My Mom and Aunt L came for two weeks in January. We did some stuff around Dar, a safari, and then had a finisher in Zanzibar (it was so blisteringly hot that I saw my Mom swim for the first time in 30 years). Here is her take on the trip:
L and I met on January 11th and flew KLM to Amsterdam where we arrived in the very early morning and spent 3 hours waiting for our flight to Dar es Salaam. There were many people going to Tanz to climb Kilimanjaro and many others going to various places there to do assorted volunteer things. About 8 hours later we arrived at “Kili” airport – I don’t know if I am allowed to call it that since I have not climbed it but I will anyway – and many more got on – those who had climbed it and were headed back to Amsterdam. It is “an easy climb” – not steep but the elevation and the cold are problems. The two men who sat beside me for the hour flight to Dar had climbed and had been on a 3 day safari. They were Spanish with almost no English but they told me the names of the animals they had seen – with the few English words they had and with assorted grunts and snuffles. I think one was a warthog.
We arrived at Dar about midnight and G and J were there to meet us – we went to their place by taxi – less than an hour at that time of night. Dar has almost 4 million people and many of them are very poor without electricity or running water but it is a friendly city with many, many very colourful street scenes. We had 2 days in Dar during which we recovered from our flight and visited. We went to an area called Slipway the first afternoon – it is on the Indian Ocean and is a shopping area with nice shops including one with furniture and home décor accessories made from old dhows which are the boats that are still used by locals. After window shopping and getting some Tanzanian shillings we needed to have a drink and some lunch sitting overlooking the ocean and the sand beach.
That evening we went out to dinner with Canadian friends of G and J – some of them lawyers working for a period in Dar and a girl from Shippegan, NB who works for one of the banks. Dar has all the various types of restaurants and this one was Indian.
J had to work the next day but G, L and I went to the Village Museum which has reproductions of 20 of the 120 tribal houses that exist(ed) in Tanzania – an African Upper Canada Village with a very good tour guide followed by local dancing and singing. We came home in a 3 wheeled thing called a bajaj taking a short cut over a dreadful rutted road. I don’t know how it would be passable at all in the wet season and probably it isn’t.
That evening the 4 of us went to an Italian restaurant on the ocean’s edge taking a taxi though a very busy street. There are often Maasai warriers in their red plaid blankets and their spears guarding the cars in the parking lots and here we saw the first ones. Apparently the advantage of hiring them is that they hire one and all their friends come to visit so they get lots of guards for the price of one. We watched the tide come in or go out – even 2 Maritimers couldn’t tell the difference - and crabs scuttled along the beach while we ate and then had a much faster taxi drive back.
Day 3 - We’re on our way to begin our safari today – very slow trip to the airport where our flight was delayed a couple of hours and then we flew to Kilimanjaro airport and were met by our guide; a Maasai warrier named Mollel – no spear and his red plaid garb was in the front seat and became very multi purpose – tablecloth, cape for him and a blanket to sit on under a tree [editor's note: here mom makes no mention of the intense interest she took in the black stick that all Maasai warriors have. It was disturbing]. Interesting drive from the airport to Arusha through a couple of villages and much Maasai land with cows, sheep and goats and people in red tending them. After a stop at the Safari Care office Mollel took us to our B and B and we went to dinner and had the evening to relax.
Next day - Big excitement – we’re off on safari! In a Toyota Land Cruiser adapted to use in the wilds of Africa. Just the 3 of us with our driver/guide. Our first park was Lake Manyara National Park and we were barely inside when we saw a monkey and some baboons – we were very excited. Little did we know that there would be many, many more and many other species. Lake Manyara is a large, shallow soda lake but the water is fresh enough for animals and the park is at the foot of the western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley. So many animals – by the end of that day we had seen giraffes, elephants, gazelles of several types, warthogs, zebras, hippos, our first wildebeests and many birds including flamingos. No tree climbing lions though they are supposed to be here.Mollel told us at the beginning of the trip that Lake Manyara would be the appetizer, Ndutu and the Serengeti the main course and the Ngorongoro Crater dessert and that seems to have been an apt description.
Ndutu – the next 2 days –part of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area; a very good time of year to go to this park because the animals are migrating – wildebeest (gnus) by the hundreds [ed. - of thousands] – they run a bit then they walk then they run again and there are usually zebras mixed in with them because the zebras are smarter and can show them where to go but the gnus are better at smelling water. We saw this several times plus giraffes, elephants, Thompson’s and Grant’s gazelles, hyenas, mother and baby cheetahs and 9 lions under a tree – sleeping off their latest feast no doubt. We went in a different direction the second day – and had more great viewing – many migrating gnus; some with new babies - they can run as fast as their mothers within 30 minutes of being born; elands, jackals, ostriches, rebooks, cheetahs, giraffes feeding on those flat topped acacia trees that seem to be symbolic of Africa and a couple of “parties” which is what Mollel called vultures, etc. feeding on a kill.
Our overnight that night was the first of 2 tented camps; tents that are fairly permanent but can be moved to new locations I think. They have bathrooms in them with sinks, toilets and showers which have a bag hanging outside into which the staff pour heated water and then say: ” shower’s ready”. Dinner is in a communal tent and the porters walked us back to our tent so the lions wouldn’t get us! Not G though – maybe lions only like old Mamas- the name that the locals call all old women. We heard gnus in the night but no lions.
