Reflections on being in Africa

It feels early to be writing about this...... making sense of the internal journey of this trip, but it is impossible not to be impacted by this continent. Being in a country like Tanzania holds up a mirror of all that is right and all that is wrong in this world. It holds up a mirror to ourselves. We have such privilege in our lives. Astounding privilege. It is very humbling.

Saadani Day 3 - Ungulates Galore!

We opted for a second safari on our last day. This one was quite different that the day before and we went to an area more suitable for grazing herds and probably lions although we didn’t see any sign of lions. At one point, we saw herds of as many as four different animals grazing together plus a few warthogs for good measure.

Altogether we saw Impala, Wildebeest, Greater Kudus, Waterbuck, Hartebeest, Steenbok and Common Reedbuck. We returned for breakfast and were enjoying watching a small monkey hanging round the restaurant when it suddenly leapt up to our table and grabbed a piece of toast. See previous entry about the possibility that they are pests! Very cute pest. We realized the servers were using slingshots firing wine corks to keep them at bay.

Our return flight was on a larger air taxi, a Cessna C208 (Rose thinks she may have just recently been working on a report about one of these.) The flight was uneventful and free of all those time consuming lectures about using seatbelts and location of emergency exits and stowing your gear safely in the event of an emergency! Nothing about safety. Nada! Zilch!

We were met by our Saadani contact in Dar who ensured we hooked up with our pre-paid taxi driver for the trip back to our hotel in Dar. (Rose has been on roller coasters that were less scary than this trip!) Traffic was very busy possibly because of the coming holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan. Each time we stopped, hawkers would walk by with stuff to sell – car chargers for cells phones, CDs, water, apples, nuts, stuffed toys, hazard signs(!), aerosol sprays of some sort and comic books that appeared to feature Sadaam Hussein. What market research are these guys using and where does this stuff come from? And who buys it? We might have seen one sale. The hawkers walk in and out of traffic that stops for no one and accelerates from 0 to 60 in seconds.

Our driver agreed to stop by the Scandinavian Express Bus Station so we could try and get tickets to Muheza for the next day. No luck unfortunately but we were able to get tickets for Oct 1st. Front row, semi-luxury!

Back to the Harbour Suite (We are looking at a building this time but if we look sideways, we can see the harbour.) and a pizza, beer and bits of B movies on TV.

The day was hot and it poured this morning so we spent the day catching up with the blog and resizing and adding photos. This afternoon we walked to a local artisans market we had heard of fending off three more ''touts'' along the way, two of them twice. We are getting better at getting rid of them faster however we had nowhere to go but up. I was about to claim we were on our way to meet husbands who had warned us not to speak to strange men and Sal had just told one she couldn't remember where we were saying when we decided we would just put it right out there that if they were looking for money they would be disappointed. It worked.

Saadani Day 2 - Monkeying around!

In the morning when the tide is low, men and women from the local village are out with their nets fishing for prawns. They would wade in the water, dragging their nets, and a few hours later they would walk by with the nets over one shoulder and a bag of prawns over the other. Occasionally we heard some singing.

We were up before our 5:30 alarm to head out on a land cruiser at 6am. So nice of them to have coffee ready before we left. The morning was beautiful and the surroundings so different that that alone would have been enough. We didn’t see any animals for quite awhile but I wasn’t surprised as I had heard that from another group who went out a couple of days before us. But then we saw bush pigs, common water bucks, Hartebeests, monkeys, then a long break before we saw a group of giraffe, zebras and a poacher! We travelled slowly through what appeared to be elephant land with no luck. Our guide seemed more disappointed than we were. Scattered throughout the 3 hour drive were single and groups of monkeys, birds and more common water bucks and a couple of warthogs. I was reminded of Phillipe Baud visiting at Christmas a few years ago and wanting to see deer. We see deer regularly at home, sometimes several a day but if I went looking for them, I would likely have no luck at all. It is amazing that we saw anything but I’m sure many tourists come expecting to see hordes of the big five on demand.

Swimming in the Indian Ocean is like swimming a large bathtub. The water is incredibly warm! And full of salt – huge salt chunks line the high tide mark – so not much paddling was required to keep ourselves afloat.

Afternoon winds from the southeast were a daily occurrence. The Dhows (sail boats used for fishing) would head out to sea at quite a clip. The high tide would churn up the sand and crash against the shore.

At the end of the afternoon, we were visited by a swarm of Vervet monkeys. They may be the African equivalent of pigeons or seagulls or squirrels or raccoons, but they sure were cute. One sat up on the furniture on our deck and picked up our cribbage board and then touched one of our metal water bottles. A mom with a baby clinging to her belly came by with a few very young monkeys. They seemed quite at home until a baboon appeared and there was some hissing and they all moved on.

There is a star house and a tree house at the lodge. The star house is open to the night sky but you didn’t need to go there to see the stars. Star gazing is something else here.........even for novices like ourselves. So bright, so close, the Milky Way forming a huge arch overhead.

The tree house was covered and overlooked 2 watering holes. It was a quiet shaded place to watch for animals and journal on the laptop.

Saadani Day 1 - Wami, How I love ya!

We left the lodge at 8am for a 17km drive to the Wami River for a boat trip. We passed through a couple of villages on our way and saw monkeys, warthogs and bush pigs along the road. As we neared the ocean south of Saadani, we drove through salt fields where workers were shovelling and bagging sea salt. What back breaking work, standing in the hot sun, raking and shovelling salt.

