I left Arusha Monday morning of the 12th day of March. As I mentioned before, since I won't going on the "Great Kilimanjaro Climb", I drove past the southern wing of the mountain through the city Moshi.


I salute Kilimanjaro from the southside.

Before reaching Dar es Salaam I want to leave the main road and drive north to Tanga; to go as far as the Indian Ocean. This will be the first time I will meet the sea after Alexandria in Egypt, but this time on the east coast of Africa.

Tanga
Tanga looks like an empty holiday village, mainly because of the rainy season and because it is mainly a holiday place for the rich Tanzanians (generally, of Indian and Arabic origin). During the Persian period and then the period of Sultanate of Oman it was an important port city on the east coast. When in 1887 the Zanzibar Sultan rented the east coast to the Germans it even became a capital city but lost this title to Dar es Salaam in 1891. Tanga remained an important trade center to the Germans and from 1916 to the English. Tanga means "sail" in Swahili language. Do you think maybe the swimsuits that share the same name are called that because they have the shape of a tiny sail? Tanga reflects the history of the African east coast beautifully with its Arabic and Indian style buildings from the pre-colonial period and its colonial structures.

It is incredibly hot in Tanga. Since the hotel I am staying at is inland I go to the Rashkazone Swimming Club down by the shore. The view at the beach reminds me of the images of the Ganges River that I have seen in photographs and movies. Hundreds of people in a small cove swimming in their clothes, swimming suits, etc… So the people missing from the streets have gathered around here. On the beach they all stare at this mzunguya (It means "white man" in Swahili language"). Apart from a few Indians, everyone is African. I decide that shower at the hotel is a good idea. I don't think coming to Tanga was such a great idea.

I leave for Dar es Salaam on Monday morning. Most people think that Dar es Salaam (or Dar, as it is generally referred to) is the capital city of Tanzania. They are wrong, and so was I, until I found out that in 1990 government decided to make Dodoma the capital city, in accordance with Julius Nyerere's wishes. But due to financial restraints this was delayed. In 1996, Tanzania's capital was officially moved from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, although many government offices and embassies still remain in Dar.
Julius Nyerere has played an important part in Tanzania's independence. He served as Prime Minister first when Tanzania became independent on 9 December 1961, and then as the President of the country from 1964 until October 1985 when he willingly stepped down from his office and handed over power to Ali Hassan Mwinyi. In October 1995 Tanzania held its first ever multi-party election. Benjamin Mkapa's
party won this election and Mkapa was elected as the new president.

Nyerere was known as a reformist president. The socialist mentality of the government, close relations with socialist countries, Nyerere's speeches that supported the Africans who did not have voting rights in South Africa and Mozambique made the Western world uneasy. When Nyerere criticized England's reaction to Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independency, England pulled its support from Tanzania in 1965. It is important not to confuse Nyerere's actions with animosity against the white people. Tanzania withdrew from an OAU (Organisation of African Unity) conference held in Kampala in 1975. The reason was "Holding this meeting in Kampala means that OAU is accepting and legitimizing Africa's most bloodthirsty regime." At the time Tanzania has given right of asylum to many Ugandans fleeing from Idi Amin's regime, including former president Milton Obote and the current president Yoweri Museveni. Annoyed by this, Amin launched an attack on Tanzania in October 1978 and bombarded Bukoba and Musoma. Tanzania declared war in retaliation; invaded Uganda, deposed the regime of Idi Amin, and facilitated the return of Obote back to power. Leaders of other African nations did not look upon this warmly and criticized Nyerere for what they saw as interfering with internal affairs of another country, despite the fact the first strike has come from Amin and not Nyerere.

Nyerere was aware of the difficulty and high cost of bringing services to a widely scattered population. He initiated a project called Ujamaa (familyhood) in 1967. Ujaamaa aimed at making health and educational services more accessible to public by encouraging the families living in the mountainous areas to relocate to the villages established for this purpose. Moreover, he was planning to increase productivity in agriculture by promoting cooperative trading system. Seeing that the Ujamaa project was initially producing good results the government actually began to force the unwilling families to relocate. With increased population concentration, water and other resources were becoming scarce in these areas and Tanzania experienced a terrible disaster during one of the periodical famines. This "ruralization" exercise came to an end before its planned goals could be realized. This project has actually assisted government in bringing education and health services to the public. But more importantly, thanks to Nyerere's efforts Tanzania became a unified country, while every other African country remained troubled with tribal wars and conflicts for many years even after gaining independence.

