Advertisement
Published: July 25th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Tanzania
We arrived in Mwanza a town in Western Tanzania set on Lake Victoria. We spent some time exploring this small town and watching the World Cup games with the locals. We went on a safari to the Serengeti. The sheer amount of animals in this park was remarkable. The unfortunate part was that our vehicle could not leave the park roads to get closer views of the animals, unlike our safari in the Masai Mara, Kenya. We saw lions, hippos, thousands of wildebeest migrating, a leopard in a tree, impala, topi, and many other animals on our first day. We camped inside the park that night and fell asleep to the sounds of the animals. The next morning we went on a morning game drive and Rachel spotted a cheetah. We drove to Ngorongoro Crater, which is a crater where the animals live and do not leave. It is amazing to see all of the animals in such a small space. The crater has a huge water hole where the animals gather. We spotted a rhino, some sleeping lions, some awake lions right near the bathroom we had just used (!), hyenas, warthogs, zebras, elephants (one in particular that
roared and charged at our vehicle), and impala. We camped above the crater and had a herd of zebras roaming around our campground. We made our way across Tanzania via a series of long bus rides. One time in particular our bus had just left and we hired a taxi to chase after it so we could get on it since it was the last bus of the day. We arrived in Dar Es Salaam and spent a day there which was not as built up as we had imagined.
We took a ferry to Zanzibar, a small island off the coast of Tanzania. We were told the ferry left at 12:30 PM but when we arrived to the ticket booth at 11:56 AM, we were then informed that it left at noon. We had to frantically run to catch the boat. Once on the boat we found that every seat in the VIP section was full (all foreigners must buy VIP tickets). So, we asked a crew member and he led us to a private room with couches and a TV for the 3 hour ride. Our boat docked in Stone Town which is a charming place with
Wildebeest in Serengeti
We saw over 200,000 wildebeest and zebra that day. cobblestone streets that wind around in a maze-like manner. We had dinner at the local street market which sets up in a park on the water. The vendors have all different types of fresh fish and seafood which you can pick for yourself and then they barbecue it right away for you to enjoy.
The next morning we went to Nungwi beach, on the north of Zanzibar. The ocean was crystal blue and the sand was almost white. We had some time to relax at this beautiful spot. We swam in the water, walked along the beach, and Ian went on a fishing trip with some of the friends we had made (he even caught the biggest fish). Each night we had fresh fish and seafood to feast on. We had only intended to spend a few days but then we found it hard to tear ourselves away from this paradise and ended up staying longer than we had initially planned. There were no ATMs in Nungwi so we finally had no choice but to leave since we were out of the money we had taken to Nungwi! We were told that we could not take the ferry back
at the time we wanted because the army and a local bank had bought out the ferry. The story was pretty bizarre but we were able to find seats on a different ferry. Back in Dar Es Salaam we then found our that the bus we planned to take to Malawi had just stopped running since business was slow. We had to wake up really early and go to the bus station and we were pulled onto several different buses by people trying to make a few dollars off of our fare. We finally were able to get ourselves situated on a bus to Mwanza and they made sure to give us our own row of two seats. This is quite uncommon on the buses as there are always at least three people sitting in the row of two seats and five people sitting in the row with three seats and they have people sitting in the aisles. Taking the buses has been an interesting and fun experience for us.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.133s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0272s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Anita
non-member comment
:) Yippeeeeeeeee
Ian and Rachel, Very cool trip in Tanzania. Man, you make me want to go to Zanzibar! You look great with the fish, Ian! I can't wait to look at the blog for the rest of Africa. There is no way you really enjoyed those hot bus trips! :) Miss you folks! Antia