Keeping sane during the journey home

The awful anti-climactic wait which always seems to accompany the end of long-haul holidays begins today as our flight home is at 00:30 tomorrow morning. It means theoretically we should get some sleep now but we have to ensure we are back in Dar Es Salaam on time and with everything sorted. We spend the morning organising this and buying some souvenirs of spices and paintings for us and the families. It’s good fun wandering the streets, if a little hot.
Later there is nothing left to do except enjoy an ice cream in a parlour we found on the coast. I hate this bit of the holiday: the waiting game.
Reflecting upon the holiday – I’ve had a fantastic time. It has been excellent to slowly get to know a new continent, even if we have only really seen small parts of only two of its countries. The highlight for me was watching the animals on safari and participating in their world briefly.
As always such a time away together has tested our relationship and there have been times where it has gone less well than we might have hoped. I have recognised some unpleasant traits in myself where I have been too quick to snap or criticise under pressure.
Now it is time to return home and get on with lives renewed or anew. Lots of things are to be done and there is now an energy to attack them.

Travelling by boat

Joining a group of 20 or so tourists from all kinds of backgrounds, we’re off today on a Spice Tour. Zanzibar is famous for its production, export and trading of spices through the ages and these include: lemongrass, cardimon, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns, nutmeg, cocoa and coffee plus delicious fruits like mangoes, pineapple and a new one on me: the gluey ‘Jack’ fruit. Along the way we see the plantations, get to try some of the produce and see some interesting sights like a set of persian steam baths, some caves where slaves were kept and spend an hour on a beautiful and deserted tropical beach. It’s a little overcast to be truly special but nice nevertheless.
I enjoy the day more for watching the other people behave in the group than for the activities and both Lizzie and I are extraordinarily quiet and unsociable today.
Dolphins?
It is a nice idea but sadly badly executed by the locals. We go off on a ‘Dolphin’ tour today, pre-warned by the Book that this trip is a little “over-done”. We should have heeded the warning. It is raining again today quite heavily and this doesn’t help. The less said about the whole experience the better really. We (the tourists) are herded around like sheep, forced to hire badly kept snorkel gear, crammed into slippery wooden boats, driven to the site where dolphins swim in the water and then encouraged to dive overboard in a mad splashing panic to catch a glimpse of the beautiful creatures who then have the sense to swim away.
Up to four boats ‘attack’ the dolphins at once and as soon as one wave is over we’re all hauled back on board to repeat the pointless exercise. This is hardly exemplory eco-tourism and Lizzie remains on the boat in defiance of these fishermens’ desperate attempts to make money by exploiting nature. During the time I do actually manage to dive down and swim right above a group of five or six amazing dolphins about 3 or 4 metres down. Some have tiny calves and I can hear them whistling to each other under the water. For me though the beauty was totally detracted from by the hounding ‘we’ gave them (involuntarily) and the end result is disappointment for everyone.
Snorkelling for two
The snorkelling trip is of fine contrast to the dolphin one. Today the sun is shining brightly and we leave Stone Town in a tiny wooden boat captained by our boatman Seff and headed for the tiny Changun (Prison) Island out in the bay. The island houses a population of Aldera tortoise – large, ponderous old creatures who are funny to watch. Seff moors the boat just off the beach and sleeps on the boat in the sun while we swim and snorkel. We are just deep enough to be out of the reach of the coral but shallow enough to attempt a few skin dives to check it out. The water is cold down below which provides relief from the heat at the surface. There are lots of amazing fish.
The only problem is a whole load of jellyfish. I’m sure they’re not the stinging variety but they don’t get out of the way like the fishes do and its disconcerting to be always swimming towards them wherever you turn. For dinner we end up at ‘La Spice Rendezvous’, an Indian/French hybrid restaurant which serves great curries but sadly in far bigger portions than we can eat. Head for bed disappointed we couldn’t finish.

