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Published: March 26th 2007
Tanzania!! Got through the border without any probs, other than the th US$50 fee for a visa! Crikey, thats almost as much as Disneyland 😊
Drove for most of day and just relaxed on the truck and took in the countryside - very beautiful. We arrived at our camp, called 'The Old Farm House' in the early afternoon. A neat camp, no electricity, and in the middle of absoluely nowhere! Kristi and I up-graded to "The Stables' which consisted of a very cute little room in a converted stable, with stone walls and wooden floors dominated by a lovely big BED - yippee!! No tents or roll-mats tonight 😊 Very cute room, came complete with mosquito nets AND a kerosene lantern - we were sooo the envy of everyone else 😉 (only cost US$12 too!)
The bar at the camp was adorable - it was basically a large thatch hut with lots of rugs and mats on the floor, the seating was either stuffed sacks, or tiny little stools (about 25cm high). Had a really cool atmosphere and was kept toasty warm with several little iron cauldrens full of hot coals and kerosene lamps hanging from the roof
- gave the plave a really cosy atmosphere and we spent quite a bit of time there after dark. They also did a wonderful hot chocolate with Amarula - yummy!!! Even came with a delicious chcolate brownie 😊 - kristi had 2!! Was very cute, they boiled the kettle for the hot choco on the little cauldrens and the barman was soooo proud of himself 😊
The facilities were simple - long drops and fire heated tank for showers - but was extremely clean and well maintained, had a great night sleep 😊 Long drops were the best we've ever seen with real toilet seats at normal height and they must have been VERY long as you couldn't even smell anything - yippee!
A very early start the next day for one of the last huge drives of the tour (600+km - thats a long way on African roads, on a truck that only does 80km/h at full speed!).
A rather non-eventful drive overall as we really pushed on through in order to reach Dar es salaam at a decent hour. We played an EPIC game of 500 against Matt & Ange! (kiwi couple) Lasted 20 odd hans
and about 3hrs!! I thnk we actually won eventually but in all honesty we were all too tired to care in the end! Bumpy roads in Tanzania - made sitting in the back of the truck quite exciting - you never know when you are going to end up airborne 😉
Camp site at Dar' seemed really nice at first glance, but was actually a filthy, manky pit!! Hahaha, we have stayed in nicer bush camps! Just about every facility they had was broken, including all toilets and running water... "so where did you go whoopsey?" ...I hear you ask, well good question! we had to hold on and think of Christmas!
Dinner at the restaurant was nice though, a very good buffet. The bar was OK, but dodgy in the sense that they had NO CHANGE at all, and seemed to think it was OK for us to pay in large denominations and then get no change at all 😞 On the up-side Kristi managed to use the internet for about 1.5hrs without paying - woohoo!!
Bed couldn't come soon enough, and to make a rough day rougher, it rained all night and the tents were
like saunas - we had to stick our heads out at regular intervals just to breathe!!
Very excited this morning as we are off to Zanzibar Island!! (also called Spice Island). 5am start to beat the Dar es Salaam traffic and catch the 7am ferry.
Ferry ride was fine, everyone was buzzing about finally reaching Zanzibar, this was one of things Martin was most looking forward too!
Arrived at Stone Town and quickly got settled into the 'Karibu Inn' a nice clean hotel right in the middle of town. This really is a crazy place, the architechture and people are an eclectic mix of Arfican, Arab and Portugese. The building are all multiple split level, like something out of Alladin, and the streets are all incredibly narrow. But the coolest aspect of Stone Town is by far the DOORS 😊 Every house, shop and building has a hugely impressive front door!! There are 2 basic variables - Arab/African doors - with have rounded or peaked tops or Indian doors - whch have a flat top. The variey within these two themes is endless, with ornate carving and huge brass fixtures being the most popular - Martin took many
many photos!!
Because the group arrived very early, we were able to do the fabled 'Spice Tour' on our first day. This was a fantastic tour, one of the best we've ever done!! 😊 We had an African Guide 'Salima' and he spent 5hrs taking us on a whirlwind tour of Stone town, Zanzibar itself and the fascinating history of the Island and its people. It began with a breif histroy of Stone town, it major sights and the history - including some horrific details of the slave trade and some fascinating details of the life of Dr David Livingstone (I presume!). Next we charged off to the outskirts of town for a look at the remains of a Sultans palace and the towns fresh water system which was erected in the 1820s and still functions perectly today!