The Wami River is an old river full of deep bends that snake back and forth. We had hardly rounded the first bend when we came upon our first group of Hippos. A quarrel broke out amongst them, and we soon saw the size of these creatures, including their huge mouths. We wended our way up this leisurely river, seeing lots of hippos, including some babies! We saw mainly ears and eyes, but some stood up on the shore now and then. (They can hold their breath under water for up to 15 minutes.)

We also saw several crocodiles: small, medium and large. Seeing them move on land is quite impressive...............they look quite prehistoric and appear to move awkwardly (but I would not want to race one!). What really stood out though, was the number of beautiful birds. We saw tons of them! Lots of Kingfishers (including the tiny Malachite Kingfisher), storks, birds of prey.....just an amazing array of calls and colours. We also saw a couple of Colobus monkeys.

Fish guts on our shoes

We awoke at 5 am on Rose's 55th birthday to the call to prayer from the nearby mosque resonating over the city via loudspeakers. One of those moments that brings home the fact that you are in another culture.

We have been befriended by a couple of ‘touts’ as they are called in the guide book. Our second ‘friend’ was Simba whom we met first on the first day and again the second day twice. On our first encounter, he showed us his artwork which was quite beautiful. Lovely colourful oil paintings of Masai people and animals scrapped and painted onto canvas. On the second meeting, he walked us around the fish market where fish is smoked and sold along with fruits and vegetables and other merchandise and then took us to the harbour where the fish is gutted, cleaned and auctioned. Without him leading us we would never have seen as much.

Later that day, we flew up the coast over Bagamoyo, a town on the coast, and over large rectangular areas that we learned the next day were salt fields. Zanzibar was visible in the distance. Our pilot was an Argentinian woman and the plane was the smallest one on the tarmac, seating at most 5 passengers. Lined up beside the other air taxis, it looked like a giant mosquito!

We landed on a sandy airstrip near the lodge where we were met by Conrad, one of two managers. During the short drive to the lodge we saw several monkeys which we would soon come to realize are everywhere. We were met by Sofia and other staff bringing cool wet facecloths and cold juice, welcome after the hot trip.

The rooms are delightful as is the whole set up. Grass mat roofs on pole construction frames. Bathrooms with sand and rock floors and an open shower. Beds with mosquito netting. The breeze off the ocean fills the room and the ocean at high tide is 50 feet away. We are screened from neighbours by palms and guarded by Masai.

The place runs on solar power and a generator. There is no cell phone signal, at least not on our phone, no internet, and no land line.

Dr. Johnson wouldn't approve!

We should have bought stock in Purell! Our travel physician recommends it for everything almost up to the point of washing food in it. He was full of dire warnings about eating food abroad and by our last visit, we were convinced he was not himself a traveller.

Our hotel in Dar Es Salaam serves a continental breakfast. On the first morning we arrived to find coffee, individual yogurts, bread products and fruit and sliced meat on plates. We looked at the meat and fruit and agreed that Dr. Johnson wouldn't approve! And we took his advice and steered clear.

Snoop Dogg and entourage

Journalling online is new to us and we realized we missed a few things the first time around. First, we want to express our appreciation to all the people who helped out in the days before we left and especially the day we left.

Second, we queued in the Amsterdam airport to check our luggage. When you reached the head of the line, a KLM agent directed you to take a place in line in front of at least 16 agents with counters split evenly between the left and the right side of the baggage check area.
Rap musician Snoop Dogg and his entourage were en route to a concert that night in Ireland (we googled his tour dates later to see where they were headed and to confirm it was him.). They were in the queue behind us. His manager was trying to have them all go to one agent together and was holding up the queue arguing with the KLM staff about this while people went ahead of them. The KLM agent said they should go to the last line because they were blocking the way for everyone else. In all fairness, there was no centre aisle open that would allow them to go through to the last pair of counters and there was no room for those already lined up to make way for them.
The entourage proceeded with the manager making loud disparaging comments about the airport organization. When he could proceed no further than about the middle of the area, he proclaimed ‘’there is no last line’’ and directed the entourage to disperse and pick a line. (There was a last line, in fact there were two last lines, one on the left and one on the right.)
The entourage seemed unclear on the concept of queuing and a couple of them proceeded to line up parallel to us for the same agent going around the far side of a large poorly positioned square post right in front of our agent. The people ahead of us had a hard time getting their baggage cart out because of them and they arrived at the agent at the same time as us at which time I informed them they had queued in the exit line for our agent. They took it well and backed out.

And the journey begins...

So glad we took a couple of days in Amsterdam en route to Africa (Thanks Barb M. for the encouragement). What a cycling city! More people on coaster bikes than pedestrians and cars put together it seems.

And although bike theft is apparently high, the other end of the spectrum is bikes returning to nature, they have been so long in one place.

After some initial disorientation on Rose's part, we found our way around the city fairly easily taking the train to and from the airport and the canal and city buses to get to and fro as well as a lot of walking. Rose now fully appreciates the importance of laptop weight when buying laptops.

Day 1 was devoted mostly to jet lag. Day 2 was museum day with a visit to the Van Gogh and Rijkmuseam as well as an external visit only to Anne Frank Huis - the line was way too long and it was enough to just to see where she was hiding as both of us had been moved by her diary.

Day 3 was a day of travel - 12 hours on a plane, 2 sitting on the tarmac at Kilimanjaro Airport in the dark so we couldn't even see the mountain. But the views from the plane of the Alps and the North African desert were spectacular.

Day 4 finds us in Dar after pretty good sleeps. Our hotel is downtown with a view over the Bay.

It's hot. Lots of people. We walked around town this morning and will venture out again to buy a cell phone later today. While we have seen other mzungu (white folks), we are few and far between.