Five minutes in Tanzania

Just beyond our stop on the Mara River, a dirt track leads through the bushes to a stone monument marking the boundary between Kenya and Tanzania. Here the Masai Mara blends into Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and there is no fence or official border crossing – animals don’t have passports! 

We took the obligatory group photo and, after a few minutes, we sneaked back into Kenya.

Wandering wildebeest

The annual migration of wildebeest between Tanzania and Kenya is one of world’s greatest natural wonders – and we got to see it on one of our game drives! 

These first groups from Tanzania's Seregenti plains are nicknamed ‘inspectors’ by the tour guides, as they seem to be checking out the Masai Mara savannah for the rest of the herd. 

Now, at the end of June, the Masai Mara is dotted with thousands of wildebeest, but by August there will be 3 million here!

Click here to see the video.

Sardines video

Here's the school of sardines that we saw off the beach on Changuu (Prison Island). We've now left Zanzibar and are in Nairobi. The others arrive tomorrow to begin our safari tour.

What's the difference between a turtle and a tortoise?

We visited a local initiative in Nungwi to save Zanzibar's turtles. Fishermen who ended up with turtles in their nets by accident, send them here to recuperate before they a released into the wild again.

It’s basically a large saltwater lagoon, hemmed in by coral and refreshed with water every high tide. There were 15 Green Turtles swimming around, some of them quite big – the oldest was 25 years old. 

Younger turtles are protected in two small, covered ponds – I was able to hold one of the smaller ones, but it was already very heavy, like an iron brick! 

The real babies – just 20 days old – were zipping around in another pool, their flippers far bigger than their tiny shells.

P.S. Turtles live primarily in the water, whereas tortoises are land dwellers. 

A boat for six million shillings

Nungwi is one of those unfortunate villages that happens to be squashed between two beach resorts (oddly enough, these resorts seem to cater to mainly Italian tourists. As is often the case, the village has remained poor and largely segregated from the beach areas - very few locals are hired to work in the hotels and they make their living from traditional trades.

We were lucky enough to get a tour of the village from one of the locals – he was our guide to Nungwi's turtle aquarium even showed us his own home and family (his wife was busy applying henna to her hands and feet for decoration). 

The villagers were a friendly and happy bunch, though they were obviously quite poor; there are no tarred roads, just muddy tracks, and the houses are small, simple affairs made of coral bricks or breeze blocks with corrugated iron roofs. Plenty of chickens shuffle around in the garbage behind the houses and there are lots of flies.

They have electricity but not running water – water comes through standpipes in the street, but the supply is erratic. When the water is on, women carrying multiple buckets line up to get as much as they can. It’s amazing they look so good – all the women (this is a Muslim village) wear bright, vivid dresses and headscarves from puberty, and only the (very cute) younger kids run around in basic gear. 

The village keeps busy: Nungwi is known for its shipbuilders, who hammer and carve wood around the clock making dhows (traditional fishing boats). They cost 6 million shillings (US$5000) and take 40 days to build! 

Fishermen sell their catch at the fish market, often just a simple gathering under a tree where piles of sardines, trumpet fish and dorado are auctioned off to the highest bidders. 

The only other stalls we saw sold greenish oranges (very sweet!), cassava and roast corn on the cob, as well as small amounts of tamarind, wild garlic and ginger.

Sardines off Changuu

Snorkeling off the bone-white beach on Changuu (Prison Island), we came across a remarkable sight. Two large, black shadows appeared to be moving with the tide, just offshore on the north (leeward) side of the island; Seaweed? Coral? Rocks? 

It was impossible to see without getting underwater with goggles or a snorkel. When we finally got close we realized with surprise that the black shadow was actually a massive, dense school of fish, thrashing around in circles just beneath the waves. 

I’ve never seen so many fish together in real life; they weren’t that big, a few inches perhaps, but once we swam into the cloud and were surrounded by great masses of swirling fish, making great circles of flashing grey around us, it was mesmerizing. 

