Today is officially my last day in Arusha. As I explained in a previous post, tomorrow morning I will wake up and head out on a bus – the Dar Express - to the biggest city in Tanzania, Dar Es Salaam. From there I will catch a ferry to the island of Zanzibar, where I will spend four and a half days on the beaches before heading back to Dar to meet up with my friend David from Global Family Rescue and head down to southern Tanzania.
Leaving Arusha will definitely be bittersweet. On the one-hand, I'm definitely looking forward to a change of scenery, relaxing on the beach, seeing more of Tanzania, and the work I will be doing in Njombe with GFR. On the other hand, it will be hard to leave behind Arusha, Ujamaa hostel, and all the friends I have made here over the course of the last six months. I have already had the experience of saying one hard good-bye, which was to Caroline (head of the Umoja Centre), who left this past Sunday to head back home to Australia for six weeks. Unfortunately, she arrives back in Arusha four days after I depart from Africa for good, and therefore I will not see her again during te rest of my time here. As for everyone else, I have the benefit of seeing them again during my last four days in Africa when I return to Arusha for one last lap before flying out of Kilimanjaro airport, which is just outside of town.
The last week here has been great. I've spent most of my time finishing up work from The Umoja Centre, but I've also managed to squeeze in some leisure time as well. Last sunday a group from the hostel went to go see Invictus, which has subsequently led to the Aussies of the hostel starting some rugby matches ('ruggers', as they call it) in our backyard in the evenings before dinner. Good times, although I still vastly prefer football. I've also managed to make a tour of my favorite restuarants in town, and tonight we are headed back for round two of the movies and dinner for my final goodbye.
I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to get done in the upcoming weeks, especially as I'm not certain of the power situation in Zanzibar (there hasn't been any since December. It was supposed to be fixed last week, but I would find it to be close to a miracle if they actually completed it on schedule), but I promise I will continue to blog and update whenever I find the means. At the very least, I will do another round of retroactive posts when I arrive back in Arusha in 3.5 weeks. Hopefully though, I can continue to give updates in real time.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Corruption
As I mentioned in a post quite a while ago, Arusha and Tanzania are not without their problems, and this blog is dedicated to discussing one of those problems which was encountered a few times over the course of my dad’s visit: the problem of corruption.
Unfortunately, corruption is almost a way of life for most government officials here in Tanzania. Thankfully I’m not talking about the kind of corruption on the level of the massive government conspiracies that Jack Bauer single-handedly uncovers and rescues America from on an annual basis (unless, of course, there’s a writer’s strike), but nonetheless, having to bribe officials on a periodic basis for no apparent reason other than them wanting to extort money from you is still annoying.
The three specific government bodies prone to corruption that volunteers and travelers are most likely to come into contact with are the police, customs, and immigration. The police have not been a problem for me personally in my time here 0 - knock on wood; however, I’ve heard numerous stories of police harassing both Tanzanians and visitors alike for no other reason than to induce a bribe. The most common form of this comes from traffic officers.
I think the best indication that there is a serious problem with corrupt police attempting to pull over innocent citizens (Tanzanians, travelers, and ex-patriates alike) to induce a bribe is the fact that the government actually prints off windshield stickers that list the rights of citizens so they can use it as a reference if a police officer attempts to scare them through illegal means. In fact, just a week and a half ago Caroline was pulled over twice in the same afternoon for no apparent reason. During the first incident, tax officials, who were apparently riding with the police officer (which, by itself seems a little sketchy and obvious) tried to actually enter in her passenger door to check that her registrations were up to date. For the record, these registrations are clearly visible through the windshield, and there is no reason for anyone to ever need to actually get in the car to check them. After arguing back and forth with the officer and the tax officials, she was finally let go since, well, she didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. The second stop was actually much smoother than the first, and she received a simple reminder to wear her seatbelt without any further argument or harassment. Why she was pulled over though, especially since she was already wearing a seatbelt, I’m not sure. It could have just been a coincidence, but I tend to think that in both scenarios they were both just looking for something simple she was doing illegal (such as having an out of date registration or not wearing a seatbelt) so they could induce a bribe.
An even more common problem than the police pulling someone over is for them to wait for a bribe before letting you pass at road checkpoints on major highways. Again, while I’ve never had any personal experience with this, I’m told the process goes something like this: when you stop at the check point, the police officer will ask you a few questions, dilly-dally around a little bit, and then pretend to be unsure as to whether they can let you pass for some stupid reason. They will then at some point turn the conversation to how hungry or thirsty they are, which is your cue to tell them you might be able to ‘buy them something to eat or drink’. Most of the time this bribe is no more than Tsh 1,000 – about 80 cents – but its still annoying and, you know, illegal. Also, just a heads up: if you ever find yourself in this situation, don’t ever try and speed up the process by offering right away to give them money to let you pass. Even though this is what they ultimately want, and it might work the majority of the time, it also exposes you because you just attempted to explicitly bribe them. If they then decide like being a real a-hole, they could threaten to take you to jail - with the law actually on their side this time - which means you will wind up paying a much more sizeable bribe to get yourself out of the situation (unless you really piss them off or have absolutely no money, don’t think you will ever actually be going to go to jail).
Not nearly as common, but still possible, is for the police to stop you on the streets to try and harass you in an attempt to secure a bribe. While I’ve heard of this happening before, it’s always been a friend-who-knows-someone-who-heard-about-a-guy type of a thing; it hasn’t happened to anyone I know personally. Nonetheless, it can happen, especially toward the end of the week when the police are looking for ‘weekend money’, as the phrase goes here. Therefore, it’s best to just keep a low profile and avoid cops, especially on Fridays.