Next we left town to head up to a couple of the famous Spice farms, both a Government owned and private one. This was simply marvelous!! too much interesting stuff to mention here, but basically we learned about all the major herbs, fruits and spices of the island, how they are grown, cured and used etc. There were tons of
samples to be had, cinnimon bark fresh off the tree etc and a fantastic sampling of tea and fruit at the end 😊 This tour was incredible - capivating in the extreme and a complete explosion to the senses - I would recommend it anyone who goes to Zanzibar!!
After the tour everyone was buzzing! We chilled out for a few hours then headed off as a group to 'Africa House' a very flash 3 storey bar over-looking the water, famous for its beautiful view of the Zanzibar sunset. Drinks were very expensive, but we didn't let that stop us knocking back several exotic cocktails!!
Next stop was the 'Night Market' on the water front. This was basically a selection of portable carts with cooking facilities, run by locals. Tons of people go there for dinner every night, as there was a huge variety of foods to be had, from fish kebabs to semosas to the famous 'Zanzibar Pizza' (which was suspiciously similar to ones we have had in Asia!). All of the food was extremely yummy and wickedly cheap! We even had fresh sugar cane juice - squeezed straight form the stalk! A very fun way to
eat, as all the servings very very small, so we ended up going to several different stalls. Great fun, and a cool way to meet the locals and sample the local flavours 😊 Went to bed quite late, one of the best days in Africa to date!
Had a sparse brekkie at the Karibu Inn (not eating eggs, Martin was in trouble in Zanzibar as that's all they seem to serve for breakfast!) and then prepared to head up to the northern Beaches. Krist & I, and Matt & Ange both hired motorbikes to drive up north on (the rest of the group were staying togther and spending another night in Stone Town). We felt that we would make the most of the opportunity to spend some time alone 😊
A fun drive up on our bike ( a little red Vespa type thingee - with a whacky handle bar mounted gear/clutch system!). Matt & Ange were suposed to get the same sort of bike, but ended up with a huge dirt bike!! Luckily Matt is an old hand on farm bikes and had no problems - other than the fact that he had no shoes!! The guy
hiring the bikes ended up giving Matt his!!
We drove up in convoy and managed not to get lost! Was a fun drive actually, took about 1.5hrs and rained periodically. We then split up in search of the perfect hotel, Matt & Ange started on the left, Kristi and I on the right - ironically we ended up getting rooms at the same hotel - about 10metres apart - great minds think alike eh!!? Although Kristi and I did check out about 10 hotels (in the 38degree heat!!) Gorgeous spot - "Amaan Inn" - the rooms overhang the crystal clear water and offer a beautiful, unspoilt view of the ocean 😊 Spent the afternoon chilling in paradise - swimming in the very warm water and topped off with a yummy pizza dinner at 'Fat Fish' the hotels' restaurant. One memorable moment was when we were watching the cricket at the bar (NZ vs West Indies) chatting to an aussie guy and his wife - a Gecko fell a clear 30ft from the roof, straight into Colleens drink!! - Unbelievable - a mm either way and it would have missed!! The bar tender just about wet himself - as did
we!
Next day was a beauty - a day in Paradise!! Started with another sparse brekkie. We spent the whole day chilling on our private deck, reading, drinking and watching the water - the most significant outings were a few quick blatts down into town, and the neighbouring beach - notable because Kristi elected to ride 'side-sadle' as she was wearing a skirt. This resulted in Martin managing to take every possible narrow route he could... and poor Kristi legs got repeatedly bashed against rocks, trees and locals!! (heehee) We had lunch at a funky place on the beach - fanatstic Chipati's!! YUMM!! the couple who owned the place were ex-pat brits, who'd been on Zanzibar for 10yrs. They had a very cool collection of kittens and dogs to amuse us while lunch came 😊 Dinner at Fat fish again - not so flash tonight, about 6/10! Both very tired from all the nothing we had done, so had a relatively early night! 😊
A lovely slow day today. Woke early and had a walk along beach, then did nothing of note until lunch at the Chipati place again - YUMMx2 - they even prepared our 'usual' meal
purely based on yesterdays order! It's nice to feel wanted eh! Kristi needed a new book to read and ended up buying one circa 1945!! We had a 'seista' after lunch and only surfaced shortly before dinner time - perfect! Had a meal at 'Paradise Hotel' - decidedly average! Then we retired early(ish) as it was our last night on the island - a cat follwed us home and spent about 15minutes crying at our door 😞 reminded us of poor little Bali!!