Beautiful spice island, paradise

The Flying Horse is a modern catamaran and goes like a dream. The sea is beautiful and we see dolphins diving in the water near the wake. The reception in Zanzibar is again full of touts and ugly scenes of “tourist possession”. One guy called James introduces himself to us and then gets all upset when we choose someone else’s taxi to get into. I tell him he doesn’t own the rights to us and make a scene. I really dislike this possessive touting since we know where we want to go and don’t want to turn up to a hotel with a tout in tow being forced to pay them commission just because they tagged along.
We end up at the Garden Lodge hotel where a very nice clean, new, white room is ours for a pricey but treat-worthy $30 per night. We collapse into a cold shower after the searing heat outside. Zanzibar is a labyrinth but relatively safe so it is cool just to wander. We end up in a bustling market and the bus station which, while not desperately aesthetic is interesting to see. We both get a little stressed by each other’s street behaviour and time out over a quiet beer at sunset. Very nice but I’m in a peculiarly quiet mood.
Later we ‘endure’ an abortive meal at Pichy’s, a supposedly good pizza restaurant. The beer is off and the pizza oven takes an hour and a half to warm up. Not good. A power cut in the night means regular cold showers need to be taken because the ceiling fan doesn’t work. All in all a disappointing day.
In the morning the sun is hot and five days of relative luxury lay ahead of us in the mysterious ‘spice’ island of Zanzibar. We’ve booked a ‘spice’ tour for tomorrow and are hoping to do some snorkelling and stuff over the next few days. We take a leisurely wander around the maze of streets in “Stone Town” – the ancient centre of Zanzibar. There’s not much hassle, just lots of shopkeepers begging for attention and lots of things to buy: textiles, spices, carvings, paintings. The streets are full of Muslim women shrouded in black and buying lace and sequins from a multitude of such shops and men riding around on mopeds or bicycles. The buildings are in a generally disgraceful state – some have been renovated but most are poorly maintained, damp and dirty. Still, they give the place an atmosphere all of its own and have a certain faded charm. This place is perfect for the filming of a Lynx or Turkish Delight advert.
We visit a local “Sea View” restaurant which serves great Indian lassies and also organise a lot of trips around the island. We enquire about snorkelling in a couple of days time. Later we have a relaxing afternoon sleeping and reading in the hotel. In the evening wearing clothes neatly laundered we stroll back into town for an ‘interesting’ meal at the Namaste restaurant. The night is hot and full of mosquitoes.

Arise very early today – bloody minarets at 5am, generators at 6am. Breakfast is poor – just bread and jam. We leave the bags at the hotel and venture into the centre of Dar which is surprisingly and pleasantly relaxed with only a few non-persistent pesterers: “Are you busy?”, “Yes.”, “Oh.”.
We walk down to the coast where we need to get some tickets on a boat to Zanzibar. We get ambushed by a guy who says his “government” boat to the island is only $20, is cheaper than all the others and leaves at noon. We ignore his claims – we’ve been warned – and visit an internet cafe to catch up on some emails. When we emerge later he is still waiting for us and follows us to the ‘real’ ferry booking office further down the port. Apparently (although this is far from clear) they have recently combined all the ferry operators under a single booking agency with a common timetable in order to prevent touts from making their commissions. We are helped by a friendly official who leads us to the correct desk and then has a slanging match with our tout who obviously isn’t very impressed about the recent changes. The tout spits at the official which I take to be less than a polite greeting. Clearly the touts are feeling the pinch.
Our man explains there have been a lot of robberies of tourists led the wrong way by these touts and we are glad we got the right end of the stick. We secure 2 tickets on the Flying Horse at 1pm for a bargain $25 and then wander back through town. It is nice to be able to walk freely without being pestered too much.

Destination: Zanzibar – worth it?

