus designed for 12 people inc driver. Heavily modified and rebuilt mainly with a welding iorn these are thoughtfully also usually reffered to as death busses. We stopped three times to pick up more passengers each time I already thought we were full until there wer 25 of us. Overtaking on blind corners, ignoring traffic lights and generally eractic driving behaviour this is the biggest adrenaline kick in the world for just 30p per half hour. It represents excellent value as an amusment ride and public transport as you hang on for dear life realising there are no seatbelts, the brakes are shot and the whole thing is probably held together with cellotape, it was possibly more entertaining than the museam it brought us to.

We visited a snake bite clinic to see people who had come from hundreds of miles around to get treatment. Anti venom is very expensive around $300 per dose, severe cases may require up to 9 doses. They frequently run out...
Luckily the near by snake park and camping donates all profits from tourism to the clinc.

Tanzania is an amazing place and we can't wait to go back!