Waking up with Rocky Balboa

We got back into stonetown to take care of some business...namely get stronger suncream, money and book our ferry tickets for the next day. It was hot like nobodies business, and we were very tempted to hightail it back out to Bwejuu for some more beach...but we got our jobs done like good little soldiers (thanks to the help of a great cabbie) and then headed to another beachside resturant for more of the same good stuff, while the locals played beach football below the decking... Tomorrow, we had an early start as a 7am Ferry trip was booked.

Now you remember the monkey piss, from the last post. Was it lucky or unlucky...Hmmm, whaddyou reckon?

Firstly, Josie spots a coldsore on the lip appearing just before bed that night. But this is the real killer....about 5.15am Josie wakes me up with - 'promise you won't laugh'... and am I greeted with a vision from Rocky ...and not Rocky at the start of the movie, but Rocky at the end, after the fight !!

Well, us two geniuses forgot to put the mozzie net down and one (possibly the only) blighter got Josie right on the eyelid. And damn, didn't that sucker swell up impressively - the ref would have stopped the fight 1st round.

But brave travellers we are - Josie donned her sun glasses - and we set off for the Ferry (to buy some Anti-histamines in Dar Es Salaam). This trip should take 2 hours - and the seas were nice and calm as the winds had dropped. In fact, I even told Josie "no, you won't need sea sickness tablets"...(I can hear you lot chuckling already). Everything was grand (despite the lack of breakfast) for the first hour of the trip...and then all of a sudden, there was quite a lot of Swahili being spoken by some captain looking dude...

Well a boat had sunk, somewhere of the coast and we were going to the rescue. And what a rescue it was...when we arrived at the scene there was a big group of 20 odd people clinging in a group to anything they could, and a stragglers floating 50 odd yards around them. Loads of cargo in the water. Bugger knows how long these poor people were out there... as we did see plently of overloaded boats (only just boats) leaving Stone Town the night before.

So then we (and by 'we' I mean the crew) commenced a 1 hour rescue mission, literally throwing that orange ring out on a rope and pulling in kids and adults. It was amazing stuff! In then end, all 26 people were rescued (unfortunately one of the men died), two Scandanavian travellers who were doctors treated the injured, and a couple of other fishing boats also joined in. The media were waiting en masse at the port when we got into Dar, after 4 hours at sea...

So poor Josie was stuck on a boat bobbing around in 2metre seas for an extra 2 hours, looking a lovely shade of green, with an eye like a hot air baloon and a coldsore on the lip...

I blame the monkey piss. People, seriously, pay attention if you are listening out there - don't let a monkey piss on you, it is bad bad luck !!

Luckily we then got our 2nd excellent cab driver...he took us to a French doctor who checked out the eye and gave Josie some good drugs that started to work straight away (all in 30mins - NHS managers should be shot-shame on you all)...and then on to our lodging for the night (no air con and a squeaky fan - bugger) !!

Tomorrow we are faced with a 8 hour bus trip across Tanzania to Arusha...backpacker gods forgive me as I booked the luxury one with air conditioning. Josie has had her 3 bits of bad luck and now should be square with the bad monkey-piss mojo....which makes tomorrow a brighter day !!