The fish were a little skittish – they would part into two great clouds as we swam through them, closing the gap around us as we floated on the surface. Large trumpet fish seemed to be tailing them, but otherwise there were no larger fish around – a safe place to feed perhaps. The boatman said they were ‘daga’ in Swahili, but we have no idea what the English name is and we later found out they were sardines!

Here are some other underwater shots from when we went snorkeling. (Thanks to Sunshine & Brian for the waterproof case for my camera!)

Tortoises of Changuu

Changuu is a tiny coral island just off Zanzibar, surrounded by reef and picture-prefect turquoise waters. In the 1890s the authorities built a prison here, but it ended up as a quarantine station for foreigners arriving by ship and infected with disease.

These days the remaining buildings make up a rather isolated hotel, but the island is most famous for its giant tortoises, sent here from the Seychelles as a gift in 1919. They are kept inside a large, muddy enclosure and the rules are fairly relaxed – it’s more like an open wildlife park than zoo, and visitors are free to feed and touch the giant creatures.

Though endangered in the wild, they number around 100 here. The oldest tortoises are absolutely huge – they mostly seem to sit still, or crawl forwards very, very slowly, a sort of dopey dinosaur. Their shells feel like iron, incredibly hard, while their skins are leathery and very tough. They like munching spinach – when they eat they actually extend their legs and necks to peck like a baby eagle, sharp beak, long tongue and sharp teeth tearing the leaves.

Monkey video!

We came across this group of Red Colobus monkeys in Jozani Forest on Zanzibar.

Corruption!

On our way to the beautiful east coast of Zanzibar, our driver had to stop at least five times at police checkpoints. Sometimes the police, dressed in pristine white uniforms, would just saunter out of the bushes and wave the car over; other times they had metal barrels barring the route. These are supposedly to check car insurance, road worthiness etc, but all that actually happens, after a few sentences are exchanged, is that the police get a couple thousand shillings 'fee' to let the car pass. Our driver seemed to be pretty resigned to it and just laughed: "This is Africa my friend!"

Zanzibar monkeys at Jozani forest

I love monkeys, but the Red Colobus monkeys on Zanzibar are the cutest I’ve seen in the wild – non-aggressive and playful, with vivid red backs and plenty of feisty youngsters tumbling through the branches. The second troupe we came across got really curious and gradually moved towards us, until one of the teenagers got so close as to touch my umbrella. The best part of the first encounter we had – at that stage accompanied by a huge group of Brit tourists – was watching the monkeys nonchalantly relieving themselves on the tourists below. No, that ‘dripping’ is not rain…

Slave Market

We had a short tour of the old slave market, given by a genial old man who joked that he looked like Morgan Freeman (he did a little). He was a lot of fun, despite the grim location; all that’s left of the market are the tiny, horrible little cells where slaves were kept before being sold.

The cells had low ceilings, two tiny, narrow slits for windows and a sort of channel in the middle, for use as a toilet; the incoming tide would sweep in and wash away all the sewage a couple of times a day. A single chain shows how the slaves would have been tied together. The biggest problem here was ‘suffocation’.

The market itself was replaced with a coral and lime Anglican cathedral built after the abolition of slavery here in the 1870s – the old whipping post is marked by a marble spot at the altar. This is where slaves were whipped to see how ‘strong’ they were, before fetching a better price.

A Zanzibar sunset

After a day spent meandering through the sweaty streets of Stone Town, we stopped at a beach-side restaurant called Mercury's -- named after the Queen lead vocalist who I found out today was born in Zanzibar. After a meal of fish in coconut sauce and roast chicken with chapatis, we had a beer and enjoyed sunset over the Indian Ocean.

That's when the local boys came out to play. Perhaps inspired by the World Cup starting in a few days in South Africa, Zanzibar's youth hit the beach in droves to play footie -- from practice drills among small groups of friends, to a full-fledged 11-a-side match, complete with small goal posts at each end. 

