The Beagle, a 2008 Toyota LC on a drift across Africa, piloted by Jim (FitzRoy) and Ann Colleen.
The Beagle, a 2008 Toyota LC on a drift across Africa, piloted by Jim (FitzRoy) and Ann Colleen.
There is time to contemplate how far we’ve come, from Cape Town to Kenya, to the beaches of Mozambique. Jim asked me where I thought we’d be without the Garmin and Traks4Africa – I said “Back home and divorced by now.” We are happily long past the point when every other minute brought on another decision. Tension ran high; that’s what comes of the being way outside your comfort zone. What would we change, now that we have time to think about it? Nothing, really. We couldn’t have taken this overland trip any sooner in our lives and the best time to go is when you go. The route has been successful – we calculated we’ve been on beaches of some sort since November, can’t 
complain about that. Neither of us has been sick. We’ve been through four different coffee presses, five decks of cards and one iPhone as well as countless cans of Peaceful Sleep insect repellent. We will not miss 
the mosquitoes.
There are places to return to and some gaps to fill, next time. Driving Namibia for months gave us a full view of that endless country. Botswana needs another look, hopefully before this trip is over. We’ve already been to Zimbabwe twice and will go back again later this month, so much to see there. Zambia is a favorite, where I am positive we waved to every single person in that friendly country. Tanzania nearly broke the 
bank but with its iconic parks it could not be missed. Zanzibar showed us our first taste of the slavers coast plus powered-sugar white sand beaches. The side trip to Ethiopia, that exotic place, was perfect. Camel 
caravans hauling salt into the sunset – what a scene.
Rwanda – a sobering lesson in humanity. One day we came to a nondescript village and it was time to get out of the truck. A large Genocide Memorial stood out, as in every single town and village. Only this one wasn’t quite finished yet. The very young security guard called an older gentleman to show us around this newly built but empty building. And the blank walls spoke as loudly as any placards. The hollow hallways echoed the footsteps of everyone who would never walk t
here. Finally we found ourselves in a basement containing 38 coffins, displayed neatly as if in a show room. Some had framed photos propped upon them, others had snapshots scotched-taped to them. To our undying surprise, the guide opened a coffin and handed us a small human skull. All these coffins have skulls, he said. At this location a church was bulldozed with thousands of people in it. His children are here, in one of the coffins. He shared his photos of them with us. We thanked him, signed the guest book and drove away. Rwanda; a country where everything is new because there was nothing left.
The primates in Uganda revel in the simplicity of life. We camped, all alone, in the Kibale forest and had a troop of 50+ baboons invade the clearing; they played, groomed each other and goofed off all morning, just having a good time being together. On the eastern side of the country we came to one of our better decisions – we really wanted to drive a certain road to enter Kenya. On the map it looked totally doable. But it was raining. Hard. And pondering the options,
we bypassed that road only to later meet a couple who had taken it; a heart-stopping track, they said “like driving on butter.” We spent a few minutes patting ourselves on the back for not going there. Of course that was prior to being desperately stuck in the mud twice in one week.
Kenya, that most organized of countries, gave us so many new friends. Eldoret town, Lake Turkana, the National Museum, JJs in Nairobi, Samburu Park, the fabulous Twiga and Barefoot beaches, Malindi town – I would go back to Kenya tomorrow. It took days for me to get 
over leaving Twiga; I kept asking myself why we left. But leaving there led us to Malawi and to time spent with our friends Jen and Jared. And on we go; more of Mozambique to see, more Zimbabwe, South Africa and camping with Adrian and Rentia, Swaziland, Lethoso, Botswana . . . where will it end?
Rain doesn’t necessarily fall all day every day in the rainy season. As you can imagine, big black clouds roll through and sheets of water descend, followed by bright hot sun and steaming humidity. Roads that were mud yesterday may be passable today if the equatorial sun shines long enough. Hillsides and national parks are so green you’d think you are in the Pacific Northwest and the wild flowers make us think of spring in Idaho.
Peril exists however. That you may be able to travel a track doesn’t mean the track will passable on your return. Few people are about in the parks who might assist in case of error. Rangers and guides don’t want to struggle down the roads looking for trouble. Phone numbers for park entrances and headquarters rarely work, in our experience. As is often the case in Africa, you are on your own.
