Zanzibar - Sunday 2/19 We slept in a bit Sunday morning because we didn’t have to leave for the tour until 9:00 am when they were to pick us up. We enjoyed a breakfast of toast and jam, coffee/tea, and the strange fried eggs they cook up in this part of Africa. It turns out that the egg yolks here are almost white, not yellow. They stir the yolk around before frying the egg into an overdone fried egg with no yolk. About 9:00 we wandered out into the lane in front of the hotel to wait for our ride. To [View Full Entry]

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Stonetown - Saturday 2/18 When we arrived at Victoria Hotel we were charmed by the setting opposite Victoria Park, the feeling of the hotel. An old, heavyset woman dressed in black sat in a chair under a tree in front. As we approached the door a gofer guy came out. We asked if they had a room for two. He said yes and started to get a key. With that, the old woman said “no rooms … the toilet doesn’t work.” We had been told by another traveler in Dar that the place was under renovation, but we really wanted a [View Full Entry]

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Ferry to Zanzibar - Saturday 2/18 Because we didn’t have to be at the ferry until ten, we had plenty of time to wake up and eat breakfast at a leisurely pace. We packed only our daypacks for the two nights in Zanzibar and left main packs with the hotel for $500 Tsh each per day. Originally we had planned to walk to the ferry, but due to our leisurely pace we were running late and had to take a cab. It was probably best that we did, because our driver was able to drop us off right in front of [View Full Entry]

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Loshoto to Dar Es Salaam - Thursday After a greasy omelet breakfast we left St. Benedicts to catch a bus to Mombo. We had heard that we could take a dalla dalla (Toyota van) to Mombo for 1,000 TSh (about 90¢) then catch an express bus to Dar. We found one near the front of the queue and hopped in. We knew that the dalla dalla wouldn’t leave until it filled up so after ten minutes or so of waiting Marie hopped out and started soliciting fares. Mombo, Mombo! she would shout, gesturing her arms toward the van. The driver, [View Full Entry]

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Hiking Around Lushoto - Wednesday, 2-15-06 I partially woke up the next morning at about 5:00 Am when the roosters began to crow, then other birds began to sing and whistle. This was followed at about 5:30 by the imam groaning his call to prayer over loudspeakers installed in the minarets a few blocks away. About 6:00 AM the church bell began ringing the faithful to mass. Soon the warbling bus horns began calling fares to take their seats. Next came a sound like someone hitting a pot with a wooden spoon. This was the first call to students to get [View Full Entry]

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Arriving in Loshoto Like the town, the Lushoto bus station is small but it has all the accoutrements of bus stations everywhere … cab drivers, touts, food vendors, newspaper vendors, etc. all hawking their wares or services. Standing there with our suitcases and looking like antelope to a pride of Lions we freaked and tried to scurry up the road to safety. A few of the more persistent official tourist bureau guides followed us. We succumbed to one of them and went to the official tourist bureau office. With hindsight, I think it might actually have been the offi [View Full Entry]

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Bus Ride to Loshoto - Tuesday, 2-14-06 For 8,500 TSh each (Tanzanian shillings, about $8) we bought bus tickets to Lushoto. It turns out that I bought tickets for a non-express bus, so it stopped along the way for just about anyone who wanted a ride. Unlike India we didn’t have to share our seats with one or more passengers and they didn’t fill up the aisles with people and luggage. Although like India, the bus had a driver, head conductor and assistant conductor. At bus depots vendors hawk everything from food to trinkets to shoes and almost anything else for [View Full Entry]

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Moshi - Mt. Kilimanjaro 2-13-06 We left Kampala at 5:10 Am on a well maintained, Kenya Air 737 jet. The 1-1/2 hour flight to Nairobi was uneventful as was the turboprop flight to Kilimanjaro airport. Upon arrival we learned that there are no busses from the airport to Moshi where we planned to stay. It cost $50 US to take a cab for the 15 mile ride to town. Tell me cabbies aren’t the same everywhere. Later we learned that we could have taken a cab about 1 mile to the main road and flagged down a bus from there to [View Full Entry]

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Chimp Island 2-12-06 We woke early to leave by 7:30 for the Embassy boat to take us to Chimp Island. After a 45 minute drive we arrived at the boat landing and were joined up with two other embassy people plus two US based State Dept people, one of whom was the top person for assorted ecology related projects in Africa. Due to a stupidly designed hydroelectric dam where the White Nile exits Lake Victoria, the water level has lowered by about six feet over the past four years. Given that it is the second largest fresh water lake in the [View Full Entry]

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Kampala - Thurs, Feb 2, 2006 We were greeted at 6:30 AM by our driver, Dominic, a cheerful and knowledgeable Ugandan. His skin is a warm, dark chocolate and his forehead has a ridge-like rounded protrusion, not enough to be ugly, just distinctive (We subsequently learned that he was once a truck mechanic and that his skull was crushed when a helper dropped one end of a drive shaft on his head. He was in the hospital more than six months and physical therapy for another year.) Dominic greets each of us with a soft hello and handshake, then loads up [View Full Entry]

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