08.36 It is morning in Moshi and here at Nyota Bed & Breakfast (http://www.nyotabedandbreakfast.com). Our German neighbours, a young couple, will today begin an ascent of Kilimanjaro. It is a 5-7 day project to get up and then down again. The girl told us that her parents are sailing in Sweden right now but she chose this instead. We are happy with just a bus trip to Dar es Salaam. It is a project of 8-10 hours, long enough for us. We may well see it as a compliment that the Germans thought that we were here in Moshi for mountaineering also. Do we look that fit? Doubtful.

08.57 The Germans guide and transport is here. We shall begin to move towards the bus stop. Because of the road works in Arusha, it is difficult to assess exactly when the bus shows up. The best is to be in place in time.

09.22 It is a cool morning today. We have walked the short distance to the Dar Express office and bus stop. Now we´ll only wait for our bus. What we do know is that it is earliest here at 09.30. It is more likely here later on because of earlier mentioned reason.

09.42 A local character, a real personality entertains us while we are waiting for the bus. He impresses the other passengers with his language skills in a conversation with us. Now he is leaving.

10.01 The bus is here. We have loaded up our backpacks and stepped on board. The seats are comfortable but it is running out of space for the legs. Outside there is the chaos that is always around African buses. The vendors are running around and trying to get their goods sold. It can be drink, fruit, candy but also real small meals.

11.33 We have been on the road for a while and now travel straight to the south. The only things that are breaking off the flat around us are trees, electricity poles, and mountains. We do not see much of human activity.

The vendors in Moshi are getting prepared to meet the arriving bus.

We escaped inside the bus and watch the outdoor activies through the window.

A long bus trip with Dar Express has started.

12.11 The bus hostess has served snacks. It consists of a six-pack of crackers and a soda each. The landscape hasn't changed.

14.21 The road to Dar es Salaam and the Indian Ocean continues. The landscape is now much greener, lusher and more hilly. No major towns are passed. There are small villages and communities and this part of the country feels quite sparsely populated.

14.39 The bus swung off the road and stands idle at an eatery in the outskirts of Korogwe. Here, they can fill in and/or do away with what is needed. It is warm and sunny, a completely different sweltering heat than so far on the trip. We take the opportunity to use the toilets here, but make no purchases. Vast quantities of fruit is sold here in the various stalls and there is a restaurant for more serious eating.

15.01 We are on the road again. It feels nice to be able to continue. We need that to arrive.

15.32 A man stands, right now, in the aisle here in the bus and speaks warmly about toothpaste, soap, lotion and pain killers. He speaks Swahili, but shows pictures of the products he sells.

15.42 We have reached Segera and here you take left if you want to travel towards the coast and the city of Tanga. We turned right and continues south.

16.01 We have just passed an accident scene. A truck had driven into the ditch. It seems to be some kind of tradition that we pass the scene of an accident on our summer trips.

Sparsely populated areas south of Moshi.

It is more green further south.

Our bus has parked in front of lots of fruits.

Christer is leaving the bus for a while and gets something to drink in the heat.

Sisal plantations outside of Korogwe.

17.04 We have passed over the Wami river. Here there are facilities for hydro power. Shortly after this we made a break at some public toilets and it pours out people from our bus and other vehicles.

18.19 About 100 kilometres remains now of the long journey towards Tanzania's old capital, Dar es Salaam. In this country they call it just "Dar". We have now reached Chalinze and came out on a larger, more busy road.

19.30 It has become dark and it goes forward slowly. I start to lose my travel lust. You can only spend a certain amount of time on a bus before/I start to get really bored.

20.00 Now, it does not go slow anymore. Now we are not moving at all. I hope that this stop becomes just for a short while.

20.19 We have been on hold for almost 20 minutes. What is the problem? Next to the bus motorcycles and other small vehicles try to find different solutions to get past the huge line of cars.

20.52 We have moved about a kilometre since the last time. Why is it a single road into a big city? Are we moving now? We have begun to understand that there will be no dinner this evening.

21.13 When we arrived at Mbezi the road became wider and suddenly the traffic flow again. We are approaching the big city pulse with leaps and bounds.

21.30 We got off the bus in the outskirts of the city on a newly constructed bus station. We passed the big bus terminal, Ubungo, but stopped shortly afterwards. Now it will be taxi to our hotel. Dar es Salaam is a large city. Here there are nearly five million people living and it is one of Africa's fastest growing cities.

22.06 It costs to go by taxi, 75 000 shillings. The young guy that caught up to us claimed that the high price depends on the distance to the city centre. It is far, he said. We might have been substantial overcharged, but we do not believe that any of the others who stood and waited on our delayed bus would have been cheaper. Our nice driver speak about the city, the country's new president and how quickly the city evolves and should evolve. Here are among others a new well-developed public transport system with buses, BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) that has been running since may of this year and will solve the city's gridlock. It has taken the help of Japanese people to develop this.