And now the Serengeti: The Maasai named this and it means endless plain – we covered a lot of area and saw all the cats – cheetahs, a leopard asleep in a tree and lions – resting and without the male who Mollel said was at the legion and would be home late - buffalo and many birds. We ended our day at a huge hippo pool with lots of hippos doing their thing which seems to be wallowing and yawning. The second tented camp and this time hyenas saying what sounds like hip, hip hurray all night long. They must have found something yummy to eat!
Next: the Ngorongoro Crater; a 19 km wide caldera left when a huge volcano collapsed. Mollel said it would be dessert and it was impressive. There are only 20 or 200, depending on what you read and hear, black rhinos left after much poaching in the 1980’s but we saw them – they actually look silver coloured because they roll in the dust. The 2 we watched for quite a while and which G videoed were on a mission – definitely going somewhere. We also saw giraffes on the way down into the crater but it is too steep for them to go all the way down and once we were there, elephants, lots of buffalo, gazelles, the inevitable gnus, gazelles, zebras which Mollel calls pyjama horses, impalas and a group of sleepy lions – 2 were nursing their young and a serval cat. Mollel has excellent eyes and can see everything and L is very good too – all that experience finding 4 leaf clovers I guess and G is good too – thinks he might be able to spot 4 leaf clovers now. I would have done better had I had my cataracts done before I went. We had our picnic lunch in a beautiful spot beside a lake and that night we stayed in the very posh Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge. Here they escort you to your room after dinner because buffalo sometimes come to visit. We didn’t see any there.
The next day we were driven back to Arusha with a stop at a souvenir place and another for lunch and yet another for coffee and then to the airport and few to Zanzibar arriving at our resort just after dark – that means about 6:30 all year long. J was already there waiting for us. The resort was 4 kms. Out of town on the ocean with a lovely infinity pool.
We spent 3 days on Zanzibar – had a walking around tour, guided by J, in Stonetown - the historical old part of Zanzibar town, shopped a little and had spiced coffee before giving into the heat and going back to the resort for a swim. Back into town that night where we had dinner outside under palm trees and bougainvillea.
The next day we did a spice tour walking around a farm where they grow samples of many kinds of spices – you get to see them and taste them and hear all about their many properties. Cloves used to be grown widely here and along with the sultan’s trade in ivory and slaves were the source of Zanzibar’s wealth. In the 1870’s a cyclone devastated the clove plantations and the slave trade was abolished. So much for their wealth but the sultan’s rule continued til the 1960’s I think. The spice tour guide told us that each family was given 3 hectares of land and there are spice tours on many of these “farms”. Long ago and far away I did a demonstration on spices and I was surprised at what I remembered about the various spices. Lunch was served sitting on the ground – a spicy pilau and grilled meat and then we moved to benches and sampled a variety of fruits.
J had to go back to work so she flew to Dar Sunday at suppertime – planes don’t fly in or out of Zanzibar after dark and we stayed on a for another day of sightseeing – had a tour of Stonetown led by a local university student. It is a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways with old mansions with beautiful doors and tiny shops and a market divided into fish, meat and fruit and veggies areas plus a kanga section. Kangas are the large pieces of very colourful cloth that the women wear wrapped around them. There are 2 kinds of doors – Indian with spikes in them for protection against the elephants (there were none on Zanzibar) and curved at the top and Zanzibar which are ornately carved and square at the top but have no spikes.
Part of the tour was the area where the slave market had been and where there is an Anglican cathedral built in the 1870’s after the slave trade was finally abolished. There was an excellent guide here but what a sad, sad story. There is a sculpture in a pit of 5 black figures with an authentic chain around their necks shackling them together and 2 of the cells where the slaves were kept waiting their sale are open for viewing – dark and dank and horrid. One held 75 women and children and the other, 50 men. The church was built on the site of the market and the altar is on the site of the whipping post that was used to determine the strength and stamina of the slaves before they were sold. Dr. Livingstone was a big advocate of the abolishment of the slave trade but he died before it was achieved – his heart is buried where he died but the cross in the church is made from wood of the tree under which it is buried. I think the rest of him was taken back to England.
There are historic buildings and a garden on the waterfront but by then the heat was getting to us and we opted to sit in the garden and wait for our driver to come for us – then back to the resort for a final swim and relax before heading to the airport for our 25 minute flight to Dar in a very tiny plane – a bit like flying from Thunder Bay to Dryden. Very slow trip through unbelievable traffic with many stops during which boys/men try to sell all sorts of things – pillows, cashews, soft drinks and window washing fluid for example - to J and G’s .
Two days left – we went to a carvers market in the afternoon – interesting assortment of things in addition to many, many carvings of black wood. We all did a little shopping with J doing the requisite and expected bargaining. 20,000 Tanzanian shillings are worth about $7.00 [ed. - $14] Canadian. Our last day we went to Oyster Bay out past the Canadian and American embassies and had a wonderful all day breakfast. Looked in a couple of stores and then went to Seacliffe where we had out last Tusker baridi (cold beer) and watched
the Indian Ocean and the beach for the last time . Home in another cab and after a rest out for pizza with the couple who own J and G’s place and then off to the airport and our long flight home through Amsterdam.
A wonderful trip – great host and hostess and a fascinating country.
Answers to FAQ’s
How is G? Fine and very brown.
Was it hot? Yes
How was the food? Great
Did you feel safe? Yes, but you do have to be careful – poverty makes people
desperate and G and J live in a locked place with a doorman who lets you in day
and night. I think my aunt in Halifax does too!
Did you mind the flight? Yes.
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