Ngorongoro Crater

This was the game changer.

Before this, Tanzania (and East Africa in general) was just one of the places you had to check off your list of places to visit. The day we went down to the Crater has changed the way we want to travel. Historical monuments, cultural artifacts, works of art, idyllic beach resorts and gastronomic delights are all wonderful, but being out in the bush, in an environment that has hardly changed for thousands of years, is something that everyone should experience.

We made our way from our Lodge down to the Crater in the early morning:

Going down into the Crater was a revelation  - the tranquil views afforded at the rim gives you little to imagine about what to see below.

And as we got to the bottom, we saw thousands of animals, glorious, incredible, amazing. We saw many exotic birds:

Zebras and Wildebeest:

different species of Antelope:

Elephants:

Ostriches:

Warthogs (and baby warthogs):

Lions:

The highly endangered black rhino:

Hundreds of baboons:

And so much more than what this one blog entry can handle.

After eight hours on the dusty safari road, we made our way back to our Lodge, still in a slight daze. I am by no means an environmentalist, nor do I have an extraordinary love for animals, but seeing all this has made me want to do something to ensure that every person living and every person still to be born will see this, as it is.

On our way back to the Lodge, we had one last look at the crater as we ascended to the rim, and already it had transformed back into the tranquil scene that belied the presence of its teeming mass of inhabitants:

When we got back, I was greeted with some happy news. This was a very, very good day.

Arusha

Flying into Arusha from Dar es Salaam takes you over the Indian Ocean into the great plains of Tanzania - red dry earth, grassy farmland, and thick forests within minutes of each other:

Arusha is very pretty - located about 1, 500 meters above sea level, it has lush tropical greenery despite a temperate climate, and is interspersed with the occasional coffee plantation. We were met at the airport by our safari guide, a wonderful man named Cornelius, who boarded us into his 4x4 Land Cruiser and took us to a place called Shanga to have lunch and to freshen up before the three hour drive to Ngorongoro Crater:

The food was delicious - various barbecued meats and a variety of salads.

Early in the afternoon we started driving towards Ngorongoro, and we saw the Maasai:

various animals being led to pasture:

and the Tanzania portion of the Great Rift Valley:

We reached the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the late afternoon. The centerpiece of the area is the Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest intact volcanic caldera, and seeing it for the first time, approaching from an incline, made my heart stop a few seconds:

The picture does not do it justice; this was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. The animals also seemed to agree, as we began seeing wildebeest, buffalos, and antelope within seconds after reaching the crater rim.

Our lodgings for the night was the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, apparently consistently ranked as one of the best hotels in the world:

The best thing about the hotel though, is the view:

We had a view of the crater from our balcony, and L and I just kept staring at it, every chance we got.

Down to the crater the next day.

Zanzibar

While L was at work, I visited Zanzibar. The exotic, wild, spice island of Victorian dreams:

Zanzibar is Marrakech, the luscious waters of Palawan and the white sands of Boracay, all magically rolled into one island somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The old town, Stone Town, evokes the mystery of the orient - with various African, Arabic, Indian and Chinese influences all over town. The building doors you find everywhere are a testament to this, intricate, and very old, works of art:

As my guide, Abdullah, explained, doors that have square tops were formerly occupied by Muslims, and doors with rounded tops were formerly occupied by Indians, or Indian-educated Muslims.

Zanzibar and Bagamoyo (see previous post) were former slave trade centers, and in Zanzibar, the huge infrastructure connected with that time still exists. Here is the large auction hall where slaves were once sold, now an Anglican church:

Here's the holding pit for the slaves, where they were kept before being brought into the auction hall:

And here's the horrifying place where they were kept in between auctions, underground, 75 people at a time, with no ventilation or sanitary pits:

The slave trade was made illegal in this part of the world earlier than in America, but apparently trade continued until the early 20th century.

Abdullah and I walked around a little more, and I saw these amazing views from The House of Wonders:

After around three hours, I sat down for lunch here:

I walked around on my own after lunch, and it was pleasant. I went in and out of curio shops selling spices (cloves, cloves, cloves!), wooden art, and textiles. I bought spices I could use for cooking, some teas, and wooden spoons made of ebony wood.

At 5:30 p.m., I boarded a plane for my 20 minute flight back to Dar es Salaam, and I smelled really nice (it must have been the spices and the sea).

Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo

L and I are in Tanzania! It's our first time in East Africa - its hot, the way summers in tropical countries are hot, and there are signs of development everywhere. Buildings under construction abound, the oddly melodious persistence of a pile driver provides background noise, and the people are friendly and curious.

L is here for work, and I tagged along (I appreciate being able to work flexible hours and off-site at times like these!). We're going to do a mini-holiday at the the end of the week, so at least for the first few days, we are ensconced at the Kilimanjaro Kempinski Hotel. Here's the view of the Indian Ocean from our room:

It was Eid'l Adha during the weekend, and the people were in a festive mood. Dar-es-Salaam's many beaches were packed:

To see more of the countryside, we took a short trip to Bagamoyo. Bagamoyo, the oldest town in Tanzania, was one of the most prosperous towns in East Africa for many centuries, but it began to decline in importance in the early twentieth century. It is a beautiful town full of ancient ruins steeped in history, but painfully poor. Their only major industry these days is salt making, and most people are fishermen:

We visited the Kaole Ruins, dating from the the thirteenth century. Our guide, Tobias, and our driver, Abdul, explained that these once formed a complex of a mosque and tombs, right beside the port. We saw the port, eaten up by mangroves and all dried up now, but its not hard to imagine that this was once a very impressive place:

Aside from Mosques, this small town also has a Hindu temple and a Catholic Church - another indication of prosperity, and how open this society really is. The Catholic Church, built in the early eighteenth century, has a very interesting museum showcasing the history of Bagamoyo and its multi-cultural people:

The Germans converted a former slave market into a customs house in the mid-nineteenth century, after slavery was outlawed. The building is large and airy, but it looks down on what used to be a hot and humid holding area, where slaves captured all over East Africa were kept before being shipped to the French Caribbean territories:

We had a meal at the beach, where I had the local ugali, a stiff maize porridge dipped in a tomato stew. There was also a sizable fillet of kingfish, perfectly grilled. The food was pretty awesome, and so was the view:

That night, as with every night so far, L and I hung out at the hotel after dinner. The reason is the local beer, Serengeti, which is really, really good: