[Preface: The following journal writing of a two and a half week excursion in Tanzania, Afrika from December 29th, 2012 to January 16th, 2013, is presented here completely unedited, as it is written directly from my Fifth journal book. It is [26.5] hand written pages, plus [3] pages of reference notes.]
*Quick reference notes:
Istanbul, Turkey and Tanzania Afrika: Jan. 2013.
Sat. Dec. 29, 2012: fly from Goteborg Sweden airport (7:10PM). Arrived in Istanbul - sometime between 10 & 11PM, to Novotel hotel.
Sun. Dec.30, 2012: afternoon in the city of Istanbul - (approx. 6 hours). Evening flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (7 hour flight). Arrived in Dar Es Salaam 4AM - with 1 hour to get through passport control & customs (now 5AM - taxi 30 minutes outside of Dar Es Salaam to Beachcomber hotel, finally go to bed around 6AM - sunrise.)
Mon. Dec. 31, 2012 to Wed. Jan. 2, 2013: stayed at the Beachcomber - Dar Es Salaam. New Year's Eve party - dinner, fireworks. Check out the street markets.
Wed. Dec. 2, 2013: Dar Es Salaam bus station - bus to Morogoro (about 4 or 5 hours, I think), took Dala Dala - (city bus) from Morogoro bus station into center of Morogoro. Morogoro - 2 night, 2 day at Oasis hotel. (Wed. & Thurs.)
Fri. Jan. 4, 2013: check out of Oasis hotel (6AM). One and a half hour van ride to safari - Vuma Hills: Mikumi National Park. Stayed 1 night at Foxes Safari Camp. Safari.
Sat. Jan. 5, 2013: half day safari trip, and back to Morogoro - to Oasis hotel. Stayed 2 nights in Morogoro. Checked for train to either Dar Es Salaam of Tanga, (no train - only 2 trains a week - next train was that Tues. 8th, then Fri. 11th.)
Mon. Jan. 7, 2013: checked out of Oasis. Took hotel taxi van to bus station for bus to Tanga - 2 buses, only go once a day at 9AM, both buses full - couldn't go to Tanga. Oasis hotel van drove us back to Dar Es Salaam, to the ferry port. Took ferry to Zanzibar Island. 1 night in Stone Town, at the Abusa hotel.
Tues. Jan. 8, 2013: took a taxi from Stone Town to the East coast side of Zanzibar. The village of Jambiani, stayed at the Visitor's Inn - 5 nights, Tues. 8th til Sun. 13th.
Thurs. Jan. 10, 2013: Elin and I went snorkeling - my first time, (I got stung by a jellyfish.) I helped hoist the sail, and we both got to steer the boat. (Political - leaders conference at the Visitor's Inn.)
Fri. Jan. 11, 2013: boat race - big event for Jambiani.
Sat. Jan. 12, 2013: check out of Visitor's Inn, leave Jambiani village and go back to Stone Town until Tues. 15th - (2 nights in Stone Town.)
I really want to start this story about two weeks earlier, before the travel to Afrika begins. This part of the story - in mid-December may not be so exciting or eventful, but for me personally it was a short period of frustration and aggravation which I want to share and get off my chest. So anyway, my wife and I - our second car, a Hyundai Atos has had this problem of not starting up, sputtering, running rough, and stalling out whenever it's damp and wet outside. It only does this when damp and wet - Summer or Winter, hot or cold out, and it's acted this way for the two years we've had the car. So, it's mid-December and the Atos was dead, it wouldn't start up at all. I had it parked near the center of Son by these apartments and the Europris. It sat there for about two weeks. The Christmas holiday break came, Elin and I had five days off from work and we went to her folk's house in Toreboda Sweden for the holiday. It was Wednesday December 26th, Elin and I had to go back home to Norway for two days of work (Thursday the 27th and Friday the 28th) - we would be driving back to Sweden, to her parent's house that Friday night after work - our flight was to leave December 29th, Saturday evening around 6PM. So, on that Wednesday as Elin and I were packing up the Volkswagen to head back to Norway for two days, her dad Egon tells us to rent a trailer so we can tow the Atos back to Sweden on Friday night. Elin's parents thought it was a good idea, and Elin went along with it - agreeing. Over all I knew it could be a good idea, to take care of the matter as soon as possible, to rent a trailer and tow the Atos back to Sweden on Friday night, but I also knew the whole deal wouldn't be as easy as said and would be stressful. I really didn't want to do it - especially right before leaving on such a trip. But it was three against one. I knew I could have no say in this. (Elin's cousin is a mechanic and owns his own shop. He told us he could fix the Atos for real cheap - cash, paid "under the table".) So we rented a trailer, and towed an empty trailer