While the bribe-seeking police are a major annoyance, what’s of far greater frustration to me and other volunteers alike are customs and immigration officials. To illustrate, I’ll share two stories from when my dad was visiting. The first occurred immediately upon my dad’s arrival, when he was trying to enter in the country. For those of you who are not aware, electronics are significantly cheaper in the US than almost anywhere in the world, including Europe and Australia. As it turns out, the printer at The Umoja Centre crapped out about two weeks before my dad was coming to visit, so I volunteered to have my dad bring over one from the States at a fourth of the price for which we could have gotten one in Tanzania. This was all good in theory, but there is also an import tax on a number of items that are coming into the country, even through passenger luggage, which gives customs officials the leverage they need to detain passengers carrying such items and induce a bribe. This is exactly what happened to my dad. Why do I say induce a bribe, rather than the other possibility that it is actually to pay the import tax? Well, for one thing, when my dad asked how much the import tax would be, the officer responded, “How much can you afford?” Second, my dad was able to bargain him down from his initial price by a sizeable margin, which shouldn’t really happen when there is supposed to be a set import tax. Also, there was a noticeable absence of any official paperwork, and while my dad didn’t ask for a receipt, I have heard from others that when you do ask for one, the price you must pay mysteriously jumps about 400%. In spite of all this, my dad had a much easier time with customs than a group of volunteers who arrived on the same flight as him who were trying to bring medical supplies into the country. As of the time we left, they still hadn’t progressed beyond the inspection table, and it looked as if they were going to be there for quite a while longer. And just to illustrate that these aren’t isolated incidents, Carley, the owner of the hostel, also experienced something similar when she arrived back in Tanzania from a trip home to Australia. As she told it, the customs officials went through all her luggage specifically looking for things for which they could charge her customs tax. When they couldn’t find any, they specifically asked her, “Where are all the presents you’re bringing into the country?” I think these, and other stories I’ve heard, are more than ample evidence that customs officials specifically seek out travelers and tourists bringing presents for friends / family and supplies for NGOs into the country to try and induce bribes from them.
Perhaps even worse than the customs experience, though, is immigration. In my four months in Tanzania, the only time I’ve ever had to deal with immigration official was during my dads visit. It happened three days before he was supposed to leave when officials from immigration decided to show up to the hostel. The immigration office has a couple of guys on staff who’s job it is to go around to local NGOs and other organizations dealing with volunteers to check over their visas and ensure they are on the proper volunteer visa, as opposed to a travel visa. They don’t come around often apparently; but when they do, they again really only have one purpose in mind: to induce a bribe. This is exactly what happened when they came to the hostel. Fortunately, the hostel is extremely good about doing everything necessary to obtain volunteer visas for its residents. This can be an extremely tedious process, but their thought is that if immigration officials show up and find a bunch of volunteers without proper visas, they will start showing up every week for bribe money. So everyone was good to go from a visa perspective, but that didn’t stop them from at least trying to find a reason for a bribe.
It turns out that one of our residents from Australia obtained her volunteer visa from the Tanzanian embassy in Australia, rather than emailing their information to the hostel and having everything arranged here. This was reason enough, apparently, for the immigration officials to try and tell her she didn’t obtain the proper visa, and that she was volunteering illegally. If I didn’t know any better I might have thought they had a legitimate point, but having talked with numerous volunteers about this process, I’ve learned that this is what they do: go around to organizations not to simply ensure everyone is legal, but with the specific goal of finding people who aren’t so they can extort money from them. And just like what happened at the hostel, if they can’t find anyone who is illegal, they will do their best to try and find a way to make someone think they are illegal. As a general policy, if you know your rights and argue with immigration for long enough (and you can do this only when you know your rights) they eventually start to back down, which is exactly what happened in this instance. The Australian woman still had to go down to the immigration office, but after talking with the head of the department and shedding a few tears, they eventually let her off the hook (again, you know, because she didn’t do anything wrong).
The two experiences with customs and immigration were especially bad because they involved Tanzanian officials specifically seeking out people who have given their time, effort, and money to help the people of this Tanzania. Being a volunteer, it not only makes you angry, but also causes you question why you’re even bothering to help at all. Thankfully though, you only have to show up to work the next day and see the people you’re helping to remember why you’re here and regain motivation. Nonetheless, corruption remains a major problem in Tanzania, and is particularly trying for volunteers who are attempting to help make the same country better that is deliberating attempting to take advantage of them.
Unfortunately, corruption is almost a way of life for most government officials here in Tanzania. Thankfully I’m not talking about the kind of corruption on the level of the massive government conspiracies that Jack Bauer single-handedly uncovers and rescues America from on an annual basis (unless, of course, there’s a writer’s strike), but nonetheless, having to bribe officials on a periodic basis for no apparent reason other than them wanting to extort money from you is still annoying.
The three specific government bodies prone to corruption that volunteers and travelers are most likely to come into contact with are the police, customs, and immigration. The police have not been a problem for me personally in my time here 0 - knock on wood; however, I’ve heard numerous stories of police harassing both Tanzanians and visitors alike for no other reason than to induce a bribe. The most common form of this comes from traffic officers.
I think the best indication that there is a serious problem with corrupt police attempting to pull over innocent citizens (Tanzanians, travelers, and ex-patriates alike) to induce a bribe is the fact that the government actually prints off windshield stickers that list the rights of citizens so they can use it as a reference if a police officer attempts to scare them through illegal means. In fact, just a week and a half ago Caroline was pulled over twice in the same afternoon for no apparent reason. During the first incident, tax officials, who were apparently riding with the police officer (which, by itself seems a little sketchy and obvious) tried to actually enter in her passenger door to check that her registrations were up to date. For the record, these registrations are clearly visible through the windshield, and there is no reason for anyone to ever need to actually get in the car to check them. After arguing back and forth with the officer and the tax officials, she was finally let go since, well, she didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. The second stop was actually much smoother than the first, and she received a simple reminder to wear her seatbelt without any further argument or harassment. Why she was pulled over though, especially since she was already wearing a seatbelt, I’m not sure. It could have just been a coincidence, but I tend to think that in both scenarios they were both just looking for something simple she was doing illegal (such as having an out of date registration or not wearing a seatbelt) so they could induce a bribe.
An even more common problem than the police pulling someone over is for them to wait for a bribe before letting you pass at road checkpoints on major highways. Again, while I’ve never had any personal experience with this, I’m told the process goes something like this: when you stop at the check point, the police officer will ask you a few questions, dilly-dally around a little bit, and then pretend to be unsure as to whether they can let you pass for some stupid reason. They will then at some point turn the conversation to how hungry or thirsty they are, which is your cue to tell them you might be able to ‘buy them something to eat or drink’. Most of the time this bribe is no more than Tsh 1,000 – about 80 cents – but its still annoying and, you know, illegal. Also, just a heads up: if you ever find yourself in this situation, don’t ever try and speed up the process by offering right away to give them money to let you pass. Even though this is what they ultimately want, and it might work the majority of the time, it also exposes you because you just attempted to explicitly bribe them. If they then decide like being a real a-hole, they could threaten to take you to jail - with the law actually on their side this time - which means you will wind up paying a much more sizeable bribe to get yourself out of the situation (unless you really piss them off or have absolutely no money, don’t think you will ever actually be going to go to jail).
