Although I would have considered doing the Cape Town area tour independently, I never would have considered doing a largely wildlife tour on my own, since the destinations seemed rather exotic and unreachable at the time (but much less so now), therefore I warily signed up for the Tanzania Northern Circuit & Zanzibar tour. Actually, it worked out very well, although I would have preferred knowing in advance more about the precise details of just how things were going to work. The seven days of this tour started with one night in Dar es Salaam, then two nights each in three destinations. Since I had little interest in Dar itself, I spent the remainder of the arrival day after the train trip taking care of personal business on my laptop in my hotel room.

Serengeti Plains   I had gotten quite used to using the extra small bag we had been given by Rovos to pack a few things for Tau and for Vic Falls, so when I read that the planes we’d be using restricted luggage weight, there was no problem packing the small bag once more. As was the case with all participants, the wheelie was then left with the tour representative for delivery back to me on my return to Dar to proceed to Switzerland.

Our group of seven was picked up early for our first flight. We would be flying northwest in Tanzania to our furthest destination, meaning a somewhat longer flight, then return in smaller hops back to Dar. The first flight was to be to Grumeti Airstrip in the midst of the Serengeti Plains.

I used to be cautious about small plains. The smallest plane Beverly and I had ever taken was from Curaçao to Bonaire and back. As I recall, it seated 1 + 2 across, in maybe 8-10 rows, and was a bit of a white-knuckle flight. However, after the pleasant flights in Tanzania, I am now prepared to fly on a beer barrel with wings. As they say, size doesn’t matter.

The domestic terminal at Dar es Salaam was, shall we say, simple, but actually perfectly adequate. The seven of us were led out onto the tarmac by the charter pilot, who explained things to us. (As mentioned earlier, everyone we dealt with in Tanzania was black, which fit nicely into the structure of East Africa.) The flight would be just over two hours (it reached 2 ½) and would be bumpy only at the end. The plane seated 1 + 2 across in about seven rows, and you had to double over to squeeze down the aisle. One of us wanted to sit up front next to the pilot. We joked about the imaginary beverage cart not fitting in the aisle—and where was the imaginary flight attendant? I know this type of bush-pilot flying is common in Alaska and northern Canada, but it was my first experience with it.

The flight was uneventful—even that predicted bumpiness at the end was no problem. But one thing that I hope to make as clear as possible about all this—it may all sound wildly exotic, but being there, everything that happened seemed perfectly logical and normal, and still does.

We’d been in the clouds the whole way (all these flights were at about 11,500-12,000 feet), and as we descended we saw Grumeti airstrip below. It was just what it sounds like—a dirt airstrip surrounded by brown-green grassland with occasional shrubbery and some trees. There was a small building next to the strip for arrivals and departures, but on this day, there was no one in it. Again, it was not as wildly exotic and forlorn as it may seem, since there were plenty of game camps—picture them as hotels—all around. But what happened next was just a little exotic.

We saw the strip below, the pilot seemed to come in for a landing, then zoomed upward again. We realized he was buzzing the strip since there were apparently animals on it, and sure enough, when we came around the second time to land, I saw a zebra galloping away into the bush, and some elephants weren’t too far away, either. Welcome to Africa. This didn’t happen with other flights, so I suppose we just lucked out this time to experience it. Also, after a while in these areas, you don’t look twice at zebras, or impalas, or a number of other “common” animals, any more than you would take note of a squirrel in Central Park. I suppose there is a certain overlapping of the commonplace and the exotic. In any case, we were in Serengeti National Park. The Park reaches in three directions, south, north to the Kenya border, and west, toward Lake Victoria, about an hour away. We were in this Western Corridor.

Two game vehicles were there to meet the seven of us to go to Kirawira Tented Camp. These enclosed vehicles were of a style we also had later at Ngorongoro Crater. They were vans, with the driver up front (on the right), two middle seats with a space between, and three across in the back. The entire center of the roof lifted straight upward, so you could very easily stand up for better viewing. This style of van of course gave better protection, but that was here unnecessary, since the game-drive style in Tanzania was more cautious and the vehicles were not allowed to leave the road in the National Park, which led to a lot more viewing from a distance, although on occasion we would leave the main road for a secondary road.

Seven was too much for one vehicle, so the entire time in Tanzania, from here to Zanzibar, we split up into two groups, which thankfully worked very well. The couple from South Dakota and the one from Britain were very gung-ho, and wanted more-more-more. They were the ones who did a last-ditch game drive at dawn on the day we left the Serengeti, and they were the ones who shopped-shopped-shopped for everything in sight. More power to them, if that’s their cup of tea.

I teamed up with the German couple from Stuttgart. The three of us were happy to do all the drives, but no extras, and certainly not to stop at every stand on the road that was selling something, and everything went very smoothly on this one-week trip. But again, the danger of these one-size-fits-all tours is this: what if the German couple weren’t there, making just five of us, which would have fit into one van in each of the three places? I would have been the 4-to-1 minority. Although I could have skipped an extra dawn game drive, I would have been at the mercy of the others for every one of the many shopping stops, which would not have made me a happy camper. I lucked out here, but that’s the reason I like my own custom-made trips. On these drives, then, I had the entire back seat to myself, the couple took the two seats in the center, and all seven of us were happy campers.

