there is but one road: Tanzania: In short

On Safai - Part One

I spent two weeks of December on vacation in Tanzania. The itinerary was simple: the first 3 days were to be spent on safari, transit overnight in Dar es Salaam, and the rest of the time on the island of Zanzibar. My flight landed in Dar at 1:30am and my first step off the aircraft was met by a gush of thick, hot, stale-ish air. It was 28 degrees celsius with 60% humidity, wind speed of about 5km/h. AT 1:30 IN THE MORNING! If I say nothing more about the December weather in Tanzania, remember that.

The day began at 7:00am (read: I had about 5 hours available for sleep after landing in Dar, an hour of which was spent getting out of the airport to the hotel, another hour of chatting and “settling in” then a good hour in the morning to shower, eat, etc ..meaning I must have slept about 2 hours). We were met at the hotel by a driver and chef from a company named Afriroots, together with other travellers who were to join us on Safari. The 8 hour drive to Selous (pronounced “say-loo”) was incredibly difficult. The car was not air-conditioned and the heat was scorching. About 70 percent of the journey compromised of driving through rural villages (literally kilometres and kilometres of mud huts that line the road) and the roads were not only gravel, but in terrible condition too, which made it impossible to catch up on any sleep. We had two stops along the way: one for lunch and another to refuel the mean mobile. The lunch time restaurant fed us on a budget and most of my party had a kind of French-fry omelette, while I settled for grilled green banana. Neither of the two meals were anything to rage about, but they did manage to ward of hunger until we got to our destination. The toilets at both stops were pit toilets. The less said about that the better.

Our base camp for the safari was called Hippo Camp. It is a little camp site located right next to the river where you can watch the Hippos whilst having breakfast. Beautiful. We offloaded our goods from the mean mobile into our tents and got on a boat for a sunset cruise, following which, dinner was served. Much to my surprise the dinner was delicious and a bit elaborate considering we were on a budget camping safari. The starter was soup and bread roll. Chinese-style rice and prawn curry made the main and a banana flambé was the dessert.