Not nearly as common, but still possible, is for the police to stop you on the streets to try and harass you in an attempt to secure a bribe. While I’ve heard of this happening before, it’s always been a friend-who-knows-someone-who-heard-about-a-guy type of a thing; it hasn’t happened to anyone I know personally. Nonetheless, it can happen, especially toward the end of the week when the police are looking for ‘weekend money’, as the phrase goes here. Therefore, it’s best to just keep a low profile and avoid cops, especially on Fridays.
While the bribe-seeking police are a major annoyance, what’s of far greater frustration to me and other volunteers alike are customs and immigration officials. To illustrate, I’ll share two stories from when my dad was visiting. The first occurred immediately upon my dad’s arrival, when he was trying to enter in the country. For those of you who are not aware, electronics are significantly cheaper in the US than almost anywhere in the world, including Europe and Australia. As it turns out, the printer at The Umoja Centre crapped out about two weeks before my dad was coming to visit, so I volunteered to have my dad bring over one from the States at a fourth of the price for which we could have gotten one in Tanzania. This was all good in theory, but there is also an import tax on a number of items that are coming into the country, even through passenger luggage, which gives customs officials the leverage they need to detain passengers carrying such items and induce a bribe. This is exactly what happened to my dad. Why do I say induce a bribe, rather than the other possibility that it is actually to pay the import tax? Well, for one thing, when my dad asked how much the import tax would be, the officer responded, “How much can you afford?” Second, my dad was able to bargain him down from his initial price by a sizeable margin, which shouldn’t really happen when there is supposed to be a set import tax. Also, there was a noticeable absence of any official paperwork, and while my dad didn’t ask for a receipt, I have heard from others that when you do ask for one, the price you must pay mysteriously jumps about 400%. In spite of all this, my dad had a much easier time with customs than a group of volunteers who arrived on the same flight as him who were trying to bring medical supplies into the country. As of the time we left, they still hadn’t progressed beyond the inspection table, and it looked as if they were going to be there for quite a while longer. And just to illustrate that these aren’t isolated incidents, Carley, the owner of the hostel, also experienced something similar when she arrived back in Tanzania from a trip home to Australia. As she told it, the customs officials went through all her luggage specifically looking for things for which they could charge her customs tax. When they couldn’t find any, they specifically asked her, “Where are all the presents you’re bringing into the country?” I think these, and other stories I’ve heard, are more than ample evidence that customs officials specifically seek out travelers and tourists bringing presents for friends / family and supplies for NGOs into the country to try and induce bribes from them.
Perhaps even worse than the customs experience, though, is immigration. In my four months in Tanzania, the only time I’ve ever had to deal with immigration official was during my dads visit. It happened three days before he was supposed to leave when officials from immigration decided to show up to the hostel. The immigration office has a couple of guys on staff who’s job it is to go around to local NGOs and other organizations dealing with volunteers to check over their visas and ensure they are on the proper volunteer visa, as opposed to a travel visa. They don’t come around often apparently; but when they do, they again really only have one purpose in mind: to induce a bribe. This is exactly what happened when they came to the hostel. Fortunately, the hostel is extremely good about doing everything necessary to obtain volunteer visas for its residents. This can be an extremely tedious process, but their thought is that if immigration officials show up and find a bunch of volunteers without proper visas, they will start showing up every week for bribe money. So everyone was good to go from a visa perspective, but that didn’t stop them from at least trying to find a reason for a bribe.
It turns out that one of our residents from Australia obtained her volunteer visa from the Tanzanian embassy in Australia, rather than emailing their information to the hostel and having everything arranged here. This was reason enough, apparently, for the immigration officials to try and tell her she didn’t obtain the proper visa, and that she was volunteering illegally. If I didn’t know any better I might have thought they had a legitimate point, but having talked with numerous volunteers about this process, I’ve learned that this is what they do: go around to organizations not to simply ensure everyone is legal, but with the specific goal of finding people who aren’t so they can extort money from them. And just like what happened at the hostel, if they can’t find anyone who is illegal, they will do their best to try and find a way to make someone think they are illegal. As a general policy, if you know your rights and argue with immigration for long enough (and you can do this only when you know your rights) they eventually start to back down, which is exactly what happened in this instance. The Australian woman still had to go down to the immigration office, but after talking with the head of the department and shedding a few tears, they eventually let her off the hook (again, you know, because she didn’t do anything wrong).
The two experiences with customs and immigration were especially bad because they involved Tanzanian officials specifically seeking out people who have given their time, effort, and money to help the people of this Tanzania. Being a volunteer, it not only makes you angry, but also causes you question why you’re even bothering to help at all. Thankfully though, you only have to show up to work the next day and see the people you’re helping to remember why you’re here and regain motivation. Nonetheless, corruption remains a major problem in Tanzania, and is particularly trying for volunteers who are attempting to help make the same country better that is deliberating attempting to take advantage of them.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tanzanian Safari
One of the highlights of my dad’s visit was the opportunity to go on safari (which, in Swahili, literally means ‘journey’). By the time my dad arrived in Tanzania I had been at the hostel, which serves as a popular point for travelers to leave from and return to for safaris, for nearly three months, and had probably listened to somewhere close to 20 different individuals / groups return from their safaris and talk about their experiences over dinner. Therefore, despite never having been on an actual safari myself, I considered myself pretty knowledgeable on the subject when it came to choosing the best option.
Ironically enough, after hearing everyone’s different experiences – which included everything from basic three day safaris to extended seven day packages that took you to some of the less popular destinations - I decided the best value for our money was actually the most popular safari package. This package lasted four days and three nights, and included visits to some of the most famous national parks in Tanzania: Lake Manyara, the Serengeti Plains, and Ngorongoro Crater. While Lake Manyara is lesser known to those outside Tanzania, Ngorongoro Crater and especially the Serengeti Plains are world renown.