I see an irony in my just having used the word “campers”, since contemporary marketing techniques have overblown the terminology describing just what is happening here. Let me now go about trying to burst some bubbles. The Travel Cynic speaketh:

Everybody knows at least one Swahili word: safari. It means “expedition” and has overtones of British explorers in pith helmets marching through jungles followed by a line of native bearers with bundles on their heads. The word may have been fitting in the time of Livingstone, Stanley, and other explorers walking across Africa. But for today? Nonsense. Anyone arriving by plane and riding about in a dedicated game vehicle is on a game drive and not on any safari, no matter how the brochures try to puff the situation up by using that word.

We proceeded in about twenty minutes to Kirawira Tented Camp, dating from 1998. Camp? It’s no camp and we were no campers. As in Tau, the “camp” was the hotel grounds, although here and in the Crater later, they are grounds subject to encroachment by animals. That still doesn’t make it any camp.

Finally, that use of the word “tented”. This is really the fun part of all this, enough to make you at least smile, if not laugh. Do not misunderstand: I really liked Kirawira Tented Camp, but let me give you its longer name, Kirawira Luxury Tented Camp, and let me also say that it’s listed in the Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Roughing it in a safari camp? Hardly. Staying in a tent? Well, yes. And no. This “tent” business needs explanation.

Picture some Boy Scouts who want to set up a tent in their back yard, but, since that might be a bit uncomfortable, they decide to set it up inside the garage instead. Picture a free-standing garage with a very large tent inside it, one large enough for a small hotel room (without bath). The tent is made out of very heavy canvas, and has windows in the form of netting with roll-down flaps inside. It has a huge floor-to-ceiling zipper to enter. Now the Boy Scouts don’t want to bother with tent poles inside, so instead they have canvas belts that attach the top of the tent to the garage rafters. Now, remove all four walls from the garage so that the walls of the tent, set well within the garage, are exposed. Also, to add more flair, replace the roof above the rafters with another layer of canvas. Outfit the tent with some Edwardian furniture—a desk, dresser, and some twin beds. Put one single hanging of netting around both beds, including the space in between (something I’d never seen before). Now, in the back, do extend the tent to include a separate, but attached, bathroom, with canvas on all sides, but do also include two solid, walled structures within this bath area—a shower, and an enclosed toilet. Now move this all to a wooden platform on a slight slope, so that you have a few steps up to your private terrace in front of the tent with a wide view over the Serengeti, et voilà. You’re roughing it (??) in a “tent” in a “safari” “camp”. Ha!

These separate tented units are just a few steps away from the main lobby, but once it’s dark, you’re told to call the desk for a security guard with a flashlight to accompany you—just in case. The main lobby is charmingly Edwardian, and follows the tent theme, inasmuch as all the walls and ceiling are canvas, secured to a wooden frame. Otherwise it’s all plush furniture on a polished wooden floor. Then follow a canvassed-over walkway to the first of a couple of similar dining “tents”, and the “roughing it” atmosphere is complete. Oh, put the waiters in some traditional African-looking costumes.

At the entry to Kirawira, there’s a wooden sign letting you know that you’re at 1272 meters / 4173 ft, so you can expect cool nights. It also tells you quite precisely that you’re at 34° 8’ 10” E and 2° 12’ 23” S. What should startle one just a bit is that latter figure means you are only two degrees south of the equator, but at this altitude, forget equatorial heat. Also, to convey a Swahili atmosphere here and elsewhere in Tanzania, you are always greeted with a friendly “jambo”, which eventually you begin to respond with as well. It reminded me how you’re always greeted with an “aloha” at any of the Roy’s restaurants in the US, which serves Hawaiian fusion cuisine.

Take a look at this on YouTube: Kirawira Tented Camp, but note the following, since this is essentially a promotional video:

The Serengeti is more of what people envisage as “wildlife” Africa, given its wide-open plains and many animals. The point should also be made that, unlike Madikwe, the animals you see here are in their original environment, and have not been rescued and moved here. As a matter of fact, the Serengeti plains, most of which, but not all of which, fall within the National Park, encompass the greatest remaining concentration of wild game in Africa, and the actual range of many of the animals extends considerably beyond the park borders. The name Serengeti (rhymes with spaghetti) comes from the Masai word Siringet, which means, quite appropriately “endless plain”.

I ended up seeing in Africa everything I wanted to (not necessarily on the prescribed lists) except for a rhino. We missed them in Madikwe, we were in the wrong part of the Serengeti for them, and we also missed them in the Crater, where they apparently are very shy and rarely come out of the thickets. Otherwise, I saw everything I wanted to. We zigzagged several times around the local area in the Western Serengeti, and I’ll mention three things we saw that were interesting enough for me to have taken notes on (otherwise all the hours in a game vehicle run together in the mind). At one point, rather near the road, we saw some very large vultures cleaning up some other animal’s kill. At another spot, not too terribly far from the road (binoculars helped), we saw an adult male lion (I finally saw a maned lion!) at a zebra kill. The female was nearby, and once again, the surrounding trees were filled with about a dozen vultures waiting for their turn.

