Me, my siblings, a zebra suit and a trampoline...

...And we're good to go with plenty of laughs!

I'm one of five siblings. I'm the one bang smack in the middle. I see my siblings every couple of months. I see all of them in one place a couple of times a year - it's not enough, but we're working on it. We have the biggest laughs together now but we used to have epic fights a decade ago when we all lived together...crikey.

The most common word in our house a decade ago? "MUUUUUUUUUUUM"

Here's MuM...A.K.A. the mothership, or MOFO:

My siblings and I are massive camera whores, it's fair to say. Here's evidence:

We're spelling out 'loves' here, not sure why, I think it was the only 5 letter word we could think of...

I'm obsessed with my zebra onesie suit, and took it home for a family airing where we took turns wearing it on the trampoline...

Scores on the doors please?

AmsterdamN Good Times!

Settling back in to life back home is overrated I've decided!

So having been back in England for two weeks, it was time to get back on a plane...this time to Amsterdam for a teeny tiny weekend away, good times!
It didn't help that I went out the night before the 7am flight, so I didn't feel the greatest that I've ever felt getting on that flight...beautiful sunrise though, I could appreciate it...

Made it through the one hour flight without reaching for the paper bag, teeny bit of turbulence but nothing we Baxters can't handle. It's crazy that you can get to Holland on a plane from Leeds in the time it takes to drive to Sheffield...

We soaked up the culture in the McDonalds in the arrivals at the airport - normally I wouldn't go anywhere near but I didn't think I was going to pull out of my hangover without Ronald's assistance...Magic McMuffins.

Found our hotel without much drama, just walked fifteen minutes in the wrong direction so we stopped for our first drink of many that weekend:

Amsterdam is beautiful; it's a strange place, during the day you wander along the most beautiful streets and canals and sit in cafes eating delicious apple pies...

But then darkness falls in Amsterdam, and there's change in the air...Amsterdam takes on a sort of seedy buzz, an almost anything goes attitude, but that attitude comes from the tourists, the locals really are the same around the clock; unfased. They just kind of tolerate the tourism, rather than participate.

Something happens... you go to the smallest pub in Amsterdam and get talking to an American guy called Zack at the bar who is on his own in Amsterdam on business...

He seems nice enough, even if he claims he is 26, he must be the oldest 26yr old I've ever met :) then you get talking to a group of guys from somewhere around Hull who seems nice enough also...then...

BRUISED AND CONFUSED!

Anyway, we made our excuses and left with Josh telling me off for talking to strangers, drank some more, got some chips, got stupidly lost (all the roads look the same and have crazy names!) luckily Josh is now an iPhone bore and got us out of the pickle with his m-AP. Stopped off at an African club where I threw a few shapes before being dragged out of there at 3am. Tsk.

Next day it rained the WHOLE day, relentless.

Still we made the most of it posing for arty pictures in the rain...

Whatever the weather, I LOVE Amsterdam and would love to go back one day and hire a bike to see more of it. And eat more stropwafels and drink more Chocomel...and Heineken for Josh.

Zanzibar - The Perfect Place to Say Goodbye to Africa.

The trip is coming to an end, but we're too busy having fun to pay attention!

We head on the last bumpy bus from Stone Town to the beautiful destination of Nungwi, the North point of Zanzibar. We take the first and last group photo on the steps of the hotel in Stone Town...

A lovely bunch wouldn't you agree?

The drive to Nungwi takes around an hour or so and the plastic seats on the bus makes things so much more comfortable (read - sweaty and very uncomfortable, very pleased to have been wearing dark clothes or it would look like I'd had an accident) but the drive was so scenic, passing through small villages with huge palm trees and trucks piled high with mattresses and bicycles loaded with huge banana bunches, car horns beeping, children yelling, music playing - man, I love Africa...

We arrive at the accommodation in Nungwi and I see what Exodus have done, they've saved the best for last. This is what Nungwi looks like:

Not too shabby hey? Quite a change from the campsite in the Serengeti that's for sure...

We got settled at the bar whilst waiting for our room to be ready and were quickly approached by a rep at the hotel who was selling booze cruise tickets. We didn't even listen to her pitch, as soon as we heard booze cruise, we were on board. Literally. Five hours later, we boarded a tiny boat to take us out to sea to board a bigger boat packed to the rafters with all you can drink boooooze - party on a boat time!

