Day 16: Desert Islands, JellyFish and Bat Caves

It occurred to me last night that I had never seen a sunrise...so this morning Katie and I got up at 5:00am and walked the 50m to the beach to watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean. It began to get light really quickly but we couldn’t see the sun. We messed about taking random photos and then suddenly saw a hint of the sun crawling up from the horizon. It seemed to rise in minutes and I think I took over 100 photos trying to get the perfect shot (which of course you never do) – was quite pleased with some of them but like many things, you just can’t capture it all on a camera.

We came back from the beach and got ready for breakfast and our snorkeling trip. Decided to go for the full “English” breakfast this morning which was actually quite good – proper sausages and really good scrambled egg too – just lacked the HP sauce!!

We left at around 8.00am and walked out to the little wooden boat that was going to take us out around 6km to the first snorkel site. We had to walk out about ½ km as the tide was so far out and the water so shallow that the boat couldn’t get any closer into shore. We got a “little” concerned on the way out as after being told there were NO Jellyfish we saw a couple on the way out to the boat. Harry revealed her phobia of water to us and threatened to literally kill anyone that made jokes about sharks! Of course...that led to.....jokes about sharks! Well it would wouldn’t it!

The journey out took about 40 mins or so and we saw Dolphins in the distance – 5 or 6 of them I counted. We all piled into the crystal clear and very very warm sea and began snorkeling...many of the boys still wearing their tee-shirts as our necks, shoulders and backs we still very burnt. The visibility was fantastic and we saw loads of puff fish, nimo fish and star fish (which got Katie very excited) before people started reporting that their felt a bit itchy. We blamed most of this on the salt on our burns but as we started to board the boat again, the skipper told us that they had seen loads of baby jelly fish. Pretty much all of us had been stung. Not badly, but Katie had lots of little stings on her back, Jan had been stung on the lip of all places and most of the rest of us had escaped with just a couple on our arms or legs!

After another stop (and more stings), we moored up at “Sand Island” which surprisingly was an island of....wait for it......Sand!

Words can’t describe what this little haven was like. It was like how I would imagine Mauritius or the Maldives to be like, or infact, if you googled the work “paradise” i image this is what would come up. The pictures will hopefully do it justice but it was literally just an untouched island of sand with waves gently crashing in from all sides. The sea must have been 45C – literally bath temperature! It was heavenly bliss and we just didn’t want to leave....unfortunately being a sand island, the tide slowly put a stop to our stay and we had to leave a couple of hours later before the island was immersed forever....well, until the next tide anyway!

Back at the resort, those that were not burnt before now were and those that were – well, we were even more red than before! We had lunch and then this afternoon half the group opted for a quiet relaxing afternoon whilst the other half (Jan, Adrian, Katie and me) ventured out to the caves. We were planning a visit to the natural hot springs too – but ran out of time.

The caves were wicked!! There are 8 formations of caves in total (all limestone). Unlike a typical cave tour in the UK, these caves had no lighting, no “do not touch” signs and no fencing or directions. Oscar from Really Wild travel was out guide and knew the caves really well. The tour was amazing and there seemed to b e many natural carvings in the limestone of Christian symbols, animals and even stalactites that resembled the statue of liberty for example. In some places we had to crawl through the caves as they were so low (Jan had fun with that bit) and right at the end there were tree roots coming through and down into the caves. Oscar showed off his skills by climbing up the tree roots to the top of the caves which then of course spurred Adrian to do the same. Not wanting to let him “win” we all had a go and discovered that Katie is actually not a girl...she is a monkey. She literally just wizzed straight up about 3 levels. We all followed (to the layer below) – just brilliant!!

We got back around 6ish, had dinner (fresh crab) then Kerry booked us all in online so we got good seats together. Some of stayed up for a bit, some of us went back, showered and packed....breakfast at 6:45am then we are planning to hot the road for 7:30am to do the 8 hr drive to Kilimanjaro Airport.

Well....this is the last blog entry for the RM FutureBuilders trip to Tanzania. We have done so much this past 2 ½ weeks and sitting on the beach on the desert island today felt so far removed from this time last week when were we refurbishing Uwa Primary School.

