Tanzania - Dar Es Salaam

We got back from Zanzibar and had dinner plans with a friend of my family. We went to a different part of Dar to meet with him and he treated us to dinner. He is so full of knowledge about Dar and Africa. It was a great night of meeting new people and making lifelong friends! 

On Saturday morning, Karly had to be on her flight back to Lesotho at 7am, so she was picked up super early by Clemens. Christine and I slept a bit longer, had breakfast in the hotel and Clemens picked us up for our driving tour of Dar. We drove around downtown and then we went into the National History Museum. I was truly feeling crummy, so I rested a bit while Christine walked around the museum.

Clemens then dropped us off for a few hours to rest/relax at a nearby hotel/resort and have lunch. The views were breathtaking and it was great to have some time to sit and relax without having rush around to our next stop. Clemens picked us up and dropped us back off at the spot we had dinner the night before. There is a little village with some shops that we were able to walk around, which was nice and then we headed to another hotel/resort that had a beautiful pier. We admired the sites and then decided to get massages (!). After our massages, we grabbed some dinner and watched the sunset before Clemens picked us up for our late night flight out of Dar.

Our last day in Tanzania was restful and relaxing. Now, on to Europe! 

Prision Island

Our last day in Zanzibar we decided to go to Prison Island. It is one of the small islands that surround Zanzibar. It was meant to be a prison but never was, it only acted as a hospital for people who were sick coming to Zanzibar to help lessen disease on the small island. Now it is a resort ;-)

We hopped on a small boat and motored out for about 30 minutes to the white sandy beach of the island. Another draw to Prison Island is the colony of tortoises. The second oldest tortoise in the world lives here and we got to see him (he is the one I am kissing in the picture below)! We arrived just in time to feed them, which was also really great. We walked around the old grounds after feeding the tortoises and then decided to walk along to beach. The water was at low tide so we also got to see a lot of smaller sea life in the tide pools. The water was so blue and the views were magical, seriously.

We absolutely loved Zanzibar, and to be honest, I would have to venture and say that it was probably my favorite part of being in Africa...aside from visiting with my friends, of course ;-)

Tanzania - Zanzibar

After our Safari, we headed straight to Zanzibar. We took the ferry from the terminal in Dar which took about 3 hours. We sat outside on the front deck, got wind blown and rained on. We arrived in Zanzibar and had to go through passport control, which was odd since Zanzibar is part of Tanzania (not that I am complaining...if you don't get a stamp it means you didn't actually go there, right?) We finally made it to our hotel with the help of the homeless guy wearing a fraternity t-shirt. We booked a few tours for our visit in Zanzibar and headed to lunch, where we had to take off our shoes and sit on the floor. It was quite the experience. 

After lunch we went on a walking tour of Stone Town. It was great. Our guide was very knowledgeable and was able to answer most, if not all, of our questions. We walked around and he told us stories about the slave trade and about what the town used to look like. It was really neat. He also took us through a market where the locals buy their food - where our guide told us not to buy any food from ;-) ha! 

Karly and I went to a nearby hotel to watch the sunset and have a fun, fruity cocktail, and then the three of us headed to dinner. The food in Dar is very heavily Indian influenced, and all of it was very flavorful.

Our second day in Zanzibar, Karly and I woke up early to watch the sunrise from our hotel rooftop deck. Unfortunately, we didn't see it, because it was so cloudy. We then headed on an all day Spice tour. It was soo cool. We were taken a bit outside of Stone Town into a jungle and we walked around learning about the different spices, fruits and grains that grow on the Island. They even made us lunch with all of the spices we saw. After lunch we went to the coast and had a short tour of the slave caves. This is where slaves were hidden after the trade was abolished in Zanzibar. The cave was huge! It ran from the nearest village, a couple of miles away, to the sea which was a bit closer, but still not near. After the tour, we headed to the beach to go swimming in the Indian Ocean. The water was crystal clear, blue, warm and pretty salty. It was fun to play in the water! We headed back to Stone Town for drinks and dinner. It was an awesome day! 

I woke up super sick on Friday - surprise, surprise (I think from dinner, which was shrimp :-( since we ate the same thing the entire day except for dinner). I wasn't about to let being sick get me down, so we got on a little boat and headed for Prison Island, which I will talk about next. After the Island, we got back on the last Ferry to Dar and headed back to Dar for dinner and an early night. My favorite part of the ferry ride home is that they were showing Captain Phillips....I couldn't control myself and mentioned to my friends how inappropriate it was that they were playing a movie were Somali Pirate boarded and captured a ship off of the coast. I had to laugh out loud.

Zanzibar seriously felt like a postcard. It was absolutely beautiful and has such interesting history. 

Tanzania - Safari

Here, we go. First post about my trip...

After traveling for about 24 hours, I made it to the Dar Es Salaam airport in Tanzania. Karly and Christine had arrived a few hours before and were waiting for me. I got to use my brand new passport and get my first stamp and basically ran out to the girls and gave them giant hugs. Prior to arriving in Tanzania, I had been introduced to someone, Peter, who lived in Dar. He, his wife and I emailed back and forth and I asked them all sorts of questions, anything from currency, to transport, to hotel recommendations. They were truly a wealth of knowledge and I will forever be grateful.

Peter got me in touch with a driver, Clemens, who ended up driving us on a few different occasions and even took Christine and I on a driving tour of Dar on our last day after Karly headed home, super early in the morning.

Clemens was waiting for us at the airport to take us to our hotel. Peter told us to be very cautious of getting into 'just any taxi.' The first thing I noticed...Tanzanian drivers drive on the wrong side of the road! Let me tell you, when I got into the front seat of the car, on the wrong side, and we started driving, on the wrong side, I almost lost it! 

Anyway, we got to our hotel, hugged some more and passed right out. We had breakfast in the hotel and were getting picked up at 8am the next morning for our Safari at Mikumi National Park. Tony picked us up and we got on the road to the park.

Along the way, though, we had a bit of a detour. We were stopped about 2-3 hours into the drive by a group of men wearing suits and ties. We were told originally we were going to be stopped for about 10 minutes, which turned into over an hour. It was hot, so we all got out of the cars and the men all swarmed us to take selfies/pictures with us. The longer we waited, the more nervous I got. Fortunately, Karly has been living in Africa for a while and she said that this is pretty normal. I still didn't like it. Then, one of the men got into the car with us and drove with us to a nearby restaurant so we could eat and then we were delayed another 30-45 minutes more until whatever needed to be sorted, was sorted.

We finally made it to the park and got straight to animal sightings. We saw lots of different animals: zebras, impalas, wildebeest, warthogs, alligators, hippos, elephants, giraffes and even a lion. We drove up to this spot where other cars were stopped and saw this massive lion. He was so close to us, like, if he wanted to get up and jump he would have been in our car. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.

We saw tons of wildlife, it was so beautiful. That night, wes stayed at the Tan-Swiss Hotel. There was a restaurant/bar there and the rooms were very comfortable. We woke up, had breakfast and headed back into the park for a morning drive to see more animals. I would definitely recommend this safari.