The big event of today was crossing the border into Tanzania, which is a little like Tasmania but with different letters. Nation 121. I’ve got to a whopping EIGHT countries in just ten days and I was (understandably) feeling rather happy about the current turn of evens.

What I less happy about was my seat on the coach. Sat in the middle of the back row and with no back window, there was no way I could see – much less film – any of the exciting Tanzania stuff that was no doubt whizzing past. I was also less than impressed by the fact that – once again – the nation had just decided to embark on a whole new programme of road building just as I show up, turning a projected 12 hour journey from the border into a 20-hour slog.

I contacted my Dar es Salaam Couch Surf contact, a soft-spoken Canadian guy called Dylan, but I was uncomfortable putting him through the same nonsense as Jason, and given he had to be up at 5.30am, I figured it might be an idea to crash out at a guesthouse. Which is what I did – eventually. The fist place I tried was full (I love waking up guesthouse owners in the middle of the night, they’re always so pleased to see me!) but the second place, the Jambo, had a room for me. Grotty doesn’t begin to describe and the shower was cold, but after the previous few days, I was happy to just get my head down.