Dar es Salaam (or short Dar)
Going back to Dar (I'd prefer not to but...); as I was entering the city limits I had the feeling as if I was entering Ankara from Akköprü side. Those of you that remember the old Ankara will also remember Akköprü. Driving on Istanbul motorway towards Itfaiye Meydani (the square where the main gates of Genclik Parki are) there was an old bridge to the left; whether it is still standing or has already been a victim of our eminent mayor during the overpass / underpass construction works, I do not know. When you finally enter the city (I say finally because you get stuck in traffic for hours), you come across a sight which makes you wonder if the municipality had won the lottery and began to reconstruct the entire infrastructure, then ran out of money half-way through. There are holes everywhere; some of them were deserted while others still enjoyed steady, albeit slow progress. They have also dug up the roads, but as I said, when they ran out of money they didn't close them either. Add to that the rainy season... I regret that I didn't take with me my flippers and snorkel. Granted, my car can go through water as deep as 80cm but still, for anything deeper than that where the car wouldn't to go through, I wasn't equipped enough to swim to the shore. And since I couldn't swim to all of the hotel choices downtown, I picked one outside of the city center towards Msasani peninsula where the rich and mostly foreign nationals live. The embassies and residences of the embassy staff were also located in this area. There was even a Turkish restaurant called Turquoise. The room rates were of course double the amount quoted in the book. When I asked the receptionist why the prices increased that much, she told me that the hotel had been recently renovated. I then proceeded to query whether they have doubled the room sizes as well as the prices; she simply said "We have improved quality". We shall see. Yes! There is wireless internet at the hotel. That by itself is enough for me to make up my mind about staying here. I won't have to look for an internet café, but on top of that, not only will I be able to download all my messages into my laptop and reply, but also I will be able to have long chats with Buket and Alican online on Skype or MSN Messenger.

It is incredibly hot and humid. And too many mosquitoes. Luckily the room is air conditioned. I will get out of here tomorrow. It is not nice to talk so little about a capital but unfortunately there isn't much to talk about in Dar.

Zanzibar
Yes! Zanzibar was like a lottery prize. I didn't have Zanzibar in my original trip program because I heard that it was an over-commercialized tourist attraction. But after receiving an e-mail from a friend of mine who praised the place and encouragement from Buket I decided to modify my program to include a two-day escapade to Zanzibar. I think Zanzibar could be the most commonly used name for a bar since it ends with the word "bar". I wonder how many bar owners who learned about the island when picking its name for their bar.

Zanzibar is an island to the north of Dar, off mainland Tanzania. Actually it is not "an island". Zanzibar consists of a group of small islands including Unguja (the Zanzibar Island itself) and Pemba. Although Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, it elects its own president who is head of government for matters internal to the island and has its own parliament. But both the president and the parliament have to consult with Tanzania before taking any steps. It even has a small size token army. At the same time, when entering the country (or this region) you have to go through customs and passport controls and pay entry tax, etc. Now let's talk about the story of Zanzibar.

Zanzibar began to gain popularity during the Persian Shirazi reign around 13th century along the East Africa coastline. Later in 18th century when Oman Sultanate gained control of the region this popularity increased further to the point that, Oman Sultan Said made Zanzibar his base in East Africa in 1823. He even declared it as the capital city and moved his entire palace to Zanzibar in 1840. Oman controlled a substantial portion of the east African coast from Somali to the north of Mozambique until 1888 when it was "rented" to Germany. The Arabic presence in Zanzibar continued even after Germany lost Eastern Africa to England and Belgium at the end of World War I in 1918, up until April 1964 when Zanzibar became an autonomous part of Tanzania following Tanzania's independence on 9 December 1961. It is part of Tanzania but that is how it looks from outside. Zanzibar, from within, looks like a separate and independent country. And people of Zanzibar feel this way too. There is some kind of reaction - I won't call it animosity - towards Tanzania. For instance, they don't even use the word Tanzania when they are referring to it. They call it "mainland".

Zanzibar's strategic importance and continuous appeal to Persians and then the Arabs for many years is due to the fact that it is the gateway to trade in East Africa. This trade was established based on two commodities: Gold (from Tanzania and Zimbabwe regions) and most importantly slaves. The number of slaves sent off from Zanzibar to the "world markets" was an average of 40,000 per annum. If you take into consideration that about five times more of these slaves died on the way to Zanzibar from where they were picked up; again many more (old, sick, weak, etc) have been killed during the slave selection processes in the villages, you can see how "costly" the slave trade has been for the Africans.

