I’m very excited to share with you all the details of my Africa (Kenya/Tanzania) trip, and hopefully it helps you plan your own trip, encourages you to visit these places, or at the very least teaches you about another culture in another part of the world. I loved my Africa experience. To catch you up on my trip, check out all my Africa posts:

Africa I: Planning Logistics + Budgets + Immunizations + Clothing/Gear + Getting There
Africa II: Kenya Stop1, Baby Elephants
Africa III: Kenya Giraffes, Karen Blixen and Artcaffe
Africa IV: Arriving in Moshi + The Good Hope School
Africa V: Kilimanjaro Details
Africa VI: Kilimanjaro Machame Route Day 1
Africa VII: Kilimanjaro Machame Route Day 2
Africa VIII: Kilimanjaro Machame Route Day 3
Africa IX: Kilimanjaro Machame Route Day 4
Africa X: Kilimanjaro Machame Route Day 5
Africa XI: Kilimanjaro Machame Route Day 6 and 7
Africa XII: Nomad Tours Day 1, Visit the Snake Park
Africa XIII: Nomad Tours Day 2, Off to the Serengeti
Africa XIV: Nomad Tours, Our First Game Drive
Africa XV: Nomad Tours Day 3, Game Drives
Africa XVI: Nomad Tours Day 4, Game Drives!
Africa XVII: Nomad Tours Day 4, Maasai Warriors
Africa XVIII: Nomad Tours Day 5, The Ngorongoro Crater

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Last I left off, Erica and I were with our Nomad Tours group for our Serengeti & Zanzibar 10 Day Trek South, where we just finished 2 days out on the Serengeti and a day in the Ngorongoro Crater. The safari portion of our tour was now behind us, but we still have the Zanzibar resort island experience ahead of us. In the meantime we had 2 days of overland travel in our truck “Tommy” to get to Dar es Salaam where we will take a ferry out to the island.

After leaving the Ngorongoro Crater, we headed back to our campsite/lodge in Arusha to meet up with our guide Norman and our truck “Tommy”. We spent the night here all telling stories of our favorite parts of the safari, then got up early and hit the road to head to our next campsite/hotel in Lushoto.

Guides Norman and Servious made the overland tour fun. You would think 2 full days of driving would be boring, but it was actually really fun getting to see the Tanzania landscape roll by. They often would stop to let us take photos and bathroom breaks as well as teach us about local life.

Norman (below) taught us all about the local plants. That palm came from the plants in the photo above.

You can see in the photo above that the truck Tommy is really clean and comfortable. Those are our lockers behind Norman and there’s storage overhead as well. The truck also has a charging stations that you can charge electronics in Tommy over night.

For lunch we stopped off at a campground (photos above and below).

It was fun to roll Tommy in the campground and see the whole Nomad group assemble the tables and chairs. It was a real team effort getting lunch ready.

People took turns wash and chopping up fixings for sandwiches. Tommy really has a compartment for everything. It’s a really well designed vehicle.

We spent the night camping in the Lushoto mountains. The view getting up there was incredible but it was difficult to snap photos as the road was basically a single lane (although there was traffic in both directions) so we couldn’t stop for photos. We arrived after dark to a sprinkling rain, setup camp ate and went to bed. We had to leave the campsite at 5am to make it to Dar es Salaam in order to catch the afternoon ferry to Zanzibar.

The landscape subtly changed from small cottages to larger three story buildings, and that’s when the city of Dar es Salaam came into view. Note the German architectural influence of these buildings.

This city landscape is just SO different from the rest of Tanzania we’ve seen.

Before we knew it we were leaving Tommy and loading our bags into the ferry station.

While we waited for the ferry to board (in a packed room) they had the tv series Bones on translated into Swahili. I love seeing what people watch in other countries and this was one of the first televisions we’d seen since we’d been in Tanzania.

After a complicated boarding process (at which some of us got separated from the rest of the group), I finally found the gang and took my seat on the top deck of the ferry.

The boat ride to Zanzibar was so beautiful and I swear I saw dolphins jumping around us.

Off we went, with the city of Dar es Salaam in the background and Zanzibar to look forward to.

Above, we approached the island.

We got in just as the sun was starting to set. Incredible.

Our ferry docked, and we made our way into the station. They check passports and yellow fever vaccination forms here, so have these documents handy.

Once we were all checked in, we exited to a waiting van where Nomad arranged a local company to take us to our hotel and lead us around the island for the next few days.

Next up, I’ll share our hotel in Stone Town Zanzibar, our walking tour around Stone Town and even share a scary story!