(Quick sidenote worth mentioning: The Pridelands from the movie ‘The Lion King’ were actually based on the Serengeti Plains. In addition to the geography itself, most, if not all, the animals you see in the movie are also native to the Serengeti. And in addition to using the Serengeti as inspiration for the setting, the movie also borrows a couple of Swahili words for the name of its characters: ‘Simba’ translates to ‘lion’ and ‘Rafiki’ is the Swahili word for ‘friend’. And yes, while we’re on the subject, ‘Hakuna Matata’ does actually mean “No worries’, lit. “There are no worries”)
The coveted goal of all safari-goers in Tanzania is to see the so-called “Big Five”: elephants, lions, leopards, buffalo, and black rhinos. With all the hype around it, you would think this was actually hard to do, but the reality is that about 80% of all the people I talked to were able to accomplish it (as long as you visit the Crater – which is the only place to see the 13 black rhinos remaining in the world). You might also think there was little else worth seeing, but in my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. While the Big Five were amazing to see (and, happily, we did see all five), almost equally as impressive were the giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, antelope, hyenas, jackels, vultures, ostriches, hippos, and crocodiles. And that’s to say nothing of the numerous smaller animals and exotic varieties of birds, which admittedly are not on the same level as the aforementioned animals, but are still nonetheless beautiful to see. The only animal we didn’t get a chance to see was a cheetah, but with so much else to take in, this was hardly a cause for disappointment.
I wish I could describe in more detail all the sights we got to see; what it feels like to see a tower of 100 giraffe (yes, that’s right, according to wikianswers you can call a group of giraffes a tower) grazing all around you in the trees, to be literally surrounded by a herd of 500 buffalo, or to watch an elephant feeding from less than 10 feet away, but I don’t really think these experiences can be aptly translated into words. Therefore, instead I will end this post with a few general tips and observations about safaris that aren’t in any guidebooks, but which I have either learned from talking with travelers or experienced for myself. The first two have to do with arranging safaris, and the last four concern the actual safari itself. Please remember that some of the things I mention, especially those concerning pricing, are specific to Tanzania and the national parks I visited.
1. If at all possible, don’t organize your safari until you arrive
There are numerous ways to arrange a safari, and those inexperienced with Africa may be tempted to pre-arrange one before departing through a travel agency, the hotel they are staying with, or online. My suggestion would be, that if you have any spare time that you could use to arrange a safari after arriving, do it. Sometimes the price difference could literally be 100%. The reason for this is two fold. First, the more people you go through to arrange a safari, the more people are going to want a cut of the profit for helping arrange it. This is especially true when going through a travel agency or hotel. Second, many of the larger safari companies take advantage of travelers’ ignorance when they are going through travel agencies, and use the opportunity to dramatically increase the price. This is not, in fact, isolated to safari companies, but is a practice employed by many different tourism related businesses, and not just in Africa. On the positive side, you are usually getting a quality experience for your money, but again, you may be paying up to double that of the person sitting next to you in the same vehicle. Using the Internet is an option that gives you a better basis for price comparison, but at the cost of being less certain about the quality of the experience.
Your best option is to ask friends or other contacts for recommendations (like the one I make at the end of this point) and then personally contact that company and arrange the safari yourself. However, if you’re unable to do find anyone who can give a recommendation, your next best option is to arrive a day early in a town that serves as a staging point for a lot of safaris, such as Arusha, and shop around for a trip. Asking for recommendations from other travelers is always the best place to start, although you might also ask the hotel concierge or other local business owners (as long as you are reasonable sure they won’t profit from the recommendation they give you).
Again, all this is not to say you will, without a doubt, pay a more expensive price if you purchase a pre-arranged safari. I’m just saying you have a better chance of getting a good price if you don’t go through multiple layers of administration and can physically go to a safari office to compare prices.
Lastly, I will take this opportunity to recommend the company my dad and I used, which is African Scenic Safaris (www.africanscenicsafaris.com). Not only did they provide a great safari, but they are also very fairly priced. Additionally, I am friends with the owners and can personally vouch for them being honest and ethical in their business practices (and they also donate a portion of their proceeds to local NFPs, although I’m not sure they advertise that themselves). Contrary to everything I just said, you shouldn’t hesitate to book a safari with them through the Internet before arriving in Africa.
2. Don’t pay less than $150 / day per person
Again, this is specific to the northern safari circuit of Tanzania, but if a company is charging much less than this price, I would question the quality of the experience you will be receiving, if you aren’t getting downright ripped off (i.e., they will insist on you paying extra for things you thought were included). Park fees alone are $50 / day per person, and then when you add employee wages (a guide and a cook), food, gas, and then depreciation on the vehicle and camping / cooking equipment, you can understand why it would be difficult to charge less than this and still make a fair profit for your efforts.
Its also worth noting that this is the minimum you should pay for a full vehicle. Prices should be even more expensive if you want less people (Note: Safari companies will usually do their best to match you and your group with other individuals / groups to ensure a full vehicle unless you explicitly ask them not to)
And just to give a good price point, $200 / day per person is probably a good average cost for a camping safari (lodges will usually be quite a bit more expensive). Anything under would be considered a pretty good deal.
3. Bring something else to do
No one seems to mention how much time is spent driving from one park to another when they mention their safari. The truth is, it’s quite a bit. If you don’t bring something else to do, you will get bored, unless you are the world’s greatest conversationalist. I suggest a few books and an ipod. That kept me sufficiently entertained.
4. It’s not just about the animals
Remember to take in the nature and the geography as well. This is especially true if you travel the route we took. Each of the three parks had some spectacular. The forest of Lake Manyara lead straight into a huge tree covered wall – not 90 degrees, but certainly too steep for animals to climb - measuring several hundred feet in height that is unlike almost anything I have every seen before. Similarly unique, the Serengeti plains are so vast it is almost too difficult to comprehend how far they actually stretch. The crater is also a sight to behold, measuring about 9 miles across and several hundred feet high. Finally, I would remind anyone heading out of safari to remember to take a look up to the sky at night, as the number of visible stars is unparalleled by anything I have ever experienced.