Early start to ensure we didn't miss the ferry! Crazy drive back!! - raining cats and dogs and flash floods everywhere - barely managed to coax our putzy little scooter throuigh some 40cm deep 'puddles'!! A bit hairy for a while, but we made it! At least we had rain jackets - Matt and Ange had nothing - they were soaked! The ferry ride back to Dar es Salaam was quite rough and several people voiced there objections via chunky trails behind the boat!! Stopped at supermarket on the way back to camp to restock the essentials - beer and chips - then back to the horrible camp at Dar!! On the plus side we had
another yummy buffet at restaurant, on the negative side this was followed by another suffocating night in sauna-tents! 😞
Early start (yay!! couldn't wait to leave that camp!!) for the final big drive. Stopped along the way for a view of Kilimanjaro (but couldn't see it behind the clouds!) Other than that we just drove all day until we reached 'Masai camp' at Arusha. Very cool bar/restaurant here - had a yummy dinner at the restaurant - we were free to order pretty much anything on the menu!! Was a great meal followed by some drinks at the bar 😊
A lazy morning as we didn't have to be ready for anything until 3pm. A bit of a sleep in and then Kristi and I headed down into the 'bright lights' of Arusha. Were given excellent directions by Patrick our driver - first time I've been given street directions that involved no less than 3 sequences of dancing!! A decent walk (8km return) but we needed the exercise! Used the internet in town and had a looksey - nothing too exciting - but a very clean and quaint medium sized town. Left Masai camp at about 2.30-3pm to
head to the legendary Ngorogoro Crater!! We travelled in 3 4x4 vans, the same we would use for the game drive the following day. Saw many Masai tribesmen on the way - they are really quite an awesome sight - if a little freaky at the same time! They clearly don't operate according to the same set of rules as the rest of us - they wander through borders and towns with no acknowledgement whatsoever - nor do the officials even seem to see them!! Weird. Arrived at 'Crater View Inn' at about 5pm and upgraded to a very cute room with a magnificent 4 poster bed!! Kristi was feeling a bit murky today so took it easy, but had a wonderful 3 course meal at the hotel restaurant - our guide Mwangi has been treating us!! Martin the avocado-hater even ate, and enjoyed, the guacomole!! Crikey!
Early start for our drive into the Ngorogoro Crater, there was some very thick fog/mist cover threatening to spoil the views, but we quickly realized that these were actually clouds and once we descended into the crater we dropped below into lovely clear weather.
A fantastic day of game watching, best of
the tour by a country mile!! Saw loads of Wildebeast, Zebra and Buffalo - in huge herds. Plenty of elephants and lions around - including a pride of lions where one was actually sleeping on the edge of one of the game driving trucks!! Saw Hyenas for the first time and got a distant glance at a pair of black rhinos!! Very rare! The crater itself is truly breathtaking - a lush 20km radius of grass lands surrounded by imposing 600m cliffs all around - an absolutely magic place in the world!! In a day where we saw more than we could have hoped for, we stumbled onto another amnazing spotting 😊 Before lunch we had stopped to watch a lioness chasing a group of Zebra, however as she was alone no-one thought she had much chance of bringing one down - so we went off to a santuary for lunch... as soon as we left the lunch stop we noticed a convergence of trucks and sure enough the lion was in the process of bringing down a big-ass Zebra!! We got to see the final struggle of the poor Zebra as it fought for it life.. and the gruesome
sight of the lionesses head emerging, dripping in blood!! Extremely horrid, yet incredible in its own way!! - Makes for some great photos! After this unfortunately our time in the Crater was at an end (already about 2 hours over time). This meant navigating "the ascent road" - goodness me what an experience that was! phew! the road was very steep with sheer drops on one side of the van, and the higher we got, the higher those drops became! At some points it seemed the roads were only as wide as the van! To make this even more exciting, we even had to get out and push at one point as our poor van got stuck on some rocks! But eventually we made it and headed back to Arusha and Masai Camp for our last night in Tanzania, with a few stops for "kodak moments" on the way.
Another yummy dinner that night at the restaurant at Masai Camp and a quiet and early night .... well so we thought until the barking dogs started up a couple of hours later and went ALL NIGHT LONG! (This campsite is situated cunningly beside a dog refuge!!!)
Early start
next morning for the Kenyan border!!
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Althea
non-member comment
Jambo!
Hello from the bottom of the world. Loved reading about Tanzania- look forward to the entry on Kenya. Remember to batten down the hatches in Nairobi! Althea