Especially when the English took the region under their control and the slave trade -almost- completely came to an end, a new commodity replaced it: ivory. This time it cost hundreds of thousands of elephants their lives. The golden age of trade that Zanzibar enjoyed beginning from the Shirazi era and through the Arabic reign inflicted significant damage to Africa's living population.

Majority of Zanzibar is Muslim thanks to years and years of Muslim dominance in the area. Apart from Zanzibar which is 96% Muslim, Dar es Salaam also has a high percentage of Muslim population, as well as a significant part of the population living on the east coast of Tanzania.

History lesson is over, now how about some current information about Zanzibar? There is an abundance of ferries from Dar to Zanzibar everyday. Some of these ferries are slow, some fast and some even faster. If you want to take your car with you as well one of the slow ferries is your only option. These slow ferries also have a variety of departure and travel times. No matter what time they leave and how long they take, the cost of taking your car with you on one of them always starts from USD400.00 - 500.00 depending on your bargaining power. This is too expensive and the slow ferry is way too slow to make the two-day Zanzibar adventure worthwhile with a car so I decided to leave it behind and picked a fast ferry to the island. Tuesday morning, on March 14th I left the hotel to catch the fast ferry but before leaving I left my laptop and some other extra belongings that I didn't want to carry with me in the "safe" section of the car and put the padlock on it. I parked the car close to the entrance to the reception area at a spot where the hotel's parking attendant can see easily. I also gave him a huge tip to keep a good eye on my car. And of course I asked the reception to keep an eye on the attendant.

The fast ferries are just like the sea buses (fast catamaran passenger ferries) we have in Istanbul, only smaller. They are also Australian made. The bigger ferries take 1.5 hours, and the smaller ones take 2 hours to reach the island. The ferry docks at the cargo wharf of the city of Zanzibar (or commonly referred to as the Stone Town). You walk through a maze of containers and trucks loading and unloading to reach the customs. After a brief form filling and passport control procedure you get attacked by the taxi drivers. I figured it would be hard to look for a hotel on foot in a tourist place as this one so I already reserved a room for two nights in a relatively inexpensive hotel not so far from the city. As I didn't trust my memory, I have written the name of the place on my hand. I shielded my face with my hands and broke through the initial line of attack. Then I spotted an older driver among a second group of drivers waiting for the "experienced" tourists who successfully make it through the front line. I approached to him and said "To the Mtoni Marine Center please" in a manner of someone who has been to Zanzibar two hundred and thirty-seven times before and this was the two hundred and thirty-eighth! Then I added "Fifteen hundred Shillings!" (That is about USD1.20). I maintained my composure and continued the bargain that he started with a "Not possible Sir, the listed price starts from four thousand" with my very own "Ok then, I will find someone else", "At least three thousand", "Not a shilling more than two thousand". After a hard bargain he accepted my offer of two thousand Shillings. In the meantime I was trying to defend myself from the other drivers. It is a tough job to be a taxi driver at a tourist place during the off-season. Just as tough as being a tourist visiting the same place…

We headed to the Mtoni Marine Center just outside of the city. On the way I told the driver that I would pay him a certain amount in return for him taking me to the city and back in the evening, the next day driving me to a few places on the island (which I studied in advance and marked down as must-see), and the following morning taking me back to where he picked me up initially, the ferry pier. After another hard bargaining session we agree on the price. No transportation problems for me here.

Buket told me that Zanzibar is called the "honeymoon island". When I entered the room in the hotel the decoration inside made me think she had a point.



"Honeymoon room" on the honeymoon island

I spent that day by the pool and on the beach. Now I can say I swam in the Indian Ocean. Did I hear you say it's snowing in Istanbul?


...and the beach


...and the fishermen in the ocean

In the evening I went downtown to have seafood for dinner. The city of Zanzibar (or Stone Town) reminds me of Bodrum 25 - 30 years ago, with its two-storey white painted houses lined up on both sides of the narrow streets, seafood restaurants and the souvenir shops along the beach... The only difference is the sand on the beach


Seafood restaurants on the beach in Zanzibar.

I walked around a little in the city and before the sun went down I picked a seat with a good view at one of those restaurants on the beach. The sunset and the stuffed squid I had later were both spectacular.


