In September 2003 we went on a safari in Tanzania.  Before leaving we first had to prepare for our visit by acquiring a visa (€50 + €20 for same day service) and getting our shots for yellow fever and hepatitis (the other shots we already had last year).  We also took anti-malaria pills (Lariam) which we had to start 3 weeks before going and continue 4 weeks after we are back.  The itinerary was as follows:

We booked the trip through Angeli Travel in Holland who used a local tour operator called Predator’s Safari Club.  The trip was well organized and almost everything went smoothly (only minor problems with the internal flight and an overbooked hotel which are out of the tour operator’s control).  The only disappointing part was the tour guide:  that is to say, we thought we were getting a regular tour guide but what we got was a safari guide.  Big difference.  I blame Angeli travel for not making that clear.  So we did not get much information about Tanzania in general, but our safari guide, Muro, was great at finding and identifying all sorts of creatures.  When we were on Zanzibar, the tours and transfers were handled by George from Island Express Safaris & Tours.  George is very talkative and we got a lot of information there.

As for the overbooked hotel, that actually worked to our advantage.  We were originally booked in Karafuu Hotel on Zanzibar but they have 2 offices that make reservations and the two offices don’t talk to each other on a regular basis.   Therefore we were moved to the Blue Bay Beach hotel which is a higher class and more expensive, but we didn’t have to pay extra.

How does one go about on a safari?  First you need a suitable safari vehicle: a 4WD van or SUV with a raise-able or removable roof.  Next you need a safari driver who knows the area and hopefully knows all the animals. Then you just grab your camera and binoculars and ride around all day (either sitting or standing) until you see something.  When something is spotted, the driver stops as close as possible (without leaving the road) and you just sit and watch nature for a while.  (If you are Jan-Willem, you take about 1 photo every 15 seconds)   After the first day, you resist stopping every time you see the common things like gazelles, zebras, and warthogs.  It is actually very tiring because you are constantly looking in every direction over a vast plain trying to spot movement.  At first we tried to spot the animals based on color or deviation from the landscape, but that doesn’t work because you end up getting erroneously excited over rocks, limbs, bones, and mounds of dirt.  Movement is really the best way to quickly notice anything, unless you are experienced like our guide.  And when we saw something before our guide pointed it out, it was always the same:  we exclaimed “oooh, what’s that?” while pointing at the object in question (as if the driver could see where we were pointing).  Surprisingly, he quickly saw what we were pointing at and would answer right away, even if the animal were way off in the distance.  How he could tell the difference between a topi and a wildebeests at 500 meters is beyond me.  Towards the end of the safari, we would get brave and attempt to identify the animal on our own, our accuracy inversely proportional to the distance of the animal.

Below is a list of everything we saw that we can remember.  We saw many more birds than listed here, but don’t know/remember their names.  We have pictures of most of these, but I put the link at the bottom of the text to encourage you to read everything first.  We saw: elephants, lions, cheetahs, giraffes, gazelles, topi, wildebeests, hartebeests, dikdiks, reedboks, steenboks, impalas, hippos, rhinos, warthogs, hyenas, 3 types of jackals, a caracal, ostriches, zebras, buffaloes, vultures, marabou storks, kingfishers, pelicans, flamingoes, several types of eagles, secretary bird, kori bustards, baboons, monkeys, mongoose, hyrax, lizards, and an alligator.  What we did NOT see:  a leopard.  Timing is everything.  Several times we missed seeing a leopard by a few minutes (as reported by other tourists in the area).   However, we did see the kill of a leopard hanging in a tree.

