Tanzania Travelogue

ZANZIBAR

Our travels in Tanzania began with a flight from Mombasa Kenya to Zanzibar. We landed on the runway at the airport eager to get inside and retrieve our luggage. The airport was a very basic building, all of the luggage was thrown through a cut~out hatch, in a makeshift thin ply wood wall, onto some barely standing benches, and then there was a free for all, with everyone pushing and shoving to grab hold of their bags. Once Richard had grabbed our bags we went out to figure out where we would stay. As usual we didn't have anywhere particular in mind. As has been quite usual during our travels, we were soon set upon by several touts hoping for our business. I had bought my mum a rather hefty walking stick in Mombasa, which came in very useful at this point as we used it to fend off the eager mob! We spent all of our time in Zanzibar Town, which is the main settlement on the western side of the island, and a popular stop for many travellers. The most popular section is the Old Stone Town, surrounded by the sea on three sides. For the first night we stayed at a nice looking hotel near to the docks, I think it was the Malindi Guest House. The beds were comfortable, and the room was en-suite, and there were even mosquito nets over the beds, excellent. It wasn't until night had fallen, and we were trying to sleep that we realized the nets were full of holes, oh well I guess mosquitoes have to eat too! We did try to repair the larger holes using the sticky labels that the airline had placed on our luggage handles. It was all we had, and it worked ... sort of, but there were just too many holes! By the time the morning came neither of us had enjoyed much sleep, and lack of sleep, added to the awful stench of the fish stalls that were right outside the hotel, meant we decided we would not be staying there for another night. After breakfast we headed off to change some money into local currency, and as the island is full of touts, it was not long before we were approached again, and offered everything we could want and more. One of these touts was actually not as irritating as they usually are, so we let him take us to a hotel belonging to a friend of his. We never normally do this, it must have been the sleep deprivation! Anyway, he led us into the Stone Town to a place called The Narrow Street Hotel, in Narrow Street! We were shown some rooms, and after a bit of haggling we now had a new home for the next few nights. Our room was really lovely, it was a slightly odd shape, very long and narrow, like the name of the hotel, but it was furnished beautifully. There were three or four beautiful beds, all made using intricately carved wood, with canopies overhead and fancy mosquito nets, without holes! Not only did the beds look good, they were very comfortable too. Our bathroom was nice and clean, and even had hot water! We liked this hotel a lot, and the setting in amongst the alleyways populated by friendly local people, helped to make our stay in Zanzibar extra nice. We knew that walking around these small lanes at night could be unsafe, but we never felt concerned and often strolled back to our hotel after dinner late at night without incidence. We only spent about five days in Zanzibar, relaxing and enjoying the laid back atmosphere. There was plenty to do, such as going on a Spice tour and diving, which is supposed to be excellent, but we were happy doing nothing! We did spend a few hours doing the tourist thing, we visited the Beit el Ajaib ~ House of Wonders, it used to be a palace for the sultan. It was built in 1883 by Sultan Barghash (1870-1888), it is a tall building with several floors surrounded by spacious verandas. We had a pleasant look round, taking photo's before heading off to find a cool drink. There are other places of interest, such as Beit al Sahel ~ The Palace Museum, which was the Sultan's residence until 1964 when the dynasty was overthrown. After the revolution it was closed to the public until it reopened as a museum devoted to the era of the Zanzibar sultanate. There are several floors of exhibits, and outside is the Makusurani graveyard where some of the sultans are buried. As well as the museum there is the Old Fort, which was built on the site of a Portuguese chapel around 1700 by Omani Arabs as a defence against the Portuguese. Inside is an open air theatre which hosts performances of local dance and music. There is also a tourist information centre, and art gallery, some craft shops, and the Neem Tree Cafe. Other places of interest are the Anglican Cathedral and Old Slave Market, St Joseph's Cathedral, and many Mosques, the Hamamni Persian Baths and Livingstone House, which was built around 1860, and used