breathtaking holiday and Dar

Hi everybody...so sorry iv been being so poo and not keeping up with ANYTHING!!! :S The week after safari we didnt really do that much....we had the monday off for bank holiday so we all headed down into town to go the Rwandan Crime Tribunal. After much persuasion, we managed to get the guard to let us in in 'slippers' (flip flops!!!) and headed to the court room where the priest is on trial...this guy apparantly ordered for his church to be bulldozed with 2000 people in it, which it was and then, when people ran out from the rubble, he stood on a balcony gunning them down..there are lots of witnesses and his defence is that god told him to!!!! Craziness!!
OK, so we hit easter holidays and had arranged to go to Pangani with the rugby guys to stay in one of their private beach houses...Pangani is a beautiful sea side resort with amazingly white beaches and hot weather!! We were only going there for the weekend though and then me, cat, martyn and flic were heading off to Dar es Salaam to stay with some people that we met in Zambia who are volunteering there too. Pangani was as we had been told it would be...absolutely beautiful. On Easter Sunday we went off on a little dhow trip where the boys did some fishing (consequently catching....nothing!) and we visited a little island called sand island. We all jumped out before we got to the island and snorkelled for a bit...saw lots of little zebra fishy things and some 'dori's (see finding nemo) then jumped back on the boat to be taken to the island itself. When we reached it, there was almost nothing left of it! It was almost completely submerged in the water so we had fun on it until there was actually nothing left of it and made our way back.

Dar was HOT! We managed to stumble across a subway on our first day which was VERY lucky so in we popped...it was nice to have a foot long and crisps and fanta AND cookies!! :) yey!! That evening we found a very local little bar and popped in to watch the footy, what with being with martyn and craig and brendan..all HUGE footy fans, we couldnt really say no! The next day we trekked all around town lookin 4 somewhere 2 change my travellers cheques....how come all the beaurea de change's in Arusha change travellers cheques but NOWHERE in Dar will?! craziness! We ended up popping into the massive very posh hotel to see if i could change them there...it turned out..i could!!! we sat ourselves down and soaked in the posh-ness (is that a word?!) of the hotel...bought ourselves quiche and a doughnut and sat down! as we were about to leave cat gave our seats away to two men who, after we had finished talking to them, we discovered was the lead singer of the jazz band that plays in the bar there and the Libyan ambassador! They, along with the hotel manager who joined the conversation late, invited us to join them for a drink on Thursday night which we promptly agreed to...of course! That afternoon we hopped in a taxi and went to the water park. 'Kunduchi wet 'n' wild' I think it's called. When we arrived there was NOBODY there!! For a moment we thought the park was shut but then we saw a little family of four playing and we realised it was because it was a week day and the easter holidays in Dar had started a week earlier and, therefore, finished a week earlier than us so everybody was back at work/school. We had to ask for the water slides to be turned on; a bit of a pain really cos we just wanted to run around the park and go on whatever we wanted but kinda cool...the park was so empty that they didn't even have the water slides turned on! Got lots of photos of cheesy poses etc. and pretty much got to do whatever we wanted! Found a very cute little birdy who was being attacked by the crows and saved it, it was very stubborn athough, didn't really want to be saved so we let it go in a saffe, sheltered place. Went to watch the footy again that night...honestly, boys!!!!

On Thursday afternoon the 'Dar' crew went off to school as they had been doing all week and, for some reason, we all slept in till very late. I was the first to wake up, (!!! that should be a whole blog post in itself...yes, i woke up before three other people!) went outside to the toilet and, to my dismay, had to come back inside because i couldn't even walk acrossthe yard to the bathroom! The sun was beaming down and it was uncomfortably hot. By the time I'd finished hopping around and whinging because of the heat, i went back in side and the rest had woken up. Me and Flic came to the conclusion that it was way too hot to do anything at all and that our only option was to stay indoors and sit under the fans they have on the ceiling. However, the electricity cut out so we decided we would go and sunbath outside in the yard but, under no circumstances, were we going anywhere in that heat. It was bad enough lieing down in it, never mind walking around! Cat and Martyn, however, said that they needed to go into town so off they went, walking out of the house, to mine and Flic's smug sniggers : ) That evening off we went to the Movenpick (the hotel mentioned above) as promised. We stopped via subway so we could fill up our stomachs and do our hair and make up as the electricity had cut out at the house! Anyhoo, we arrived at the hotel and, before long, we had clocked the 'rich men' and been invited to sit with them. So we all went over; me, martyn, flic and cat and sat down to chat with them. The jazz band were brilliant, really good and everytime we just mentioned between us "oh, i wonder if he's going to play this song...i love that song" next thing we know the manager has asked the band and they'r playing the song we were jsut discussing! We had the full VIP treatment, which was nice. A few (!!) drinks later and me getting up with the jazz band to sing summertime and we decided it was time to go. A very very good night though with results of possible free nights at the movenpick when we are flying home from Dar!!!

Me and Flic went home the next day, Martyn and Cat stayed to experience the Dar nightlife which, apparantly was very good. Me and Flic went to a party at the AS house (African safari, aka Brad and Geoff's house) for Mike's birthday and celebration of winning the rugby cup. Dont think anything that significant happened that night...cant remember and, as cat wasn't there, i cant copy it off her blog...dammit!!!

Adele's last weekend night on the saturday so we went for a meal with her and her mum. Cat didn't make it, though, her and martyn got stuck on the coach which broke down about a bgillion times (See cat's blog) ...hahahaha!!! Was a good night though, and off we went to masai camp and colobus afterwards.