The record of our visit to Tanzania

I have blogged each day of the trip and you will find the links down the right hand side in date order and with a short description for each. Some of the best photographs will be seen in the blog pages. However, I will eventually upload all the photos to picasaweb and make them available there.

I woud like to thank a few people here who helped make our trip memorable:

God, or whoever is ultimately responsible for the weather! We had fantastic weather for the trek and didn't put our coats on until summit night. Trekking without rain is infinitely more comfortable than with it and the views even more glorious in the sunshine.

Henry Stedman, the author of the top selling book on Kilimanjaro was very patient during all my questioning in the months prior to the trip. We certainly made a good move choosing his company climbmountkilimanjaro.com to organise the Kili trek. We are also grateful to Team Kilimanjaro, who Henry organises his treks in conjunction with. We hope we did our trekking crew justice. We ensured our tipping ceremony recognised everones contribution and Simon called each crew member out by name when distributing their tips.

Henry introduced me to the East African Safari and Touring Company and the owner Simon King organised a great private safari for us, a real 'off the beaten track experience' with the part Masai owned Boundary Hill Lodge in Tarangire our favourite - despite the Tetse flies!! Our driver James did us proud and found us everything! He found us a leopard - a rare sight indeed and also a pack of African Wild Dogs, which are even more difficult to find than leopard.

Joice Kimano gave us a wonderful stay at her Songota Falls Lodge 7 kilometres from the hustle and bustle of Arusha. Songota is a charming example of warm African hospitality. The food was great and the lodge itself has been developed in harmony with its surroundings, demonstrated by the wildlife that is present there.

The Echo Beach Hotel on Zanzibar gave us an excellent end to the holiday. Sue and Andew the owners have developed a lovely little hotel in a nice quiet corner of the island. Also Moray will be remembered for always on hand to assist, working incrediby long hours!

I will also add a thankyou to the very nice man who delivered my lost suitcase to my home late last night. I wasn't expecting to see it for a while. I just have to wash all the contents now!

13th - 19th February - Echo Beach Zanzibar

Can't think of much to write about the beach part of the holiday. We did what we came to do, relax, eat good food, drink wine (and beer as it happens!) ........ and we did all of that! We also read a few books, met some lovely people, walked along the beach.... seems a long time ago now!

Then we packed, said goodbye, went back to the airport and came home! We watched a wonderful electrical storm from the airport at Nairobi but apart from that, just a regular boring set of flights home with just snow and work to look forward to..... until June 3rd and Switzerland :)

12th February - Stonetown Zanzibar

We went out today, having booked a car to take us on a tour of a spice farm and then on to Stonetown. We arrived at the spice farm, not far from Stonetown. A 'farm' wasn't apparent at all. There was just a small building and a open sided shelter where some products were laid out. We had a guide and his helper take us round. The guide explained the plants, how they grow and what they are used for and his helper busied himself making things with foliage. He made a container to keep the spice samples in

Then he made me a container to hold my water bottle in

Later another guy appeared and proceeded to climb a palm tree

and after retrievng two coconuts he came down cleaned them up and chopped the tops off and offered the coconut milk to us. Whilst this had been happening, the helper had made a hat for each of us and a tie for Simon. I didn't take a picture of these and we left them behind but there was one guy at the airport on the way home wearing his as a reminder!

Once the tour finished and tips were due, we were joined by other farm workers. We hadn't found the tipping culture particularly troublesome on the mainland but it was rather irritating on Zanzibar to be honest and anyone going on a tour should make sure they have lots of low denomination bills on them.

We then headed for Stonetown and were dropped of to be taken round by a guide. The temperature on the day was probably 35 degrees and there was no breeze, so it was particularly uncomfortable. Bearing in mind Stonetown and Zanzibar's rich cultural history, we were somewhat disappointed with the presentation of this. Significant buildings were dilapidated and in need of repair and the museums weren't particularly inviting or imaginative. The Fort was part of the music festival at the time we were there, I would like to see how that is presented when it is not used for events. The heat was made worse by the noise and pollution of the generators - these things of course no fault of the locals. Thank the lord the streets are mostly car free!

The architecture together with the winding narrow streets reminded me of old Mediterranean towns and cities like Nice Vieux, without the coloured paint but with a distinctive Arabian and Indian twist with the carved doors, windows and verandas and the mosques/temples. But then, many of the bigger and more significant buildings are distinctly Indian or Arab.

It was very hot and we found it very difficult to appreciate what was before us. I am not sure I would go back to Zanzibar but I am going to read more about its culture and history when I get home.

We gave up with the heat and went back to the hotel mid afternoon and jumped in the pool!

9th, 10th & 11th February - flight to Zanzibar & Echo Beach Hotel

This morning we were woken by Joice at some ungodly time. We had asked her for breakfast at 7am as we were supposed to be being picked up at 8am. Well the driver bless him, had thought we were flying at 8am and so called for us at like 5.00am!! - which was not long after we had gone back to sleep after the Bou Bou bird came!!

Anyway, Joice double checked the flight times for us and we explained to the driver his error and he had coffee whilst we got ready and had breakfast. We thanked Joice for a wonderful stay, packed up the car and we were on our way. We'd had quite an adventure in Northern Tanzania and we were quite sad to leave.

We arrived at the airport and checked in. Nothing out of the ordinary here except we went through the departure checks with the President of Zanzibar!!!  I watched the news on the airport tv for a while. The channel broadcast was Al Jazeera. The channel choice suprised me at first, as mainland Tanzania has a Christian majority, albeit not much more than 50%. Zanzibar however is predominantly Muslim, so  it wasn't so surprising really. We soon boarded our aircraft, which was the first propellor aircraft we'd been on for a while.

Once our flight left I was looking out of the window for our last view of Kilimanjaro before leaving. She was there, in all her glory. I took this picture at 19,000 feet, almost the same height as the summit, which demonstrated just what an adventure we'd had up the mountain.

The flight to Zanzibar is fairly short and after some refreshments and a read of a magazine I could see Stonetown and the small islands around Zanzibar out of the window

This is Grave Island aka Chapwani. It was called Grave Island because a small part of it has been used as a cemetery since 1879, mainly for British sailors

We quickly moved through Zanzibar's tiny airport, negotatiated the bizarre taxi allocation system and were soon on our way. From the moment we arrived I noticed a burning smell. At the airport I assumed it was just the fumes from aircraft but the smell persisted. We were to find out that it was the smell of generator fumes. The electricity supply to Zanzibar failed on 10th December 2009 and is still off as I write this. Therefore, there was to be no mains electricity to the island for the whole of our stay. Generators rumbled everywhere but those who could not afford them went without.

We passed one of Stonetown's main markets

Shortly after, the taxi driver pulled over and we watched the President's motorcade go by. This wasn't the only interruption to the journey. The driver pulled over to answer his mobile phone a least 3 times and then we were introduced to Zanzibar's police checkpoint system. We hadn't been stopped at all on the mainland but on Zanzibar we were subjected to 3 police checkpoints just between the airport and the hotel! These checkpoints are supposed to be to check the credentials and permits etc of the drivers but we would learn that it's more about supplementary police pay than anything else. At the second checkpoint the driver passed his permits to the officer but clearly visible was a tanzanian currency note. Aparently, the norm is not to hand money over in front of tourists but to 'pay the officer on the return journey after they have been dropped off.

After a journey of about an hour, we arrived at Echo Beach. We were geeted by Moray with a refreshing glass of fruit juice. Once the formalities were over we went to our room to freshen up.

A nice big bed

The terrace was lovely, with 2 sofas and a day bed. It also had a lovely view of the beach and the hotel gardens

8th February - Day 8 Safari - Tarangire National Park/Arusha

This was our last day on safari and we would leave the park at lunchtime. We didn't see much game this morning - more elephants and giraffe but not much else. Therefore, I am going to dedicate this page to the beauty of the park itself.

The last photo is the park's visitor centre, where we had lunch before setting off back to Songota Falls. We arrived about 6pm and said goodbye to James and thanked him for such a great safari.

This was to be our last night on the mainland before leaving for Zanzibar in the morning. Before we left Songota prior to the safari, Joice promised to cook us ugali and a traditional fish stew. She didn't disappoint and prepared us a 4 course feast which included a lovely lemon grass soup. This rounded our Northern Tanzania trip off wonderfully. We had a few of these too

7th February - Day 7 - Tarangire National Park

If yesterday was the day of the cats, today was the day of the elephants. Tarangire is famous for them and they didn't disappoint today. There were single elephants, families, babies, herds messing about in the water. Lovely creatures.

Just to beak up the elephants a bit, a bird!

6th February - Day 6 Safari - Tarangire National Park

We were up bright and early. We were escorted by the Masai warrior to breakfast and on the way he showed us lion footprints just feet from the door to our room!! I didn't have my camera on me to record these and later I forgot. By the time we returned from game driving they had been washed away by the rain. 

We packed up the Land Rover and headed out. As we went down the hill, we could see how minimal the impact of our lodge was on its surroundings.

This was to be another memorable 'day of the cats'. We followed 3 cheetas we found as they moved from mound to mound. They are truly spectacular to watch.

A mother and her baby

Tarangire is famous for these

A giraffe (obviously!)



When we got back, I was really interested to read the strategic plan for the Lolkisale Biodiverity Conservation project that the lodge itself is part of. There are a few of the early development documents still on the internet, including the original Project brief @ http://www.gefweb.org/Documents/Medium-Sized_Project_Proposals/MSP_Proposals/Tanzania_-_Lalkisale_Biodiversity.pdf