5. Remember to “see”, and not just “look”
This point seems pretty obvious, but I’ve heard a number of people come back and talk about how they wished they would have taken more time just taking in what they were actually seeing, rather than trying to capture the perfect picture. I’m not saying don’t take pictures, or even that you can’t fully appreciate the sites while taking pictures, but just remember not to get ahead of yourself: enjoy the experience itself before attempting to capture it as a lasting memory.
6. Order matters
The only point I’ll stress is this: If you can, make sure you save Ngorongoro Crater for last. The sheer population density of animals makes it an unrivaled destination to view wildlife; so much so that you might actually find yourself bored with the other stops if you visited the Crater first.
I’ll use one example just to illustrate: On the first day in Lake Manyara when we saw a small group of zebras we stop to watch and take pictures for probably ten minutes. It was brand new, it was exciting, and it was interesting. In contrast, on our last day in the Crater, there were times where we literally drove past packs of zebras numbering in the hundreds without stopping. Why? Because we saw those same packs of 100+ zebras all over the Crater. We had already stopped numerous times to observe them, and there are only so many times you can stop to look at zebras.
At a certain point, we as humans become accustomed to all the sights we once found unique and interesting, and they begin to lose their novelty. That may be a sad truth, but it’s human nature. Everyone I’ve talked to about this has had a similar experience. So the best way to fight against this is to try and order your experiences from the least exciting to the most. I didn’t realize this going in, but luckily our tour operators did. We started off in Lake Manyara, where the sight of a few zebras or one elephant was enough to keep us enthralled. We then moved to the Serengeti, where wildlife sightings weren’t necessarily more common, but they tended to be of more exciting animals (e.g., lions, leopards) or of larger groups of animals (hundreds of zebras, as opposed to a handful). Odds are, your tour operator already knows this and will structure your safari accordingly, but it never hurts to check.
On a related note, I also found four days to be the perfect length of time for the safari. I fell like I would have been left wanting if I had tried to squeeze everything into three days, and while I could have done a fifth day, the novelty of the experience would have been begun to wear off.
Ironically enough, after hearing everyone’s different experiences – which included everything from basic three day safaris to extended seven day packages that took you to some of the less popular destinations - I decided the best value for our money was actually the most popular safari package. This package lasted four days and three nights, and included visits to some of the most famous national parks in Tanzania: Lake Manyara, the Serengeti Plains, and Ngorongoro Crater. While Lake Manyara is lesser known to those outside Tanzania, Ngorongoro Crater and especially the Serengeti Plains are world renown.
(Quick sidenote worth mentioning: The Pridelands from the movie ‘The Lion King’ were actually based on the Serengeti Plains. In addition to the geography itself, most, if not all, the animals you see in the movie are also native to the Serengeti. And in addition to using the Serengeti as inspiration for the setting, the movie also borrows a couple of Swahili words for the name of its characters: ‘Simba’ translates to ‘lion’ and ‘Rafiki’ is the Swahili word for ‘friend’. And yes, while we’re on the subject, ‘Hakuna Matata’ does actually mean “No worries’, lit. “There are no worries”)
The coveted goal of all safari-goers in Tanzania is to see the so-called “Big Five”: elephants, lions, leopards, buffalo, and black rhinos. With all the hype around it, you would think this was actually hard to do, but the reality is that about 80% of all the people I talked to were able to accomplish it (as long as you visit the Crater – which is the only place to see the 13 black rhinos remaining in the world). You might also think there was little else worth seeing, but in my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. While the Big Five were amazing to see (and, happily, we did see all five), almost equally as impressive were the giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, antelope, hyenas, jackels, vultures, ostriches, hippos, and crocodiles. And that’s to say nothing of the numerous smaller animals and exotic varieties of birds, which admittedly are not on the same level as the aforementioned animals, but are still nonetheless beautiful to see. The only animal we didn’t get a chance to see was a cheetah, but with so much else to take in, this was hardly a cause for disappointment.
I wish I could describe in more detail all the sights we got to see; what it feels like to see a tower of 100 giraffe (yes, that’s right, according to wikianswers you can call a group of giraffes a tower) grazing all around you in the trees, to be literally surrounded by a herd of 500 buffalo, or to watch an elephant feeding from less than 10 feet away, but I don’t really think these experiences can be aptly translated into words. Therefore, instead I will end this post with a few general tips and observations about safaris that aren’t in any guidebooks, but which I have either learned from talking with travelers or experienced for myself. The first two have to do with arranging safaris, and the last four concern the actual safari itself. Please remember that some of the things I mention, especially those concerning pricing, are specific to Tanzania and the national parks I visited.
1. If at all possible, don’t organize your safari until you arrive
There are numerous ways to arrange a safari, and those inexperienced with Africa may be tempted to pre-arrange one before departing through a travel agency, the hotel they are staying with, or online. My suggestion would be, that if you have any spare time that you could use to arrange a safari after arriving, do it. Sometimes the price difference could literally be 100%. The reason for this is two fold. First, the more people you go through to arrange a safari, the more people are going to want a cut of the profit for helping arrange it. This is especially true when going through a travel agency or hotel. Second, many of the larger safari companies take advantage of travelers’ ignorance when they are going through travel agencies, and use the opportunity to dramatically increase the price. This is not, in fact, isolated to safari companies, but is a practice employed by many different tourism related businesses, and not just in Africa. On the positive side, you are usually getting a quality experience for your money, but again, you may be paying up to double that of the person sitting next to you in the same vehicle. Using the Internet is an option that gives you a better basis for price comparison, but at the cost of being less certain about the quality of the experience.
Your best option is to ask friends or other contacts for recommendations (like the one I make at the end of this point) and then personally contact that company and arrange the safari yourself. However, if you’re unable to do find anyone who can give a recommendation, your next best option is to arrive a day early in a town that serves as a staging point for a lot of safaris, such as Arusha, and shop around for a trip. Asking for recommendations from other travelers is always the best place to start, although you might also ask the hotel concierge or other local business owners (as long as you are reasonable sure they won’t profit from the recommendation they give you).