back to Norway that Wednesday night. We parked the trailer near the Atos - in the center near those apartments and the Europris. The next evening, Thursday, after work I had to get the Atos loaded up onto the trailer - ready for towing on Friday night. I got help from our landlord Frank, my friend Kristian - who is also Frank's son-in-law, and my friend Andre. The Atos was buried in snow so Frank and I went down with shovels to dig it out as we waited for Andre and Kristian to show up to help. Frank and I got the car dug out and my own curiosity got to me, I wanted to try to start the Atos up - in which it did. It started right up first try with no hesitation, no sputtering out or stalling. It was running solid. I let it run. By now Andre and Kristian showed up, and the four of us got the Atos loaded up onto the trailer. Friday evening - Elin and I got the trailer hitched up to the Volkswagen pretty quickly and with no problem, that is until we tried to pull out, driving the VW, actually towing the Atos. There was still a lot of ice on the ground and the VW couldn't gain traction and wasn't powerful enough to tow the trailer with the Atos on it. We wouldn't be able to tow the Atos. I got up on the trailer, got in the Atos, again it started right up with no problem. We figured we'd have to get the Atos back off the trailer and just drive it to Sweden, and tow the empty trailer with the VW. The metal latches of the straps around the tires of the Atos that help hold it stable on the trailer had frozen, so we had to cut them off. After all this stressful hassle we got the car back off the trailer. Elin drove the Atos, and I took the VW towing the empty trailer. The main road going out of Son is kind of a steep hill, the road was wet but there was no ice - the VW was barely strong enough to tow the empty trailer up. I had it in first gear and was racing the motor, which I knew wasn't good. When I tried to shift into second I almost lost it, and had to drop back into first gear fast. There was no way at all the VW could have made it up that hill if the Atos would've been on the trailer. It was real late, I think around midnight when we got to Elin's parent's house in Sweden.
Saturday December 29th - it was a two hour drive to the airport in Goteborg, Elin's mom Ingrid figured we could leave the house at 2PM, our flight was at 6PM, and we also had to drop the Atos off at Elin's cousin's shop. Elin and I got a bit stressed on the time. We dropped the Atos off at the shop, and left there for the airport basically right at 2PM. We got to the airport in Goteborg around 4PM. The baggage check-in line wasn't real long but the girl working the counter was very slow. We made it with only about thirty or forty minutes till boarding time. Our first stop was Istanbul, Turkey. It was about a three hour flight to Istanbul. We had basically a day layover in Istanbul. It was around 11PM when we got to the hotel, so we took showers and went to bed. The next day - Sunday December 30th, we had about six hours in Istanbul. We took a taxi from the hotel into the city. We took a tour of a Mosque, walked about the city streets and markets, and drank Turkish coffee in a café. Photos were shot. Then it was back to the airport. We got to the airport an extra hour too early, which was my fault. I had looked at the time wrong on my boarding ticket, mistaking the boarding time for the take off time. We ate dinner and had a few beers. It was a seven hour flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Afrika.
We landed in Dar Es Salaam around 4AM, it took us about an hour to get through passport control and get our bags, and we got to our hotel - the Beachcomber around 5:30AM. It was almost 6AM and the sun was rising when we went to sleep. We stayed two nights at Beachcomber. We were there for New Year's Eve. For New Year's Eve the Beachcomber held a big party with a huge dinner buffet set up. There were a lot of people who showed up, there was a show with traditional Afrikan music and dances, people swam in the pool, and of course at midnight the fireworks went off. Across the waters of the Indian ocean we could see the fireworks out over the city of Dar Es Salaam. There really wasn't much of a beach at Beachcomber, so we couldn't swim in the Indian ocean there. The few days we were there we just sunbathed and swam in the pool - hanging out, relaxing and drinking beer. Elin and I did take a motorcycle taxi into Dar Es Salaam one afternoon to check out some street markets. (The motorcycle taxis in Afrika are like the Tuk-Tuks in Asia, but in Afrika they call them three-wheelers.)