But probably our most interesting time in the Serengeti involved a certain stop we made. It was the morning of the full day we were there, and both vehicles got together, the two drivers set up a long folding table with chairs, and we all had the box-lunch breakfast that the lodge had provided, under the shade of the surrounding trees, but still out in the open plain. But it was the second part of this stop that was a special highlight. As the drivers finished packing up, they had an idea. We walked from the vehicles some 3-4 minutes—very quietly—to where there was a large pool with some hippos in it, which were fun to see. But we had driven past hippos in the Serengeti earlier, so this was fun—on foot—but not new. The driver then said to walk—very quietly—a little closer, and down the slope from where we were standing was a sizable crocodile, resting in the sun. We watched for a few moments, then tiptoed away. What made this event different wasn’t so much that we’d seen the animals, including the large croc, but that we did it by walking. OK, I suppose if you do it on foot, you have the right to call at least this little bit of it a safari. But it was very nice to get back into the vehicles again.

After our two nights here, we flew around midday to Ngorongoro Crater. This time the chartered plane was the absolutely smallest I’ve been in. It was 1 + 2 across with just three rows, plus a seat next to the pilot, so the seven of us pretty well filled the plane. The pilot was a younger guy named Steve with a North American accent, so I asked him about it and he said he’d flown in Canada for fifteen years, but now came back home to Tanzania to work. The flight over the clouds in this, the tiniest plane I’ve ever been in, was uneventful, but it was strange during the flight to look down out the window and see the wheel below, and to watch it start to spin on touching ground again.

Ngorongoro Crater   We had earlier flown northwest from Dar and the coast to the farthest point west we’d be reaching, with the plan of taking shorter hops back, so now we flew for about an hour back towards the coast from the Serengeti to a spot just beyond the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara. From above, the lake is good-sized, with a town of the same name on its shore, which has an airstrip. Again, it was a single, dirt strip, but at least it was busier, and the tiny building was filled with people coming and going. We were picked up by two vehicles like the ones in the Serengeti, drove to the entrance to the Ngorongoro Park Conservation Area where our driver registered (baboons were everywhere in the parking lot), then drove about a third of the way around the south rim to Ngorongoro Crater Lodge on the crater rim. Do visualize that we were already on a plateau as we drove up to the rim, so the height difference wasn’t so marked, but on the inside of the rim the crater itself is considerably deeper. In any case, the rim at this point was totally in fog as we arrived and settled into the Lodge lounge to register, so this seems like a good time for some background.

THE CALDERA A crocodile is not an alligator, a rabbit is not a hare, and a caldera is not a crater. While I can’t precisely define the differences between the first two pairs, the third pair is easy.

Stick your finger in the mud and when you pull it out, the space you’ve left is a crater. A crater is simply an indentation left after pressure is applied. When a meteorite from outer space hits the earth’s surface hard enough, it will leave a dent in the ground. This is a crater. For the longest time before going to Ngorongoro I wondered what could possibly have crashed down from outer space to leave this large a “dent”. Apparently nothing, since Ngorongoro isn’t a crater. It’s a caldera.

[Note: I came across the same problem visiting Crater Lake National Park in Oregon years ago. It, now filled with water, was also not caused by some meteor, but had the same origin as Ngorongoro, below. (I will be in Oregon near Crater Lake next October, but will not revisit it.)]

So what causes a caldera? Volcanic action, particularly a huge volcanic explosion. When Mount Saint Helens (which I WILL visit in October, for the first time) blew its head off a few years ago, it really made a mess. But that’s child’s play, when you consider that it’s possible for a volcano not only to blow its head off, but to below away almost all of itself above the surface. That’s what happened to “Crater” Lake near Mount Saint Helens and that’s what happened at Ngorongoro “Crater” in Tanzania. When the entire volcano blows up, the circular ridge remaining around the edge is a caldera. It’s like a house blowing up leaving just the basement walls sticking up above ground level.

Mount Kilimanjaro (5895 meters / 19,344 feet) is on the Tanzania/Kenya border near Ngorongoro. It’s the highest freestanding mountain in the world, and the highest in Africa. It is calculated that what had been Mount Ngorongoro three million years ago was considerably higher than Kilimanjaro; I’ve heard up to 2 ½ times higher. When Mount Ngorongoro blew it must have been some sight, especially if you consider that what happened at Mount Saint Helens was really a much smaller event. The Ngorongoro volcanic explosion left a caldera surrounding a hole that’s 260 square kilometers / 100 square miles. The height of the rim varies considerably as you go around the circle, but at the Lodge it’s about 2400 meters / 7874 feet high. From the rim to the bottom is about 600 meters / 1969 feet, and the bottom is 19 by 16 kilometers / 12 by 10 miles, so it is not a perfect circle. Now that’s a Big Hole. (But it’s not a crater.) In fact, Ngorongoro is the largest intact volcano caldera in the world, “intact” because the rim of the caldera is not broken anywhere and forms a continuous approximate circle. Now, as long as we’re clear that it’s a caldera, I will resume the common reference to it being a crater (but we all know better).

