Blogs from Pangani, East, Tanzania, Africa

Up at 6:30 am, tents down and everything packed and ready to load into the truck, breakfast at 7:30, departure at 8: we are getting into the routine of things.  We are traveling with Geckos, one of many overland tour companies. By now we realize that our reasons for choosing them were the right ones: large tents that we can stand up in and a cook traveling with the group. We have come to appreciate both, although the heavy canvas tents weigh about 50 kg and erecting them rips bare hands to shreds. We are expected to help our cook prepare things, like 'choppy, choppy', but he plans everything and does the grocery shopping. The food is wonderful and there is plenty of it. And we all pitch in to do the dishes and air dry ... read more

After pushing my way out of Dar es Salaam to Lushoto and then to Tanga on a series of hot, slow dalla dallas and buses that seemed to always be on the verge of breaking down -loudly shaking down the road like we were preparing for take off- I opted to stop at the first beachside place that offered camping and call it my home for a couple of days. To save a bit of money I said I sorta had a tent and hoped they wouldn't say anything after I set up my mosquito net under their tent shelter. Everytime I go back to my little gypsy home I expect there to be a note saying that my 'tent' isn't adequate and I need to rent one- but so far so good. When people ... read more

After a rather entertaining evening involving a tent earthquake and some very drunk truck members we set of for a long drive across Tanzania towards the coast. Due to the miles between Arusha and Dar Es Salaam we stopped over night in a town called Pangani. Not much to say except the water was brown and the beer was warm......... read more

We traveled this last week down to the Tanga region and while we where there, we were able to walk around and take a historical tour of the Pangani coastal village. Settled just North of Dar es Salam along the Indian ocean off the eastern coast of Tanzania. The largest town near Pangani is called Tanga, which is about 47km away. We have a church that meets in Tanga, but we were unable to locate it while we were there but no church of Christ meeting in Pangani. In fact the locals said that there are no Europeans, Americans, and very few other nationalities of any kind living in Pangani proper... They said maybe one Indian family and that was all that they could think of. Since we have returned home we've located the phone number ... read more