The Joys of Enjoying the "Better-than-Expected"

Sometimes during one's travels, you experience a place that exceeds your expectations. I came to Tanzania expecting a lot. I received more.

Nowhere was this more true than the 4 day camping safari we took in the magnificent Serengeti National Park and the neighbouring Ngorongoro crater. I had always wanted to see big African beasts in the wild and this was my chance. Over four days, we saw a variety and density of wildlife that I have never experienced anywhere in the world. In Canada, a place noted for wildlife, one can expect to see an animal here and another one there - perhaps a few sited in the space of a good afternoon's hike. A drive through the Serengeti offers up zebras, gazelles and wildebeest by the hundreds all set against the most enrapturing backdrops of African plains and volcanic mountains. We were lucky enough to see all of the "Big Five". I had thought we might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a lion as we craned through binoculars. We saw a dozen - including two lionesses that paraded on an early morning prowl directly in front of our Land Rover, their svelte and determined presence causing havoc in the neighbourhood as zebras and hartbeest scattered as fast as they could. We were lucky enough to see other cats as well - 3 leopards, including one who had dragged his prey up into a tree and dangled the corpse on a branch above it for ready access to a quick snack. We also saw a cheetah slinking through the grass alongside a herd of wildebeest. We saw dozens of great lumbering elephants - some in herds of young and old 15 strong. We loved the dozens of gangly but graceful giraffes we saw dancing across the plain (What strange quirk of evolution designed this beast?). We watched breathlessly as we witnessed a wildebeest being born and then, five minutes later, nudged by its mother to get up and run with the pack. Mangy hyena and scavanging jackals lurching towards a lion's fresh kill. Dozens of happy hippos lolling in the mud - a ranking candidate for my reincarnation program. Herds of horn-crowned African buffalo. The elusive black rhino made a brief and distant appearance deep in the stunning Ngorongoro crater. And to top it all of, we got to camp in the middle of the Serengeti under a shimmering celestial sky trying to sleep amidst strange and eerie sounds that sometimes seemed a bit too close for comfort. It is a photographer's dream and a naturalist's heaven. With the noble but sad Maasai standing guard over the territory and their cattle, a chance to connect with an earlier time and a culture struggling to survive the onslaught of the 21st century. At Oldupai gorge on the Serengeti-Ngorongoro border, we visited the archaeological excavation site of the British archaeologists Louis and Mary Leakey. As we've travelled in the world, one gets used to seeing sites and things that are 2,000 or 4,000 years old. here we saw excavated remains of the first , upright humans dating back 1.7 million years. Somehow, I couldn't resist touching the set of million year old human teeth on display - a chilling feeling especially just before lunch.

The Serengeti is a photographer's dream and a naturalist's heaven. It is hard not to feel the profound impact of this special place in the world. If you cannot, I would seek immediate medical assistance as you may very well be dead.

Exotic and timeless places - Zanzibar, Serengeti, Kilimanjaro - Tanzania has a lot to offer and, for me at least, gave more than I had expected.

Basking at the foot of Kilimanjaro

For our last week in Africa (sigh!), we've taken refuge high up in the in the
cooler, lush and leafy foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in a town named
Marangu. We are the sole occupants of a sprawling 1930's German-built
hotel, the Kibo Hotel. This is a very funky old place, oozing with
charm and bedecked with climbing paraphanalia - including a dining
room decorated with hundreds of signed T-shirts, flags and pennants
commemorating various Kilimanjaro ascents. Hemmingway would not be out of place slumped in a fireside chair with a cold Tusker lager in the
big, open lounge. The hotel is a bit of "This is Africa" meets Fawlty Towers. When we place dinner orders (always done a few hours in
advance), we are greeted with the puzzling response "I think it is
possible". We are surrounded by lush banana and coffee plantations
but, as seems ususal throughout Tanzania, we are always offered
instant coffee. One day the several person strong cleaning staff
managed to forget to clean our room - the only one of 34 in the hotel
actually occupied. When we queired at the desk, the manager said that
they might have been afraid to enter beacuse we had "our valuables
there". Notwithstanding these whimsical observations, we are really enjoying the place and our "private staff" as well as a swimming pool fed
from the snows of Kilimanjaro, jasmine trees blossoming in
full scent in the evening below our balcony and the requisite supply of cold beer and red wine.

