Our budget hotel, Sunrise Beach Resort, is lovely. For the first two nights here we had a sea view wooden bungalow on the beach, from where we could hear the waves crashing onto the sand. This bit of luxury was due to the manager booking out all the standard rooms and then trying to charge us extra for an upgrade – but he should have known better than to try that trick with us and of course ended up giving us the better room at no extra cost. Tonight we’ve been downgraded as a standard room has become available…it’s still fine it’s just that now, rather than hearing the waves we can hear the awfully bad live singer at the bar, pumping out an eclectic mix of Chris De Burgh’s ‘Lady in Red’ and Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No cry’.The food is good, although the first two pages of the menu are all Indian much to my disappointment and Dave’s delight.

We’ve spent a couple of days relaxing on the white sandy beach, drinking local beer and fresh coconut milk from the shell, reading the free papers from the Emirates flight and taking a dip in the warm Indian Ocean (although the locals think it’s much too cold for that!). Yesterday afternoon we ventured into the village and took our first dalla-dalla, a local minibus that makes Moroccan grand taxis look positively roomy. There must have been 24 people in a vehicle made for half that number and we stood with our heads touching the ceiling and hanging on wherever we could. Unfortunately, there was no chance we could get a photo! We’d gone in search of an ATM, which we duly found, but the machine rejected our cards straight away, hopefully not an indicator of things to come. Whilst in the village we stopped at the local stationery store to buy a supply of pens and a Tanzanian SIM card for our phone. The vendors all seemed happy to help, if a little bemused by us and our requests.

We came close to buying a Toyota Hi-Lux 4×4 with tent on the roof earlier today from a South African couple who are flying home and want to sell their vehicle. We were in two minds but when they finally decided on a price it was too much for us and we had to turn them down, reluctantly, as we both loved the car and have this romantic notion of driving Africa and sleeping on the roof. Whilst a Landrover is really the dream for me, this car was very sexy (Take note Jeremy Clarkson: this is the only time you’ll hear me refer to a car in this way). So it’s public, sweaty, cramped transport for us, beginning tomorrow with a ferry to Zanzibar.

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