Sunday, July 31, 2016

Day 30 Stone Town - Mikadi Beach

January 8, 2016
Today we left Stone Town and went back to our camping in Mikadi beach. Super hot outside, so swimming pool and the (hot) sea where just in time :)
Spent our day lazy, went to some local bar and restaurant:
Entrance to our camping:
Sitting and chilling in hammock:
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Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Day 29 Stone Town


January 7, 2016
Stone Town is one of the major tourist attraction in Tanzania. After travelling overland it is a huge contrast comparing to other parts of Tanzania. It feels like in any touristy place in the world, full of touts, hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions. Our goal today was to get our visas for Mozambique, so early morning we headed to Mozambican Embassy. We walked to the Embassy through narrow streets of Stone Town:
At the Embassy behind tight security, we were the only ones there and we got all the papers and money ready for visas. We found out that visas will be ready in 6 hours instead of 24, so it meant we had to hang around Stone Town for the day. So we left the Embassy and went walking around Stone Town. Majority of population is muslim. Instead of doing tourist tours to see turtles and going to slave museum, we hang around the town and talked to some locals about their life in Zanzibar. So we met one local guide (after he tried to got some money out of us, but soon he realised we were not an easy catch and then we talked as friends). So we stopped and talked to him near the beachfront, he told us many things about peoples lives on the island, places to go and eat local, told us how they cheat white tourists, told us about about Indian hotel owners and local staff in five star hotels, he talked about the quality of food in tourist restaurants and many more. 
Soon was the lunch time and we went to the restaurant called "Lukmaan". The food was delicious, we had some rice with octopus sauce, another sauce made of anchovies, and some few little bits, the food was really tasty, rich of spices. This place is famous for backpackers and more like an upper class for locals:
The weather was incredibly hot, it was really hard at this time of the day, but still we were wondering around the town. We went to the market and criss crossed it. Being one of few whites there we were followed by countless sellers trying to sell us spices. We walked through the whole place watching daily lives of locals. Small restaurants, black from soot, "thats where they eating" - we thought. The food was Wali Kuku - chicken and rice and costed next to nothing. So we wondered through the busy market and headed to Embassy for our Mozambican visas.


Went through some backroads and yards, some apartment building areas, and here you see the difference - its not a place where tourists wonder and everyone leaves you alone:) Must admit the place reminded me Deli in India - garbage anywhere you look, countless homeless on the streets, non existing infrastructure. But thats what we like when we travel - to see the reality as it is and not pay for the imaginary paradise on a photo.
After we got our visas we went back to Old Town. You need a lot of imagination to see architectural beauty that all books are raving about, because all the buildings that carry World Heritage Badge are falling apart or are secured with steel wires so they won't fall on your head, the only good looking buildings are five star hotels:
Stone Town from the sea:

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Day 28 Kigamboni - Zanzibar

January 6, 2016
Woke at beautiful setting - swimming pool and the sea, and veeery hot!!! :) Half of the day we just spent chilling around.
Sinty made some lunch :)))
And swimming in the sea, the water was too hot, it felt literally like a bath!!! Where are the bubbles:))) So we went back to swimming pool to cool down, the water was cooler there... We walked around the area, went to some local eateries...
In the afternoon we took a bajaji (tuk tuk) to port to cross into Dar-Es-Salaam, then small ferry over the bay to Dar Es Salaam.
 Dar-Es-Salaam:
We had some time till the ferry so we went for a walk around Dar, had some beer and some lunch at a local restaurant. We had delicious fish with rice...
The ferry to Zanzibar costed us 70 USD each! In Zanzibar upon arrival there was security check, passport control, it looked like we arrived to another country. So we went to our hotel, Stone Town was very busy, lots of people, many tourists and countless touts. We walked around and went for a beer, in a restaurant full of tourists and according prices. We couldn't find any local bars, because majority of the population is muslims in Zanzibar. Anyways we saw beautiful sunset:
Later we went to market for some food. There are stalls with seafood for tourists (the fish wasn't smelling good), they are running after you all the time to sell you the food, but we chose some local food stall where locals were eating and it was nice and fresh food:
After that we went to our hotel and tried to sleep in that crazy hot weather:)))
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Thursday, July 7, 2016

Day 27 Singida - Kigamboni

January 5, 2016
We had a very nice breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, there were delicious local dishes. This was our room from the outside:
And TV in the room behind the bars :D
Our Room:
So we left our hotel and drove inland towards Dar Es Salaam, we passed Dodoma which is the capital of Tanzania. There were nice petrol stations, many decent restaurants. On our way we didn't see any mud hats, people have nice houses, painted and with gardens around them:
Lots of construction going on, many apartment blocks are being built:
Our roads were in good condition again and with distant mountains:
And again many beautiful houses around Dodoma:
Wont get far without road accidents in Africa, this time we saw a truck completely smashed:
In Tanzania there is no rubbish on the sides of the road, its nicely packed in bags:
And getting closer to Dar Es Salaam we were stopped by policeman, first time in Tanzania! And he was such a lovely man, he just wanted to chat and said to us Welcome to Tanzania for at least 10 times! It was getting late when we arrived in Dar and we still had a while to drive to the campsite. Most of them are located South of Dar and there is a big loop to drive to get there, because there is river mouth and no bridge across, just boat.
So we got to Dar, and the traffic was super big! It was rush our and we waited 1 hour at 1 traffic light!!! It got dark and we had pretty much to drive. Crazy truck drivers, people on the roads, motorbikes, car accidents, that was a crazy drive!!! We got to campsite at 22:00. Straight to bed and next morning we were planning to go to Zanzibar. The campsite we stayed was called Kigamboni and we were able to leave our truck there for a couple of nights while we are in Zanzibar.

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