We are filling our days with wonderful hikes through lush forests and mountain streams. Yesterday, we did a 12km hike to the 6,250 foot Marangu gate of Kilimanjaro National Park where we were enetrtained by the somewhat embarassing spectacle of groups of spritely
"mazungo" (white folk) decked in the latest climbing fashion gear and
daypacks sprinting up the first part of the ascent while their many,
many porters follow behind lugging huge backpacks on their backs and
camping supplies on their heads.

As for the mountain itself, it has proven as elusive as brewed Tanzanian coffee. However, following local advice, I got up and out at 6:30 this morning and caught a view of the magnificent and towering 16,500 foot "Kili" with its broad, snow covered wide saddle - a wonderful sight indeed. The only problem with this place is that we are being constantly pestered by locals who want to guide us on walks, or up the mountain or to traditional heritage sites etc. all, of course, for a fee. They are hard to shake off and sometimes I've had to resort to deploying a self-invented, crypto-Eastern European-sounding language and tell them "Eeem not undersanding of Englisch". The children are formidable hounders as well - always asking for pens and chocolates. We took a rest today by a
mountain stream near a school and were soon surrounded by about 20
eager school children offering to take breaks from their classes so
that they could guide us to yet another "Kili view point" . Oh well,
from all accounts, this pestering serves as good training for India
where, apparently, we can expect pestering to be lifted to a new level. And
we'll find out soon enough as we leave for India on Saturday - first
stop, Goa.

Who needs to get away from Winter 2008/09?

Greetings all from lovely and lushly exotic Zanzibar - 35 miles offthe coast of Tanzania floating in the hot, hot, hot India ocean. Zanzibar is the hands-down "destination" leader on our trip so far. A wonderful and exotic melange of Arab, Indian and African, the maze-like alleys of ancient Stone town replete with spice markets and fresh mangoes (yum yum), Muslim calls to prayer competing with Christianchurch bells with Hindi temples thrown into the mix.

I know that my Canadian freinds are suffering through a brutal winter. So in all fairness, I can't really tell you about where I am now in Zanzibar. Having endured my fair share of Canadaian winters, at least until I smartened up and moved to the west coast , I know well the frustrating weighty feeling that one can suffer through an unabetting winter. Will it ever end? Will the thermometer ever creep into the positive ledger. And then, in total desparation, you bundle yurself off to the travel agent. The discussion goes something like this:

"Get me outta here - don't worry about the price. I need out now."

"Ah, but where" replies your trusty agent.

"Well, let me describe it to you and you get me there. I want to be holed up in a beach-side thatched roof cabin a mere 10 metres from talcum-powder white sand, fringed by huge swaying palm trees draped with hammocks, fresh coconuts on site, aquamarine green waters - clean and safe to swim in. Oh yeah - for food and drink I would like easy access to fresh fish and, wait for it ... sushi! ... prepared by the Japanese owner of my little resort and, of course, a significant supply of cold beer. In the morning, I'd like to sip my locally-raised coffee and eat fresh mangoes while I look out on the entirely pastoral and graceful scene of women, fully draped in shawls and dresses, harvesting seaweed from the ocean. Throw in some fantastic snorkelling off the coral reef that fringes the near horizon and keeps us all safe from nasty sharks and a stunning display of stars at night undiluted by the ambient light of large hotels, off shore freigheters etc. Let's start with that, can it be arranged?

"Ah, you are talking a dreamscript here. I'm afraid you will have to compromise on some of this and then we can talk details "

"No, no - I'm sure it must exist - somewhere, somehow. You gotta get me there"

I can assure you it does, in fact, exist. Find it and you will find the first round of cold Tuskers are on me. However, in fairness and ust to avoid any possible disappointment I must tell you, though, that the that the ocean is actually to warm to swim in in the afternoon. Ahhh, every place has its faults I suppose.

Movie Madness in Dar es Salaam

Greetings from Dar es Salaam - Day 4 - and, hopefully, the last day of our "Waiting-for-our-Indian-Visas" stay in this torpid and bustling East African city. Our hotel, while pleasantly provisioned with lots of cold beer, air conditioning and live music, also seems to be a favourite haunt for some very upscale hookers and a bunch of dubious gentlemen on cellphones who look like they are camping out waiting for their next gun-running assignment. There are also, to the hotel's credit, a roving flock of very well-meaning looking NGO types among the clientele. We're half a kilometre from palm-swaying Coco Beach on the Indian ocean - but it remains too hot to contemplate an afternoon at the beach.

Yesterday, seeking relief from our current situation, we decided to cut the afternoon heat with a matinee at Tanzania's largest movie theatre complex. We were told that the very reasonable ticket price at the New World Cinema complex included air conditioning and free popcorn!. Does it get better than this?