Of course the Serengeti is the most well-known place for safaris.  It covers a land area equivalent to Belgium (about 12950 sq. km or  ?? sq. miles) – it’s BIG!   The word ‘serengeti’ comes from the Maasai word ‘siringet’ which means “endless plains”.  Indeed as you look out across the Serengeti you get the feeling that it goes on forever.  As a side note, “safari” also comes from the Maasai language meaning to go on a journey.  The roads winding through the plains are few and far between.   Given the size of the Serengeti you could easily drive around for hours without seeing anything, including another safari vehicle.   This was usually not the case, but it could happen.  We saw the most wildlife in the morning hours.  Elephants are hard to see because they take cover in the wooded areas and I think they make efforts to stay away from humans due to years of poaching.  NEVER BUY IVORY !!!  There are a few rhinos in the Serengeti but they are only in the south and are very hard to see.  The rhinoceros have almost been poached to extinction for their horns which some use as an aphrodisiac.  The rhinos can thank viagra for reducing the value of rhino horns.  We were lucky enough to spot a few elephants in the Serengeti, but not rhinos.  We also only saw one hyena in the Serengeti.

Given the obvious dangers involved with wild predatorial animals, we were not allowed to walk freely in the national parks.  You have to stay in your vehicle all the time.  Sometimes we saw a sleeping lion who look so sweet and harmless and didn't seem to mind our presence.  It would be easy to think that you could just get out of the car and walk a little closer for a better picture.  But we're not that stupid.  And in some places it looked completely empty - no animals in sight.  So again you might think it's ok to step outside and stretch your legs.  But what you can't see could hurt you.  The predators are so well camouflaged that you often cannot see them even when you know they are there.   We watched a cheetah walking along side the road, then he stopped and laid down in the brush.  I swear, he was 2 meters from the car and we could hardly see him.   If you looked away and then back you had a hard time finding him again.   That's just a bit scary.  Another time we came up to a seemingly empty field but there was another van stopped looking at something.  We asked them what they were looking at because we could see nothing but brown grass.  They said there was a lion and in a few minutes the lion moved and we saw it.  Within the next 10 minutes at least 4 other lions appeared from nowhere in the same area.  So these stories are reason enough to assume that it is never safe to get out of your car.

The are a couple of exceptions.  There are designated places where we would get out and eat a picnic lunch.  I still do not understand why these particular areas were determined to be safe except that there were alot of people already there.  But who wants to be the first one out of their car?

This is a huge crater from a sunken extinct volcano covering an area of 100 sq. mi.  Because all of the wildlife had to migrate to the crater, there are no giraffes in the crater, as they cannot descend the steep walls.  Most of the wildlife that is in the crater does not leave or go far away.  It is practically a self-contained ecosystem.  Due to the limited area, it is easier to see lots of animals in a short amount of time.  We saw a higher concentration of predators (hyenas, jackals, lions, vultures) in the crater than in the Serengeti.  You can see elephants in the wooded area (there is one road passing through the ‘forest’), and there are a good number of rhinos to be seen but they stay away from the roads so don’t forget your binoculars.  One tourist commented that if she came again she would only go to the Ngorongoro crater (apparently she wasn’t interested in giraffes).

This is a green, heavily wooded area that borders a huge lake.  All the same animals are present but the only predators we saw all day were a couple of eagles eating a baboon carcass.  I was told that you can sometimes see lions lying in trees here, but we were not so lucky.  There are a lot of elephants here!  We saw many families with elephants of all ages including a little baby. There are also a lot of baboons.

We took the balloon safari on advice from a well-traveled friend, Roy Thornton.  This was certainly an experience not to be missed (if you can dish out $400/person).  From the air you get a nice panoramic view of the huge Serengeti plains.  We had to leave our lodge at 5:45 am to drive to the balloon site.  I thought the way we got into and out of the balloon basket was neat.  It is probably standard procedure, but as this was my virgin flight I found it fascinating and will therefore describe it.  The basket was lying on its side while the balloon was being filled with air.  We (the 11 passengers) had to climb in and lay on our backs with our feet on what will be the floor.  Once the burners were started to heat the air, the balloon started to rise and at some point lifted the basket to its upright position.  That part was fun.   More gas to the burners and the balloon took flight.  The flight itself was calm and beautiful, but we did not see many animals.  For the landing, we had to sit with our backs to the right side of the basket (same as we did when we got into the balloon).  We brushed over some trees, hit the ground, then hit the ground again, and again.  Finally the basket stayed down and scooted a littler farther along the ground.  The balloon started coming down to the ground which caused the basket to tip over onto its side and drag a little more along the ground.  A quick check for lions by our pilot, Nik, and we were free to climb out of the basket.  This was the only time we were allowed to walk freely on the plains of the Serengeti.  Within minutes the trucks found us, the champagne popped open and we all had a nice drink at 8:00 in the morning.  Nik informed us that champagne after a balloon landing is a tradition started to appease the farmers in whose field the balloonist landed. The trucks took us to a breakfast spot which was also in the bush.  This was the nicest breakfast we had during the whole trip.  A table was setup for 12 (with tablecloth) and we were served a big breakfast that was cooked in their little portable camp-kitchen.  They even setup a portable potty with 3 walls of canvas and the fourth side open to the plains (“a loo with a view”).  