22.18 We were driven up to the Rainbow Hotel (http://www.rainbow-hoteltz.com) after we did the first down payment of the journey by contributing to the petrol at a petrol station inside the city. Here, we are now staying in room 801. The entire hotel feels very Indian, everything from the staff to the restaurant and the TV channels have links there.

23.03 It is nice to be installed. This day is done and so is also the first journal. Tomorrow a new day awaits and a new journal with blank unwritten pages. Now, it will be nice to sleep and nice to know that we don't have to travel with the bus tomorrow.

After a long bus trip a hotel room is a paradise.

The night has started.

Saturday 30th of July

07.32 We have had different views from our bedrooms on this trip. Sometimes we barely had any windows and no view at all. The view from the eighth floor of the Rainbow Hotel and out over Dar es Salaam isn't so bad. The big city spreads out below us..The clear blue Indian ocean is visible between the high buildings. This Saturday we'll arrange tickets to Zanzibar and see what we can see of this big city.

09.23 After the customary showering we took the elevator down to the restaurant on floor 1. It offered a not-so-large-scale breakfast. A man had the responsibility for the toaster. Does that make him a toastmaster? The plan of our day in Dar es Salaam is about to get a little more detailed.

09.56 After a bit of thinking, we have come to the following conclusion on this Saturday. The top priority is to get our hands on tickets to the Zanzibar ferry and tomorrow's journey. After this we need to withdraw more money, eat lunch, and as an added bonus, possibly, find a nice coffee place.

10.35 Maps have been studied and an economic calculation has been made up. Can we trust the maps, is the economic plan solid? The answers are hardly and probably not. But we need something to work on. The pavements of Dar es Salaam await us. Next we will walk down to the sea to buy tickets. Tomorrow we'll travel across the sea to the island of Zanzibar. For those of you who don't know it, we can tell that the name Tanzania is a combination of the two territories of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Tan and Zan became Tan-zan-ia in 1964.

We are looking down on the street below.

The ocean can be seen.

Neighbours on the other side of the street.

One of the new stations in the BRT public transport system.

11.23 We went a few streets from the hotel to the office for Azam Marine Kilimanjaro Fast Ferries. Outside the office stood a few gentlemen who wanted us to visit another office. We had already read about this phenomenon and could easily ignore everyone who told us that our ferry was too expensive, that we went in the wrong direction and so on. We went in, joined the queue and bought a ticket each for tomorrow's 12.30 departure to Zanzibar. After an ATM visit and a short walk along the Samora Avenue, we are now temporarily back home in the hotel room for new plans.

12.31 New plans have been made. The next place to visit will be a mall where we can get a meal. We have read about a meat restaurant in a familiar South African restaurant chain. It is nostalgic and it is tempting.

13.18 The positive, we are at the restaurant Blue Rock, a restaurant in the South African Spur chain. The negative is that someone on the way here someone seems to have stolen my passport pouch out of my small backpack. Gone are my passport, my vaccination card, ferry ticket and some more stuff. One shall never be happy. On the way here, at an intersection where some shoes and sandals for sale were laid out on the sidewalk, a man walked into Christer, grabbed his arm and asked him to watch out where he put his feet. I kept an eye on the man so that he wouldn't do anything stupid. Was it then that they struck? Was all a diversionary manoeuvre? Spur Steak Ranches is a restaurant chain that offers tasty, grilled meat. We have previously visited several of their restaurants in south Africa, Namibia and Botswana.

13.27 With the thoughts elsewhere we have made our orders. It is a child's birthday and the kid is celebrated. We don't feel as excited. The thoughts are spinning in the heads. What do we do now? How do we solve this? Is it all imagination? Is the passport in spite of everything left in the room?

14.10 I assume and guess that the meal was tasty and delicious. The thoughts were somewhere else. In pure anger and frustration we passed streets, intersections, took us past people and cars and are now back home in the room to solve everything as best as we can. The passport was, of course, not to be found in the room, it is gone, stolen. The question is whether we will get to Zanzibar or even from here. Even Christer is affected by pick pocketing. Yesterday's page of the travel route has disappeared out of his pocket. We hope the thief finds joy in reading about the Dar Express bus time from Moshi and our hotel address.

Azam Marine Kilimanjaro Fast Ferries. We are leaving from here tomorrow.

Saint Joseph Cathedral is close to the ferry terminal. It was built by the Germans between 1897 and 1902.

We walked for a while along Samora Avenue.

Christer returns to Rainbow Hotel.