by many European missionaries and explorers before they commenced their journey to the mainland. David Livingstone, the Missionary Explorer, stayed there before he set off on his last expedition. Now it is home to the Zanzibar Tourist Corporation. As I said though, we were just there to relax, eat drink and be merry! We certainly enjoyed lots of good meals in Zanzibar. One of the most popular places was Blues, it is part of the South African chain, and I think it was mainly so busy because of the location. I think the food was pretty mediocre, and definitely over priced! The outside seating area stretched right out into the sea, we never ate there, but we did sit out on the deck looking out to sea enjoying the great views. We did eat at Pichy's Pizza, the staff were really friendly, the restaurant was on the waterfront and served good pizza! We also ate at Radha Food House a couple of times, they were doing a good deal on thalis at the time, for a set price you could eat as many meals as you liked. We didn't eat that much, in fact usually just the one serving, but for people with big appetites it would have been an even better deal! The food was delicious, vegetarian, and lovely and spicy, and the restaurant was very popular. Another place we ate was the Sea View Indian Restaurant, up on the first floor of a building overlooking the sea. We sat outside on a veranda, and ate our food whilst enjoying the beautiful view. Our favourite restaurant is the one I can not remember the name of! It was owned and run by an Italian family, the location was perfect, with lovely views of the sea, but it was quite secluded. The food was obviously fantastic, as is typical of the Italians, there was a good choice of fish dishes and delicious pasta dishes. It was a lot more expensive than the other restaurants I have mentioned but the surroundings were worth it, there was a large outside eating area full of tables complete with fresh linen table cloths and napkins, and the service was excellent. For cheap eats, the stalls that set up along the sea front at night were the best place to go. There were so many of them, serving up everything you could want, from meat and fish on tiny wooden skewers, to delicious vegetarian snacks, all of which were freshly cooked to order on upturned oil drums. It sounds as though all we did was eat and drink, and I think that's probably about right! After being so lazy for a few days we decided to move on to Tanga. We wanted to get the ferry, so we bought our tickets, but on the day of departure we were told that the ferry was only going to Pemba. Great! So we had to wait until the next day and get the ferry that was actually going to Tanga. Obviously after waiting for ages for the ferry we had been told was going to Tanga to arrive, and then for the passengers to disembark, and for the queue of people waiting to begin boarding, only to be told that it was not the ferry for Tanga, made us less than happy! We started to walk back out of the dockyard into town to find somewhere to stay again for the night. This time we were set upon by a large group of touts, all shouting very loudly, this did not help to lift our spirits! Once again the walking stick that I had bought for my mum came in very useful, we were so thankful that we hadn't posted it to her, we must have known we would need it! We know and appreciate that the touts are just trying to earn a living, but it all got out of hand. We don't mind them chatting, and trying to persuade us to go here and there. But, we told them we knew where we were going, and we didn't need their help. Unfortunately, a couple of them grabbed me by my arms, and wouldn't let go. I wasn't concerned, just fed up, and hot. As soon as Richard saw that I was having trouble shaking them off, all hell broke loose. We were both shouting at the top of our voices at them to **** ***, go away! As we got out of the dockyard we headed straight to the first hotel we saw, all the while Richard was shoving them away, and we were lashing out with the walking stick. The owner of the hotel obviously heard all of the noise, and he came rushing out to us. There was lots of shouting between the touts and the hotel owner before it all calmed down. We booked in for one night, and later we sat with the owner for a drink. There was a knock at the door, the touts had come back ... no not for revenge ... they wanted to apologize. We don't usually behave as we had, we are lovers not fighters! So we all sat down and enjoyed a drink together. We were not happy that we had to stay an extra night, but before we knew it the morning had come, and we once again headed back to the dockyard. This time everything went well, we set off for Tanga.