The Masai, tall and known for hunting abilities, are a people who originally immigrated down from Ethiopia, and are ethnically different from the other local groups. When the reached the crater they settled there, since it formed a natural “walled fortress” against enemies. They named it Korongo, which, once again, quite appropriately means “Big Hole”. It was Westerners, in this case Germans, who heard the name Korongo and mangled it into Ngorongoro. At this point, there will be some who will smugly smile at such a thing happening, to which I’ll point out how many American place names, from states to cities to towns to rivers, have been grossly mangled from the original, yet are nevertheless cavalierly referred to as “Indian names”.

Note that the spelling NG can refer to two different things, a simple NG sound as in “sing” or “singer” or, very strangely, a combination of two sounds, NG + G, as in “finger”, or “mango”, which more accurately could be spelled “fingger” and “manggo”. In any case, I had thought that the name Ngorongoro was an example of the first situation, where it’s difficult to say NG at the beginning of a word, but I heard that it’s actually the second situation, which is still awkward, but more pronounceable: Nggoronggoro.

Because of its wildlife and history, Ngorongoro Crater is a Unesco World Heritage Site. In addition, Ngorongoro and Serengeti were originally one National Park, but Ngorongoro was later separated and its Park is now designated a Conservation Area. The reason for this is quite simple. The Masai still live in the crater (as well as outside), and they graze their cattle there (I wonder how they keep the cattle safe from the other animals). It is not clear if they are also allowed a certain amount of hunting. But if it were still part of Serengeti National Park, this would no longer be possible, so Ngorongoro is instead designated a Conservation Area. I would suspect that to some extent, there would be a parallel to a combination of a Nature Preserve and an Indian Reservation in the United States.

THE LODGE: EXTERIOR I can honestly say I don’t know where to start when describing Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. When planning this trip, I read up on it—people have lots to say about its fantastic quirkiness—and I didn’t know what to believe. You won’t either. Let me start with the outside.

Fortunately, shortly after we arrived, exchanged our “jambos” with the hostess, and settled in in the lounge (see below) to have a drink (all-inclusive) and fill out forms, the fog lifted, so we cold see that Crater Lodge sits on the crater rim and has a magnificent view of the perimeter and the entire floor, including the large lake in the center. But so do other lodges, so as I proceed I’ll move from good to better to best.

The original lodge (now gone) dated from 1934, when, as the hostess on our arrival pointed out with horror, people came to actually HUNT the animals. The present incarnation is a little over a decade old. There are three sections, North Camp, South Camp, and Tree Camp, but they all flow together. (They do like that camp idea, don’t they?) Try to picture the following.

We were in North Camp, which has its lodge (Lounge/Dining Room) facility on the left, then has about a dozen individual units (like Tau), stretched along the ridge to the side of that facility. Behind this row of buildings, slightly uphill, is a lawn (yes, real grass in a lawn), which I’ll name the upper meadow. In front of this line of buildings and below it is another large lawn, which I’ll name the lower meadow. Below the low meadow is the row of a dozen individual units for South Camp, with its facility over on the right. Below the South Camp facility, and zig-zagging lower still is the half-dozen units of Tree Camp, with its facility lowest of all. So, going downhill: upper meadow; North Camp; lower meadow, South Camp, and Tree Camp further downhill perpendicular to both.

I’m describing this in detail for a reason. On our arrival, two zebras were calmly grazing on the grass in the upper meadow not far from the path along the North Camp buildings where we had to walk to our rooms. Also near the path, in the grass was a large pile of dung. I asked, and the guard said that’s from the elephant that comes by there.

The last morning, as I was going to breakfast in the North Camp facility, I looked to the left of the lower meadow where a mountain was moving in the shrubbery. I realized it was a rather large elephant. It was moving along at a good pace, and I had a view of it for only fifteen seconds or so before it disappeared behind some trees.

Back at the time of our arrival, looking below our buildings to the lower meadow, there was a tough-looking Cape buffalo grazing on that lawn. Later, as we walked around to see South Camp, a guard was eyeing both us and the buffalo, just in case. Outside the South Camp facility was an urn with large Masai spears in it. We tried hefting them, and they were well balanced, with different kinds of spears at either end. As at Kirawira, you could walk between buildings in the day, since you could see any animals that might be there, but when it was time to come to dinner, you were told to phone for a guard to come and accompany you, and after dinner, you were accompanied back to your unit. The guard that would come had been described in what I’d read in advance as “a Masai warrior”. Well, yes and no. Please disabuse yourself of any “Me Tarzan, you Jane” scenario. The young guys that came to accompany you were joking around in very polite British English, were wearing t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers, and in one hand carried a very powerful flashlight. But there was a difference: they also had a longish, colorful cape around their shoulders and carried one of those spears in the other hand. So was it traditional? Contemporary? You decide.

