Mtwara.

When we got off the truck we sat outside an ice cream stall in the shade for a while. I walked off to get some money, a sim card and some new flip flops.

(My shoes have devolved…. Started off with Teva’s worth 50 quid, they got nicked, progressed to nice flip flops worth a fiver over here, left them behind at the border, bought a pair for 75p, seemed the best option. If I have to get a fourth pair, I’ll probably just gaffa tape cardboard to my feet)

Think we’re the weirdest pair in town, there aren’t many westerners around and all the ones we saw came in their own air con 4WD’s. We arrived on a pickup covered in 3 days of road dirt. Vicky sat with the taxi drivers and got them to teach her Swahilli (remember it’s a muslim culture here so women sitting around with the men in town is a little uncommon.) I walked barefoot around town asking for a shoe shop and a bank (burnt my feet a little on the hot sand too).

We got ourselves a nice hotel to recover in, it was just within our daily budget as long as we only drank water. But still, after 3 days on the road we figured we deserved it. Vicky was so happy she bounced for a minute or so. Pretty location and clean western standard en-suite room. See photo’s.

Had nice meals, the curry dishes were delicious, but our bodies are not used to fatty dishes or spice anymore and we were both making regular trips toilet-wards in the morning to be rewarded with that burning feeling curry’s are famous for.

Went into town the next day. The two hotel dogs which we had being nice to decided we were part of their pack and followed us all 2km of the way there. If we looked like the odd ones out the day previous, this sealed it. The locals don’t keep pets and are very frightened of dogs. One of the dogs ran into a shop before we realized and sat happily behind the counter forcing the owner to climb up onto a 100kg bag of maize like a cartoon housewife avoiding a mouse. Dogs followed us all the way back too. Had curry again, against our better judgment, but it is nice.",



Next day we sat around at the hotel and went swimming off the shore to look at the corals. Our constant companions, the dogs were determined to follow us where ever we went and kept trying to swim out with us. Again, the locals thought we were weird. Pretty corals to look at, I spotted a stone fish, which is a first for me. The current was against us for the first half of the swim out and then swung around twice as fast to push us out to sea. It was hard to swim back against, especially for me as I needed another post curry toilet session and had to swim back using my arms only. This blog seems to be rapidly descending into a record of our bowel movements, will try to find more interesting topics in future.