I’ve got one word:  carrots.  Everywhere we went, every time we ate, we had carrots.  Apparently Tanzania has a huge supply of carrots which they get rid of by forcing them onto tourists.  In the lodges the food was always buffet and mostly western style.  The only local dish we had during the safari was beans and bananas.  I know, it sounds disgusting, but it was actually quite good.   They do not use the sweet bananas, so after being cooked in brown beans the bananas take on a potato texture and taste.

While on Zanzibar we ate ala carte a few times.  The places were we dared to eat had tourist prices, which meant we paid ~ $15/meal.  Here we enjoyed the seafood, namely slipper lobster.  Slipper is in the lobster family, tastes very similar to lobster, but is cheaper.  JW complained that it was always served grilled and not boiled.  Amy tried the calamari.  It was very thick (the thickest squid I’ve ever seen), tasted good, but was a bit tough.  Most of the tourist food on Zanzibar was rather bland, which is odd considering that Zanzibar is nicknamed "Spice Island".  Our tour guide took us to a local (non-tourist) restaurant for lunch where we had delicious spiced rice with chicken or fish.  It was one of the best meals we had there, and it only cost $5 for all three of us, including drinks !

The tented lodge we stayed at had very good food.  It was not buffet, but there was only a meat or vegetarian option for the main course and the rest of the menu was set.  The food here was so good we asked for the recipe for their creamy leek soup (by the time of this writing, Amy has already reproduced the soup).

Once at our beach hotel, we had (western) buffets again for breakfast and dinner, but lunch was ala carte.   The lunch menu had a little seafood on it (at tourist prices), but their specialty was pizza.

In the National parks there are basically 3 lodges from which to choose.  We had the cheapest ones, Wildlife Lodges, but I’m told there’s not a big difference between the lodges except for age (ours was oldest, or as Nabeela phrased it, “the original lodge”).  As a side note, even the cheapest ones are $200/night including all meals.  The rooms are average size with an average bathroom.  Upon checking in, we were informed of the hours in which electricity and hot water are available.  Typically both are available in the morning from 6-10 and again at night from 6-12.  However, we did not get hot water during the evening at the Serengeti.  We were also told not to leave our windows open if we leave the room because monkeys will come inside.

The Serengeti lodge was built roughly in the middle of the Serengeti incorporating a kopje (large rocks pushed out of the ground).  "Kopje" comes from Dutch meaning "little heads" and the correct pronunciation is 'kop-ye', but everyone in Tanzania pronounced it 'kop-ee'.  The rooms are separate from the lobby and restaurant so we had to walk outside to get anywhere.   There are no fences or armed guards protecting the perimeter, so in theory a lion could waltz in and grab a tourist at will.  But lions have learned to fear humans, especially a group of them, so we rest assured that there are no mentally retarded lions on the prowl.  From our room we had a nice view of a pond and often saw zebras, gazelles, and giraffes nearby.  There were also a lot of monkeys, who indeed tried to get into our room even when we were in it.

