TANZANIA
Arusha (23.-24.1.) On SAFARI - Serengeti and Ngorongoro (25.-28.1.) On the first day, we drove from Arusha through Ngorongoro directly to Serengeti.
The journey started with shopping for supplies like charcoal, fruits, and vegetables along the way and
then took 7 hours. The road led us through beautiful, surprisingly green country. From the
plains beneath Mt. Meru, we ascended to 2400m at the rim of 600m-deep and 15km-wide
Ngorongoro Crater. From a view point on the rim, we were able to see the
flat bottom of the crater. There is a small lake being fed by a river in
the middle. There is also a small forested area, but otherwise it is just
a huge short-grass pasture packed with wildlife. From the crater rim, we descended down to the vast planes
of Serengeti. As far as we could see, there were herds of zebras and
wildebeests. Serengeti is an annual witness to one of the last wildlife migrations on the earth
- every year, about one million of wildebeests and over two hundred thousand
zebras
migrate between the neighboring parks of Masai Mara (in southern Kenya) and Serengeti
(in northern Tanzania). Lushoto (30.1.-1.2.) After Dar es Salaam (2.-3.2.) Only a small fishing village existed
for a long time at the place of today's Tanzania capital. In 1860s, the
sultan of Zanzibar attempted to build a commercial port there, but he died
before bringing his plan to completion. In 1880s, Dar es Salaam became the center of Christian
missions from Europe and in 1891 the German colonial government moved here. Shortly
after, the capitol developed into an economical center of Tanzania and its
population grew to over two million inhabitants today. Zanzibar (4.-11.2.) Zanzibar We arrived to Zanzibar in the
evening and barely managed to find a place to stay before dark - and
clearly unsafe to walk through the streets. In
the morning of the next day, February 4, we got our first real look at Stone
town, the famous capitol of Zanzibar. It is a maze of narrow
streets lined with white Arab houses decorated with beautifully carved wooden doors.
Guidebooks talk about a charming town with unique ambience, but we
found this place to fall short of its reputation, with dirty streets and
houses in a state of disrepair. Despite the charms of the Swahili culture, we found
other cities, like for example Jaisalmer in India, considerably more
attractive. Being under constant attack by local touts and from time to
time followed by unknown people did not help to enhance our experience. The weather improved in the afternoon and we decided to go for a
stroll along a beach south of the city centre. The beach was empty and not
particularly pretty and as we were watching the ocean, we talked about our
disappointment
with Zanzibar and decided that instead of spending a week on a beach here,
we would go back to the mainland and then leave Africa to spend more time
in Asia instead.
As we turned back to return to the city, happy with our resolution, a man
appeared from the bushes. As he slowly walked in our direction, we noticed
a beer bottle in his hand. Before we managed to give it a second thought,
he got within a few steps from us, broken the bottle by smashing it
against a rock and
attacked Marek, who carried our waist pack, asking for money. While Jitka
jumped away and ran to a safe distance, Marek was able to use his umbrella
to keep the attacker at a distance. Unfortunately, second man approached
from behind and before Marek noticed him, he cut him and inflicted several deep and long wounds on
his right forearm. Having both attackers in front of him and seeing Jitka
in reasonably safe distance, Marek decided to
counterattack. The umbrella has proven to be a good weapon and the two man
were soon running away, one with broken nose. Without
hesitation, we ran in the other direction. Only now Marek noticed the
dripping blood and the
seriousness of his wounds. Half a kilometer later, we came across some
other people. Despite initial
reluctance, after seeing blood-stained cloth and opened wounds on Marek's
hands, they showed us a way and lead us to a nearby clinic. We were
fortunate that the local private clinic was less than 5
minutes away. We ran in and a nurse immediately called a surgeon who
appeared within 15 minutes on his scooter. Less than 30 minutes after the
attack, Marek was in the operating room. Due to the injuries, Marek was very
weak and head no strength in his hands. He could not lift a glass of water,
not mentioning a backpack. We realized we needed to stay
on Zanzibar for a few more days to give Marek time to regain some
strength. However, instead of sitting in the hotel room, already on
February 7th, we decided to go for the postponed Spice Tour. We enjoyed it a lot, seeing
for the first time plants like cocoa, clove, pepper, cinnamon, vanilla or
nutmeg grow in the nature. The tour also included very tasty lunch
seasoned with various local spices.
We need to say that the beaches and especially the ocean on Zanzibar are amazing. The coral sand stays cool even under the burning sun and the color of the ocean is truly unique. Still, this place lacked some of the ambiance and easy-goingness that we liked so much on Ko-Samui in Thailand. Within few days Marek got too bored to stay any longer. On February 11, we returned to Stone Town and took a ferry directly back to Dar es Salaam. Dar Es Salaam (12.-13.2.) We did not plan to stay in Dar Es Salaam any longer than needed to arrange logistics of further travel. At the beginning of our stay in Tanzania, we learned that we had to return from our one-year trip 3 months earlier than originally planned. We had to make significant changes to our plans. In Dar Es Salaam, we needed to completely rebook our around-the-world flight tickets. The staff of the local British Airways office did not appear to have much experience with around-the-world tickets. However, after several visits to the office and many hours of talking with them we eventually received our new tickets. They were all hand-written, hard to read and with stickers correcting several errors they made while issuing them, but they worked. Changing our flight from Nairobi to Singapore proved to be much easier. Emirate Airlines were very flexible and customer-friendly in this regard. We even did not have to pay any change fee. On February 14, we took a 14-hour bus ride from Dar Es Salaam directly to Nairobi and one day later left Africa on a flight to Singapore.
Notes about Tanzania: Regardless the mugging experience, East Africa left us with mixed feelings. We were captivated by the nature, but disillusioned by our encounters with people. Compared to Asia, people were less friendly and many appeared aggressive, even hostile. On the other hand, our best experience, the safari, was so amazing that we would not hesitate to go back for another safari experience again.
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Tanzania Population: 37 000 000 Population growth: 2,60% Literacy rate: 91,8%
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February 23, we crossed the border
between Kenya and Tanzania and
arrived in Arusha (after about 6 hours on a bus). Arusha is one of the most developed and
fastest growing cities in Tanzania. It lies underneath the second highest mountain of
Tanzania, the volcano Mt. Meru (4566m). It is a center for UN operations and also a
tourist hub for organizing safaris to nearby wildlife parks Serengeti, Ngorongoro
Crater, Lake Manyara and others. 
set up our camp in
a small
campground in the middle of the wilderness. During the following two days, we
went on several wildlife drives in the park. It was an amazing experience. We saw
elephants,
giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, cheetahs, leopards, lions, rhinos, buffalos, gazelles,
several kinds of antelopes, hyenas, warthogs, baboons, hyraxes, jackals, ostriches,
storks, cranes, eagles and other birds. We were amazed how close were were able to get to
the animals - within a few meters, sometimes they even passed just along the side of our
car.
returning from the safari, we stayed in Arusha for one
more day and then took a bus to Lushoto on January 30. Lushoto is a small
town high in the Usambara Mountains. This mountain region is
one of the most densely populated areas of the Tanzania countryside, with
many villages set among the red-soil hills. However, there are not only farm
fields, but also some tropical forests and even pine trees.
had been known as an important trading place
since in 700BC, when Arabs started to trade in east Africa. The Golden age
of Zanzibar was between the 12th and 15th century, when gold, ivory, wood and
slaves were exported form Africa to Arabia, Persia, and India. Especially
the trade with slaves made the island (in)famous. At the peak of the trade,
up to 50 thousands of slaves passed through the Zanzibar markets every year. Zanzibar
imported not only goods (mostly spices, glass and textile), but also Islamic
and Arabic architecture. In the 16th century, Zanzibar was first ruled by
Portuguese
and then by Oman Arabs. Zanzibar was also a stopping place for British ships
on their route to India. The Arab domination weakened in the 19th
century and in 1862 the sultan of Zanzibar became independent from the Oman
supremacy. The Zanzibar sultans continued to rule the island under the
British protectorate until 1963 when independence was granted. One year
later, Zanzibar entered a union with Tanzania.
addition to its
Stone Town, Zanzibar is also known for the great variety of spices that
grow here. Local tourist agencies organize half-day Spice Tours,
and we thought it would be a good experience to see how the spices we know
in their dried from or by taste of food on our dinner plates grow in the nature. However, since it heavily rained all
night and also in the morning of February 5, we decided to postpone the
tour.
February 8, we took a taxi to the town of
Nungwi, which is located on the north shore of the island.
We decided that since we have to stay on Zanzibar little longer, it will
be better to spend the time on a beach, rather than in Stone Town. We rented a room in an uninspiring hotel right on the beach. The
place had only a few tourists staying there and it was considered safe along the
beachfront. Since Marek had to stay out off the sun, we did pretty much nothing
during the day and went for walks to the local fishing villages and along
the beaches in the mornings and before sunsets. We watched the locals
work on their fishing boats and collect shells during low tide. We also
witnessed them to catch a sea turtle. Luckily, a local aquarium acquired
funds to be able to purchase the protected turtles from local
fisherman and release them back to the ocean.