The sunset in Zanzibar

As I was walking to our meeting point with Hussein the taxi driver, I saw two lines of lantern-lit tables set up along the beach. On these tables all kinds of meat and seafood were on display on skewers. They fry or char-grill your selection right there and then. To tell you the truth I regretted having paid so much to eat the stuffed squid earlier. This place is much more appetizing and livelier. Everyone eats here; both the locals and the tourist alike...



If you go to Zanzibar, don't do like I did; eat your dinner here.

The tour program for the next day includes a spice tour in the morning then chasing after the monkeys again, this time the red colobus. Lunch is at Paje beach on the east side of the island then swimming with the dolphins. City tour at the end of the day and return to the hotel.

Hussein the taxi driver came to pick me up at half past nine. By the way, Hussein's GSM number for potential Zanzibar visitors: +255 777410511. You can call or send him an SMS if you want him to pick you up at the airport or the ferry pier, and drive you around on the island. His English is good and he has a lot of experience in driving tourists around in Zanzibar. In the meantime, Clouds littered the sky, foreshadowing an impending rainstorm.

Spice is one of the most important sources of income in Zanzibar. The middle parts of the island are covered with spice gardens, quite popular among tourists. Usually one of the members of the family, who own the garden, acts as a guide for the tourists. You can learn how to grow and process, and collect samples of ginger, clove, vanilla, black pepper, lemon grass, cinnamon, coconut and many more spices. If you want, one of the children in the farm will climb up the coconut tree and show you how to pick coconuts. Of course in exchange for a tip…


The vine in the guide's hand is a vanilla plant.

Although at first spice tour wasn't much appealing to yours truly, who is suffering from lack of palate and culinary ignorance, at the end I didn't regret it.

Towards the end of the spice tour, the dark clouds that have been gathering over our heads since the morning began to roll in and drops of rain began to fall. Soon after we got in the car the droplets turned into rain and then into torrential down-pour. By the time we arrived in Jozani forest, it was obvious that chasing after monkeys would definitely see me get soaking wet. Fortunately the guide that was coming with me grabbed two umbrellas from the forest admin building so that helped. Finding red colobus monkeys isn't exactly the same as finding chimpanzees or gorillas. Jozani Forest lies on a flat area. Zanzibar Island itself is not mountainous either. The highest point of the island was at the spice garden I have visited and when the guide said that it was at the highest point of the island I couldn't really comprehend this at the time. Anyway, after a few hundreds into the Jozani Forest you are greeted by the red colobus monkeys. These primates are called Kirk's Red Colobusand are endemic to Zanzibar. But just like people, monkeys don't enjoy walking in the rain either so despite having an umbrella it was still not possible for me to see much of them. Instead of the monkeys themselves I was only able to see dozens of tails hanging from their hiding places among the trees. I told the guide that there was no point in continuing like this; if the rain stopped in the afternoon I would come back in the afternoon and see the monkeys.

We leave the forest and head to the Paje beach on the eastern shores of the island. It won't be a great joy in this rain, but anyhow… Paje is a sandy beach stretching along the coast for as far as the eye can see. It doesn't look its best with its deserted umbrellas, beds and the seaweed along the beach. But its sand is something else. It is white and very fine - almost - like flour.



The beach, sea and the sky of the east coast

At lunch I expect to eat seafood but I am told there is nothing but chicken dishes in this restaurant. I didn't think I got up on the wrong side of the bed... Rain stops from time to time and then starts again. I guess there won't be any frolicking with the dolphins either today. To swim with the dolphins you have to get on the boat and make for the open sea but I'd say it would probably sink with all the rainwater coming down on it. We have to go back after the meal. On the way back we will drive through the Jozani Forest so all I can do is pray that the rain will be taking a break as we are going through. People pray that it rains I will begin to pray for the rain to end.

We had our chicken by the seaside and began our journey back. The rain has subsided as we entered the forest so we picked up the guide at the office, drove towards the area where the monkeys were and waited. In a little while the rain stopped and we charged forwards to the target. Colobus monkeys must have gotten bored while hiding from the rain; they were leaping from one branch to another screaming with joy.






This is the red member of the colobus monkies

My day ended with a city tour. The only remarkable place in the city is the Palace Museum. This building was used as the official residence of the Zanzibar Sultans during the period of 1911-1964: first by Sultan Khalifa bin Haroub bin Thuwain (1911-1960), then Sultan Abdullah (1960-63) and finally by Sultan Jamshid until the January 1964 when the sultanate came to an end...