THE LODGE: INTERIOR It was hard describing the oddities of the outside, and I’m at a loss to describe the inside. In what I’d read earlier, a former guest described the style as a cross between African Tribal and European Baroque. Remember those words. As I walked around and tried to absorb it all, I shortened that phrase to African Baroque. In any case, prepare yourself this way: when you hear “African Tribal” you visualize huts, straw roofs, typical wood carving; when you hear “European Baroque” you picture busy, busy, busy, every space filled with something, a picture, a statue, a carving. Now picture African Baroque, and you’ll just begin to get the image of what some clever (or mad?) architects and decorators came up with. It’s bizarre. It’s outrageous. It’s tacky. It’s kitsch. It’s bad taste. And you just have to love it, every bit of it. It has to be, in its extremely quirky way, the most appealing hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I’d go back tomorrow. (Note that I said “most appealing”, I didn’t say fanciest, most sophisticated, or most luxurious—although it WAS luxurious.) You have to love this place.

Here we go: each unit on the outside is an extended hut. From the outside, you see a conical straw roof with a very thick basket weave above stuccoed, adobe brick walls, all on low stilts of thick logs. The entry steps are all wood, in a casual, vacation cabin style. The rooms appear somewhat circular or oval, each having its own conical straw, basket-weave roof. And there’s also a high chimney for the fireplace. By “rooms” I mean a small entrance hall, the bedroom/sitting room, the extended bath, and then the small toilet area. There is a great deal of carved wood, starting with the door to the entrance hall, then the one to the bedroom, also the cabinets.

You enter the bedroom and first notice the high, conical basket-weave ceiling, which each room has. To your left is the bed, with draperies on the wall behind it, and with a very busy, glass chandelier above it, all baubles and beads. To the right is the fireplace, with wood delivered periodically. (It’s the only heating, except for an electric blanket on the bed.) There are two easy chairs at the fire, plus a decanter of sherry with glasses on the wall. Between the chairs is a box containing a couple of types of fudge, plus two other sweets. The large glass doors lead out to your own small terrace, with table and chairs, overlooking the lower meadow and crater. Beyond a desk area you enter the bath. But to quote Al Jolson: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Beyond a dressing area with vanity, the first thing that strikes you is the bathtub in the middle of the room, perpendicular to your path. Behind it is a vase of fresh roses. Out of curiosity, I counted them. There were just under four dozen roses. Directly above the tub is another glass chandelier, whose baubles give the one over the bed a run for its money. The foot of the tub is to your right, and has its own large window, just as everything does. To the left of the tub, that is, behind where your head would be in the tub, is a large, open shower surrounded by wooden beams, big enough to have a party in. This shower also has a crater view, but over the tub. There is a sink to either side of the shower. Beyond the foot of the tub is that small toilet room, yes, with its own window looking out over the crater.

When you enter this place, you look, and look, and look. Then you look again, because you’re sure you’ve missed something. Late the first day, I first settled into that tub with its view (a few rose petals tumbled into the water), then I set up my laptop to work at the desk. But when we came back from the game drive the next day, on our one full day there, I wised up. I figured out how to plug in the laptop near one of the easy chairs at the fireplace, put a lap rug over my legs, and enjoyed the fire, the view out the window, a glass of sherry, and a piece of fudge, all while typing away. For the day, this was my “cozy corner”.

Ngorongoro Crater Lodge is so unique (bizarre, quirky) that a lot of guests have written about it, and there’s also a number of presentations on YouTube. Usually, I think my “word pictures” cover things adequately, but in this case you absolutely have to see it. Take a look: Ngorongoro Crater Lodge Rooms

Finally, a word about the Lounge and Dining Room facility. The best word to describe each part of it is “baronial”. As I said, on entering we sat down to the left in the lounge to fill out papers and have a drink. It was a huge room with a fireplace, with lots of overstuffed couches and easy chairs, alcoves in the wall hidden behind curtains, for a private rendezvous, a large bar at the end, and that ever-present high, conical, basket-weave ceiling. It was the location for an apéritif before dinner and a digestif afterward. To the right of the entrance hall was the dining room, with a couple of long tables set for meals, with high-backed chairs. There were a few fireplaces here, roaring away during meals.

Straight across the entrance hall one crossed over on a wooden walkway to another small building with the toilet facilities. There was a common washroom, with the men’s and women’s rooms behind. All the guys coming out of the men’s room were smiling because of the urinal. It was like a very large fireplace, raised one step up, with a decorated mantelpiece and sides, but with a large metal sheet in the middle with water flowing down it. It was an honor, or even an honour, to be allowed to use such a magnificent piece of equipment. Even the women were curious, so we helped them sneak into the men’s room for a look at the Magnificent Urinal.

The lodge facility for the South Camp was the same, but we all eventually went down the hill to the Tree Camp because its lodge facility was something special. It was literally a tree lodge. The entire building was built around a huge, multi-trunked tree, which came up through the floor and out the roof. Indoors there was a wooden swing for 2-3 people hanging from a branch. The whole building was more compact then the two other lodges, but the lounge side had its fireplace, as did the dining room side.

Someone also put one of the larger lodge facilities on YouTube: Ngorongoro Crater Lodge Lounge & Dining Room

THE WILDLIFE On the rim or the crater there was a small monument that at first had no significance for me, but Karl and Renate were well aware of who was involved. Karl explained at the time, and I since did some research, and the story is quite interesting.

