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| Rim of Ngorogoro crater |
Sailing to an island just off Zanzibar Town, our guide pointed out the "Tanzanian" coast i.e. the mainland which was a good twenty miles away and just about discernible. "I can see the Tanzanian coast there," I responded, pointing back to Zanzibar Town. But of course that wasn't what he meant. The Insight Guide is to "Tanzania and Zanzibar" which, if one thinks about it, is like having a guide to "Great Britain and Scotland".
Credit is given to the still-revered founding president, the late Julius Nyerere, for forging, at least on the mainland, a Tanzanian identity that overrides the tribal divisions that bedevil much of Africa and has helped give the stability which the country enjoys. But his policy of "African Socialism" is blamed by many for the fact that this is one of the poorest countries on the continent. His successors have abandoned that policy and Nyerere himself conceded in old age that it had been a failure.
Back in 1989 we had spent three weeks in Kenya, divided between safaris and time on the coast near Mombasa. We had only recently commenced serious travel and this was our first trip to Africa. We have many happy memories of that holiday. This time we didn't see much of Kenya, having just one night in Nairobi prior to travelling overland to the Tanzanian border.
Overshadowing this brief stay was my missing suitcase (lost by BA on the flight to Nairobi). We arrived in the morning and it was as well that nothing had been laid on for the day, since we had to go into town to buy a few essentials. These included our medicines. It might have been foolish to have packed these in our suitcase but, as ever uncertain about security regulations, we'd worried they might be confiscated if we'd taken them in our hand luggage. We'd paid an arm and a leg for malaria tablets and also needed, being of a certain age, blood pressure tablets.
The upside to losing my suitcase was the chance this gave us to meet ordinary Nairobians as we went first to a chemist for our medicines and then to shops for various items of clothing for me. The sales staff were in all cases charming and concerned about our misfortune. One lady, unable to offer my customary white briefs, led me through the streets to another shop which was able to satisfy me, sort of. I thought of these people a few months later when Kenya exploded into violence after the President's attempt to steal the elections. Thankfully, it would seem at time of writing that peace and stability have been restored following the power-sharing agreement between the President and his rival. Certainly any prolonged violence could well have devastated the country's lucrative tourist industry, just as Robert Mugabe has all but killed off Zimbabwe's once lucrative tourist industry.
To console ourselves after our traipse round Nairobi's shopping centre we went to the Norfolk Hotel for some refreshment. This rather grand hotel recalls the colonial era and one of the restaurants is still named from Lord Delamere, the imperialistic early white settler. The outside street, however, is now named from an African nationalist, Harry Thuku. We'd called in there during our previous visit and found that one of our fellow diners was Adam Faith.
Besides us, there were just two chaps taking part in our mainland tour. Rather rashly we'd agreed with one of them that we'd dine that evening at the celebrated Carnivores restaurant, another place we'd been to back in 1989. It is on the outskirts of the city. On getting back to our hotel we decided we were too tired for this and were in the throes of deciding whether to eat in the hotel's Indian or Italian restaurant when we encountered our friend. He looked so crestfallen that we felt we had no alternative but to reinstate Carnivores. At time of our previous visit, our guidebook had eulogized about this place, which had apparently been visited by such celebrities as Robert Redford and Pierre Trudeau, and I too had eulogized about it in my write-up of the trip. I don't know whether the passage of time has rendered the restaurant less impressive or me less impressionable; at any rate I was not so impressed this time. The trademark feature is the skewers of meat brought to one's table by waiters during the main course with game normally on offer - I'd sampled zebra the time before. This time the offerings seemed rather miserly and uninteresting, with ostrich meatballs the rather boring choice of game. It is true though that Carnivores, centred on a huge charcoal grill pit, is atmospheric and I might still commend it to the first time visitor as an interesting dining experience. Despite the name, there is also a vegetarian menu!
After a fruitless visit to Nairobi Airport the next morning, we drove to the Tanzanian border. It has to be said that the Kenyan part of this drive was not very scenic, taking us through some industrialized areas. A contrast with our first visit when we'd driven north from Nairobi to a lodge on the slopes of Mount Kenya for some elephant watching. We walked across the border, there to be met by our Tanzanian safari vehicle, inside which was the appealing slogan No Hurry in Africa. The scenery on this side of the border was much better. From time to time we encountered graceful Maasai, in their traditional dress and still living in traditional round villages.
We stopped in Arusha for a good buffet lunch, eaten al fresco amidst luxuriant vegetation. This city is the centre of Tanzania's northern tourist circuit and is also known as the "Geneva of Africa" as it hosts various international organizations. The Rwanda War Crimes trials are taking place there. Its clock tower is said to mark the centre of Africa. Not actually true in the strict geographical sense but Arusha would have been the midpoint on the Cape to Cairo railway, had that grandiose project come to fruition. In recent years a bit more of it has in fact been built, thanks to the Tazara Railway which reaches the former Tanzanian capital, Dar-es-Salaam. Not uniquely in the southern half of Africa, there were geopolitical reasons for building this railway. Specifically it gave landlocked Zambia a route to the sea, thereby ending its dependence on Ian Smith's Rhodesia. Once a year Rovos Rail, a South African provider of luxury train travel, run a trip, which takes 15 days, from Cape Town all the way to Dar.
