Blogs from Nungwi, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Africa - page 5

We were in Tanzania over our birthday week. My birthday is February 18th. Chelly's birthday is February 24th. We spent the week of February 18th to February 24th, 2010 in Tanzania. Tanzania was two countries before 1964, when Tanganyika and the Zanzibar archipelago united to become the United Republic of Tanzania. Zanzibar has a very colorful history. Settled by human beings for 20,000 years, Zanzibar was once said to rule the entire coast of East Africa. The island was in it's "Golden Age" before the colonization by the British, subsequent independence, revolution, and absorption by Tanganyika into the new country "Tanzania". On Zanzibar, they still behave as if it were a separate country, stamping passports, selling visas, setting up military checkpoints, etc. We were there from February 18th to 24th and only took a few pictures. ... read more

So from the craziness of the few weeks before Christmas and the Kenya - Uganda - Rwanda - Uganda - Kenya loop it was time to cross into Tanzania and experience some real African wildlife moments. From our base in Arusha we took a three day trip to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater as a wonderful introduction to Tanzania. The Serengeti of course is one of the most famous National Parks in Africa and its huge 14,000 sq km size means it was always going to be an exciting adventure to see what animals we were going to meet there. We worked out that in the two half day game drives in the park we probably didn’t even cover 1% of the park so in fact we were incredibly lucky to see the array of wildlife ... read more

9/9 - 18/9 Our 7 hour bus trip from Arusha to the coast was going relatively smoothly (well, as much as is possible in Tanzania …lots of unsurfaced roads, driving on the other side for no apparent reason and hair raising overtaking) until just outside Tanga when the bus gave up the ghost. We waited for a while but lost faith in the guy wielding a rusty looking wrench so decided to jump on a dala dala - a kind of mini-bus that drives even more crazily than the main buses and takes anything that breathes - ie people, chicken, goats… From Tanga then, we caught the last bus from Tanga to Pangani River. We stayed at a very tranquil little place just north of Pangani called Peponi’s. It’s run by Jilly and Denys who are ... read more

Hey everyone !!! So i am back in Dar Es Salaam and in an internet cafe that is extreemly slow but because I love you guys so much i decided to update all about my vacation in Zanzibar and about my upcoming adventures. I believe i stopped at us hanging out in Kendwa. Emily and I decided to stay a second night in Kendwa and go snorkeling in what we were told is the most beautiful area to snorkel on the island. As we were walking the streets a lady came up to us and showed us a business card and told us she can get it for us for cheaper as well as rides back to stone town. We asked about her in the hotel and the people in the receptions told us she is ... read more

Monday morning, Luc and I caught a bus from Moshi to Dar Es Salaam. It left around six o'clock in the morning and didn't arrive in Dar until around 2pm. Eight hours on the bus across one of Africa's bigger countries was not too comfortable but not one of the worst journeys I have been on during my time in Africa. Luc found it very hard despite the fact she was asleep for the majority of it. Upon arriving in Dar we were greeted by lots and lots of taxi drivers all offering the "many cheapest price" to the ferry for Zanzibar. The first price quoted was 20,000 TSH which is about £10. After a bit of arguing and me being generally stubborn we managed a price of 11,000 for a half an hour journey. Once ... read more