It was the Grzimek monument. The name is difficult, and apparently it’s usually pronounced in Germany as though it were Schimek. Karl said he thought it was Czech, but I told him it was Polish. RZ in Polish represents the ZH sound as in “pleasure”, so the name would start with G+ZH and Grzimek would sound like Gzhimek. Anyway, pronounce it as you will.

Bernhard Grzimek (1909-1987) was a zoologist, author, and conservationist. Most significantly, he was for many years the zoo director of the Frankfurt Zoo and oversaw its reconstruction after WWII. (The Frankfurt Zoo is the only German zoo Beverly and I ever visited, while we were living in Mainz.) In addition to that, Grzimek in the 1960’s and 1970’s had a very popular animal program on television, and was very well known. He also became famous for the work that he and his son Michael undertook for the conservation of the Serengeti. Unfortunately, Michael was killed in 1959 in the crash of a small plane, ironically over Ngorongoro, so the monument was to both of them.

In addition to all this background, Grzimek wrote a very popular book called Serengeti darf nicht sterben (Serengeti Shall Not Die), which appealed enormously to the public. This book was instrumental in Tanzania establishing Serengeti National Park (with Ngorongoro part of it at first). He also made a documentary film of the book with the same name, which won an Oscar in 1960 for Best Documentary. Grzimek was the first German after WWII to get an Oscar of any kind.

Frankfurt organizations continue to support both parks. Remember that before it was Tanzania it was Tanganyika, and that before that it was Deutsch-Ostafrika / German East Africa. I find it interesting that German organizations continue to support the development and preservation of this area to this day.

Since it took about an hour to drive down into the crater, and another one to drive up, we didn’t do any short drives. On the full day we were there, we went down for a morning drive at about nine, had a picnic lunch, then did an afternoon drive as well, returning at 3-4. There are a couple of marked descents and ascents, which are narrow dirt roads, so they’re all one-way. On the crater wall there are largely forested areas, but the crater floor is more plains-like. I understand the crater is supposed to be a haven for some 30,000 animals, including the so-called Big Five, but the only thing I wanted to see that I didn’t was a rhino (we also didn’t see a leopard, but we saw other felines, including lions and cheetahs, so I don’t mind).

I’m glad I took notes of exceptional things as we went along, because otherwise everything we saw on so many game drives runs together in one big blur. We pulled up to a pond that must have had at least fifty hippos in it, all next to each other. There were so many wallowing hippos, you didn’t know where to look first. Elsewhere we did see a hippo by itself in a field—it’s odd to see them out of water, but they do migrate, just like all the others. Although vehicles I’d been in had forded dry river beds before, in the crater we forded a stream—these vehicles can go anywhere.

There were large herds of zebra intermingled with large herds of wildebeest (gnu), and we found out that this is normal. Apparently the zebras see better, but the wildebeest hear better, so they offer each other mutual protection. It was also explained to us that every zebra has a unique stripe pattern, as different as human fingerprints. After a zebra gives birth a short distance from the herd, it stays there for about 2-3 hours, just enough time for the young to memorize its mother’s stripes, so it will recognize her among all the other zebras when they rejoin the herd.

We saw a large cluster of vehicles up ahead, maybe 10-15, so we stopped, too. There were a couple of female lions a short distance away in the grass, but right near the edge of the road was a large, maned male lion—licking its paws, just like a big pussycat. We stayed there for quite a while.

We saw a few elephants, with rather long tusks. We saw a hyena, and several ostriches. We finally saw something new—a cheetah. It was trying to catch something big, but we saw it grab a hare, and settle down for a meal. Driving along later, we saw in the distance two cheetahs stalking a herd of zebra. They walked quite a distance, and after a while you could see a number of zebras turn and face the oncoming danger while the rest of the zebras moved off. One of the cheetahs made a quick, unsuccessful lunge, and the speed was incredible. I knew cheetahs were fast, but it was here—then it was there. It reminded me of those road-runner cartoons—beep-beep and zoom! Nothing seemed to happen to the zebras this time, although they can apparently protect themselves pretty well—you don’t want to come up against a bunch of kicking hooves.

During the day we stopped at a picnic area, where our other vehicle opened its tail gate for some cold items from the lodge. Unfortunately, we just had to get back into the vehicle to eat, and not because of any dangerous game lurking nearby, but because of some large birds that were known to sweep down and grab what your eating—and maybe a finger along with it.

This was the end of our adventures with game, and I offer a few reflections as to which I think are particularly unique. They’re all special, but zebras are equines like horses, and impala aren’t too different from deer. Even lions are felines like pumas and mountain lions.

But how do you explain a giraffe? It is just the most graceful thing to stare at. And look at those slender legs, to say nothing of the neck.

How do you explain an elephant? Or any pachyderm, such as my unseen rhino, but the frequently seen hippos? These are BIG animals. Granted, all animals are unique, but these latter ones are the ones that impress me most.