Personally this trip is right up there on the top list of trips I have been on – I have had so many “first” experiences on this trip in such a short period of time. Helping refurb a Primary school (in Africa), sleeping in a tent for 10 days, using squat toilets, going on safari, seeing dolphins in the wild, being stung by Jellyfish, sitting on a desert island, eating real crab, climbing up tree roots in a cave, staying in a bandana hut on the beach, swimming in sea hotter than my bath......to name just a few!

I also wanna say what a great pleasure and fantastic time I have with the rest of the FutureBuilders. We are already talking about coming back to Africa to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and would love to combine it with some more work with ChildReach if we can. This really has been an experience of a lifetime.

Now....for you folks at home picking people up....our flight gets in to Heathrow T4 at 6am on Saturday 20th November. Mum, Dad it would be great if you could get me some milk and tiger bread, and stick the heating and hot water on!!!!! Thanks and see you soon UK.

Day 15: Lazing By the pool

Woke up at a leisurely time of 8:00 and got ready for Breakfast at 9:00. By the time Katie and I got down to breakfast everyone else had already eaten and were now in the pool playing water polo. As we were the last down we seemed to get special treatment and had full blown waiter service. We both opted for the “light” breakfast which was the best breakfast I’d had all the time I’d been in Tanzania – fresh fruit, freshly baked rolls, fresh coffee and real milk (not had that for a while). Katie and I sat chatting for ages after breakfast before heading over to the pool to join the others. We took a walk on the beach and went for our first swim in the sea – it was so warm. I have never felt sea so warm (no I hadn’t wee’d in it!) even on my diving holidays in Egypt I have never felt sea so warm – it was almost hot!

After swimming in the sea and taking some photos of the beach everyone sat around the pool and made the most of the day in the sun that we had. That being the case most of us (well, the boys) did not put as much sun cream on as we should have done...by the evening there were some very sore people.

In the afternoon we played some more silly water games and then did bombing competitions in the water..well...you have to keep cool!

Around 5.00pm we all went for a long walk along the beach to watch the sun set. We went looking for crabs in the rock pools and realised just how far we could walk out to see with it only being ankle deep. Some of the photos we took were great as it looked like we were literally walking on water. As we came back at dusk, the crabs were on their way out of their holes in the sand..again – never seen so many of them. Katie took quite a dislike to them though and screamed (just a bit) which seemed to encourage every other crab on the beach to come out to see what all the fuss was about.

Dinner time came and we were all a bit knackered (nothing to do with too much sun!). Dinner was fantastic...again the best I had eaten in a while. Katie, Jan, Me and Kerry all had sea food platter which was awesome.

The evening was a quiet one with lots of conversations about all sorts of stuff ranging from kids TV programmes to 70’s/80’s films (StarWars and Back to the Future seemed to win), sports legends, and favorite movie stars.

Oh, we are going on a snorkeling trip tomorrow (all 8 of us plus a couple of Norwegian girls that are staying on the resort).

Day 14: Snake Park then Beach Beach Beach...

Well....just after the blog was written last night most of decided that as we had a long day of travelling to the Peponi Resort in Pangani (for a couple of days of sun, sea and anything else beginning with s...such as shells!!) we’d call it an early night. About 10 minutes after Harry had retired to bed we heard a squalor from her tent...”KERRRRYYYYY!....Bring a Boy......QUIIIIICK....There’s a GIIIIAAAANT Spider”. Like a flash all the boys, followed quickly by Kerry and Katie legged it over to Harry and Kerry’s tent...well, we weren’t missing out on a good laugh now were we! Harry was wrapped in her mosquito net and shrieking – pointing to where a fairly large spider was sitting on inside of the tent. Adrian (now aka Mr Konyagi) was first in the tent to rescue Harry and with a little bit of help he managed to save the day and kill the traitorous spider and save Harry.....or so we thought.....She let off another scream as this she had spotted a scorpion in the corner of her tent....after a couple of seconds Kerry decided it best that we fetch security as they are used to dealing with scorpions....good job too. They managed to get the little git out the tent and killed it but were extremely cautious and told us that even though it was tiny, it would have given quite a nasty nip...they warned us of the red scorpions and said that if we saw one of them to get far away as they can be lethal....needless to say we ALL thoroughly checked our tents that night...I must confess, I actually slept in all my clothes...no one else admitted to but I bet they did too!!