And so we found ourselves in Mikumi Park, mired in mud to the axle on one side, tipped precariously and very much alone. We’d been in the park for a couple of days, managing to avoid the trap of going down an impassable track with no way to turn around. 
On the final game drive we followed the rule for mud, we found a road that had recent tire imprints on it – a good sign of a passable track. The gravel turned to a dark surface, we could see, but others had been here – we kept going. Mistake. The dark surface turned to butter, slippery and spread across the way. In a second we were off the road and into the black cotton mud of the barrow pit.
Black Cotton is a common mud in Africa and much has been written about it on forums and 4×4 sites. No one likes it; why would they? It is relentlessly sticky, everything near it is quickly coated. And it is slick, heavy and hateful to shovel. What to do? Jim worked the truck and I attempted to contact someone at the park to advise them of the situation. Not one number they gave us is working. Hmmm. Ok. The truck is not moving. Darkness is coming on. We hear lion. It is beginning to suck to be us. 
But we’d seen a safari vehicle earlier in the day and through ever-amazing technology wifi is reachable if I stand in the right spot. I retrieve the number for Tan-Swiss, the company that operates the vehicle we’d seen. Being a lodge, there was someone there to answer the phone. Through fits and starts I ask, could they call the park for us? Better than that she gives me the phone number of their guide. He passes on the word and presently we are informed that someone is coming. Now in African time that could mean soon. Or not. We aren’t going anywhere.
Robert arrives as dark falls, alone in a lightweight Toyota bakkie with average tires. 
Oh no. (Or words to that effect). There’s no way that truck is going to pull us out. Robert parks a ways back and hurries over, looks around, and says “get back and stay here”. To our utter astonishment he gets in the Beagle, puts it in gear and guns it. He would not stop, pedal to the medal, and damn if the truck didn’t start to move, sliding further off into the mud but inching forward. Mud is flung off the tires as the ruts deepen. He keeps working it, pushing the truck on and soon he has gone 40 meters, far enough to scratch his way up onto the road surface. It was way too dark for photos but we won’t forget what happened – that man can drive. We all managed to get turned around, easing our way back to the campsite with Robert escorting. There’s water at the camp and we clean the truck and marvel over Robert’s 
skills; telling ourselves we won’t be stuck again. But when we do sink the truck in yet another mud hole a week later, we knew we could extract it. It’s a damn good truck, the Beagle. Just gotta drive it like Robert.
Our travels have brought us back to Tanzania, the only country where we’ve been solicited for a bribe by a policeman. We explained this to a young businessman running the beach camp north of Tanga and he could only shake his head. He tells us that all monies to pay policeman in any province comes from the capital, whereas it used to come from the regional government. Since the capital simply does not give the regions any money, the local police are forced to solicit their pay from drivers. And you know the cops aren’t pulling over a beat-up farm truck, they target the rigs tourists drive. While I sympathize that they aren’t being paid, they were not going to get any $$ from us. Showing me some fuzzy photo of the Beagle passing an End 50 sign with an equally fuzzy “60” at the bottom, they expected me to admit to doing 60 in a 50. It is best not to laugh even though it is hilarious to think they actually have speed trap cameras. I think they 
have a template on their phones with “60” on it and they insert a photo of any vehicle passing a 50 sign. They’ll shove that photo in your face then start telling you that you’ve committed two offenses, speeding and breaking the law. We wait them out. Don’t show any money, don’t act like you might pay and definitely don’t cave and pay a bribe. The time they waste on us is time they cannot fleece anyone else, so they let us go; it is on to the next driver. Welcome back to Tanzania.
Most people in Tanzanian work in agriculture – that hard-work, low-paying, no-need-for-education industry. Still, here at this fishing village down the beach it is an exciting and prosperous time. The sardine run occurs between Pemba Island and Pangani twi
ce a year and everyone gets in on it, especially the women. On the beach we met the tax collector, Miriam Joesph, an educated woman from Dar es Salem and she explains what is going on. Fisherman come from all over the local coast for this sardine run. Women find good work hauling the pails of fish from the boats and cooking up the sardines, then drying the
m on tarps out on the sand. Someone has been hired to provide wood for all the fires, someone else is keeping the buckets and pails organized by boat number and this goes on day and night until the run is over. Yes, the sardine run could disappear – that would be disastrous and yes, the ocean cannot possibly sustain the population growth. But meanwhile there is work and food. The workers didn’t mind the attention we gave them, they liked showing us what they were doing. It was a busy morning on the beach.
I note that Miriam Joseph is an educated woman – that is not the norm away from the biggest cities. We’ve been told that the government doesn’t want a real educated population. That would cause problems. Children are taught only in Swahili until the secondary school, which many of them cannot afford to attend. There aren’t many fulfilling opportunities in the tourist industry for someone who cannot speak, read and write English. Despite all that, somehow some Tanzanians learn English and German and even Italian and Spanish and they bring themselves up from mining or farming. We met many of them. They, and the friendly villagers, are the people who make a Tanzanian holiday unforgettable. Avoid the traffic stops, wait out the policeman if you are stopped, and you are sure to have a wonderful time in this beautiful country.
Our final night in Tanzania (that’s Tan-zaney-ah with a short a) is spent in the courtyard of a 1902 German fort in the town of Bilharagara. Another funky campsite on a long list of funky places we have stayed. 
Signage (pieces of copy paper stuck to the walls) notes that the fort was built on the backs of slaves from the local area. What a surprise. There are three interesting photos of tribal chiefs visiting the fort, nothing said about why they were visiting. Not much to do here, but the birds
keep us entertained especially this delightful waxbill. We will miss this huge country. It took some getting used to, being not as warm as Zambia, but its treasures are many. English is second to Swahili, so to learn a few (or more) Swahili words was very helpful. Several people we met mentioned they thought self-drivers weren’t allowed in Tanzania but we had no problem. There weren’t many of us though we did bump into a self-drive couple we’d met back at Kapishya Hot Springs and had a nice visit with them. We noticed a heap of big overland tour trucks, the kind that hold 15-30 people. How in hell do they maneuver those beasts on the Tanzanian roads? Many campsites are set up for these types of tours, we camped among them at Kipepeo Beach i
n Dar es Salem and at Snake Park Camp outside Ngorongoro. The Tanzanian parks do draw the crowds. The days of us being the only ones in camp are long gone.
Apparently enough tourists and tour operators complained about the poor to awful facilities at park campsites that Tanzania cleaned up most of them. NGOs provided funding for building new ablutions in some camps. Ngorongoro gets the prize for the worst ablutions ever. Considering the price and the number of people camping there, you’d think that particular place would
be modernized. Too bad the elephant didn’t walk right through the toilets, it would have been an improvement. Staff was minimal in all the camps, with the Serengeti providing the most efficient and knowledgeable help. You are on your own most of the time. We don’t expect to find parks like these in any other countries on the drift, at least for rest of the northern route. With any luck we will swing through on our way south, whenever that will be, and maybe pay a second visit to one or two of our favorite Tanzanian parks. Until then, so long.
A simple signpost marks the south entrance to the Serengeti National Park, three torturous hours or so after the Oldupai Gorge. I feel a momentary stab of anxiety at this desolate place- we must have our exit pass stamped for leaving Ngorongoro/Oldupai by 2:30. The parks are strict about the 24-hour pass. There is not a ranger post or uniform in sight, just dust and a handful of Maasai herd boys. Jim points out that there is only one road, a terrible road, but it is the only one. We will get to a ranger post soon enough. When we do arrive at the formal gate a park employee is happy to stamp the exit pass and give us advice on Serengeti, the last park we will visit in Tanzania.
The Serengeti is so big it is broken into sections. Seronera is in the eastern center, the Masai-Mara area is north on the Kenyan border and the western corridor borders Lake Victoria. The Maswa Game Reserve holds down the southwestern section; there are few roads there and I can well imagine how sorry they must be. The wildebeest are in the north in huge numbers, crossing the Grumeti River towards the Mara but we elect not to drive that far – it would mean two days driving on bad to awful roads and one day hoping to get very lucky and witness a crossing. We opt for the public campground at Seronera. Camping is $30 per person per night. Conservation fee is $40 pppd and the vehicle fee, based on weight, is $50 per day. Then there is the 18% VAT. So figure $200 per 24-hour period. It is worth every penny.
Timing is everything for a 24-hour permit. Ideally entering at 3:30pm gives plenty of time to do an afternoon drive/recognizance and plenty of time to make the exit gate upon departure day. It is 34 kilometers to DikDik public campsite from the Serengeti entry gate; we have to be at DikDik by 7pm. Lots of time to explore, right? There are rock koppies in the distance; they symbolize the Serengeti to me – unending grass plains broken by these hills of rocks and trees. I can’t wait to see one up close, and this one is special indeed. There is a pride of lion with cubs hanging around the rocks. We barely make it to our campsite in time, there were so many lion to stop and admire, not to mention birds and countless ungulates. Welcome to the Serengeti.
Mapmaker Veronica Roodt has produced a map/guide for this park and it matches up well to the Garmin; there are game drive tracks all over the place and it is good to have two sources. Still, early the next day we find ourselves on a track that doesn’t appear on either Garmin or the Roodt – how does this happen? Fortuitously as it turns out. We spot a lioness with two cubs in the long grass. She appears to be alone and the cubs are fair-sized, not nearly as tiny as the ones we saw at Buffalo Camp. There are no other lions around we can see. We can suppose she is meeting up with her pride rather than trying to raise the cubs on her own, but we will never know that. We drive on – the road is good, there are many prey animals about. If we were cheetahs, we’d be right here. And wouldn’t you know it – here are two cheetah on a dirt mound sitting high and surveying the possibilities. It is 10am. Unlike other cats, cheetah hunt in the daytime. We find a good viewing point and park, waiting is our modus operandi. There is no one else in sight and we can see a very long way. Who knows what will happen.
Are these cheetah mother and son? It looks that way – one is clearly female, smaller and more delicate. The male would likely be her son, mating pairs aren’t generally seen hunting. These two are nonchalant about the prey around them. Some meters away there are springbok, big and small, and lots of warthogs – good cheetah food. There are zebra with foals as well, meaty but dangerous. Cheetah can’t afford to get hurt, there’s no pride protecting them. Time passes. We shift around in our seats – we won’t be able to photograph much and sometimes it is just more fun to watch and not worry about the camera. About an hour later, the female rises up. The springbok males have started jousting and rushing about. The female springbok rush around as well and one baby bokkie runs this way and that, not knowing where to go – and the cheetah make their move. Slowly they stride, then they trot, then the female rockets forward with the bokkie in her sights. A zig, a zag, a shower of dust and up she comes with the baby bokkie firmly in her jaws. Success! Her son lopes over, he was happy to let mom do the hard part. We see all of this; it is the sighting of a lifetime for us. There was no one else watching. 
And on it went. The Serengeti gave up lion and leopard like they were common impala. Elephant, giraffe, zebra, hyena and eland were regulars in camp. There were Ruppell’s and Lappet-faced vultures, D’Arnoud’s barbets and red/yellow barbets, superb starling and Shelly’s starlings. . . the list of birds to investigate grew by ten-fold. We stayed an extra day it so was intoxicating. How sad it to was leave this splendid park. Everyone anywhere who helped to make Serengeti happen and who keep it well-tended deserve much praise. May the Serengeti always be here.
In Arusha, looking for a campsite by a small lake, we follow Garmin until we admit we are lost and pull into a driveway on a steep old street to turn around, never easy in the Beagle. A woman comes to speak to us, turns out she owns the lakeside campsites. “But you don’t need to go there” she says, “just camp here in my yard”. Her name is Janet and her yard looks at the little lake on one side and Kilimanjaro on the other. It is colonial Tanzania at its best, the big house (which she rents out) and the small servant house (where she lives) on a huge overgrown piece of property. There are several dogs. 
Janet’s father was Henry Fossbeck, the first park supervisor for Ngorongoro, Serengeti, Arusha and Kilimanjaro National Parks, back in the British day. His crypt overlooks the little lake. There must be a million stories in the walls of his house. Janet grew up in the parks and her favorite is Ngorongoro. We were fortunate to turn up in her driveway, we thank her profusely and head for the Crater.
It is windy, foggy and cold at the Crater rim, draped in green jungle vegetation. The public campsite is right on the edge with enough flat ground to host a crowd – and a crowd is there. Tents carpet the area in front of the long mess hall and kitchen. Safari rigs and overland trucks are parked willy-nilly. Young people, heads down on their phones, mill about. There is a weak wifi signal and that’s all it takes to concentrate them. Zebras watch from the bushes.
The kitchen is lively, filled with Africans fixing dinner for the guests. Vegetables being chopped, music playing from iPhones, oil sizzling for samosas and banana fritters, potatoes boiling, the scent of garlic and ginger and fresh bread, all spiced with Swahili, make this a happening place. We build a fire in the charcoal trough for a braai. Guys come by to see what we are cooking and ask where we are from. Amid all the hustle, an elephant trumpets very close by. 
A big male elephant has walked all the way past all those tents and vehicles and gotten right to the door of the kitchen with no one saying a word. Now that he is announcing himself everyone with a phone comes running – so that is everyone, believe me. We watch in awe. He finally wanders off with half the crowd following, holding up their phones. What a scene.
The Crater is part of a large conservation area adjacent to the Serengeti Park, the area encompasses Maasai grazing lands and the Oldupai Gorge, the site of magnificent archaeological discoveries made so famous by the Leakey family and others. 
Standing at the edge of the Gorge, it is so easy to imagine the years slowly going by as humans made their way through evolution. Footprints discovered nearby at Laetoli in the 1960s date upright forms of hominids at 3 million years old. If that doesn’t sound like such a long time, think of it like this: 100 years x 10 = 1000, and we can relate to this history. 1000 x 10 = 10,000. Now we are getting out there. 10,000 x 10 = 100,000. 100,000 x 10 = 1,000,000, and so on, day after day, year after year. Then here we are. We cannot go to the actual footprints, sadly. There is a cast replica, it sends shivers up our spines to look at it.
Oldupai, not Olduvai, we are told, is named for the ubiquitous plant used by Maasai in this area. A new state of the art museum is being built at the Gorge which will be good reason to revisit – the current museum is ok, but there is so much more to show. With any luck, there will be some money left over for fixing the roads – the African Massage, they call it. No wonder the Maasai walk so much, it is easier.
The road to Tarangire leads through a parched landscape where Maasai children herd goats and cattle; some look to be only six or seven years old. They run to the dusty road as we pass, holding their hands to their mouths indicating they want food. We are really struck by this – as proud as the Maasai are that they would allow their children to beg by the side of the road. And who stops and gives them anything? Has anyone ever? Or are we putting western values into the equation? But what a can of worms this opens. With as many goats and cattle as the Maasai have you’d assume there would be meat to eat or to barter for corn or millet. But Maasai (and other pastoralists) don’t eat their livestock. It is all for prestige; the more animals kept, the higher your standing. The pressure the cattle and goats put on the dry grazing land is extreme and leads to illegal grazing in the parks and poaching. The future is at stake here and right now it looks bleak as the dry landscape.
Tarangire Park gives respite to these troubling scenes. The park is fairly new, located below Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, and a river meanders through it. Even bigger baobabs than Ruaha Park grow here, as if to show up the trees in the south. At the public campsite elephant, giraffe, eland, impala, zebra and wildebeest wander by the first evening and an eland races past the truck after dark, running from who knows what. We are up early to explore. As the morning rolls on we find ourselves having coffee at the picnic site overlooking the river and as usual I find a bird to fixate on – the Ruppels Parrot. 
It is posing nicely, we admire it for a bit. Then suddenly there is a commotion directly below us in the riverbed. An impala and a waterbuck burst out of the bushes and right behind them is a lion giving chase. We see all of this from above, an uncommon view, and it is so cool. A second lion joins in but the hunt is unsuccessful even with us cheering them on, haha. The lion stroll off to give a herd of zebra a try. Unsuccessful again, they lay down in the shade. That they were hunting in the daytime is unusual; they looked quite healthy and it was almost as if they were just goofing off before it got too hot.
The iconic photo of Kilimanjaro, with the vast plain below it filled with animals, is taken from Tarangire and we drive over the hills to see this view. At last, here is Kili without cloud cover, standing tall on the plain. We chat with a fellow at the view point about game he is seeing in the park; he tells us there is a leopard kill in a tree on river route #4. Late in the day we park the truck there, and we wait. Vehicles come and go but since we are camping nearby we have plenty of time to get to our site by the appointed hour. So we do what we do best. We wait. It is finally quiet. I look at my bird book and Jim looks at photos. 
Movement in the bushes – and here is the leopard hoisting itself up the tree. It is simply stunning. Patience pays. We watch, take a few photos. The cat is shy and isn’t ready to dine on the impala while we sit there. We leave it be and wander off, back to camp. What a day.
In the night we hear many lion and we are off to find them before dawn. The plan is to go back to the leopard tree by way of the lion sounds – but we miss a turn. Not a problem. . . we drive through the half light and Jim slams on the brakes. The pride is laying in the road in front of us. “Nice spot” I tell Jim. Any less light and we’d have run over one of them. They are full of mischief this morning. The little one comes over to the window (yes, it is closed) then does a full truck inspection, as if to say “Now that’s a proper vehicle!” She motions her cousin over – “Check out this spare tire, cuz.” We are watching them in the rear view camera. Two more lion take a seat in front of us, hemming us in. Then a Land Rover pulls up behind us. The lions look up. They shrug. It’s just a Land Rover.
Finally they have had enough of us and the whole pride lies down in the rocks and falls asleep. We move on to enjoy more birds and mammals until it is time for us to relax around the fire at camp. We leave Tarangire for the road to Ngorongoro Crater tomorrow.
The ferry from Zanzibar back to Dar es Saleem holds nearly 1000 people and I would guess that half of them were sick on the voyage; seas were high and rough. Imagine a ship big enough to carry that many people being tossed about by the waves. I made my way to the outside deck, very carefully, and spent the trip out there having never before felt so seasick nor so happy to see land. Jim wasn’t bothered by the motion – I found him with his hat over his eyes trying to avoid the mess around him. We left Dar the next morning and only made it 90 kilometers, both of us a bit wrung out. Mount Kilimanjaro and Marangu town await and we commenced the long drive through desert landscape and sisal plant plantations. Row after row, acre after acre, the agave sisalana plants march toward Kilimanjaro. It appears the leaves are cut by hand – whew, what a job that is; the sharp points and razor edges of the leaves cannot be pleasant. Sisal is stripped and dried in the sun but we only see a couple small operations, this is not the cutting season.
Marangu is nestled in the foothills of the famous peak and is one of the four routes climbers use to ascent Kilimanjaro. The town is hilly and cool with tropical vegetation. Arabica coffee is grown here under banana trees; this type of coffee plant needs shade. What a great combination – coffee, our favorite drink, and bananas – one of our favorite foods. Kilimanjaro is hidden by clouds so we will have to make do with coffee. We find the Coffee Tree House Community Camp and arrange for a walking tour with William and Nelson, the camp liaisons. We walk downhill for an hour and I’m already thinking of taking one of the many bota-botas (small motorcycles) back up to camp when we are finished. 
First we visit the Chagga Caves. Chagga tribespeople dug a system of tunnels to hide themselves and their livestock from Maasai warriors intent on invading, stealing and killing. The tunnels bring to mind the Vietnamese who also lived in tunnels to hide from invaders. How the Chagga (and the Viet Cong) got enough calories to do such arduous work under such pressure is uncertain. There are only so many calories in rice. The Chagga Cave guide tells us of how the Chaggas fended off the Maasai with clubs and also took Maasai warriors as slaves. I suspect the Maasai tell the story a bit differently as they are were never enslaved by Arabs because of their fierceness. The caves are impressive. Happily now everyone gets along ok – the Maasai graze their cattle on the flats and the Chaggas use the foothills for agriculture.