Finally, I also found this on YouTube. It runs about 20 minutes, but it does show things similar to what we did. Ngorongoro Crater Game Drive

Zanzibar   We left our animal adventures at the “crater” and drove back down to Lake Manyara airstrip, where I was actually rather surprised to again see Steve and the same tiny plane that had brought us to Manyara from the Serengeti. The Lodge had given us a box lunch, which we ate on the flight to Zanzibar, which took a little over an hour. As we descended, you could see the coast of the mainland, then the Zanzibar Channel, then a short distance away (between 25-50 km / 15-30 mi), the island itself. Our tiny plane came in very low, right over the roofs of Stone Town.

The TCC counts Zanzibar separately from the rest of Tanzania, probably because its island population is sufficiently large to do so according to TCC rules, like Sicily, Corsica, or Prince Edward Island. Anyway, Zanzibar was my destination # 114.

I know this sounds quite silly to say, but I know just where I first heard the name Zanzibar--in the name of the film “The Road to Zanzibar” (1941) that I had seen on TV as a kid. In 1940, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, along with Dorothy Lamour, had made their first “Road” picture “The Road to Singapore”, which was successful enough for a string of sequels, the second one being “Zanzibar”. Picky people might argue that, Zanzibar being an island (Singapore also), there’s no road to it—either you take the ferry or fly in, but who’s being picky.

We were transferred to the Zanzibar Serena Inn, on the seafront in Stone Town. Although it’s listed in the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, it’s nothing to write home about (but isn’t that what I’m doing?). There are fancy seaside resorts around the island, but the main advantage of the Serena is that it’s right in town. It has a short seafront promenade, and you can see a few of the Arab ships known as dhows sailing by. Note that Stone Town is on the Zanzibar channel and there faces west, toward the mainland and away from the open Indian Ocean. Its restaurant also faces the water, and on the first evening, when one couple was celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary (remarriages, both), I once again gave my Spanish toast that I had done at my cousin’s wedding, and most recently, at Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana in January (2008/4). We also had our last night together at this restaurant before going our separate ways. By the way, in the street across from the hotel there was some quite attractive graffiti that said “Obama for President”.

The name Zanzibar is vague. It can refer to a pair of islands, which otherwise have two separate names; it can refer to the larger of the two islands, in spite of the fact that it technically has another name; and it can refer to the city, which is also called Stone Town. The easiest way out of this is to consider Stone Town the old quarter of the city of Zanzibar, which reaches out into the water as a broad, triangular peninsula, and if you have to differentiate city from island, you call it Zanzibar City, as I saw road signs do. In any case, Stone Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and rightly so. It is not a tourist playground like so many places are. Stone Town pulsates with real life.

The difference in Zanzibar’s heritage is that it’s half Arab and half African. Almost everyone is black and speaks Swahili (technically Kiswahili, since the prefix indicates you mean the language). The majority is Muslim, but there are Christian churches and Hindu temples, and the Zanzibari are proud of their religious tolerance, even issuing a postage stamp stating so. (Later in the day, driving back into town, we saw a few head of cattle calmly walking the streets among the cars, showing we were in a Hindu area.) Men in the streets are dressed in the standard shirt, jeans and sandals, but women wear wrap-around skirted outfits, and you’ll also see the odd head-to-toe burka here in there, with only eyes peering out.

As fascinated as I am by routes, I always misunderstood the sea routes in this area. Somehow, I always pictured that, when pre-Suez canal ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope, most of them made a clear shoot across the Indian Ocean to Australia and New Zealand. Only on this visit to Africa do I see the huge importance of the coastal route around eastern Africa and on around southern Asia. It now makes more sense that the Portuguese had the colony of Angola on the west coast of Africa, then came up the east coast to establish Mozambique and influence Zanzibar, to say nothing of continuing on to settle Goa in India and others beyond. It also makes sense that the German colonies were on either side of Africa. You can see how Arab dhows would sail south from the Middle East, and how Indians would sail along the south coast of Asia to settle in Zanzibar, to say nothing of South Africa. And then the spices reached Zanzibar along this coastal trade route from India, Ceylon, and Indonesia, and that story will come up in a moment.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. What was planned for our one full day in Zanzibar was a walking tour of Stone Town in the morning, then lunch, then a spice tour in the afternoon. I enjoyed it all, particularly the spice tour.

STONE TOWN WALKING TOUR Again the seven of us were in two groups. Our van picked the three of us up and drove to the central market, and we didn’t see the van again until it was time to go to lunch. I always enjoy food markets. Offhand, I remember telling about the enclosed market in Budapest, the open market in Bergen, Norway and the enclosed Market in Turku/Åbo, Finland. But here, it was earthier. We first saw the fish market, with fish wriggling everywhere, then the fruit and vegetable market, with typical African products. It was very colorful.

The oldest part of Stone Town is a warren of narrow alleys leading to houses, shops, bazaars, mosques and churches. The architecture is indeed of stone, and the feeling I got walking through the streets may surprise you—it reminded me of Venice. Venice also has tiny streets leading in all directions, and once in a while you come to the transportation route—a canal. In Stone Town you have the same streets, but once in a while you come to a transportation route—a wider street with cars on it. The Swahili architecture incorporates elements of Arab, Persian, Indian, European, and African styles. As in any old city like this, the most interesting buildings used to be mansions that are now on harder times, but the most interesting feature distinguishing the styles were the doorways, usually of wood, and often elaborate. For instance, there were clear distinctions in style between an Arab and an Indian doorway.