Right....Tuesday now...and we awoke without bites, however Jan had suffered a reaction from the bites the day before and couldn’t open one of his eyes this morning. It was quite funny (for us) as he looked like something out of night of the living dead! Anyway, we had breakfast and headed off at around 8am for the snake park and then to the beach at Peponi resort.

We arrived at the snake park in Arusha at about 11ish and were a bit shocked to find we had to pay as it wasn’t included in the safari price....we argued about for a bit before giving in and paying the $10. It was ok...nothing that you couldn’t see in a zoo back home but we got to see loads of poisonous snakes such as cobra, constrictor and adda’s and we even got to hold a baby croc and a baby snake....we even got Kerry to hold the snake after us all calling her a scardy cat!!

Crocodile Hunter of Tanzania

The rest of the journey was long......as we arrived at the “hotel” site just before 8pm – so nearly 10 hours of driving in all! We all managed to have a little sleep on the bus as well as play some games (yes...they did involve drinking Konyagi). We kept enticing the driver to go faster so we’d get there sooner...unfortunately.......he got stopped for speeding in the process but managed to “get off” by saying that he had not seen the sign....to be fair...we didn’t see one. We discussed what would have happened in the UK if your caught driving twice the speed limit. We were then told some great stories about how they “get off” over here in Tanzania. Our ReallyWild rep, Oscar, told us that he was stopped the other week and denied it (they had no real proof) and then there were going to take his car away...he has a wire under the dash that he could disconnect to stop it from starting (like a manual immobilizer) – he uses this a lot as if the car won’t start, they can’t take it...The other one they use a lot (in the bus) is that are taking people to the airport (even if they are not) – the police get in trouble if they delay passengers getting to the airport so this one works pretty much all the time...

The last part of the journey involved everyone getting “caught a little short” and us having to bail out the bus and pee in a bush...even the girls!!

We got to the resort and were surprised that what we thought was B&B ended up being Full-Board...result!! Just have to pay for drinks.....The little huts we were staying in are amazing. Such a different life to that we knew a week ago in Uwa School. Each hut slept two, though you could have slept our entire party in one to be honest, on suite, ceiling fans, power and a view of the Indian ocean – literally meters from our front doors....it was like the accommodation one might pick for a honeymoon really...just brilliant for a couple of days relaxing...

Katie and I got to our room and did the usual “bug check”. Katie found a little spider in the bathroom that I quickly disposed off before finding a GAINT spider in the “spare room” which about the size of a tennis ball in diameter (with legs)....Braving it up (well there was a girl present) I fought the evil spider monster with my shoe until I was victorious! Feeling I deserved a beer after my battle, we headed for the bar and met the others for dinner. Most of us either Steak or Surf and Turf and it was the best meal I had eaten in well over 2 weeks - almost as good as home cooked grub (though I am still SOOOOO looking forward to my Sunday roast at Mum and Dads’ on Sunday!!!).

Giant Spider...man eating laser shooting spider!!

Harry went to bed straight after dinner as her cough had taken a turn for the worse, while the rest of us returned to the bar for a few rounds of Killer on the Dart Board. Kerry was first out followed by Adrian, Katie and then me....Katie did kick some serious ass though (yes, she asked me to write that!). The last part of the game went on for hours and Paul just pipped Jan to the post. Aghh....bed time now!!

Nu night peeps!!

Day 13: Lake Manyara National Park

A few of us had been bitten in the night by some hungry mosquitoes – Jan in particular got munched good and proper in the neck, shoulder and on his fingers – fingers most likely from where he was trying to fend off the one eating his neck. I escaped mildly with a couple of little noshes on my leg and on my lower arm...b*stards!!

After breakfast, we set off at around 7:30am for Lake Manyara which is renowned for its elephants and tree climbing lions and flamingoes. It is situated on the well named mosquito river and is around 127sq miles in size.

