Blogs from Tanzania, Africa - page 394

Over the centuries, Zanzibar’s cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper and many other spices brought the sultans of Oman across the Indian Ocean by dhow on the seasonal trade winds. For 15 US$ dollars, a full-day Spice Tour was available. It was said that will introduce us to most of Zanzibar's spices and fruits, and not only that, we'll see a few historical sites - old slave market and cave, ruined sultan's palace, baths and if you are lucky, a few historical sites too - such as the old slave market or a ruined sultan’s palace. Our tour was by dala-dala (pick-up trucks converted into buses) and included good lunch of traditional Zanzibar food. On a way towards the “core” fields of Spice tours we went past the Livingstone house. This was used by Europeans whilst starting their ... read more

Let's go to Zanzibar... All I ever knew before is, that is an island faaaaar away with sexy name... Oh, and beside that, Freddie Mercury (Queen) was born there... So, the our boat was already waiting for us... At first, I was thinking to go with a dhow, but as this is supposedly illegal and as it takes too long (just a few weeks before i saw Michael Palin travelling from Dubai to Mumbai on a dhow), we kinda agreed on something a bit faster... actually, we bought tickets a fast boat, Flying Horse, for 30US$... (two ways). Actually, this was quite expensive, especially compared to what the locals pay... but ok, i will earn (someday in the future - hopefully) much more money than them... 2 and a half hour trip is quite uneventful. Ok, ... read more

We came late night back to Arusha... so, we have some for planning our future trip. Let's climb Kilimanjaro... :) Cool, lets do it... And it hit us... well, guys... basically, you cannot afford it... it costs 500US$+ for just a few days, and you already spent almost half of your budget in the first week... damn... what a disappointment, no Kilimanjaro... Mount Meru is cheaper and lower, but the weather isn't favorable, and we are a bit not interested to stay in Arusha for a few more days... What about trip to the west, towards central Tanzania and Lake Victoria... not a bad idea, but we were put of by reports of extremely bad roads and 24 hours trip on a bus... We were even thinking about going to Usumbara mountains, but at the end ... read more

Lets go to safari. The car came for us in time. Driver was only like 10 minutes late and that was excellent in »african« time... Jeep was quite big, made for 4 tourists including the driver, cook and a guide... Well... there were 6 of us, so, we had to squeeze a bit. Other 4 tourists consisted a couple from UK (he did some voluntary work for a few months in a village near Moshi) and two girls from Denmark (quite annoying, but they had an interesting gadget, a digital camera!!!). Some kilometers from Arusha roads suddenly became gravel, and soon it was time to turn towards the national parks (if we continued on that road we would come to the western part of Tanzania, quite many hours later). On »safari« highway we passed many small ... read more

Africa... first stop... Entebbe... where the hell did I hear that name from? Ups... some decades ago an abducted plane landed there, and some people never left Uganda... Again, since the beginning of 80th, this should be a relatively safe country. One thing struck me... the african heat when stepping out of the plane during our one hour stop. Soon, we were in the clouds again, passing Victoria lake and Kilimanjaro... Final stop... Dar es Salaam.. To be honest, i didn't know much about Tanzania before. Fortunately i bought myself a Lonely planet just a few days before. And let me say, its my first trip outside Europe. And let me add, we both are completely unprepared and without any previous travel experiences. But, why complicate things, lets enjoy... And we did... when getting visas we ... read more