Day 22 Bagamoyo - Moshi

December 31, 2015

We drove through the Bagamoyo town to have a look for some barber shop, as Stéphane needed a haircut. It was 31st of December and everything was open early in the morning - markets, food stalls, even restaurants and bars.

 Market in Bagamoyo:

Meet section:

 So we found a barber and Stéphane got good haircut for 0.80 €

Little boy was interested in two white people in the barber and asked us to take photos of him, then he shyly laughed when I showed him the pictures:)

Soon we headed North towards Kilimajaro! Loads of fruit on the sides of the road, this was pineapple country, they were everywhere and a lot! We are not keen on pineapples, but still we got some, and they were just amazing! So sweet and juicy and doesn't make your mouth sore haha:D

In Tanzania there are many roadside restaurants - for tourists and locals, but most of them were locals travelling on the busses and having a break in restaurants like these:

The scenery gets more and more mountainous as we getting more North towards Kilimajaro. Roads are in perfect condition, not a single police car, no speed traps (opposite of Mozambique). One thing that describes Tanzanian roads are speed bumps that are EVERYWHERE! You just can't travel fast even if you wanted. Which is much better than bumping into countless policeman asking for bribes as in Mozambique:D

Here is another typical bus stop place for travellers, where you can go for a lunch, buy some fruit in fruit market or just go to the restroom:

Beautiful Tanzanian road, sometimes we didn't feel we are in Africa, it seems like any western country, and notice, there is no litter anywhere!

Tanzania is very famous for its sisal plantations. It is rich of fiber and has been grown to produce agricultural trine, paper, rope, footware, hats, bags, carpets etc. Tanzania is the second biggest sisal producer in the World after Brazil. It was introduced into Tanzania in 1893 by germans. The plant Agave sisalana was smuggled into Tanganyika from Yucatán, Mexico in the belly of a stuffed crocodile. Only 66 plants had survived the journey but it was commercially viable to start the industry.

Later we went through Moshi village which is famous for those who goes to climb Kilimanjaro. Lots of hotels and lodges, but none of them offered camping. So we headed out of the town. It was getting late and sun started to set. All cows going home:) :

And here it was! Our first glimpse of Kilimanjaro!!!!! Not exactly as in postcards with giraffes and zebras, but still very majestic and magnificent:

Todays last hour on the road we drove in the darkness, which was crazy because Tanzanians don't use any lights on their cars!!! That was mad driving. Finally we found a place to stay which was called Torchbearer, that was out in the countryside. (http://www.torch-bearer.com/) There we met nice old English lady who kindly showed us around. The place was an orphanage, lots of kids. It was new years eve, so we cooked our meal and celebrated our new year next to the Kilimanjaro, which we couldn't see, because it was so dark. But we knew its gonna be the first thing we will see in the morning when we wake up! But that - tomorrow...
Travel Map

Day 21 Kilwa - Bagamoyo

December 30, 2015

We started our morning with beautiful sea scenery as the Sun was rising over the horizon:

 Dhows were leaving into the sea for some fresh fish:

Soon after morning coffee and breakfast we headed to Dar-Es-Salaam to get to Mozambican Embassy and to find out about our visas. We were trying to ring them, but as it is festive season, nobody answers the phone, so we were hoping to see some sort of information upon arrival. The road condition to Dar-Es-Salaam was excellent:

Passing every village there are markets full of great variety of fruit and vegetables:

This is jackfruit which we never seen before:

One thing that we noticed in Tanzania is that up until now it wasn't easy to find a place to buy bulk beer, just closer to Dar-Es-Salaam there were some shops that sold. You can buy box of 20 beer bottles and crate and pay deposit for the bottles and next time just bring the empty bottles back and pay for the beer. Or you can buy beer cans but those are much more expensive, as locals don't drink from cans. Getting closer to Dar, roads were getting more and more busy, here some man transporting materials on motorbike:

Dar-Es-Salaam is very beautiful and modern city, lots of business centres, skyscrapers, big and good roads. From distance it looks just like any other Western city:

Dar is the biggest city in Tanzania, it has 4.5 million inhabitants, also it is the largest and most populous Swahili speaking city in the world.

According to Wikipedia Dar is the third fastest growing city in Africa and population is predicted to reach 76 million by year 2100!!!

Dar city centre:

Soon we found Mozambican Embassy and found out about their opening days. After driving and walking around Dar we headed North looking for a campsite. The roads in Dar are very busy and hectic, street vendors come to you and sell you anything you can imagine! From magazines and toys to mops for kitchen.

Just few kilometres out of Dar, the roads got empty again and sun was starting to set:

Everywhere in Tanzania you can see locals playing football:

Soon we arrived at the city called Bagamoyo, which is listed as the World Heritage Site. It used to be very important port town. Now old buildings are in ruins and some of them are turned into museum as least. This is German Boma building which was built as the German colony's central administrative office:

Bagamoyo is famous with its Arab architecture

As in all touristy places people like us are treated differently and everyone tries to sell us something and show us around, this is the small city centre:

Lots of old buildings lies in ruins:

 We found a great campsite at one of the lodges and decided to go out today for some local food:

We took a tuk-tuk (which in Tanzania they call Bajaj), as we were strongly advised not to walk during dark in the city, because lots of robberies and attacks on tourists in the city. So we got to some local busy restaurant to try traditional Tanzanian dishes, we had some goat and ugali and delicious juice drinks. Everything was in swahili. No alcohol was served at this place. It was interesting to see locals having big tables and celebrating, local businessman having a dinner with a phone in his hand, or a young couple that went out for a date. The food and bar counter reminded us of some kind of prison as everything was behind bars. Also here you don't really get any cutlery unless you ask as they eat with their hands.

So we had some food and a selfie:

We took a tuk tuk back to our home.

Travel Map