Little boat to big boat to the bar! Salute!

There's not much to report from the boat trip, easily drank 10+ gin and bitter lemons, jumped off the boat in to the sea only to be surrounded by piano fish, freak out, drink more gin, jump off again, get back on, drink more gin, dance to loud music, watch sun set, attempt to pole dance, attempt to head stand against pole, slip, drink more gin, dance more, attempt to disembark on to tiny boat, freak out, enlist help of every single crew member to get self on tiny boat, swim back to hotel along shore, attempt Dirty Dancing lift in sea, swim out to different boat in attempt to be Somalian Pirate, shower, eat pizza, fall in to drunken slumber. Bliss. Am not missing camping one tiny bit.

Here's the boat best bits:

The next morning, we drag ourselves to breakfast at 9.58am as they stop serving at 10am - made it! Gimme the nutella pancakes! Take selves back to bed to have a sharp word with ourselves, then complete the hard task of finding somewhere to sunbathe.

Sunbathing complete for the morning, we head to lunch, absolutely shattered from the morning we've had so far and sweating gin out of my system! Eat another pizza and flop back down on the sand, ready to be hassled by the beach boys selling booze cruises - no thanks just did one, why do you think we stink of GIN...even this dog is wary...

It's going to be very hard to leave this place...

 It's not going to be so hard to leave this guy...

The last night was fun filled once more, one more for the road princesses! We had dinner altogether as a group one last time and then hit the beach party at Kendwa Rocks for one last night of fun, drinking and dancing to African tunes.

Needless to say we took it too far for our last night and once again got dragged out at 3am...lame. Well Honor and I rebelled against this lameness of going home early by jumping in to the sea once again and going for a swim. And why not? I'm on my holiday.

Rough and sandpaper I awoke in the morning and my first thought was that someone must have spiked my drink, there's no way I drank that much...but I remember demanding cocktails at the bar and admitted guilt. Yes your Honour it was me that drank too much - why do we always go for it hard on the last night of holiday?

Anyway, it was a very long day indeed ahead of us with a flight from Zanzibar airport to Nairobi then on to Heathrow...I loved Zanzibar airport with it's relaxed attitude towards airport daily business.

No sign of a conveyor belt, our luggage was carried off on a parcel trolley, I was convinced we'd never see it again...particularly as the man with the trollet called out 'say goodbye to your luggage' as he wheeled it away...ermmm, not funny.

The plane was supposed to depart at 6.30pm, at 7.15pm we were standing cooling down on the runway (it's allowed at Zanzibar airport) with no sign of any plane, so we asked someone in the airport when it was due to arrive, to which he responded 'the plane should be here anytime from now'...can you imagine that in Heathrow?? Too funny. Love Africa.

Anyway, cutting a long story short, we slept on every flight, only waking up for food or drinks and eventually made it to London:

Where we then began the long journey back to Leeds and to a nice hot shower and a flushing toilet!

Trip of a lifetime, I'm forever in Honor Baldry's debt which unsettles me slightly...

Kwa heri, lala salama and Asante Sana!

Zanzibar Ho!

Well, we made it to Zanzibar! We didn't think we'd make it at some points and it was a long road getting there, with over 40 hours spent on a truck in total we reckon (we had time to work it out whilst sitting on the truck)...

Talking of the truck though (whose name was Rafiki, which means friend in Swahili) we sadly parted ways and said goodbye before boarding the ferry to the magical island of Zanzibar - even the name sounds facinating, I think.

Well we'd only been away from the truck ten minutes before I remembered that I'd left my sleeping bag in the luggage compartment! Oh well, I wouldn't be needing it in Zanzibar anyway! My sleeping bag, and camping, days were behind me!

We waved goodbye to Tanzania as we headed across the sea, then I started feeling sea sick, so I fell asleep in a seat and woke up to find us docking. Goodbye Tanzania:

Hello Zanzibaaaaaaar!

We're home, this is where we belong! What a waste of time all that camping was :) I'm kidding of course, we loved it really, but what a way to relax now!

Here we are getting ferried over to Zanzibar:

So we rock up in Stone Town on the island for two nights. Stone Town is the Muslim part of the island, which means plenty of covering up in crazy high temperatures. I've never been anywhere like it before, and totally packed the wrong type of clothes! Within minutes I was sweating and carrying my heavy rucksack in desperate need of a beer in a Muslim quarter...hmmm.

Rucksack dumped at the hotel, we hit the shops for some girl time! Most of the others went on a spice tour, but we wanted our own time to do our own thing...buying pretty things! I purchased this marvellous dress:

Not sure when I'll be airing it in the UK though but who cares?

Stone Town was hot but beautiful, all the buildings were stained and shabby, just how I like them. It had a really laid back vibe to it and it was a great place to just wander and get lost in, in fact all the guide books tell you to get lost, so we did.

Later that day we all reconvened at the Africa House Hotel - the best place in Stone Town to watch the sun set:

Beautiful! Playing cards, drinking cold beer, sunset and good company...

We had dinner on the beach that night and treated ourselves to a fairly early night.

The next morning most of the group went on a scuba dive trip, but Nayani and I decided to hang back and do our own thing as we're not big divers. We laid in bed watching MTV until 9am - amazing! We had a TV and air con, we weren't moving anywhere!

After a lazy breakfast, we went for a wander around Stone Town again and bought more presents we didn't need, but we liked to think we were helping the local economy.

We got totally lost in the maze of tiny streets in Stone Town, just wandering aimlessly and taking everything in, and trying to stay in the shade! After a lazy lunch (spotting a pattern?) we headed back to the fan in the hotel reception to play cards, the only thing you can do when it's hot and there's no beach to lay on.

Once again we headed to the Africa House Hotel for another beautiful sunset and game of cards:

Then we went off to dinner at a restaurant where you sat on cushions on the floor, we'd probably had too much beer to fully appreciate it, but it was fun to experience it and I realised that I'm quite fond of chairs and tables when eating!

Later that night we played drinking games from around the world and went off to a traditional nightclub! We danced, we drank, we danced some more and we drank some more. At 3am we were dragged out of there as we had to get up at 8am for another bus journey to another part of Zanzibar. We'd regret this in the morning, but right then, we were having the time of our lives!

Stunning hey?

We're getting nearer to the coast!

We're nearing the end of the posts about the amazing trip to Africa...I promise!

From the crater we headed to Moshi and the trip gets blurry from here to be honest! The amount of alcohol units consumed increased as the need for concentrating on animals out of a bumpy truck window went away.

In Moshi we stayed in a lovely campsite but I can't tell you anything about the campsite facilities because we upgraded baby! That's more than enough camping for us thank you :)

We stayed at this hotel/campsite for two nights which meant I could unpack once again and see what that moneky had been doing in my bag, messing it all up again. tut tut. I could hang things up! I didn't hang anything up but I could have if I wanted to.

Anyway, we had the choice of either trekking up Mt. Kili or going on a coffee plantation tour. I just didn't fancy a nine hour trek as I still tell myself that I'm going to climb the whole mountain one day, so I chose the plantation tour and it was probably one of the highlights of the trip! We made our own batch of coffee from start to finish, even from picking the beans from the tree:

It was a great experience, but I was buzzing from the amount of caffeine they gave us to sample!

The rest of the day was spent lazing by the pool in the hotel/campsite - bliss. Then I really felt like I was on holiday, beers were consumed, food was eaten, more alcohol, drinking games, dancing, dancing on the bar, someone (not me guv) suggesting jumping in the pool, staff members firmly saying no to jumping in the pool, 1am bedtime and a horrible 5am rise ready for an 11hr truck journey to the capital, Dar es Salaam.

I think, if ever there was a bad ideas list of mine, drinking a whiskey shot and a glass of port that night would top the list. I was awful on that truck journey the next day, I'm quite surprised I still have friends after my mood swings that day. I'd go from laughing about the night's events to crying about how awful I felt and howling at them to stop the truck I want to get off...I never wanted to drink again...

So we get to the next campsite and go straight to the bar for a hair of the dog and a game of pool.

We have a romantic banda on the beach which is so cute!

Wicked hey? Yours for a mere £12 per night! Amazing!

That night we celebrated Naomi's birthday with a cake! Beach, beer and cake, what's not to love?

Tomorrow we're off to ZANZIBAR!!!!