Sultan Palace in Zanzibar


The entrance to the palace and Hussein the taxi driver

I came back to the hotel wet and tired. I am leaving on a ferry to Dar the next morning at 10 so I had my dinner and went to bed early.

At 9 in the morning Hussein picked me up from the hotel and dropped me at the ferry docks. It was cloudy again. It began to rain while I was waiting on the pier. Luckily it didn't pick up until we got on the ferry. This sea bus is bigger than the last one. I think it must be the same as the ferries we have in Istanbul for domestic service.

Dar views from the sea.

The trip on this ferry took 1.5 hours and at around 11.30 we arrived at the Dar docks. In the meantime it's raining and it looks like it could start pouring down any moment. I took a taxi to the car park of the hotel where I stayed in Dar. On the way to the hotel torrential rain began to fall. I quickly ran from the taxi to the reception area and waited there for the rain to subside. When it did, I went outside to put my bags in the car. My hope is that the guy had looked after my car like it was his own after the huge tip I left him. Everything seemed to be fine. I thanked the girl at the reception and got on the road to leave Dar and drive down south to Malawi.

I have 930km to the Malawi border. The first two nights I will stop over and sleep in Mikumi and Mbeya and then on the third day I will enter Malawi.

Genesis Hotel & Camping where I will be staying at Mikumi is a meeting point for the overlanders. It is right after the Mikumi National Park, if you are coming from Dar. There I saw across only two cars: A young Dutch couple (going from Cape Town to Nairobi) and a South African man (will travel across a few countries and return back home). The road to Genesis goes through Mikumi National Park. It is one of the busiest roads in Tanzania connecting Dar to the country's southern borders. It is also asphalt paved. Unlike Serengeti or Ngorongoro you don't have to pay an entry fee to drive straight through this park. There is a separate entry to the park for the visitors, where they stop and pay. Even cruising along on the asphalt paved road, you still get to see the elephants and baboons up and close. They say there are leopards too but I don't imagine the leopards would want to be that intimate with the humankind.


Elephants on the side of the road, sometimes as close as 5 - 10m..

Baobab trees began to appear on the second day on the way to Mbeya. I took many photos of these giant trees that Alican was curious about. The best photos of these trees are taken when they have shed their leaves in the dry season. Unfortunately I can't wait that long. So this will have to do the job:


Can't really see the massive frame of the tree because of the leaves but still...

On Saturday March 18th around midday I set out to cross the Tanzanian border into Malawi.

Before concluding this update I want to tell you briefly about tanzanite. This precious gemstone comes from only one place in the world, the Mererani Hills near Arusha and the Usangi region in Tanzania. The story of its discovery is as follows: In 1962 shepherd Ali Juyavati was walking around after a bushfire near the Mererani Hills when he noticed a blue crystal gemstone on the ground after. He picked it up and showed it to someone in Arusha who knew about gemstones. Later it somehow found its way to Tiffany and Co., the famous jewelry company in New York. In 1967 Tiffany gave this precious gem the name tanzanite, an obvious allusion to its country of origin and introduced it to the world jewelry market.

Tanzanite is found as rough crystal in nature. It is mostly subjected to a careful heating process to give it the deep blue color and the shiny surface. So that bushfire made it possible for my namesake to discover this gem by noticing its shiny beauty. Once it was introduced into the world markets the price of tanzanite sky-rocketed as it was much rarer than diamond. 30 years after its introduction into the jewelry world, in 1997 it became the second most sought after gem after sapphire in North America, leaving ruby and emerald behind. Tanzanite trade in the USA was reported to be USD300 million in 1997. But the Tanzanian government found out that 90% of this trade was done via illegal tanzanite trafficking and tried to take measures to prevent this. Tanzanite trade took a big blow following the news that appeared in the press in December 2001. It was reported that four of the people involved in the bomb attacks to the American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 were linked to illegal tanzanite trade. After this news three big American jewelry companies announced that they were going to boycott tanzanite trade. And when it was speculated that Tanzanite was used a significant means to finance Osama bin Laden and his organization al-Qaeda, Tiffany & Co. which introduced tanzanite to the world and was one of those three companies had to publicly announce that it had no links or relations to al-Qaeda. The news and then these speculations led to a drop in tanzanite prices from USD300.00 per gram down to USD100.00 by the end of January 2002, and the Tanzanian government established strong mechanisms to control tanzanite trade with a view to appease especially the American market regarding this matter.

This completes the Tanzania updates. See you in Malawi next...

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