The Ngorongoro lodge is at the rim of the crater with a beautiful view down into the crater.  The entire lodge is in one building so there’s no concern about getting grabbed by a lion while coming back from dinner.  The rooms did not have much heat, which is a pity because it gets damn cold at the crater at night.  Having just arrived in time for dinner, we quickly took showers and headed to the restaurant.  We were a little surprised that most people were wearing coats to dinner, and before the end of dinner we were both shivering cold.  It took several hours snuggled under the blankets to get warm again.

The Kirurumu tented lodge was surprisingly the most luxurious place we stayed.  If given the choice, I would not have opted to stay at a “tented lodged”, but I’m glad we did.  Basically the rooms are individual tents, very large tents, set up permanently like cottages with a roof built overhead and a deck.  They also contain a toilet, sink, and small shower.  Plus you get electricity and hot water 24 hours/day.  Finally a tent that JW doesn’t mind sleeping in !!  How do you lock your tent?  Simple, just put a bolt lock on the zippers of your ‘front door’.  This lodge is built on the cliff overlooking the rift valley and Lake Manyara.  There is a village nearby so there’s not much threat of predators.  But they hired Maasai guards to keep the place safe (also from theft).  While sitting on our deck some baboons came around picking food off the trees.  After breakfast we took a botanical tour by a Maasai guide.  As a Maasai he had long legs and consequently walked fast.  If any of you have ever walked with JW and got annoyed because he walked so fast, you would have appreciated they way JW had to race to keep up with our Maasai guide – heavy breathing was involved.  We walked (sprinted) to the edge of the cliff and got a nice panoramic view of the rift valley.

The hotel in Arusha, Karama Lodge, was a little out of the city so it was very quiet and peaceful.  The rooms are individual cottages built on the hillside.  Ours was furnished with a very large comfy bed with a mosquito net around it.  The hot water was generated by burning wood in a little stove just outside of the cottage (the personnel tended to the fire) to heat the water in the pipes.  The restaurant was good with ala carte menu.

On Zanzibar we first stayed in Tembo Hotel in Stone Town.  Although this is listed as a top end hotel, it was the worst we stayed in.  The room was not comfortable (2 hard single beds), the food was bland and expensive, and the only redeeming quality was that it had beautiful, spacious, blue-tiled bath/shower.  On Zanzibar there are more mosquitoes than where we were on the mainland, so it was standard practice to spray the rooms with insecticide every night while we ate dinner.  There were also mosquito nets around the beds.  It must work well because we didn’t see any mosquitoes in the room.

The beach resort, Blue Bay, was not much better.  We did have one extra large bed (it was really 2 pushed together), but the bed was so hard we woke with back pain. Plus the mosquito net had holes.  We complained 3 times and they never fixed it.  They also sprayed insecticide while we were at dinner.  The first night we saw a lot of mosquitoes in the room, but after that none.   The pool at Blue Bay was very nice with a deep end (2 m), which you often don’t get at hotels.  They also had a large area under palm trees and plenty of chairs to sit in (it wasn’t very busy).  The beach had a very low slope so that during high tide the water came right up to the wall of the resort, and during low tide you could walk out several hundred meters.  The one thing about Blue Bay that most upset Amy was the cost of cocktails: >$4 for a little drink.

On the whole, we must say that the entertainment in Tanzania was excellent.  At the lodge in the Serengeti, a group put on a show of local dances with music and singing.  Now, you already know that black people often have good rhythm, so it comes as no surprise that the dancers were very good and energetic.  They ended the show with a limbo under a flaming bar at about 20 cm (8”) from the ground.  Very impressive.  

At the Ngorongoro lodge there was an acrobatic show.  Very strong, flexible men preformed lots of stunts in the lobby which had a hard stone floor. I worried for the men that if they fell they would be badly hurt.  But these men were very good and made no mistakes.  Also a very impressive show.