Everyone was bare foot and seemed to be having a good time, though taking their drills pretty seriously -- perhaps hoping a soccer tout would scoop him up for the Premier League?

It's not a bad way to spend a Wednesday evening.

Here's the video clip (I found a broadband connection at last)

Princess Salme of Zanzibar

Inside the House of Wonders – itself an amazing Omani palace – there’s a small exhibition on Princess Salme. I’ve never heard of her, but she sounds like a fascinating woman.

Her mother was one of 75 concubines in the sultan’s harem, but she was well educated and apparently loved her father. She ended up falling in love with a German merchant, got pregnant and managed to run away with him – a big scandal in the 1870s.

Living in Hamburg, she decided to write down her memoirs, an impressive and unique record of the time. She was never allowed to return to Zanzibar.

I had to buy her book of course -- Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar -- at the dusty old ‘library’ on the top of the palace (which has fantastic views of Stone Town and its old fort). It was US$20 – a bit of a rip off – but typical for Zanzibar I guess. The locals all reckon we are millionaires, which we are, in Zanzibar terms.

Exploring Stone Town, Zanzibar

We took the ferry this morning from Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar, a two-hour journey that went by pleasantly if uneventfully.


Old Stone Town is a real warren of narrow, twisting lanes, mosques and palaces, a confusing but incredibly evocative place. 

It’s atmospheric but also messy, and garbage-strewn; it’s crammed with gorgeous Arabic architecture, but much of it is in a state of elegant decay; and its streets are full of life, markets and a culturally diverse mix of peoples from the rim of Indian Ocean, yet it’s also incredibly poor.

Papasi, ‘ticks’, are hustlers that hassle tourists at almost every corner – mostly selling their services as tour guides. It’s tough wandering around such a poor place and trying to politely ignore these guys, but after a while you become hardened to it – sad. They are all generally polite and very desperate for money – all made worse by the fact that Zanzibar seems to be a high-end destination for Westerners, ie lots of rich people come here.

Once you get away from the ‘sights’ and delve into the old bazaars and alleys, it’s a lot easier to appreciate the city. Women wear Muslim veils or colorful Swahili dresses and the men just get on with trading, sipping coffee or lounging on the steps. 

Bits and pieces of Dar Es Salaam

If you need a haircut...

If you need some chemistry textbooks...

If you have strong neck muscles...

And if you need to get your knives sharpened!

(Instructions: Climb on to bike, put on safety goggles, hold your blade flat against the whetstone, peddle like crazy!)

Dar Es Salaam markets

The Kisutu Market is one of Dar Es Salaam’s smallest markets, a cramped melee of stalls and spices piling into the street. There were plenty of vegetables and lots of roots; cassava and mantioc but also carrots, which was a bit surprising.

Of the fruits mangoes, coconuts and papaya were definitely the most popular, but we also found a small ‘atis’ (Mum's favorite fruit) section! 

Further back, the meat section was basically rows of wooden cages stuffed with live chickens looking very miserable – bit grim.
 

The Kivukoni Fish Market lines the harbor and is much bigger and more chaotic than Kisutu. The floor is thick with slops and fish guts, and the air saturated with that salty fish smell – it’s not as bad as it sounds!

By the time we arrived most of the big fish had gone, and though there were a few tunas, it was mostly heaps of sardines, some already crushed in plastic bags. 



A couple of long tables served as auction areas, where fish and shrimp were being sold to what looked like a panel of stern but beautifully dressed women.

Wooden fishing boats and dhows docked right next to the market in what seemed like a fairly chaotic mess.

Behind the market, the fish was being fried in huge vats of bubbling oil, fed by wood-fires. 

Cooks ladle the fish into these massive iron pots – a bit like woks – fry the fish to a crisp and sold at the stalls nearby. 

That’s a tough job. The fish looked tasty, but health food, it ain’t. 

Beyond, a dried mud field served as drying platform for thousands of small fish.