Today we need to get to Dar Es Salaam on the coast in order to make it to Zanzibar island as quickly as possible to enjoy our last week relaxing on the beach. The day unfortunately turns into the journey from hell.
At 6.30am we’re approaching the bus station and are overrun with touts all trying to sell us tickets. They scream for attention; “Where you going?”, “Do you have ticket?”, “Come with me, come with me”. I shout at them in frustration to try to shock them into calming down. It seems to work a bit and they certainly become a bit more polite. We’re led to a small booking office and sold some tickets which seem about right for the 8.30am bus to Dar. I was hoping for something earlier as there is a long way to go but they claim there is not an earlier bus. We pay 9500 TS each for the tickets which is 3000 TS less than the book says. This gets my suspicions up but when we get on the bus we get clobbered (possibly unofficially) 3000 TS to stow our bags so it all adds up in the end. The problem, as we later realise, is the tickets aren’t Express ones and this proves a costly mistake.
We sit on the bus until 8.30am – getting touted at for all sorts of things through the windows. At one point, I have to congratulate one hopeful young boy for trying to sell me an ironing board. I buy some dry cup cakes and cashew nuts for breakfast – not very nice. Amazingly they’ll attempt the old ironing board sale but when you want a cooked breakfast, they can’t help you.
The bus is only about half full and one thing I know from experience never happens in the developing world is a bus leaving before its full. So, in the most frustrating fashion the bus inches its way around a great loop of the bus station, hawking for passengers until finally, stuffed to the gunnels (people sitting in the isles) and 1.5 hours late, it pulls free of the town and throttles out to a relatively speedy 60mph. Unfortunately because it stops every 100 m to let more people on or off, the average speed is much lower.
Not getting Express tickets is just one of those things and we laugh inwardly at our own terrible misfortune. Overall the day proves to be intensely uncomfortable but it is an experience which no true exploration of Africa could probably be without. The views of the scenery are again stunning and watching the villagers in tiny mud huts busily making things or just resting from the sun gives a good feel for how life is for most people in Tanzania. We have to make do with it for entertainment all day. Even the people on the bus (we are the only Westerners) who are generally squashed in tighter than us (people are squatting in the aisles and a grandfather sits with two children on his lap so they share the seat) never show discomfort and always have patience whenever other people are trying to squeeze past. This is their way of life and the standard to which they’re accustomed. It is humbling as always to witness.
At about 1.30pm we stop for the first time to have lunch – what a relief – and have about 15 minutes to bolt down some takeaway fried chicken and chips and two cokes. Just stretching off is good. Then, slightly refreshed, we continue. Eventually, just after 7pm, a full 12 hours of sitting on this bus, we pull up in Dar Es Salaam’s new bus station, 13km out of town. The logic of this defeats me – surely it simply contributes to inner-city traffic congestion by boosting the number of taxis required to ferry people to and fro? Anyway, we get in a cab with a very well spoken young man and spend 7000 Ts on the pleasure of his company for twenty minutes.
The hotel we’ve chosen here – the Safari Inn is probably the nicest we’ve stayed in and its certainly the most expensive at just over £5 each. 8pm and a shower and bed are calling.

First breakdown, tribesmen look on in amusement

This morning, our man is late picking us up, which gives us half an hour of pain thinking we’ve wasted a whole stack of cash. But he does eventually arrive and we go for breakfast at the Hotel Meru, just below Victoria Expeditions, while waiting for the Safari jeep to come. I head out to buy a case of water bottles because we’re sure to need it in the heat – in the end they provide some anyway.
At 10ish our jeep comes and with it three American lads who’ll be our companions for the trip. The jeep is actually from Peacock Safaris so they’ve obviously joined forces to put this on. Scott, Elan and Tony are noisy but funny and have been on the road from Cairo for two and a half months. It sounds like a pretty impressive journey. We head off, fill up with fuel and then hit the road to Tarangire, our first day’s game drive.

The open road…

The surrounding scenery is very rural – dotted with often-brightly coloured (red) cloaked Masai people herding cattle or goats and plenty of “homesteads” full of mud and stick houses. Just before Tarangire National Park, we reach a campsite which is to be our base for the night. Here we get some lunch – bread and salad – in a comfortable roofed area with goat-skin seats.
We dump our luggage, leave the tents in the capable hands of Amoud, our ‘porter’, and drive off, unburdened, with Simba, our driver and guide. Negotiating the entrance gate is time consuming since there are park fees and paperwork to be paid and completed. There are no fences around these national parks but people are not allowed to be inside except in vehicles and with a registered guide. No houses or dwellings or farming is allowed inside the boundaries.

Mending a puncture, all part of the fun

Despite the lack of physical boundary and having not seen even a glimpse of any wild animals outside, amazingly as soon as we cross the perimeter the place is teeming with exotic creatures. A group of elephants just meander across the road in front of the car. I am absolutely enchanted by the experience and was not expecting anything like it. I feel as if I have been transported back to a previous age. Everything has a slightly unreal quality around the edges like a Jurassic Park movie. I thought we’d have to actively seek out the animals and observe from a great distance, but no, there are so many, so close to the roads and thankfully so unaffected by the vehicles. It is absolutely amazing and I think more people should experience the sheer delight of seeing the raw power and beauty of a place without many of the obvious signs of human occupation.