Again, all this is not to say you will, without a doubt, pay a more expensive price if you purchase a pre-arranged safari. I’m just saying you have a better chance of getting a good price if you don’t go through multiple layers of administration and can physically go to a safari office to compare prices.
Lastly, I will take this opportunity to recommend the company my dad and I used, which is African Scenic Safaris (www.africanscenicsafaris.com). Not only did they provide a great safari, but they are also very fairly priced. Additionally, I am friends with the owners and can personally vouch for them being honest and ethical in their business practices (and they also donate a portion of their proceeds to local NFPs, although I’m not sure they advertise that themselves). Contrary to everything I just said, you shouldn’t hesitate to book a safari with them through the Internet before arriving in Africa.
2. Don’t pay less than $150 / day per person
Again, this is specific to the northern safari circuit of Tanzania, but if a company is charging much less than this price, I would question the quality of the experience you will be receiving, if you aren’t getting downright ripped off (i.e., they will insist on you paying extra for things you thought were included). Park fees alone are $50 / day per person, and then when you add employee wages (a guide and a cook), food, gas, and then depreciation on the vehicle and camping / cooking equipment, you can understand why it would be difficult to charge less than this and still make a fair profit for your efforts.
Its also worth noting that this is the minimum you should pay for a full vehicle. Prices should be even more expensive if you want less people (Note: Safari companies will usually do their best to match you and your group with other individuals / groups to ensure a full vehicle unless you explicitly ask them not to)
And just to give a good price point, $200 / day per person is probably a good average cost for a camping safari (lodges will usually be quite a bit more expensive). Anything under would be considered a pretty good deal.
3. Bring something else to do
No one seems to mention how much time is spent driving from one park to another when they mention their safari. The truth is, it’s quite a bit. If you don’t bring something else to do, you will get bored, unless you are the world’s greatest conversationalist. I suggest a few books and an ipod. That kept me sufficiently entertained.
4. It’s not just about the animals
Remember to take in the nature and the geography as well. This is especially true if you travel the route we took. Each of the three parks had some spectacular. The forest of Lake Manyara lead straight into a huge tree covered wall – not 90 degrees, but certainly too steep for animals to climb - measuring several hundred feet in height that is unlike almost anything I have every seen before. Similarly unique, the Serengeti plains are so vast it is almost too difficult to comprehend how far they actually stretch. The crater is also a sight to behold, measuring about 9 miles across and several hundred feet high. Finally, I would remind anyone heading out of safari to remember to take a look up to the sky at night, as the number of visible stars is unparalleled by anything I have ever experienced.
5. Remember to “see”, and not just “look”
This point seems pretty obvious, but I’ve heard a number of people come back and talk about how they wished they would have taken more time just taking in what they were actually seeing, rather than trying to capture the perfect picture. I’m not saying don’t take pictures, or even that you can’t fully appreciate the sites while taking pictures, but just remember not to get ahead of yourself: enjoy the experience itself before attempting to capture it as a lasting memory.
6. Order matters
The only point I’ll stress is this: If you can, make sure you save Ngorongoro Crater for last. The sheer population density of animals makes it an unrivaled destination to view wildlife; so much so that you might actually find yourself bored with the other stops if you visited the Crater first.
I’ll use one example just to illustrate: On the first day in Lake Manyara when we saw a small group of zebras we stop to watch and take pictures for probably ten minutes. It was brand new, it was exciting, and it was interesting. In contrast, on our last day in the Crater, there were times where we literally drove past packs of zebras numbering in the hundreds without stopping. Why? Because we saw those same packs of 100+ zebras all over the Crater. We had already stopped numerous times to observe them, and there are only so many times you can stop to look at zebras.
At a certain point, we as humans become accustomed to all the sights we once found unique and interesting, and they begin to lose their novelty. That may be a sad truth, but it’s human nature. Everyone I’ve talked to about this has had a similar experience. So the best way to fight against this is to try and order your experiences from the least exciting to the most. I didn’t realize this going in, but luckily our tour operators did. We started off in Lake Manyara, where the sight of a few zebras or one elephant was enough to keep us enthralled. We then moved to the Serengeti, where wildlife sightings weren’t necessarily more common, but they tended to be of more exciting animals (e.g., lions, leopards) or of larger groups of animals (hundreds of zebras, as opposed to a handful). Odds are, your tour operator already knows this and will structure your safari accordingly, but it never hurts to check.
On a related note, I also found four days to be the perfect length of time for the safari. I fell like I would have been left wanting if I had tried to squeeze everything into three days, and while I could have done a fifth day, the novelty of the experience would have been begun to wear off.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tanzanian Weather
Just a short post for today to answer a question I’ve gotten a lot lately, which is about the weather in
So while I can’t answer this question in detail for the whole of
One aspect in which
Of course, all of this is assuming the weather behaves normally. However, much like back in the States, the weather has been far from normal lately. The temperature has acted as expected but it doesn’t vary all that much to begin with, so that’s not saying much. The rainy seasons, however, have been a little screwy. Most of November was actually dry, and the rains didn’t actually arrive until almost early December. However, they made up for their tardiness by sticking around until halfway through January. Additionally, the main rainy season seems to have arrived early, as we have had rain most days over the past week.
Despite the abundance of rain lately though, I can’t really complain. The weather is still warm, and even on the days that it does rain, the sun still manages to make it out for a fair portion of the day - much like
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
General Update, 2/25
Hello everyone,
Sorry for the delay in getting the blog restarted. It took me a little bit longer to get back into the blogging routine than I thought. At any rate, I just posted a new post on my trip to Nairobi today, and will have several more to post in the upcoming days.
I just wanted to give you all an update that I have finally confirmed in the last two weeks that I will be heading down to southern Tanzania to work with Global Family Rescue. It turns out there was some miscommunication with my contact over the last few months about which email address I should be using to get a hold of him. Everything is sorted now though, and I will be packing up to leave Arusha next weekend. It will be sad to leave the hostel and The Umoja Centre, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to a change of pace and to see more of Tanzania.