The other entertainment we had was at Blue Bay on Zanzibar.  The usual band (they played every night but one, during and after dinner) had 2 very good singers.  They played a variety of music, oldies and new songs, even French songs, and I noticed that in the 3 nights we heard them they never once repeated a song.   One night we got a Maasai dance which was, how shall I say it, unusual.  A bunch of Maasai men (about 30) stood in a partial circle (I think they normally make a complete circle but left one side open so the spectators could see in), bouncing and humming in beat.   Suddenly one would go into the middle of the circle and start jumping as high as he could.  Sometimes others would join and they would jump in synch.  When the jumper felt like stopping, he would land hard, stomping his feet then return to the circle.  Sometimes someone would scream and the humming/bouncing/jumping would abruptly stop, then restart again almost immediately.  We were at a loss for reason.  The cycle continued well beyond the 20 minutes that we watched.  We bought a DVD of the Serengeti and on it is a clip of the Maasai dancing which is exactly the same as what we observed.

We had some bad luck with the flights, but it all worked out fine.  The flight to Tanzania was delayed 4 hours to due mechanical problems on the airplane.  KLM at least gave us a voucher to buy lunch in the airport while we waited.  But the result was that we only arrived in Tanzania at 1 am, then had to go 1 hour to Arusha, and could finally get to bed around 2 am.  Fortunately the next day was just riding in the car to get to the Serengeti.

The original internal flight (Arusha to Zanzibar) was for 2 pm but several days before  it changed to 11 am.  No problem so far.   We arrived at the airport at 10:45 to find out that the flight was no longer flying from Arusha but from Kilimanjaro airport (about 1 hr drive).  So Nabeela from Predator’s Safari made some complaints and not only got us re-booked for the 3:30 flight from Arusha, but she also arranged a free lunch for us at the airline’s expense.   Nabeela’s explanation:  “This is Tanzania”.   Ironically, the airline is called “Precision Air”.

The roads in Tanzania are of mixed quality.  From Arusha to Lake Manyara the roads are very good and smooth, primarily because they are new roads.   Shortly after Manyara the road suddenly goes from good to painful and remains as such beyond the Serengeti.  There is partial pavement in some places but with so many holes that everyone drives to the side in the dirt which is almost entirely not smooth.  Roadwork is still ongoing to lay new pavement all the way to Ngorongoro.  The dust stirred up by the traffic was unbearable.  We had to repeatedly close our windows every time a car passed us to prevent the dust storm entering our van. We arrived at the Serengeti shaken, not stirred.  The roads on Zanzibar were pretty good, mostly paved and in decent condition.   One other point: they drive on the left (the British have contaminated too many countries).

As I said before, we did not get a lot of information about Tanzania in general.  Instead of repeating what we read in the Lonely Planet, I have limited my comments to what we learned from our observations, our balloon pilot (Nik), and our Maasai botanical guide.  The Maasai are a group of nomads living in or near the national parks.  They graze cattle and live in little huts protected by nature’s barbed wire, a thorny tree that hurts when you catch your finger on it as Amy knows first hand.  It’s easy to spot a Maasai because they wear distinctive clothing: red or purple sarong-type garments (I don’t know the correct name, so I’ll just call it a sarong).  Often they will wear at least 3 garments, a regular t-shirt with a sarong around the waist and another sarong wrapped around their head, and Sometimes a 4^th sarong draped over the shoulders. They were red because that is the color of bravery and strength.  The Maasai are considered a warrior tribe and are distinctively tall.  We saw them often as we drove along the road.  A few times we saw boys dressed in solid black with white painted faces and sometimes feathers projecting from their head.  These are the boys who have been circumcised and are going through their initiation.  The initiation involves killing a lion (by yourself, of course), a process that consequently controls the population growth of the Maasai people.   The boys start at age 13 but often do not successfully kill a lion until 17, if they live that long.

This was the relaxing part of the vacation.  After several days of safari, we came to Zanzibar to rest and absorb everything we had seen before going home.  The first 2 days we were in Stone Town.  George gave us a very nice tour with lots of information over the history of Zanzibar.  We were not very impressed with the palace as compared to other palaces built in the same time period (like the French ones), but the palace was more glamorous than the surrounding houses.  The visit to the market was interesting and a bit smelly, especially the fish area.   I am always a bit surprised when people present fish & seafood without ice, but our fish store in Putte told us that seafood caught in warm waters could handle warm air temperatures without spoiling.  We also went to the area that used to be the slave market.   There is a church there now with a stone marking the spot where a pole stood on which slaves were chained and beaten.  I suppose we are naïve, but we don’t understand why people would treat their ‘property’ so badly: a sick or beaten slave is surely worth less than a healthy, fit slave.  Still, I guess there are some people (even today) who will use any excuse to demonstrate violence.