TANGA

We took Mega-Speed's MS Sepideh, a hydrofoil type boat, from Zanzibar to Tanga. The journey was very interesting, mainly due to the moaning and wailing of the local women passengers. We had bought a bottle of vodka and poured it into an empty water bottle as we didn't want to offend the locals with our drinking. The first part of the journey wasn't too bad, although I get sick on all forms of transport. We stopped off at Pemba on the way, a few passengers got off and some more came on. After this all of the locals were happily munching away on some hot snacks they had bought at the Pemba stop. Soon after the boat really began to roll. The water was now quite choppy, we had been warned this was quite normal. By now I was feeling very unwell, I just sat quietly with my head in my hands hoping we would arrive in Tanga soon. The women who, only minutes earlier, had been happily eating were now all sprawled out all over the floor, moaning and wailing. It was a seriously weird spectacle, they looked like beached whales groaning in child birth! I was so happy once we docked in Tanga, and I couldn't wait to get off of the boat. Once on dry land I began to feel better, which was just as well because we then went on a long walk to our accommodation. We had read about a nice sounding place, the Inn by the Sea, and headed there, along with several other backpackers. A couple of local guys at the dock tried to take us to a hotel in town, but we told them we knew where we were going. They said we were heading the wrong way, but we were certain we knew the correct direction. It was scorching hot and we were all wet through, and as there were quite a few of us, Richard and I walked extra fast, we didn't want to miss out on a room. Finally we arrived at the hotel, the location was gorgeous, right on the beach. Our room was nice, with a large contemporary concrete bathroom. We jumped straight into a much needed and appreciated shower. We didn't do much after that, just relaxed. By now we realized that we had actually arrived at a different hotel to the one we had thought we were going to! So the guy at the docks was right ... Oops! Oh well, after a good nights sleep Richard and I headed back into town, and found the other hotel. I don't know how that happened, us going completely in the wrong direction, Richard has an excellent sense of direction normally. I guess it must have been the exhaustion from the journey! Once we got to our new hotel, Marina Inn, we booked in for three nights, our room was large and had air conditioning, and there was a bar/restaurant downstairs, what more could we ask for. After leaving our bags in our room, we headed down to the bar for a drink. We saw the guy from the docks, he came over and chatted with us for a while. Obviously he found it amusing that we were now where he had wanted to take us the day before! The bar was always very busy with lots of local people enjoying food and drinks. After a while we wanted to explore the local area, so we went off for a walk round town. There wasn't much to do which was fine by us as we were happy milling about, walking along the dusty roads. We found a really nice little bar which was basically just a few old plastic chairs situated under a makeshift roof. There didn't seem to be anyone to serve us, so we sat there for a while happy to rest in the shade, whilst being watched and laughed at by some small children! After a while a young women came across from a small shop come hairdressers, and asked us what we would like. We asked for two beers, one Safari and one Kilimanjaro, which she brought over to us a few minutes later. Delicious, and surprisingly cold. By now the children had decided to come a little closer and have a good look at us, they seemed to find us extremely funny! I guess we did look strange to them, dressed in our great big hiking boots, and with very pale white skin! Everyone was so friendly in Tanga, and even at night it felt very safe. We mainly ate at our hotel as it seemed to be the main place to eat in town. We know that if the locals frequent a place, then it is usually for good reason. We did eat at another place in town once, and one night we bought something from a guy cooking on an oil drum on a street corner near to our hotel. I'm not exactly sure what he made us, but it was definitely meat, and it was very hot and spicy, served with some bread. We ate it as we walked back to our hotel, where we spent the rest of the evening in the bar. We had a great night drinking, chatting and playing darts with some local guys. I am not that quick at mental arithmetic, calculators were always used at my school, but one of the men we were playing with decided that he would do all of the scoring for us. Well, he had us in fits of laughter, as he just could not get any of the scores right, I don't know if it was the drink or if he just couldn't add up or subtract, but we didn't care we were just having fun. There were places to visit of interest around Tanga, such as the Amani Botanical Gardens, the Amboni Caves, the Galanos Sulphur Springs and the Mkomazi game Reserve, but we just didn't want to! It was so nice to relax, and not be bothered by anyone trying to sell us anything or arrange trips here and there. Feeling fully relaxed and ready to move on, we headed to Lushoto.

LUSHOTO

The bus journey to Lushoto was a really nice scenic trip, although some of the driving certainly made our hearts beat a little faster. The bus was a very old huge piece of metal that the driver seemed to drive with little attention, swinging this way and that around some tight narrow bends in the mountains. The view of the land was lovely though, and we arrived in Lushoto in one piece. Lushoto is a very pretty town, with lots of churches from when it was an important mission station during the German era, when it was called Wilhelmstal. It also produces much of Tanzania's pear and plum crops. Once the bus pulled up in town we lugged our heavy bags off of the bus and began to walk away, then we heard lots of shouting, we looked back to see an old man waving my mums walking stick out of one of the buses small top windows. I thought that was so nice of him to bother. I would have been sad to have lost it especially after carrying it around for so many journeys, as it was a bit of a pain being so heavy. Once I retrieved the walking stick we found somewhere for a cold drink. As we had read good things about most of the nearby hotels Richard went off to have a look at them all. It was pointless both of us going and lugging our heavy bags with us. I was more than happy to sit and wait at the bar, that was until I was approached by a young local guy who kept wanting to touch my skin! He was just being friendly, and I do have very fair skin. He was showing off his English skills too, and offering to buy my boots! Apparently lots of people who travel through Lushoto sell their boots once they know they are heading back home. There were lots of stalls in the town which bought and sold walking/hiking boots of all shapes and sizes. It felt like hours before Richard came back, and by now I had been joined by a couple more blokes, one local, one from Ireland. Richard said he had found a nice hotel, the Lushoto Sun Hotel, so we headed back there and checked in for three or four nights, I can't remember now but I know we didn't stay long. Our room was nice enough, but it didn't have a proper window so it was a bit dark, and there was a chicken coup right outside so we always had an early morning alarm! The family who ran the place were really lovely, and the food was pretty good too. The room rate included breakfast, and although we don't usually eat breakfast we did every morning during our stay. I think it was because it was so cold at night, our bodies must have used up a lot more energy than usual. By the the time we left we were both happy to see the back of the breakfasts though as they were always the same ... eggs eggs eggs! I love eggs, but I felt like I was beginning to look like one! I really enjoyed that with every meal we ordered, whether it was our eggy breakfast or spaghetti bolognaisse, or fruit salad, they were all served with lots of avocado. We had eaten a local dish called Nyama Ndizi whilst we were in Tanga which was really tasty. So when we saw it on a menu at one of the bars in town in Lushoto we ordered it again. Basically the dish consists of meat (not sure what) and plantain all in a thick gravy. The one we ordered in Lushoto was huge, it came in what looked like serving bowls, I thought it was to share, but we had one each. It was piping hot, which was great as it was such a cold day, and even more delicious than before. Unfortunately neither of us could finish it all, and it took a lot of persuasion to convince the chef that we did like it, but we were too full to eat it! As the main activity in Lushoto was hiking we thought we would get some exercise. I wouldn't say we actually hiked, but we certainly had a good walk round, mainly taking photographs, and being followed by groups of young school children who once again found us highly amusing! We both loved Lushoto, but we were very happy to be moving on to somewhere warmer. We headed to Moshi.