Babu is a third-generation coffee plantation owner and he tours us around his plot. Like many people here on the slopes he raises his domestic goats and chickens in pens and cages. There isn’t enough land to graze them so fodder is found and brought to the animals – now that is a chore. The upside is that the manure is concentrated in one place and can be tilled into the coffee plot. Babu has some fresh picked beans and he takes us through the process – a hand peeler is used to remove the skins; he expertly tosses the dried beans in a basket while blowing on the chaff so it disperses. A timeless blackened clay pot is set on open flames (no
t coals) and the beans are roasted, turned constantly by Babu. He then sets them in the wooden pestle and we take turns pounding the beans to a powder. Some of the grind is combined with a couple spoonfuls of sugar and we eat that out of our hands – it is delicious. The rest of the grind is poured into boiling water for a cup of the freshest coffee ever. Maybe we don’t need a bota-bota ride up that hill after all.
The day is finished with a locals lunch at William and Nelson’s favorite pub. HipHop music blares and bota-bota boys try to attract our attention. We are targets, being white and obviously rich. We can ignore these silly boys. But even many months into our trip, we still get fleeced here – we are overcharged for camping fees and since we did not ask for a receipt, the Coffee Tree House manager demands we pay for camping again. He speaks almost no English so Jim sets up the translator for Kiswahili and we explain we already gave the money to William and Nelson. The manager either doesn’t get it or is pretending not to. It is not about the money – it is just that the next camper is going to be fleeced if we cave in (haha, that’s a good pun). We go to bed with the issue unresolved and next morning we ask the manager to call his buddies – everyone has a cell phone – but Nelson hangs up when he hears Jim’s voice. We ready the truck and honk the horn to be let out and unlikely as it seemed, the guy unlocks the gate and off we go. Being locked into a campground/yard is a problem we often face, so we happily leave Marangu and cloudy Kilimanjaro behind and head for Tarengire National Park where we are sure to be given a receipt for camping. Lesson learned.
It takes about a week to settle into a new country – as I’ve mentioned there’s the currency and the culture, the roads, the distances and of course the camping. Tanzania spaces out her treasures; parks are at least a day’s drive apart. A full day driving here, say seven hours, is exhausting. Every few kilometers the speed drops and 2-lane-wide vicious speed humps announce the entrance to a village. Or maybe just a few food stalls, it does not matter. Tanzania loves its speed humps. Between the humps and the road conditions we average less than 50 clicks an hour (that’s 30 miles an hour, in case you don’t have Goggle open). 
And then there’s the police stops. Jim is amazing – he has apologized his way out of three (deserved) violations already. Our new routine is to move one day, stay in place two days. And so we have found ourselves on an Indian Ocean beach at the southern edge of Dar es Saleem, the capital city of Tanzania. I never imagined us here. But off the coast is Zanzibar Island – let’s go there.
Zanzibar does not deny its history of slavery and its slave market. There is an excellent tour and interpertive center; we went down into the dungeons where the captives were kept prior to the auctions. A more miserable place cannot be imagined. Sea water would come up with the tide to wash the sewage away, it could come up too high and drown the captives. Would a man be considered lucky to have made it this far on the deadly journey from the interior to the coast? Or would death on the road be preferable? Where would the will to live come from in this hell? It is so far from normal and yet was so normal at the time – and slavery continues, just in different formats these days. Zanzibar does not spare the details. 
An Anglican Church is built upon the former auction and whipping block. Guides give a just appraisal of the history – and if you were to come here to be informed and saddened, the tour goes on every day, all day.
The sobering experience of the slave market museum contrasts with Zanzibar Island, one of the most hospitable of places we’ve every been. 
Everyone is delightfully friendly and few are out to hustle you. We walked through dark and narrow alleys at night, lost on the way back to our hotel, and people would stop and ask, can we help you? Not your average dark-alley-late-night experience. Stone Town has the lazy island feel mixed with Indian and Arab architecture and along with the sordid history of slavery, they have preserved the birth place of Freddy Mercury – the Queen front man. 
All this makes for a culturally soaked four day visit and we got some good snorkeling in as well. The stunning blues of the Indian Ocean, the beaches of powered sugar sand, the fresh fish and dark coffee, the tour of the community spice plantation – it was a wonderful vacation from our “vacation”. And on we go.
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