The next day we got a spice plantation tour.  First as we left Stone Town, we visited the ruins of the concubine palace.  There are just a few walls and a bath left now, but one can imagine what it must have looked like with lots of beautiful women running around.  Nearby was a Dhow (special type of sailboat) production area with dhows in different stages of completion.  They are still handmade using traditional materials and methods.  At the spice plantation we saw and smelled plants/trees for nutmeg, pepper, ginger, turmeric, coffee, clove, and cinnamon, plus foods like coconuts, cassava, jackfruit, and more.  A boy climbed a coconut tree with lightening speed and cut down some coconuts which we ate right away (not JW, he doesn’t like coconut).  Some other boys weaved for us a basket and a tie using the palm tree branches.

The beach on the east side of the island was beautiful.  We swam in the water without taking notice that it was our first time in the Indian Ocean.  We have heard that there is excellent snorkeling/diving around Zanzibar so we brought our snorkel gear.  Unfortunately there was not good snorkeling close to our hotel.  To get to a good location we had to pay extra and leave at 8 am, neither of which appealed to us. So we just swam at our hotel for 3 days. It rained one morning for about an hour, but the rest was sunny and warm.  The breeze from the sea was very soft in the mornings and blustering in the evenings.  Amy was even capable of getting cold at 30°C (86°F) !!

On the return, we were picked up and taken back across the island (< 1 hour drive) to the harbor in Stone Town where we caught the ferry to Dar es Salaam.  The ferry ride (~1.5 hrs) was rather bouncy and several people unwillingly gave their lunch to the sea.  After wading through about 50 people offering us a taxi or to carry our luggage, we saw that glorious sign saying “Goedmakers”.  We were taken to the Holiday Inn for dinner and then to the airport for an 11:30 pm flight (just barely still 9/11).

The souvenirs in Tanzania are mainly wood carved items such as animals, salad spoons & forks, bowls, bookends, and so on.  Alot of ebony.  On our first day we stopped at a big souvenir shop.  Of course you always have to negotiate the price, but their starting prices ("good prices") were amazingly high.  For a moment I thought I was in NYC.  Jan-Willem showed interest in some bookends and managed to get the price down to $30.  But I wouldn't have paid more than $10 so we did not buy anything.  Besides, we were not really in souvenir mode since it was our first day.  I wanted to buy a t-shirt but few of them said Tanzania on it.  I can buy a shirt with lion anywhere.  Ultimately we bought some souvenirs in the airport at a lower price that what we could get it for at the souvenir shops.  Strange but true.

On Zanzibar they also sold cloths which are made into sarongs.  The cloth usually had some Swahili on it.  Our tour guide translated some of them so we knew what we were buying (we hope!).  He also took us to a place where the locals buy so we could get it cheaper than the tourist places.

Lions

Cheetahs

Hyenas

Jackals & Serval

Vultures, Eagles, & Marabous

Antelopes (Gazelles, Hartebeests, Dik-dik, and Reedbuck)

            Impala & Topi

           Waterbucks, Wildebeests & Zebras

            Giraffes & Buffalo

            Ostriches, Mongoose, & Hyrax

            Birds

            Baboons

            Monkeys & Warthogs

            Elephants

            Rhinos & Hippos

Landscapes (Typical scenes in the Serengeti, Ngorongoro crater, and Lake Manyara)

Balloon Safari (Photos of the ballon, from the balloon, and after the balloon flight)

Zanzibar (all photos taken on Zanzibar:  Stone Town and beach resort)

Miscellaneous (another 26 photos that didn't fit into their own category.  Includes the lodges and entertainment.)