Our circular tour took as around the main part of the lake where we say many Stalks, Flamingos, and Puffin birds as well as a massive herd of elephants (around 15 or so drinking from a stream), monkeys, baboons, giraffes and unfortunately lots and lots of tsetse flies (these ere evil little buggers which as they bite you lay eggs beneath the surface of your skin – they often go un-noticed for several weeks until they start to hatch under your skin...nasty..so we kept applying the deet every 10 minutes or so just to be safe).

On the way back from the tour we stopped off at a Hippo Pool and saw, as you’d imagine, loads of hippos that were slightly more active than the ones we’d seen previously. Most of the hippos’ were migrating from one pool to another. The view was quite spectacular as there were so many different breeds of animals all in one place – Hippos, Zebras in the background and flocks of stalks in the distance...it really was like looking at a real life safari postcard.

We arrived back at the campsite today around 1pm for lunch and then had the afternoon to ourselves. It was quite a wierd afternoon as it was very hot one minute (too hot to sit in the sun) and cloudy and rainy the next. The girls attempted a bit of sunbathing and the boys gathered round and read their books and listened to some music..most of ended up dosing off. Katie was still not feeling to good but managed to get a few hours sleep and seemed a little less chesty come dinner time.

After the antics of the bugs and mozzies last night, I was taking no chances and put on long sleeved trousers and lots of deet. We headed for dinner at 7pm and just chilled out....

Have written the blog early today so I’ll fill you in on any evening antics tomorrow morning if there are any and tomorrow morning we are off to a Snake Pit and then on to the beach for a few days of relaxation before we head home on Friday night. Weirdest question of the day from Harry today after apply deet and realising she’d sprayed her NorthFace jacket with deet – “Now then If I was deet, where would I go?”

We hope you are enjoying the blog – we’d appreciate any comments to know you are missing us all...Everyone sends their love to friends and loved ones back home and we hope the rest of the FutureBuilders didn’t find their first day back at work too hard....

Day 12: Ngorongoro Crater

Katie feels a little better this morning but is still really coughy. Harry and Adrian still have little coughs and I still have a bit of head flu. Simon feels a bit chesty too this morning...what a healthy bunch we are!

We had breakfast (pancakes, Omelet, toast, juice and coffee/tea) at 5:30 before setting off just after 6:00am for an hrs drive to Ngorongoro Gate. The main crater is just 19km in diameter and according to the texts books offers the most famous wildlife refuge in the world.

After passing through the gate, we drove up to the first view point – a view over the Crater (or officially Caldera - basically this is a mountain which they believe was once bigger than Kilimanjaro which collapsed into itself and formed the lake which we can see today)...The Crater once belonged to the massai and in 1958 they waived their right to live there, though they still take their cattle down to the soda-licks around Lake Makat. Despite the weather being very thick cloud this morning, the view over the Caldera was incredible and we could see a rainbow across the lake which looked awesome. From here we headed to another part of the “crater” where we could see right across to the other side. We took a few funny photos of us jumping up in a star shape and fought off the maasai people trying to sell us spears “for our protection” apparently!!

From where we were standing we were looking down from the crater rim at about 8,000ft upon the near circular crater floor, an expense of flat, open grassland, forest and lake which is over 14km across (9miles). Around it stands a ring of now extinct volcanoes and within this arena there are claimed to be something like 20,000 large animals including rhinos, water buffalo and elephants as well as birds such as flamingoes and kites. Katie looked like a real explorer in her gear!!

Katie aka Dora the Explora!

Within another 30 minutes we had now seen the entire “big 5” within 48 hours (Leopard, Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo, Lion) amazing – we were told that often on a 4-5 day safari you won’t see all 5 so we are doing really well so far.

We stopped for lunch (and a needed toilet break at around 11:30) – lunch was weird today – peanut butter and jam sandwiches, banana, a nice drink, chicken and a boiled egg as well as a single boiled potato). Within minutes of us eating flocks of Kite birds swooped down on the other tourists who were attempting to eat their lunches outside of their 4x4s. This was a great opportunity to take some photos of the swooping almost eagle style birds and their tried their luck and skill at getting some lunch. Paul had a very close shave as some swopped in within inches of his head.