First elephant, just inside the park – amazing

We see zebra, mongeese(?), gazelle, elephant and monkeys quite quickly. The size of the park is just unbelievable. Once inside, it is beautiful, rolling green hills as far as the eye can see. Our safari covers Tarangire N.P on the first day. The second day takes in the Serengeti N.P and an overnight in campsite Simba-A inside the Serengeti. The third day is also spent inside the Serengeti and the third night in a campsite at the top (and overlooking) the Ngoro-Ngoro crater. The final day is spent actually in the crater and making the journey back home.
The distances involved and the practicalities of getting us and all our stuff around this gruelling circuit are not to be underestimated. Nor is the condition of the roads on which we make these journeys to be overestimated. The 120km from Tarangire to the Serengeti takes about 5 hours on a very (very) bumpy road at a speed of about 25 kmh. Some of the bumps are literally excrutiating. The hardened mud has rippled thanks to the vibrations of the passing vehicles so even semi-flat stretches are bumpy. The car is amazing in coping with the bumps at all, but at the same time is very uncomfortable when full of three Americans, us two, the driver, porter and all the camping equipment and rucksacks during the long drives. During the game drives themselves Amoud stays at the campsite with all the kit so things are markedly more comfortable. The roof lifts off the jeep so we can stand up and take photos.

Giraffe!

On the first long drive (day 2) we get a puncture – hardly surprising when you check out the bald state of the tyres. I guess it is here where the difference between a $500 per day safari and a $85 per day safari like this one is really obvious: the quality and comfort of the vehicle. We often mock the elderly couples being carried around in air-conditioned Landrover Discoveries but they are surely a whole lot more comfortable. However, we’re perfectly well treated and its a big adventure to be stuck out in the middle (literally) of nowhere with a vehicle that isn’t going anyway fast. It’s a humbling experience. We’re observed at close quarters by two curious Masai boys. Amoud and Simba change the wheel in the middle of a dead straight white road. Now the spare has been used it is encouraging to note that good driving practice is acknowledged and we stop at the next village at a local “PANCTURE RAPEIR” stall neatly signposted from the main road. A very well-executed job of repairing the puncture using basic equipment tailored to the job is carried out in no time. Initiative, the simplicity of the vehicles used and home-made tools are what keeps Africa moving.

Cheetah, posing like a supermodel

On the game drive there are a few simply amazing moments which are caught on camera better than I can do them justice here: a female cheetah sunning herself like a supermodel on an outcrop of rock, a pride of lions sleeping off a big lunch, a female cheetah and her two cubs playing, a python consuming a whole Thomson gazella, a buffalo dead with Anthrax, hippos playing in and out of the water, huge herds of Wildebeast (or Wildbeast as Simba calls them). These are the things I will remember of Tanzania. At times it feels a little too like we’re exploiting the animals – we certainly drive up very close sometimes. They are always in charge though – we can’t leave our vehicles (its far too dangerous) except for a quick wee when there’s nothing nearby – and they are free to get up and wander off if they want. What’s exciting is that even sometimes with the jeep only a few feet away from the lions, cheetahs and big game, they don’t seem bothered at all. All of this is ideal for taking wonderful photos and getting a good feel for the way these animals tick.

Female lion, comes close

To be brutally honest about the whole place – the animals are only really being saved from gradual marginalisation by the power of tourism itself. If we didn’t come (with many others) to see them and pay the sizable park fees of $40 per person per day, the parks would never be kept special and free of human interference. What is clear is that the parks are very worthwhile and well maintained. Entry is strictly controlled and there is not a spot of litter anywhere. Tanzania knows its national assets.
The Serengeti is definitely my favourite place of all because of its wide open spaces full of savannah and low scrub trees and grass – lots of herds of “ungulates” and plenty of hungry predators to see too. The Ngoro-Ngoro crater is an incredible natural geographical feature formed when a huge volcano collapsed (forming a so-called caldera). The crater is 16km in diameter and its floor lies 600m below the surrounding land. Down in the crater is a great variety of wildlife including flamingoes and rhinos. The animals tend to stay in the crater so this is a natural area for the development of new species and an example of evolution induced by geographical boundaries.

Lioness

We see some beautiful lionesses – three on a hill, slightly surrounded by jeeps although they don’t seem to care. One lies in the shade of our jeep such that Elan gets a full facial picture from about 3 feet away by leaning over the roof. He says he could see the lioness mentally calculating the distance to his face and whether she would or wouldn’t strike. It is easy to forget that these apparently cuddly friends are actually rather vicious and steely-cold wild animals who would have every justification for biting your arm off if you so much as stepped from the jeep. I think we respect that though, deep down.
We have plenty of laughs in the van between some intense, quiet periods of observation. We joke about the animals and their characteristics which amuse us. The camping is great fun and the food unbelievable given what Amoud has to start with and what he has to prepare it with. The first night we enjoy soup and bread followed by a beef stew, vegetables and rice with fruit to finish. Second lunch we have chicken spicy stew. Later that night we have spaghettit bolognaise. The final night is pasta and beef stew. The food is always really tasty – how he keeps the meat clean and fresh is beyond me but probably dangerous to ask. Breakfast is a feast of toast, tea, fried eggs and pineapple, papaya and oranges. Delicious.