14.47 We have acted, done something. We got in touch with the reception and the gentleman there, an Indian, possibly Pakistani, have engaged a younger African man to show us to the police station. He seems to be a helper, security guard, concierge, well who knows?

15.26 We are now at the police station. It is in the port area. I have just been interviewed and have reported the theft. Now I am waiting for the decisive documents. The question remains, how will I proceed? Is it possible to travel to Zanzibar? Will I move on? The police wanted some information about me including home address, occupation, and which tribe I belonged to. We have as detailed as possible told where and how we think the theft happened. A big thank you to the amazing man who showed us the way here.

16.32 I got the necessary documents and we left the police station. On the way home we spoke to the man from the hotel. He said that he soon needed to go home for the day but that he would check with his contacts in the area if anyone knew anything about the passport theft. Who does he know? It can lead to something? We also went to the ferry office and arranged with a new ticket. The first one disappeared with the passport pouch. Christer also got a new ticket. He has two now.

17.31 We have been searching for information online and I've called the Swedish embassy in the city to check about a temporary passport. They were closed for the weekend and I was handed on to the foreign office in Stockholm. Not much help was offered from them. The lady there referred me to the embassy and I asked if you can do multiple trips with the temporary passport. All she could answer was that it depends on each individual country. It looks all but bright right now. We will maybe not get to the Seychelles and it will cost a lot to fly home from here.

A moment of rest in room 801.

Walking through the city center towards lunch.

It was hard to be happy during this meal at Spur Blue Rock.

Fantastic views from the top of Rainbow Hotel.

Morogoro Road, Dar es Salaam.

Christer on the roof terrace.

17.47 Now we're trying to forget about all of it boring things. We still can't do much about it all at the moment. In the morning we will travel to Zanzibar. The staff here at the hotel has stated that the police documents should be enough to get to travel to Zanzibar. Because Tanzania consists of two parts, you need to show your passport even upon arrival at the Zanzibar despite the fact that it is still in the same country. On Monday I will contact the embassy and get information on how I should act. On the basis of it, we know how the end of the journey will be.

20.11 We have not fully been able to let go of everything. We have thought about, searched for information on the internet and discussed different strategies. I can only hope that we can continue as planned on a provisional, temporary passport.

20.38 To get some variety and to satisfy our hunger, we have gone down a few floors to the hotel restaurant to eat dinner.

21.26 After the simple dinner, we have considered further here in the room. We have decided to enjoy Zanzibar at the most. We are not going to the Seychelles, we can instead extend the Zanzibar stay. We have realised that the Seychelles could be a really lovely trip on the Christmas vacation. Things are after all feeling better. We will end this trip in a nice relaxing way no matter what.

21.49 The phone in the room just rang. It was the reception who had made the call. They did announce that a man was there and had asked for me. He is supposed to be my friend, Joshua. I have no friend here and definitely not know anyone named Joshua.

22.12 This is beyond incredible! My passport pouch with all the contents has been found by some young guys. They claimed that they had been around among a dozens of hotels and looked for me. Hooray! Hooray! I'll also be grateful to the hotel man. It is he who spread information in town that a passport has disappeared or how should this be explained? The guys claimed that they found the passport down close to the ferry terminal.

23.22 I have been a backpacker since 2000, travelled to 112 countries, written a journal in 109 countries, slept in over 300 different locations in over 100 countries. What has happened now, however beats everything. I have never ever participated in something like this. It is amazing. How can you have such a fabulous luck? It is almost as if we become religious, start believing in a higher power that first tests us and then rewards us.

23.34 How shall we summarize what has happened? There are two main theories. The first is that some guys found a passport and then tried to get hold of the owner out of pure kindness or in the hope of getting a reward. The second theory is that the thief was looking for money but just got a hold of a passport. He was sufficiently honest that he arranged so that the passport was returned. Yes, it is difficult to get a clear picture of how this came to be. However, one thing is absolutely clear. We will sleep well tonight.

Indian dinner with interesting colours.

Peter without passport is trying to enjoy his dinner at Rainbow Hotel.

The most unbelievable has happened. The stolen passport is back.

Sunday 31st of July

07.30 I have rarely woken up happier than I did this morning. Everything can continue as planned. The trip can be completed as it was intended. No extra plane tickets need to be bought, no embassy needs to be contacted and we can most likely experience the Seychelles before returning to Sweden. Today we are going to take it easy in the morning before we check out and travel by ferry.

08.52 The fast is over. We will soon have our morning meal. After that, I will ask the reception to contact the local police so that my theft report can be dismissed.

09.29 We have talked to the reception people and got to know that I should visit the police station personally to tell them that the passport has been found.

09.50 Now I have written a small report about the fact that the passport is back and how it happened. It is time for me to bring it with me and my theft report and go to the police station. Christer is waiting in the room in the meantime.