We took a scenic drive out of the crater stopping to take more scenic photos of the crater and some great shots of Wilderbeast and Zebras and arrived back at the camp site at around 4pm which gave us a couple of hours of daylight in which to chill out, have showers and get ready for dinner.

View from the top of the Ngorongoro Crater

We were all quite exhausted (not to mention covered in dust) today. We showered and then had a couple of beers with some popcorn snacks which the cooks had left out for us before eating dinner – Spag bol which was lovely.

Katie was feeling really rough again so went to bed not long after dinner. The rest of us stayed up for a couple more drinks – Konyagi of course, and a dew hands of the “finger game” in which Simon seemed to lose the most and therefore ended up consuming the most amount of Konyagi! I retired at around 9:30pm and everyone else around 10ish. Jan and Adrian managed to capture the end of a lightning storm which was surrounding the camp site.

Breakfast at 7 tomorrow for a 7:30 safari to Lake Manyara...

Day 11: Tarangire National Park

BANG BANG BANG.......twice in the night we had that knocking on the window of the hotel room.....At breakfast I naturally accused Adrian of another Konyagi fuelled frenzy but soon realised that a.) Everyone else had experienced the same thing and b.) It wasn't him!!

We checked out the hotel, and got picked up in two 4x4s to begin our safari adventure for the next 4 days. We stopped a couple of times on the way to the national park, once to pick up our packed lunches and water and the again to buy ourselves some treats....as we were all feeling the need for some home comforts...at a price too - £6 for two cans of pepsi and a small bar of Cadbury Fruit and Nut....so worth it though!!

We arrived at Tarangire National Park at around noon and soon began our first day on safari. The heat really hit us today as we were at a much lower altitude that we had been at Uwa School. We deeted and sun creamed ourselves up as the roof came off the 4x4s and we headed into the park...

OMG - this has got to be the best Saturday i have had in my life ever....speaking after, I think we all pretty much agreed. The great thing about safari is that every trip in every 4x4 is different. The 4x4 I was in (with Katie, Jan and Adrian) saw things that the other 4x4 (which had Harry, Kerry, Paul and Simon in) didn't just because nature is not timed...so its all about chance as to what you will see. Before lunch we had seen Wilder beasts, Zebras and Giraffes.

We stopped for lunch around 13:30 I think and went down to the picnic area where were given lunch boxes containing a burger, chicken and bread rolls....we encountered many many monkeys over lunch with one table of visitors loosing several items of lunch including a bag of crisps...it was hilarious to watch. After getting immersed in photos of the scenery, monkeys and a herd of wilder beast which we saw from a distance, it was time to set off again.

This afternoon, we were very very lucky...we managed to see a leopard (which we had been told we would be very unlikely to see), a couple of lions which we really thought were going to fight right before our eyes since they were eyeing each other up and moving in..marking their territory every chance they got. We were then also fortunate enough to get caught in the middle of a herd of elephants crossing the road within a meter of the 4x4 - we got some amazing close up photos. Words cannot describe our experiences this afternoon - it was simply fantastic - the landscapes, the animals, everything.

We left the park at around 4:30 and arrived at our next camp site which will be our home for the next few nights. This was nothing like Uwa school. The tents were great....two man, standing height and we even have power outside and lights outside too. There are proper toilets (we always get excited about that) and even warm water showers..

Katie and I were both feeling a bit ropey this evening....Katie has a nasty cough (which we did manage to get some medicine for....hopefully in will cure her and not kill her) and I have got a nasty head cold. Since we are leaving at 6:00am tomorrow for Ngorongoro National Park we headed off to bed at 9pm - the others had a couple of drinks and followed shortly after....

Day 10: Leaving Celebration

After a relatively dry night, it decided to absolutely tip it down from about 5:30am until gone 9:00 - just typical as this was the morning we needed to pack our stuff and move out of our tents...needless to say we got soaked..in fact drenched! We got packed anyway and one by one the tents got packed away and we moved our bags into one of the classrooms.