On Wednesday the 2nd of January 2013 we checked out of the Beachcomber, took a taxi to the bus station in Dar Es Salaam - the bus station was complete hectic chaos, a lot more so than the bus stations in Asia. I can't remember how much the bus tickets cost, but we ended up paying an extra 5,000 Shillings for our bags - which was most likely some kind of scam. We were headed inland - East, to Morogoro. It was about a four hour bus trip. From the bus station in Morogoro we had to take a Dala-Dala (smaller city bus) into the center of Morogoro. At the station - more hectic chaos, the people were friendly and helpful - telling us which Dala-Dalas to take to get into the center of Morogoro, they fill the Dala-Dalas, packing in as many folks as they can, we had bus drivers surrounding us, offering better prices than the next guy, baggage porters grabbing at our backpacks, all trying to get us to take their Dala-Dalas. We got into the center of Morogoro and got a taxi - we had no hotel reservations and didn't really know where to go. Everything was on the fly. Our taxi driver took us to a hotel called the Oasis, which turned out to be walking distance from the center. We spent two nights at the Oasis in Morogoro. The backdrop scenery at the Oasis was amazing - a beautiful lush green mountain range. We walked about the town, taking photos, and we checked out the old post office - sending out some postcards to family and friends. (I have this old retro 1960's leather camera case I use for my Canon G10, I bought it in the Summer of 2011 in Shoreditch - London at a street market, the stitching was coming out and it was starting to fall apart. As we walked around Morogoro we passed by a lot of street vendors doing shoe repair and leather work. I ended up getting my camera case fixed - re-stitched for 2,000 Shillings, I tipped the guy an extra 500.) At the Oasis we booked a two day safari with a one night stay at Foxes Safari Camp at Vuma Hills in the Mikumi National Park. We got up around 5AM Friday January 4th - morning and checked out of the Oasis, the hotel had a taxi van scheduled to take us to Mikumi National Park at 6AM. It was about an hour and a half drive to Mikumi. On the main two lane highway road as we came into the Mikumi park area we had already started to spot giraffes, impalas, wild pigs (warthogs), and a small herd of elephants with a baby elephant crossed the highway. We got to Foxes Safari Camp - Vuma Hills and checked in. Foxes was expensive - $140 U.S. per night. The place was actually in part of the jungle of the Mikumi National Park, there were no fences around the compound so there was the possibility of the wild animals coming into the camp. The rooms were big tents set up on wooden platforms raised up off the ground. They had front porch areas with a small table and two chairs, the inside of the tents were done up very nice, we did have full bathrooms with a shower in the tent. The camp didn't have full electricity, they had generators that they only ran from 6PM to 10PM. The older lady that ran Foxes camp gave us flashlights to use after dark and told us that (after dark) if we went from the restaurant/bar back to our tents or from our tents to the restaurant that we had to have a guide take us - the guides were Afrikan Maasai warriors armed with only a machete and spear - we figured they would at least have a gun, a rifle or something more than just a spear. It was still pretty early in the morning, we put our bags in our tent and Elin and I went over to her parent's tent to have breakfast. The Oasis hotel in Morogoro had packed a breakfast for us - we had bread with butter and fresh fruit jam, and fresh fruit - passion fruit, oranges and bananas. After our breakfast we got back in the van with our driver and a guide from Foxes and headed out on our safari. We saw monkeys, baboons, giraffes, elephants, warthogs, water buffalo, hippos, crocodiles, impalas - we saw so many impalas that they became boring. We were out on our morning safari for just a few hours. We went back to Foxes camp for lunch and rested for about an hour, then we loaded back up in the van and headed back out for another few hours in the afternoon. In the afternoon we saw (three) lions. Lots of photos were shot. In the late afternoon when we got back to Foxes camp, Elin and her parents took a swim in the small pool and I lounged poolside - we all relaxed for a while and drank beer. At dinner time - it was dark by now - Elin and I met her parents down at the restaurant, she and her mom drank beer, and Egon and I had vodka with fresh apple juice. As we had our drinks waiting for dinner to start we fed pieces of fresh bananas to a bunch of bushbabies - small nocturnal animals, and on the ground below the wooden deck of the restaurant the camp staff threw out scraps of food into a pile to feed wild animals - we saw wild jungle cats and badgers. We drank wine with dinner. 