Our movie dtae involved no small amount of advance research and preparation before we set out yesterday via an open-aired motor-tricycle "badgi-badgi" taxi. In the monthly "DAR Guide", we saw that 8 movies were playing, including the Oscar contender "Curious Case of Benjamin Button" . Having been offered a knock-off DVD of the very same movie earlier in the week, we set our sites on an afternoon with Brad and Cate. I phoned from the hotel the night before and confirmed the start time of 3:00 pm - perfect!. Then, at breakfast, reading the competing "What's Happening in Dar" magazine, I saw the movie listed to open on February 6th. Being a multi-media type, I checked out the Cinema website to find, to my discouragement, no mention of the film at all but, instead, another 6 movies listed as "Now Playing" - only two of which shared the same billing in the two "this week" guides we had consulted. Being intrepid as we are (and perhaps a bit desperate), we headed out to the New World Cinema complex at 2:30. We arrived to find a rather the large building largely empty except for staff. There is a glorious, if not misplaced, statue to Tanzania's first president, J.K. Nyerere smack dab in the middle of the parking lot which, I suppose, could serve as a parking reminder post to where one might have left one's car - excepting the fact that the parking lot was empty too. When we got to the ticket office, we were somewhat surprised by the fact that not only was "Benjamin Button" not playing at all or even forecast as a "Coming Event", but there were three (not eight) movies "Now Showing" - none of which had made it into any of our three information sources we had researched in advance. The choice we were now faced with was two Bollywood flicks and a Chines Kung Fu-type action movie. As we werer nearing our wise decision to decline, we received a bold vote of confidence in our decison with the cinema manager's unpleasant revelation that the power was out and there would be no movies "for now" at least. I think this cinema complex might be appropriately renamed the "TIA Cineplex" (This is Africa!) .

In the meantime, we'll seek other air-conditioned diversions - with or without free popcorn - before packing off to Zanzibar tomorrow for a week.

A Dispatch from Dar es Salaam

Greetings from Dar es Salaam - "Week One" of the month of our February-long stay in this East African country. We arrived here on Saturday safely and, perhaps more surprisingly, on-time in our hitch-free trip from Maseru via Johannesburg. Our Guest House sits on top of a, shall we say, "lively" bar just near Coco Beach - "Dar's" main upscale beach in the more tony Msasani penninsula at the north part iof the city. For those Canadians beating back what sounds like a ghard winter coast-to-coast, we cannot expect much sympathy when I tell you that it is absolutely sweltering here - probably 35 Degrees + with humidity - probably a good preparation for India which is next up on the "If not now, when" Tour . Yesterday, we spent a wonderful afternoon watching some African big band "jazz" music in an outdoors social club grounds. We got there at 3:30 and watched two very lively bands playing- under a canopy of lush, leafy trees. The music was a mesmerizing mix of horns, spectacular dancers, twangy, high-pitched guitars on full reverb, effortlessly harmonious singers, wild drums all stirred together into songs that seemed to spin on and on and on until they magically changed into another tune. Strangely enough, the crowd of several hundred seemed quite subdued. Patty and I seemed to be among the few tapping our feet to the incendiary rhythms. A selection of cold beer was avaiolable on site to wash down a selection of slightly suspect (and perhaps wisely untried!) grilled meats and freshly roasted cashews. When we left at 6:00 I got the sense that the music was just warming up and probably would go well past midnight. Dined at Coco Beach on fresh fish right on top of the India ocean surf in a thatched taverna.

Dar es Salaam is a big, bustling African city of 4 million - full of street hawkers, bicycles laden down with all sorts of stuff like chicken cages, banana baskets and piles of egg flat crates. Compared to South Africa, Tanzania (so far) has a much more lade back feel. Disney aficionados will recognize the Tanzanian Swahili phrase - Hakuna Matata - "no worries" heard often from the locals. As we've come to expect in Africa, as the Western world apparently melts down in a finanacial crisis, this stuiff is so far of the radar screen in one of the poorest countries in the world. Instaed, everyone seems madly pre-occupied with English premier League soccer with taxis and buses festooned with slogans and team colours of such not-so-local teams as Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea. In Tanzania, English football results and pictures make it on to the front page of the daily papers (although I must also add, to my amazement, I read a report about a Boston Bruin - New York Rangers NHL game in the paper as well). We will be here for a couple of days more as we wait for our visas to India - then off to do some quality beach reserach in Zanzibar. Hakuna Matata all !