Dave's Tanzania
December 21-31, 2011
Wednesday 21st
Fly from Rwanda to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Tanzania info:Wiki
Wiki travel Kenya Airways $334
#KQ 442 13:40 Kigali to Nairobi 16:10
#KQ 484 17:15 Nairobi to Dar Es Salaam 18:40
Dar es Salaam
"To/from the airport to/from the city center - the average price is 15000 Tzs. This can sometimes be negotiated down, especially if you pay in USD." Think the "official" rate is now 25k, and I got a guy to take 20k. Holiday Inn 15k points (or would have been about $128)
#7 of 57
I was upgraded to an executive suite- very nice, comfortable room. Got spaghetti bolognaise (I think) from hotel restaurant downstairs for dinner and ate it in my room.
Thursday 22nd
Fly from Dar to Zanzibar
For my original itinerary I was arricing after 10pm and leaving first thing in the morning. With my new found sabbatical
I left a little time to do something here so I could say I "saw" Dar- only thing I could figure out to do was visit
the National Museum, which was about a 15min walk from the hotel.As luck would have it, the city was experiencing its "heaviest rains in 57 years, death toll reaches 13." It was still raining in the morning and there were big puddles everywhere, so the walk itself was a small adventure. Coastal Aviation $77
2pm DAR to Zanzibar 2:20
Zanzibar info:Wiki
Wiki travel Kholle House, #2 at time of booking, $99/night
#6 of 28 hotels in Stone Town
Friday 23rd
Explore Stone Town and Prison Island
Included breakfast chosen from a menu, it was excellent.
"Stone Town, recently declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the most unique cities in the world. Blending Moorish,
Middle Eastern, Indian, and African traditions and architectures, it is possible to spend days winding through Stone Town's labyrinthine
alleys; shopping; drinking tea; and visiting the city's historic sites. Be sure to take sun screen, a hat and lots of water since your tour
through Stone Town can be quite tiresome. Visit Slave Market, The site of the old Slave Market is quite an experience. Go into the holding chambers to see how this wretched piece of history played itself out in small dark dungeon-type cells. Priced at $3 or TS3.5 its well worth it." Paid 15k for a walking tour of Stone Town. About 2hrs, was good to see, but I had such a hard time understanding my guide's English that I could have gotten a lot more out of the tour with a different guide.
Easy to get lost wondering the alleys though, so a guide wasn't a bad idea.
Lunch back at Mercury's- while the service was pretty poor, the French soup was excellent.
Saturday 24th
Safari Blue excursion, Christmas Eve
Another excellent breakfast $50 transfer to Fumba, in the southern part of the island, which is the meeting point for my day's excursion.
Sat around this beach area for about an hour while more guests arrived and they carried supplies out to the boats.
A sea snake swam by us and one woman REALLY freaked about it (I've been in the water with them before and they generally never bother people at all- but I went ahead and kept my mouth shut, particularly about the very deadly venom part). And then her husband stepped on an urchin- that guy got the double whammy this morning. Finally we walk out.
Interesting mix on our boat- we had white people from the countries of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa (OK, that last one not so unusual). It is almost like when people learn I am from Jamaica.
After looking for dolphins we stopped on this sand bank for folks to get snorkel equipment.
We were in the Menai Bay Conservation Area and made two or three snorkel stops- it was OK.
I haven't seen anenomies in a while, some decent sized ones here.
Jelly fish
My second favorite to seahorses are starfish- I hadn't encountered this type of flesh colored one before either. Cool.
Lunch stop for a few hours.
Another brand of Tanzanian beer that I borrowed for this pic.
Lunch was decent- on the right you see fish, chicken, lobster, and I think they had pork too. Unusual for me, but I enjoyed the two vegetarian items on the let more.
And chilling out in the water I got to speak with a white guy that runs lodges in Zambia.
The water here was interesting too- waves of very warm and very cold flowing by me.
Getting his urchin spikes removed- not fun. As we were heading back onto the boat I realized I had left my yellow Jamaican Haviana flippy floppies by the shoreline...which were now gone with the rising tide. Darn it.
Stu and Mary, new Canadian friends. They are from Winnipeg and have been volunteering in Moshi, which is one of the more populous towns in Tanzania and a kick off point for many folks looking to climb Kili.
It was great to hear their stories and local insights. Our last stop before heading back in was this rock/mangrove area. It was something that initially turned me on to this trip since I have some success looking for seahorses in mangroves, although I didn't find any here. And only a handful of us got into the water here.
Christmas Eve dinner at the rooftop restaurant of the Emerson Spice Hotel. $25
Mary and Stu were nice enough to invite me to join them for dinner, and they had researched and found this place.
Vegetable sambusa, cucumber salad w/smoked fish / Ceviche
Rolled tuna fish w/grilled mango
Jumbo prawns butterfly w/vanilla sauce. Nassor's knish.
Fried fish w/Thai lemon/herb sauce w/sweet potatoes orange.
Cardamom mango puffed pastry, chocolate cake w/plum sauce, heart fruit givres.
We then headed over to a bar by the ocean for a drink.
And then I was able to find XXXX's apartment, which was right next door to this church doing a Christmas Eve mass, to say hello as she was wrapping up the dinner for friends she had put together.
Upon returning to my room at the hotel, these Christmas presents were there for me- sandals that I could use for flippy floppies! Ha ha, fate.