MOSHI

Another bus journey took us to Moshi, a bustling town situated at the foot of the snow capped Mt Kilimanjaro. Would we be climbing Mt Kilimanjaro? We had the boots for it! Er ... No! But I would be consuming lots of Kilimanjaro beer, I'm not sure if that's quite the same as conquering the mountain though! This part of Tanzania has such a pull for tourists with three major sites of interest. There is of course Mt Kilimanjaro, and the Ngorongoro Crater which is packed with wildlife, and the plains of the Serengeti. Oddly enough, but not if you knew us, we did not visit any of these! Not sure why really ... oh yes, now I remember. One day we had an urgent phone call from the U.K. We had to fly back rather urgently, but that's another story. Before the unfortunate phone call, we had managed to enjoy a couple of days in Moshi. We stayed at the KNCU Coffee Tree Hotel, which had an inexpensive restaurant, and great views from the top, weather permitting we could see Mt Kilimanjaro, even if we couldn't climb it! We could see that many years ago the hotel would have been quite grand, but now it was sadly very shabby. Our room was very large and well furnished, the bathroom had seen better days but we could still see how wonderfully cool it would have been long ago, with all of its art deco shapes and styling. Unfortunately the water barely dripped out of the taps on the bath and it was stone cold, definitely not a place to linger! It seemed as though everyone in the area ate at the restaurant in our hotel, it was always very busy, with a lot of waiting for food once we had ordered. The food was pretty good though, lots of goat and chicken dishes, mostly spicy or curried. There was a nice bar/restaurant across the road from our hotel which served good snacks, and whilst out walking round town we found lots of places to stop for a beer. We also found a really great French bakery, which among other things sold really fresh delicious croissants - Yum! As I said, unfortunately we were only able to stay in Moshi for two days before we had to get back to the U.K. After the urgent phone call from home we left Moshi and headed to Dar es Salaam to catch a flight to the U.K.

DAR ES SALAAM

We had not intended to return to the U.K. for a long time yet, but now we were in Dar es Salaam we had to sort out our plane tickets. I think we have probably changed our flights on almost every trip we have ever made, and this one was to be no different. The only difference was that it was not as straight forward as usual. It seemed that we were not the only people trying to change our tickets and leave Dar es Salaam in a hurry! Having been in Dar es Salaam for just a few minutes I could easily understand people wanting to leave, it was a horrible place. Unfortunately the earliest flight we could get meant us having to stay in this awful place for two nights ... YUK! I have since read that Dar es Salaam is a pleasant city with a picturesque seaport, with a oriental feel and lots of its colonial character still intact. Well that must definitely describe a different Dar es Salaam to the black hole we were stranded in! Oh well we were there for two nights whether we liked it or not, so we tried to make the best of it. We stayed at a different place each night, can't remember why we moved though. One night we stayed at the YWCA on Maktaba Street, which accepted men if they were part of a couple, so Richard was okay. Our room was fine, and there was a canteen, we didn't eat there but it looked busy enough. I can't remember where we stayed the other night. We spent most of our time in the bar at the New Africa Hotel, which was the only other top end hotel after the Sheraton. I'm not sure what it was exactly but, one evening in the bar at the New Africa Hotel, there was some kind of 'do' going on. It was mainly full of business men who didn't seem to mind us being there, we were even offered some of their snacks! I am sure there are things to do and see in Dar es Salaam but neither of us were in the mood, we just wanted and needed to get back the U.K. Even though we didn't get to really appreciate as much of Tanzania as we had hoped, we both have very fond memories of it. We really loved our time in Zanzibar, Tanga, and Lushoto, and had we stayed longer I am sure we would have good memories of Moshi too, although I still don't think that we would have climbed Mt Kilimanjaro!