10.19 Before I left the hotel I talked to the man who helped me yesterday. He had spoken to a few guys that my passport was gone. At the police station, they took my report and the case was dismissed. I have returned home and will start packing.

11.09 We have checked out, paid 220 000 shillings each, got 3000 back and sit in a sofa in the lobby. We are sitting here and surf the internet because it is well early to go down to the ferry terminal already now.

11.41 Now we have walked down to the terminal. First we went into the actual terminal building, but there you cannot do anything than to wait, or to buy tickets. Outside the terminal were gentlemen that offered transport and cheap travel. To get to the boats we had to pass a gate and go along a path to a terminal building where our baggage was x-rayed, just like at an airport. It is now time to wait.

Peter is ready to leave Rainbow Hotel and Dar es Salaam.

Waiting at the ferry terminal.

We are on the sea, heading for Zanzibar.

11.52 We have moved to the waiting room. There are more people than us here. People are sitting on various chairs and wait. Fresh winds blow in from the sea.

12.17 After waiting a while in the queue we board the catamaran that will take us to Zanzibar. It turned out that our tickets qualified for places in the best salon. An annoying man has shown us where the luggage shall be placed, where we can sit and other things worth knowing. All of this so that he would be able to offer us various activities and excursions in Zanzibar. When we told them that we will stay in a completely different part of the island than what he recommended, and we do not want to donate money to him we suddenly were not as interesting anymore. He soon found new victims.

12.32 Now the Kilimanjaro IV is on the way, We are travelling with Azam Marine Kilimanjaro Fast Ferries (http://www.azammarine.com). We have been greeted welcome and have been told that the catamaran reaches Zanzibar at 20.30 tonight. It feels a bit strange. It shall not take that much time. According to what we read, this should only take about two hours. Something was very wrong there.

14.06 The journey on water continues. Everything is peaceful and quiet on our catamaran.

14.12 We are on the road to the harbour at Zanzibar. Our boat ride is soon over. A man is waiting for us there. He is sent out from the Demani Lodge, where we will stay.

14.29 As noted earlier, they have some strange procedures here. We are still in Tanzania but we had to show passports and get the backpacks examined by the customs staff.

14.48 A man with a A4 sheet of paper with my name and the new accomodation´s name waited for us. He saved us from a taxi driver who wanted to discuss with us about how things could be solved if our driver would not be in place. Our driver led us to his car which was parked a number of streets away. Apparently it was a problem with the parking spaces here in Zanzibar city, also known as Stone Town. More correctly, it is just the oldest part of the city which bears that name. Now we are going to leave the UNESCO-listed Stone Town and travel to our accommodation place on the southern part of the island.

15.12 The journey continued through Zanzibar city, Stone Town is the area closest to the port. There Farrokh Bulsara was born on the 5th of September 1946. However, he is better known as Freddie Mercury. We left the city buildings behind us and are now in a more rural setting. There are low houses and lush green trees.

15.38 Our driver, who also works as a guide is named Haji. He has stopped along the road to talk with a local woman. He inquired about a purchase of coconuts.

15.50 We have made a stop at a GAPCO gas station. Gasoline for 1955 shillings per litre has been filled into the car.

We are going with Haji from Zanzibar town to the south of the island.

The beds say welcome!.

Christer is photographing our house at Demani Lodge.

The photo looked like this.

Living in sand at Demani Lodge.

16.20 Demani Lodge (http://www.demanilodge.com/about-us) in the village of Paje is our new home. Our little cottage has the number 114. Here we will just enjoy ourselves. Our driver said it was a short walk (about 10 minutes) to the village itself where some shops can be found, but it seems to actually be quite far. Here at Demani Lodge are various different types of houses, a restaurant, a swimming pool and the whole place is like a small paradise in the middle of the countryside. Demani Lodge is built and owned by a Norwegian woman and her Tanzanian husband.

17.50 We are on the way to the reception to order our dinner. Then we come back here in to wait until the food will be ready.

19.09 The wait on food was less than we thought so we stayed at a table in front of the reception counter. The food was delicious. Now we are back in our little house for a quiet evening. We should plan our stay here. We will have two full days here and staying here until the afternoon on Wednesday.

20.42 The news has spoken about that the pope has held a speech in Poland. He wants a new humanity that does not see borders as an obstacle, which have their own culture without being self-cantered. It sounds much like something we could have said. In France, catholics and muslims met to discuss the madness that just happened, a priest killed in a church. Right now it is sports and cricket. How do they count points in that sport?

23.08 The time has come for me to follow Christer's example and tighten the mosquito net, We will soon have an island sleep for the first but not the last time on this trip. Now we´ll enjoy some nice days here in Zanzibar.