5th of January - Saturday morning, we woke up, took showers, had breakfast, checked out of Foxes camp, loaded up the van and headed back out for another short - couple of hours - safari, then we went back to Morogoro, back to the Oasis hotel. We stayed another two nights at the Oasis. Egon had the idea he wanted to take a train someplace, Ingrid found out there was a train station in Morogoro. The train station was only about a couple of blocks from the hotel - like a five minute walk. I think it was Sunday when we walked down to the station - it was closed. There were some people lurking around at the station. Ingrid had her map out and we got approached by one guy, he asked us where we wanted to go - to take a train somewhere. We told him we wanted to head someplace where we could find beaches, or maybe take the train back to Dar Es Salaam...either way, it was Sunday, the station was closed, and he told us the train only ran on Tuesdays and Fridays - so we were out of luck on taking a train anywhere. He told us he was from a town called Tanga, it was North and on the coast - also not so far from the Kenya border. He told us there were some nice beaches in Tanga, and that there were also buses to Tanga. There were only two buses daily from Morogoro to Tanga, and both buses left daily at 9AM. It would have been about a four or five hour bus ride to go from Morogoro to Tanga. We went back to the Oasis and told the hotel manager we wanted the hotel taxi van to take us to the bus station that following Monday morning - the plan now was to take a bus to Tanga. He asked us why we wanted to go to Tanga, that there was nothing in Tanga, he said it was a dead town. We checked out of the Oasis on Monday morning - the 6th, the hotel van had us at the bus station by 8:30AM, but both of the 9AM daily buses to Tanga were already booked - filled - no tickets left. So we couldn't get to Tanga. We made the decision to head back to Dar Es Salaam, and take a ferry over to Zanzibar Island. It turned out that the Oasis hotel van was also going to Dar Es Salaam - the hotel was picking up some other tourists at the airport. So we got a private taxi van ride back to Dar Es Salaam to the ferry port. The port was chaotic like the bus stations. Porters all over the place, grabbing at our bags, wanting to help, asking for money - tips to carry our backpacks. At the gate we had to show our passports and ferry tickets - handing them through the bars of the gate, then when we got the OK - they would barely open the gate, giving us just enough space to get through with our bags. The ferry took two hours from Dar Es Salaam to the port at Stone Town Zanzibar Island. It was hectic and more chaos at the port in Stone Town, we had to fill out customs cards and get through passport control. We walked a couple of blocks and went to a bar/restaurant for a small lunch and beer. The place had a full menu but when we went to order, the waitress told us the only thing they were actually serving was pizzas. So we all ordered pizza. It turned out to be the most flavorless pizza ever - it was just no good at all. We only stayed one night in Stone Town - at the Abusa hotel. The Abusa was amazing, beautiful - the décor was kind of Victorian, very antique style. That night Elin and I went to dinner just ourselves, without her parents, and we walked around Stone Town for a bit.
The next day, Tuesday morning, we checked out of the Abusa and took a taxi van to the East coast side of Zanzibar. We checked into the Visitor's Inn, in the beach village of Jambiani. Visitor's Inn was a Muslim owned and run hotel so it was a "dry" hotel, no bar, no alcohol - and there was some sort of political conference going on at the hotel, there were politicians all over the place. We stayed in Jambiani for five nights. We had sea view bungalows right on the beach, and right next door on the other side of a concrete wall was a beach bar, and not far at all up the beach was another hotel and bar spot called Garden Bar. So we had two bar spots very close by. The days and nights in Jambiani were very mellow, relaxing. We sat on the beach, sunbathed, drank beer, and swam in the Indian ocean. The water of the Indian ocean was very tropical - that greenish-blue, almost like in Asia, but the water was very warm. It was almost not so refreshing to swim in. The 10th of January, that Thursday, Elin and I went out snorkeling to a coral reef not too far out from Jambiani. It was my first time snorkeling. The boat our guide took us out in was this wooden boat - it looked hand carved and homemade - it probably was, it looked like it was made traditional style, like maybe how they have been making the boats for centuries, all the boats in Jambiani were like this. I had to help our guide hoist up the sail and on the way out to the reef, Elin worked the rudder - steering the boat. I steered the boat on the way back to shore.
