Zanzibar is a place hard to leave, but the idea of having in front of us a great animal experience is compensating the pain of getting into the ferry back to Dar es Salaam. It has been a long time now since we were in Chobe. The sea is a bit rough on the way back, and there are several people nauseous or throwing up, but fortunately none of us! We have one night back at the camping site in town before we leave tomorrow to Arusha. This town is the starting point for many adventures in western Tanzania, from the Kilimanjaro tracking, to the National Parks of Ngorongoro, Serengeti and Tarangire. It has also been chosen to host the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where crimes committed during the Rwanda Genocide in 1994 were judged, and after that it kept its important international relevance hosting the African Court on Human and People’s rights.
Time to grab a cappuccino in the rising heat of the early morning in Stone Town and then we are off to the northern shores, where plenty of people are enjoying the fantastic weather of Zanzibar. It’s a rather long drive on dusty roads passing through small villages, but the predominant color around us is green from the palm forest and the banana trees. Despite being packed with luxurious resorts and all-inclusive hotels there is space for the down-to-earth budget ones like ours. The sea is the same for all wallets 🙂
Leaving Malawi we have a full day of driving across the Southern region of Tanzania. It’s a very long drive, that is why we have to leave at 4 in the morning to be able to avoid the worst traffic entering Dar es Salaam. This is a huge city, packed with cars and three-wheeled vehicles (called tok-toks) driving all over the place. We reach our camp at the end of the day, where we get a nice meal and we can hopefully get rid of all the dust we have accumulated during the ride. The outside showers look pretty good: they are inside a wooden fence, the are stones on the ground, you can see the pretty Ocean from the top and on the side of the shower there is a nice big mirror. As you release the water, though…salty drops are washing your body, and you end up being as dirty as before!