We continued through glorious countryside to the Sopa Lodge, which is on the eastern rim of the Ngorongoro Crater. Spellbinding views of it were to be enjoyed from the grounds. We stayed at three game lodges in all and they were pleasant with spacious accommodation. Game does not seem to feature on the menus, the thinking perhaps being that tourists would find this offputting: "I've come to Africa to see animals, not eat them", a lady had told us during our Kenyan trip when a group visit to a game restaurant was mooted. I myself would rather have liked to have had game, and would have eaten it with a clear conscience, since the animals are culled from species that are in plentiful supply: it is no more reprehensible to eat zebra than beef or lamb.
Next morning we had a walk with a ranger down to the rim of the crater, there to enjoy the awe-inspiring view. I was in communication with my daughter via the, for me, novel medium of texting (never a man to be found at the cutting edge of technological development, I'd only just acquired my first mobile) as she had been chasing up BA at her end. I had been getting messages starting "bloody BA" or suchlike. On checking my mobile at the finish of this walk a different message awaited: the suitcase had been found and was on its way to Arusha. This was confirmed when we went back in the hotel but we were not quite out of the woods for there seemed to be doubt about whether the case could be conveyed to us from Arusha and the prospect therefore of having to do without it for another five nights. Fortunately these difficulties were resolved and when we got back in the evening my suitcase was in my room. Drippy though this might sound, I was near to tears when I at last set eyes on it.
Our safari drive in Ngorongoro was all the more enjoyable now I knew my case was found. One goes to Ngorongoro not just for the wildlife, splendid though this is, but also for the magnificent setting inside the walls of this extinct volcano, Africa's largest. I was hoping in Tanzania to complete my tally of the Big Five. After previous safaris in Kenya and in southern Africa (during a holiday described in my first ever VISA article, Spring 1999, which also featured a trip on Rovos Rail) I'd only chalked up two and a half: elephant, buffalo and lioness. This objective was not achieved though I did ramp up to three: no rhinos or leopards but we saw a couple of male lions. Our safari drives, in Ngorongoro and in other parks, were fantastic nevertheless. We saw a huge variety of game. Most memorable of all was a family of cheetahs. My favourite animal, it so happens, is not one of the Big Five anyway, since it is the giraffe. Being tall myself, I identify with them. And there were plenty to be seen.
We continued the next day to Serengeti, for two nights in another Sopa Lodge. We paused en route at the Olduvai Gorge, which was the dwelling place of the hominids, the first ever human-like people. So in a sense we are all Tanzanians! An interesting small museum, founded by the renowned naturalist Mary Leakey, includes a striking picture of how these distant ancestors must have looked as they made their way through the primeval landscape.
I had a romantic image of the Serengeti and was not to be disappointed. It really is awe-inspiring. But Toto I think were using poetic licence when, in their song Africa, they referred to "Kilimanjaro rising like a Memphis above the Serengeti". Evocative words, but Africa's highest mountain is in reality a long way from here. Incidentally, the Tanzanians have Queen Victoria to thank for the fact that it is in their country. It was originally in Kenya but was given to the Kaiser, the ruler of German East Africa (as Tanganyika then was), as a present.
We paused for refreshments at the Visitors Centre in Serengeti. We made the short ascent to the viewing point, where two colourful lizards formed a welcoming party. Here was a fine view of the Serengeti, which means "treeless plain". That, it might be thought, is dull but it is anything but. I hold to the view that this is one of the most romantic places anywhere. A plaque at the Centre records a speech by President Nyerere, in the early years after independence and rather far-sighted for its time, promoting the cause of wildlife conservation. Tanzania, which is, let it be remembered, a poor country, has an excellent track record in this respect and has been at the forefront of the efforts to save the elephant. We were to enjoy an afternoon game drive in the Serengeti, followed by a full day game drive the next day.
Our third and final two night stop, this time at a Serena Lodge, was described as being at Lake Manyara, so I was surprised to note from the map that it was some distance away. The drive took us back the way we'd come, with a final chance to peer into the Ngorongoro Crater as we passed its southern rim. When we arrived at the lodge, it was obvious why it was so called, affording as it does a spectacular view across the Lake.
The next morning there was an included walk along the Rift Valley. We like walking and I looked forward to a hike that would perhaps be moderately strenuous. Even when our guide warned us there were river crossings I imagined something akin to Exmoor's Tarr Steps! I had not therefore bargained for the fact that this walk was actually a steep descent right down the sides of the Valley, with several river crossings that comprised a precarious scramble along branches of trees.