As I said, the plan is to leave sometime next weekend - either Saturday or Sunday; I haven't decided yet - and then head to the island of Zanzibar for a couple days of rest and relaxation on the beach. On March 12th I will then take a ferry back to Dar es Salaam, the biggest city in Tanzania, and will stay that night with a Tanzanian contact I have met from GFR, Nestor. David, my GFR contact whom I met in Chicago before leaving, will then be arriving the following day, and the three of us will be heading down to Njombe (check Google maps to get a precise location if you're interested), where I will spend at least three of my final four weeks in Tanzania. I'm still finalizing the exact scope of my work, but I will let you all know as soon as I find out more details. Sometime in my last week I will be heading back up to Arusha to spend my last few days saying goodbye to friends before flying out of Kilimanjaro airport, which is only about 45 minutes outside Arusha.
In the meantime before I take off, I will be finishing my work up at the Umoja Centre and enjoying my last week in Arusha. I will also continue to update my blog, both with some retroactive posts from my dad's visit, as well as some new posts about Tanzania culture. Look for more updates soon.
Sorry for the delay in getting the blog restarted. It took me a little bit longer to get back into the blogging routine than I thought. At any rate, I just posted a new post on my trip to Nairobi today, and will have several more to post in the upcoming days.
I just wanted to give you all an update that I have finally confirmed in the last two weeks that I will be heading down to southern Tanzania to work with Global Family Rescue. It turns out there was some miscommunication with my contact over the last few months about which email address I should be using to get a hold of him. Everything is sorted now though, and I will be packing up to leave Arusha next weekend. It will be sad to leave the hostel and The Umoja Centre, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to a change of pace and to see more of Tanzania.
As I said, the plan is to leave sometime next weekend - either Saturday or Sunday; I haven't decided yet - and then head to the island of Zanzibar for a couple days of rest and relaxation on the beach. On March 12th I will then take a ferry back to Dar es Salaam, the biggest city in Tanzania, and will stay that night with a Tanzanian contact I have met from GFR, Nestor. David, my GFR contact whom I met in Chicago before leaving, will then be arriving the following day, and the three of us will be heading down to Njombe (check Google maps to get a precise location if you're interested), where I will spend at least three of my final four weeks in Tanzania. I'm still finalizing the exact scope of my work, but I will let you all know as soon as I find out more details. Sometime in my last week I will be heading back up to Arusha to spend my last few days saying goodbye to friends before flying out of Kilimanjaro airport, which is only about 45 minutes outside Arusha.
In the meantime before I take off, I will be finishing my work up at the Umoja Centre and enjoying my last week in Arusha. I will also continue to update my blog, both with some retroactive posts from my dad's visit, as well as some new posts about Tanzania culture. Look for more updates soon.
Visa Issues and Swords of Meat
On January 27th, a few days before my dad arrived for his two week visit, I made my first journey of any distance outside Arusha by spending a night in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya.
My only real purpose for visiting Kenya was to renew my Tanzanian visa. To explain, I was issued a one year, multiple entry tourist visa through the Tanzanian embassy in the U.S. before arriving. However, the visa came with one rather annoying condition, which was that while I’m free to enter and exit the country as many times as I wish for the one year period, I’m never allowed to stay for a duration greater than 90 days at any one time. While I haven’t bothered to find the exact reasoning for this requirement, assuming that reason exists (which isn’t a safe assumption), I would venture a guess that it’s to keep people from “living” in Tanzania on a tourist visa by simply renewing the visa once each year. That makes sense in theory, but a popular way to circumvent this requirement, which I used, was to simply travel out of the country for one night, and then re-enter the country the following day, making me legal for another 90 days – and in my case, for the duration of my trip.
To be honest, I had no real interest in traveling to Nairobi. It has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous cities in Africa – as evidenced by its nickname, ‘Nairobbery’ – and many of the tourist attractions there are more expensive, which still would have been fine except I didn’t plan for any of them in my original travel budget. However, one attraction that was too tempting to pass up, regardless of cost, was an all you can eat “nyama choma” (steakhouse) named Carnivore. As someone who self proclaims he could eat steak every night for the rest of his life and never tire of it, I welcomed the thought of an all you can eat smorgasbord of grilled animal carcass induced euphoria. Making the restaurant even more appealing was the fact that I have been on a severe meat deficiency for most of my time in Tanzania. The hostel serves almost an entirely vegetarian menu, only occasionally interrupting its various takes on bread and vegetable medleys to serve fish or hamburgers. And while I’ve made an effort to find lunch venues that serve meat, the beef in general that I’ve found in Tanzania is of less than ideal quality. Combine these facts, and you can understand why I was so keen to visit a place whose name literally means ‘meat-eater’.
With only one objective in mind upon arriving to Nairobi, my trip was pretty simple and straightforward. I hopped on the 2:00 pm bus leaving from Arusha, traveled the seven and a half hour journey to Nairobi, got dropped off at the hotel, threw my bags in my room, and caught a taxi to take me straight to Carnivore. Being 10:00pm at the time of my arrival, I had plenty of time to enjoy dinner and make it back to the hotel to get some sleep before catching my 7:30 am bus back to Arusha.
Before I describe the dining experience, let me give a short background of the restaurant. Twice it has been voted among the 50 best restaurants of the world, although to be fair, this was before they had to stop serving some of their more exotic meats such as zebra, hardebeest, and camel (some lame reason about conserving the African wildlife or something…whatever). Nonetheless, it is still one of the most popular dinner destinations for tourists, and I had high expectations.
When I walked in, I was immediately confronted by a large circular barbeque pit room with see-through wire caging for walls. On the inside of the room were huge grills operating at full force, and on the cage walls themselves hung huge portions of cooked meat waiting to be served to customers. Not a bad first impression. Being transfixed by the barbeque pit, it wasn’t until I was finally on my way to be seated that I fully took in the size of this place. Not only could the restaurant itself easily seat about 300-400 people, but it was also connected to one of the biggest nightclubs I’ve ever been in (which sadly, I was only able to take a quick lap around after dinner before departing back to the hotel).
After being seated, my waiter for the evening came by to explain how things worked: there was a set menu, he would bring out soup first, then salad, and then when I was ready I could put up a flag to signal the other servers to start bringing me meat. Then, when I could eat no more, I would take down the flag; kind of like raising a white flag in surrender, only the exact opposite.