After a quick breakfast it was time to get ready for the celebrations - this meant blowing up balloons (which we stored in a mosquito net - genius) getting the gifts ready (the football shirts and footballs etc) and putting the ribbons and tape up for us to later cut to officially sign the school over from Childreach to the Uwa School. We had been given an agenda as follows:

Leaving Party Agenda

The Children began turning up in droves from about 9:00 - the ceremony not due to start till around 11:00, so we used this opportunity to spend some time with the children playing singing games, taking photos, and firing off rocket balloons as well as trying to learn a little more Swahili [most of which they were trying to teach us was definitely rude!!]. We handed out a few more "gifts" including tiny silver and gold stars which they were licking and putting on their faces...we got absolutely mobbed by the kids with hands coming from every angle trying to grab whatever it was we had in our hands.

We were informed that the Education Minister was going to be around 30mins late so we ended up having an early lunch so as to make sure we still got away on time since 5 of the team had planes to catch back to the UK.

At around 12:00 the ceremony began, firstly with the cutting of the first ribbon (to the entrance of the school) followed by a tour led by Elvis and Jan of all the work Childreach had carried out on the school. This in summary included:

• Renovation and painting of all the classrooms
• Dividing walls to make separate classrooms rather than just a single teaching space in each building
• A new kitchen for the staff to prepare meals for the children
• A water harvesting system (to collect rain water)
• Painting of the outsides of all the classrooms and buildings
• A new toilet block (sanitised) with drainage and sewerage
• Painting of all the benches
• Murials and pictures in all the teaching rooms to aid learning - these included maps, pictures of the human body, the solar system, nutritional diagrams and water cycles as well as times tables, numbers, alphabets etc.
• A Volleyball pitch
• Steps to replace the dangerous muddly slope which connected the upper and lower blocks.

Once the tour was complete we cut the final ribbon and then Jan raised the school flag while all the school children and staff sung their national anthem to us. We were then serves a glass (well, plastic cup) of champagne (ok, sparking juice). We we seated and then followed a programme of speeches, dances from the children (which we were invited to join in with) and presentation of gifts - firstly from the RM Futurebuilders to the school (football shirts, footballs and an assortment of musical instruments such as clappers, recorders, tamborines etc. The school then presented each of us (in turn) with a kilimanjaro sun hut and a traditional Tanzania braclet before then serving us up a meal (which we were not expecting as we'd just eaten lunch). The meal was basically goat in a kind of stew with local nuts coated in salt and fat and fried bananas with vegetables....it was actually a lot nicer that it sounded though we had to eat with our fingers (since they rarely use cutlery).

Bottom of the new Flagpole..signed by the RM FutureBuilders

There are a few traditions/values with regards to Tanzania food... Firstly, it is considered extreemely rude to turn the offer of food away, Second, you have to eat with your RIGHT hand only (since they use their left hand for....well...you know..) and THIRDLY while is acceptable to leave food uneaten on your plate you should not leave any food which has not been grown from the ground...i.e., anything that has been "sacraficed" such as an animal..in our case, the goat!

2:00pm came round very quickly and we had to rush off....we said goodbye to the Education Minister, Education Councilor and teachers before saying goodbye to the children for the last time....it was a bit of a wierd experience knowing we would not be coming back (not anytime soon anyway) - we have all achieved so so much these past 10 days and completing the walk around the school really opened our eyes to just how much hard work, sweat and commitment we had all put in.

We set off for Moshi to we where we said goodbye to NIkki, Tom, Chris, Freddie and Kevin who carried on to the airport to catch their flight back to Niarobi and then to the UK. We wish them a safe a pleasant flight and hope they wont be too jeleous of our final week of safaris and beaches...

The remaining FutureBuilders were now ready to start the next part of our adventure....the holiday bit. Harry, Simon, Paul, Jan, Kerry, Adrain, Katie and me checked in to a little hotel in Moshi, headed to the pool (thanks to Katie for cleaning all the leaves out for us while the boys sat and drunk Konyagi).

We went out for a meal in Moshi Town (a very cheap but nice steakhouse - around £3 for a good steak) and then a couple of beers back at the hotel before bed as we had a earlish start in the morning to set off on safari.....