I am large and clumsy and was sure I was going to fall in, though somehow I didn't. I made rather heavy weather of all this but was unable to claim kudos for doing it at my great age - I'd just acquired a bus pass - since one of our companions, who was five years older, gazelled along ahead of us. I rather felt that this had been too strenuous a hike and that another available option, a visit to the nearby village of Mto Wa Mbu (which translates, somewhat unappealingly, as 'river of mosquitoes') would have been preferable. The afternoon was a whole lot better. We had a safari drive in Lake Manyara National Park. We did not alas see its legendary climbing lions but there was plenty else, including lots of giraffes and elephants, and numerous flamingos on the Lake itself.
This was our last night on the mainland. We returned to Arusha, again stopping for lunch though at a different hotel. We flew from Kilimanjaro Airport, a small and well-kept airport, which is not particularly close to the eponymous mountain and, rather perversely, faces away from it. There was a lot of mist and, as we flew out, we could only just make out the summit. The flight, which was with previously unheard-of Precision Air, a small independent Tanzanian airline, was uneventful. Zanzibar Airport struck me as rather shabby but, at least this time, we were swiftly passing through.
Although Tanzania is one of the world's poorest countries, we had not on the mainland seen any stomach-churning poverty, such as might be seen in India for example. Zanzibar looked poorer. We were transferred to the Bluebay Beach Resort, one of a string of resorts on the east coast and many of the homes passed en route looked little better than hovels. The contrast between the circumstances in which ordinary Zanzibaris lived and the sanitized affluence to which we were heading did not escape me. It is troubling to the conscience, but I am sure tourism does benefit the economy of developing countries. The plight of ordinary Zimbabweans can hardly have been helped by the collapse of tourism and the consequent loss of employment for many.
We had planned to chill out in Zanzibar. We knew that historic Stone Town, a UNESCO World heritage site, was a must-see but that, we had decided, would be our sole trip and we would otherwise laze around in our hotel and on the beach. Of course we then booked four half-day tours, giving us just one day to do our lazing.
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| Stone Town, Zanzibar |
Stone Town, which is part of the capital, Zanzibar Town, is well worth a visit. Though a heritage site, there is little by way of gentrification: this is where ordinary people live, amidst an amazing jumble of alleyways. There are several individual sites of interest. Before getting into the heart of Stone Town, one finds the impressive Anglican Cathedral. Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim, but it is at the opposite end of the scale to Ayatollahland: a relaxed and tolerant society where women dress as they please and alcohol is freely available. In its grounds is a moving memorial to the ending of the slave trade. It flourished in Zanzibar but in east, though hardly in west, Africa, the British were heroes rather than villains. David Livingstone, admired for his opposition to slavery, is commemorated inside the Cathedral. Also visited were the pleasingly idiosyncratic House of Wonders, which houses the Zanzibar National Museum of History and Culture, and the Old Fort.
Any article about Stone Town is bound to bring in a reference to one of its most famous sons, the late Freddie Mercury. Born Farrokh Bulsara in 1946, he and his family left Zanzibar after the left-wing revolution in 1964, and settled in somewhat less exotic Feltham in Middlesex. We bought cards in the shop, which is located in the former Bulsara residence and, a couple of days later, we had lunch in Mercury's Restaurant on the beach, which is crammed with pictures of Freddie and of Queen. This was not our first overseas encounter with Freddie: we once came across a statue of him in Montreux, Switzerland, where he lived in later years.
From Stone Town we set off for the Spice Tour, a half-day excursion which took us into the centre of the island. Spices, though no longer as dominant a feature as they once were, are still important to the island's economy and we enjoyed being shown around one of the plantations, with our guide expertly showing the wide array of spices that flourish there.
The next day was given over to the beach, and our last day was split into two further tours. In the morning we headed towards the south of the island for a visit to Jozani Forest. Here we saw some of the rare red colobus monkeys. Monkeys are not always cute: we have on our travels encountered some rather aggressive ones. The red colobus, however, are friendly and beautiful creatures. We then traversed a swamp using a series of boardwalks and concluded with a nature trail through the adjacent forest - a thoroughly enjoyable morning.
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| Mercury's Restaurant, Zanzibar |
Zanzibar Airport was miserable, with a dearth of facilities and a long queue outside, in the baking hot sun, just to check in for our flight to Nairobi, which again was with Precision Air. The authorities need to do better than this if they really do want Zanzibar to be a magnet for tourists. At Nairobi Airport, Cathy's suitcase went missing this time, albeit temporarily. At Heathrow we had an hour-long queue to get through passport control. But I don't want to end on a negative note. Tanzania and Zanzibar were a fantastic experience.
First published in VISA 81-82 (Oct-Dec 2008)
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