Like shooting fish in a barrel?

We use their tents because it is easier than using our own. They are comfortable dome tents which we help Amoud to put up. On the third night it is really very wet when we get to put them up which is a shame and everyone is a bit miserable camping in the wet and cold. It soon dries up though and hot food is the saviour of the day. By the end of the game drive on the final day we are all filthy – no showers – but very tired and happy. Ready to return to civilisation and get clean. The journey back is very uncomfortable. Halfway through the shock absorber fails and so someone in a village takes it off for us. This doesn’t help the comfort fact a whole lot and comically as we eventually reach glorious flat tarmac nearer to Arusha, Simba puts his seatbelt on. Scott reckons this is because Simba is so used to the bumps he finds the flatness disconcerting.
Some cheeky Masai at a break try to swap a tacky T-shirt for Elan’s boots which provokes some hilarious haggling and protesting from him. Elan has the advantage of being a black American and all the locals find him intensely interesting. Also on the way back, Amoud tries to buy an Ostrich egg from a Masai village. It is a useful lesson in how bargaining should be done. There is clearly no love lost between the Masai, who generally live very traditional nomadic lives and are allowed to carry spears around, and the “town-dwellers” who have much more developed tastes and customs. Amoud offers 1000 Tshillings (£1) and the huge egg is proferred in a neat basket. The Masai then double their price and Amoud tuts in absolute disgust. “Masai!”. We drive off.

Most amazing portrait

At one point when a cow is wandering in the road, Simba stops the car and shouts angrily to the Masai boy herding it. “Direct your cows, don’t let them direct you!”. When we finally get back to Arusha there is the old perennial issue of what to tip. Some books recommend 10% of the trip cost but that seems way too high and I think the alternative suggested value of 20% of the guides’ wages is better – except we don’t know what they get paid. Whatever, they should be happy with what we give them – $50 split $15 to Amoud and $35 to Simba. The Americans give proportionately more and in total it’s a lot of money. I wonder if it really incentivises the right thing. However, at the end of the day we had a thoroughly enjoyable time, were well looked after and they both knew a lot about the parks and animals, so they deserve their tips. I would heartily recommend a safari to anyone and everyone – seeing the animals in their own natural landscape and environment and knowing they’re free is wonderful. The more you pay, the higher the standard of your comfort during the trip – but everyone gets pretty much the same view of the animals.
I wouldn’t mind doing one of the more luxury “tented” camps because you can wake up to the most amazing view of a valley in the Serengeti with elephants and baboons a stone’s throw away every morning. It would be magical to spend a fortnight or so actually immersed in the park and watching the animals more closely. One thing we couldn’t do easily was direct the driver to visit areas we wanted or to ask him to stop for an hour to just observe the animals. It was very much left to Simba to guide us. On longer safaris presumeably you have more power to choose what you see.

Hippos, in the Ngoro Ngoro crater

Having successfully (though rather confusingly) navigated our way to an alternative hotel and dealt with at least two pairs of persistent Safari touts even before 8.30am, we feel ready to face making the difficult decision about which Safari to actually take. We’re almost professionals at dodging the touts now and although I consider most of our time out of the privacy of the hotel to be out-and-out battles for survival against them, we do actually have to do business with touts at some point.
We head for the bank and a tourist office which provides a rather tired list of “black-listed” Safari companies. The clerk there is disinterested and obviously participates in this battle every day. Safaris are big business in Arusha and who can blame some tour agencies from becoming more concerned with profits than good tours? Our job is to find a good one despite this.
In the end we settle for the two guys we met earlier who have actually been following us across town in their jeep and offer to take us to “Victoria Expeditions” to talk through the options. Feeling like game which has been caught and taken back to base, we talk to “Richard” there who gives us the spiel. We can do a four day (three night) tent safari for $85 per person per day. It looks really great – taking in Tarangire, Ngoro-Ngoro crater and the Serengeti in a jeep and small group.
We take breakfast to decide that since it meets our criteria on cost and content and seems like a reputable company we won’t pain ourselves with any shopping around. So we agree and then have to arrange to pay for it all up front: $280 in travellers cheques on the spot and the rest in cash after a mad dash to the VISA cashpoint to pull out 320,000 Tshillings. Handing the greasy notes over in the back of their jeep feels like doing some dirty drug deal.
Let’s hope we get a good trip…