Tanzania - Part 1 - Jambo Mambo!

Jambo!!

So begins our journey into 'dark Africa' in the land of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

From Cairo, Ren and I took the last of our booked flights (!) to Dar Es Salem. To put it bluntly, Dar isn't really and interesting place and doesn't have much to offer. Dar is known for shonky tour operators, hassling touts and well... lots of men. Groups line the streets, shops and pathways not really doing much other than checking out the passing trade. At times it can grate on the nerves with the constant tirade of touts, 'Jambo! Where are you from? What's your name? What hotel are you staying at? Do you need a taxi, safari, t-shirt, directions...' so on and so on.

The only tourist attraction in Dar itself was the National Museum which holds some of the worlds oldest human remains/artifacts dating over 1.5 million years old! They also have a section of earth from Leopoli with humanid footprints that date over 3 MILLION years old! The entire Museum was impressive and included perhaps my favorite artifact that I've seen to date... Tanzania's first ATM. Classic!


The first Humanid - Zinjanthropoulos; The first ATM (!, 1998); and John's new timber bike

Excited to be in Africa with wild animals, we booked a 'warm up' safari to the Mikumi National Park in the 'Southern Cicuit'. Mikumi is home to an abundance of African greats - Impala, wildebeest, buffalo, giraffes, elephants (one almost charged our 4WD when Ren was standing on the roof) and lions! We even witnessed a 'honeymooning' lion couple mating under the shade of an acacia tree one afternoon - The male lion would put any male gigolo to shame. They mate EVERY 15 MINUTES FOR 4 DAYS. What a honeymoon and way to start Tanzania!



After Mikumi we headed to the Udzungwa Mountains to do a day walk to the 170m Sonje Waterfalls. Set in the South West of Tanzania, Udzungwa is part of the Great Rift Valley and home to several rare species of bird and monkeys, including the Red Colubus monkey which has red hair. It was great to see some of our 'ginger' cousins!


We then returned to Dar and headed straight for the island of Zanzibar. What a great decision! We first stopped over in the world heritage listed Stone Town for a couple of nights, where we were greeted by the local 'beach boys' - Dozens of touts who follow you EVERYWHERE. They can't even sing 'California Girl's' between them!

Stone Town is a beautiful little spot with a Portuguese influence. Stone cobbled laneways, quaint hotels and cafe's lining the streets, Stone Town was a nice break from Dar. We enjoyed a day tour of the various spice and fruit plantations on the island finishing of on a secluded beach. We also visited one of the original slave caves which showed the truly brutal conditions slaves lived under. After being flogged all day in the fields they were required to enter the cave and walk 3km underground to sleep before they were shipped of to the Middle East. Obviously, many slaves died in the process and many human remains can still be found today.


Night time in Stone Town brought out the daily fish markets where local fisherman bid for your business, cooking up fresh seafood for a cheap price. Perfect for two seafood fans! We tried Zanzibar pizza which is like a fried omelet come pizza with the ingredients inside - As Borat would say, 'Very niiiiiiiiiice'.

After Stone Town, we headed to the quiet beach village of Jambiani on Zanzibar's east coast. White sandy beaches - check; cheap off season hotel - check; good book - check! What a place - We practically had the ocean to our selves and enjoyed days in the sun, swimming and eating good food. The place was that serene that we ended up staying a couple of extra nights.



We then headed north to the beach resort of Nungwi which sits on the top of Zanzibar. The purpose of this move was to do some diving at Mnemba Island, which turned out to be some of the best we've done. I can't think of any other dive with such a concentrated amount of fish. There were literary thousands swarming each other over the reef with a variety of soft corals that we've not seen before - It was great. Unfortunately, one Renee Mc was feeling a little worse for wear after a choppy 1 1/2 hour boat ride out/back and ended up being sick overboard! To make matters worse, the seas were rough on our return and we had to jump out 'Baywatch' style to swim ashore. First our Dive Master jumped out leaving us with the 'captain' and deck hand. Then the boat got stuck on the reef while the motor got caught in another boats rope! After this was corrected the deck hand and captain decided to swap roles at anchoring, the trouble was that the deck hand didn't have the end of the anchor rope in hand! Ha! It was truly a comedy of errors!

So, so far so good in Tanzania - Now we are heading to the famous Serengeti to do more safari and then onto Mt Kilimanjaro, wish us luck and we'll be back soon!

Thanks for reading!
Johnny and Renee :)