While waiting for my soup, I had the time to survey my surroundings a little further. As I mentioned, the waiter said that once I raised the flag, servers would start coming over to offer me various cuts of meat. Well, it turns out these servers are all over the place, and are easily identified by the fact that they are decked out in zebra-patterned aprons and a hat that looked like a cross between that of a Venetian gondolier and something Greg Norman would wear while he was choking away a Masters’ Championship to Nick Faldo. Most importantly, they were all carrying swords and spears of meat, most of which had to be two and a half feet long. I couldn’t wait.
So while I was admiring the biggest shish kabobs I had ever seen, my soup finally came out. At this point I was starving from spending the last 10 minutes staring at meat, so I think I inhaled the soup in about 90 seconds flat. Turned out it was some sort of broth based from animal meat. Imagine that. Needless to say, I was happy about how things were starting.
Next came the salad. Actually, I should say that next came five different salads on one of those rotating food serves. This wasn’t so I could pick my favorite, mind you; every salad was for me. To be honest, the salads all looked great and I’m sure I would have enjoyed them, but I was at an all you can eat steakhouse. Further, I had been on a healthy overdose of vegetables for the past three months, so there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of sense in wasting any space on lettuce leaves. Therefore, I did the only sensible thing and proceeded to ignore the salads entirely. And with that, it was time to put up the flag.
Within about three minutes server number one came over. “May I offer you some crocodile, sir?” Yes sir, yes you may. After taking my first bite, I immediately had flashbacks to one of my childhood (teenhood, I guess, to be more precise) trips to Florida where I tried alligator. At the time, I didn’t care for it much. But hey, this was crocodile; it could be different. Then again, maybe not. It still sucked. Similar to alligator, it’s just a little too chewy, and I’m not sure how to better describe the taste than by saying that even when it’s cooked properly, you’re left wondering if maybe it didn’t go a little bit bad before making it onto the grill.
The rest of the meal, however, was superb. Over the course of the next hour I demolished my way through multiple portions of sausages, two different cuts of beef, chicken, pork, three different cuts of lamb, and some surprisingly good ostrich meatballs. After thinking I couldn’t take one more bite, I reached for the flag. Time to surrender, or so I thought.
Just as I was reaching out, the guy serving the baby lamb chops – which were crazy good and the unexpected winner for my favorite cut of the night – came over. “Would you like another lambchop, sir?” Twist my arm; sure I’ll have another. But then he followed up with, “Actually sir, I only have three left in this batch. Would you just like to finish them off?” Ugh… Trust me, at this point I really wanted to say no. But considering how much I had ranted over the past weeks and months to anyone and everyone about how much I was craving meat since arriving, it just seemed like it would be a slap in the face to all of those who had to suffer through listening to me if I would have said no. So, silently thanking myself for having the sense to ignore the five salads, I went to work. Granted, they were baby lamb chops, but still, if you’ve ever been to that point where you absolutely don’t want to take another bite, then you can understand what a Herculean task chowing through three baby lambchops could be. Nonetheless, I endured through it and finished them off. By the end of the meal, over half my plate was full of only bones, gristle, and fat.
Overall, I’d have to say the meal was pretty solid, although not ‘top 50 restaurant in the world’ solid. Nonetheless, for someone craving meat since he arrived three months earlier, it definitely hit the spot. If you ever find yourself traveling through Nairobi, I would recommend taking the time to stop in.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
General Update, 2/14
So I think it's very obvious to anyone who has been checking the blog lately that my posting frequency has dropped immensely since the turn of the New Year. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it was around the beginning of the New Year that a lot of the novelty of living in Arusha began to wear off. I had developed a fairly routine schedule - much of it spent at work - and the number of experiences I felt were worth writing has drastically reduced. Additionally, as I have become much more accustomed to the culture, I'm having more trouble distinguishing which experiences are interesting to read about back home and which would instead be considered mundane. Therefore, I've had to supplement the lack of experience posts with more informational and / or personal opinion posts (such as the post on independent volunteering) , which take much more thought, effort, revision, and therefore, time.
While lack of interesting subject material is partly to blame for the drop in posts, the bigger reason is that my access to a computer has been greatly reduced. I actually had access to a laptop about every other weekend for my first month and a half here, which allowed me to write posts in the evenings when I was back at the hostel. However, this has not been the case in the past month and a half and, combined with the fact that I spend most of the day working, I have not had ample opportunity to sit down and write posts.
A third and lesser reason for my lack of posting is that my dad has been visiting me these past two weeks, and I have spent much of the time traveling with him. While this has given me quite a bit of new material to write about, it again means that I have had neither the time nor the acess to a computer to blog.
Despite these reasons, I have good news to report. First, I kept written notes on a number of blogs which I wished to write before my dad came to visit, so that I would be able to come back later and turn them into proper posts. Second, my dad's visit and our corresponding travels has given me quite a bit of new and interesting material worth blogging about. Finally, in the last few days I have once again gained access to a laptop, which I will have for the next three weeks until I depart for southern Tanzania. Therefore, I will be spending the next three weeks trying to catch up on events from the past month and a half, as well as hopefully writing about a few new experiences as well. So be on the look out for much more frequent posting through the beginning of March.
While lack of interesting subject material is partly to blame for the drop in posts, the bigger reason is that my access to a computer has been greatly reduced. I actually had access to a laptop about every other weekend for my first month and a half here, which allowed me to write posts in the evenings when I was back at the hostel. However, this has not been the case in the past month and a half and, combined with the fact that I spend most of the day working, I have not had ample opportunity to sit down and write posts.
A third and lesser reason for my lack of posting is that my dad has been visiting me these past two weeks, and I have spent much of the time traveling with him. While this has given me quite a bit of new material to write about, it again means that I have had neither the time nor the acess to a computer to blog.
Despite these reasons, I have good news to report. First, I kept written notes on a number of blogs which I wished to write before my dad came to visit, so that I would be able to come back later and turn them into proper posts. Second, my dad's visit and our corresponding travels has given me quite a bit of new and interesting material worth blogging about. Finally, in the last few days I have once again gained access to a laptop, which I will have for the next three weeks until I depart for southern Tanzania. Therefore, I will be spending the next three weeks trying to catch up on events from the past month and a half, as well as hopefully writing about a few new experiences as well. So be on the look out for much more frequent posting through the beginning of March.
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