The next day on Friday, in the afternoon, the small village of Jambiani was jumping with excitement, there were people everywhere, almost every boat it seemed was being pulled into shore by the Garden Bar, they were lining the boats up, a huge crowd was gathered, people everywhere. It was a big boat race. It was awesome. The following day, Saturday the 11th of January was Zanzibar's Independence day, but there were no big parties, or fireworks, or any kind of celebrations. No one seemed to care. It was just another day. Sunday the 13th was our last morning in Jambiani, we checked out of the Visitor's Inn and took a taxi van back again to Stone Town. We stayed two nights in Stone Town. Those last couple of days and nights on Zanzibar in Stone Town we walked around the town, checking out the markets - basically getting lost amongst the maze of narrow streets and alleys, we checked out the old fort, hit up cafes and bar spots - drank beer, lounged at the pool of the Dow Palace hotel where we were staying, and I shot some photos.
The 15th of January, a Tuesday, we checked out of the Dow Palace and left Zanzibar Island, taking the ferry back to Dar Es Salaam. It was after noon, some time around 1 or 2PM, we took a taxi from the ferry port to a hotel in the city of Dar Es Salaam. We took a hotel with a swimming pool. Our flight home was scheduled very early Wednesday morning the 16th at 4AM so we really only needed the hotel room for that Tuesday afternoon - into the night. We would check out around midnight or 1AM Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. At the check-in desk Ingrid and I said we only wanted one room with two beds for the four of us, but since there was four of us, the hotel staff didn't want to give us one room to share. They wanted us to take two rooms. After several minutes of me and Ingrid explaining our situation - how we didn't need the room over night, that we would be checking out around midnight, they finally let the four of us take just one room to share. We got to the room...the two twin sized beds were thee smallest twin beds I had ever seen. We all changed into our bathing suits and went to the pool. The pool was on the third floor - rooftop patio style, and over looked an alley streetway. We swam and sat poolside drinking beer. I stood at the railing and looked down - out over that alley and street. At the end of the alley, across the street there was a big market area, I saw live chickens in cages - in rows and stacked. In the alley - a guy washed his car, another guy slept - taking a nap just outside his apartment with the front door open - laying on the ground on pieces of cardboard as a mat-bed, and another guy was washing his motorbike - he had a wash bucket and a wash rag, when he finished washing his motorbike he took his shirt off and washed it in the wash bucket then laid it over the bike to dry, then he rolled his pants up to just below the knee, and proceeded to take a sponge bath with the rag and from the wash bucket he just used to wash his motorbike - and not changing out the water. He didn't take his sandals off either. He dunked his feet in the wash bucket, took the wash rag and scrubbed his feet and sandals, washed down his pants and the rest of his body. On the way back to the room the elevator got stuck - between floors. I had never been stuck in an elevator before. At first I stayed calm and didn't really get nervous or panic, but the elevator was extremely small, especially with the four of us in it. Elin started to feel very claustrophobic and got nervous, so this made me start to feel more uneasy. We had to hit the alarm bell two or three times before anyone came to help. Yet, we were only stuck in the elevator for no more than ten minutes. When we finally got into the room we discovered the air conditioning was not working, and it was very hot. We were all sweating real bad and it was miserable. We went down to the front desk to complain and asked to be switched to another room. We did get a new room with working air conditioning, but it took quite some time. The bad part about the second room was the sound didn't work on the T.V. - and at that point that's all I wanted to do was relax and watch T.V. It was dark outside now. I think it was around 8 or 9PM - maybe even a bit later. Everyone - Elin and her parents, were starting to fall asleep, I was drained out - exhausted as well. I wanted to sleep too. But those twin sized beds were so damn small...Elin over took the bed and pushed me out, and Egon was snoring so damn loud that I couldn't even figure out how Ingrid and Elin could sleep. I actually felt like I was being driven insane, no lie. I was so over tired, sleep deprived, I had a terrible headache from Egon's snoring, I was pacing back and forth - walking in the very small hotel room, I sat on the edge of the bed in which I accidentally awoke Elin which in turn ticked her off and she snapped at me a little, I sat in the chair that was next to the bed Ingrid and Egon slept in - tried to sleep sitting up but the chair was in direct line under with the air flow from the A.C. so I got cold, and again with Egon snoring. I even thought of sleeping in the bathroom - in the bathtub, but there was no tub. It was just a shower stall. I went back to pacing about the small room. It was very late at night, I even thought of leaving them a note saying that I went out for a late night walk around Dar Es Salaam and that I would be back in time to go to the airport. But I didn't leave. I just paced back and forth, exhausted, going insane, listening to Egon snore as Elin and Ingrid slept. And this was our last night in Tanzania.
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