There were sometimes stone benches built into the walls, and we saw why at a particularly busy (pedestrian) intersection. All four corners had these benches attached to the buildings, and they were all filled with men, socializing. Apparently, the women socialize indoors.

A stop everyone makes is to the Anglican Church, since it’s located on the site of the former slave market, with the altar located on the former whipping post. In the basement of a nearby building, where the ceiling was low enough that you had to bend, there were flat stone areas at waist height were up to 75 people were kept. It was claustrophobic with just the few of us in the room.

This is then where David Livingstone did do his great service to the anti-slavery cause. In 1857 he appealed his cause to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Pressure was eventually brought, and on 6 June 1873, the Sultan abolished slavery in Zanzibar.

We walked through the Portuguese Fort dating from 1622, now used for exhibitions and then into the so-called House of Wonders, a government building from 1883 now used as a museum. It had a few items of local interest, including a large dhow in its center atrium, but also had nice views over Stone Town from its upper promenade. But one display that appealed to me showed the influence of Portuguese on Kiswahili. For instance for flag, Portuguese is bandeira, Kiswahili bendera; cup is P: copo, KS kopo; table is P: mesa, KS: meza; wine is P: vinho (VIN.yu), KS: mvinyo.

A bit more Kiswahili: if in the Lion King you learned to say “akuna matata” for “don’t worry/no problem”, people really do say it; I saw it in signs. Also, we came across “pole pole” (two syllables each, and note the repetition) quite a bit, meaning “slow down”. It was even used on traffic signs.

SPICE TOUR We were taken for lunch at a very nice seaside restaurant north of Stone Town. Afterward, we drove a little further into the country for our spice tour. What would you understand by “spice tour”? It had even been recommended on the train by Nick Schofield, but I was picturing some sort of a packaging plant where spices are processed. I was pleasantly surprised with what it turned out to be, and consider the spice tour as only second to Ngorongoro as to what I enjoyed in Tanzania. And “spice tour” is to be understood generically, since not only spices, but herbs, grasses, pods, and similar things were shown.

Out in the country, we pulled into a plantation, which is now apparently connected to the government. It was all trees and plantings around us, and we started walking down a path. In some ways it seemed more like a botanical garden with some interesting things to see, rather than a working spice plantation. In another sense, it was a hodge-podge, with a little bit of this spice growing here, then a few trees or shrubs or grasses of something else growing there. But all in all it was an extremely pleasant walk along the dirt roads and paths. There were no workers, as the work was apparently done in the morning.

As the three of us walked along with the guide, a teenage boy joined us, apparently by design. He would go cut something and bring it over for us to guess what it was and for the guide to then explain fully. Usually, instead of bringing the spice itself, he would first take a handful of leaves from the shrub, crush them, and then hand them to us to try to identify. Clearly, some spices are easier to spot by smell than others.

I want to specify below the most interesting things we saw, but let me first mention a few others. He showed us an iodine plant, from this iodine antisceptic is made. We saw a coffee tree and examined the beans. He showed us a plant that had very fragrant blossoms, from which perfume is made, some of which a hawker nearby was selling. On that basis, I asked if they grew jasmine, always a favorite of Beverly’s and mine, and he showed me a few plants, still immature. He also had some cocoa pods, from which chocolate is made, but pointed out that in Africa, chocolate comes from Ghana, and these plants were here just for demonstration purposes, and are not processed commercially. He showed us the yellow root of the turmeric plant, used to make curry powder. There was a large seed pod that had burst to show a darkish cotton-like fiber. It was kapok, used as insulation in jackets and blankets.

Below are the most interesting things we saw. They were presented to us as mystery items, so I’ll attempt to do something similar.

MYSTERY ITEM 1 The very first thing we saw was the spice that Zanzibar is most known for. The kid clambered up a bit into a tree and came down with a delicate, lacey branch that separated into numerous “hands”. As with many spices, it was the reproductive seed or blossom that was used as a spice. The guide showed how each of these “hands” is easily snapped off and collected on site. Later, for further processing, workers would very easily press each “hand” against a flat surface, and the “fingers” would break right off. The “hands” were further processed to make some sort of oil, but the “fingers” would then be put out in the sun to ripen and turn black. They were then ready to use as-----cloves. Now, if you picture the size of a clove, picture them clustered on a “hand”, then the branch of many “hands”, and you’ll better estimate the size of the delicate branch. The clove tree was imported to Zanzibar in 1810 from Indonesia, known for its spices. Imagine once again the coastal sailing route along southern Asia from Indonesia to Zanzibar and you’ll then perhaps appreciate what I’ve been saying about the importance of that route. For many years, Zanzibar was the world leader in clove production, but now has slipped down a few notches, some claiming because of government interference.

MYSTERY ITEM 2 We saw a vine wrapped around a tree, which is never a good thing, since vines will strangle trees, but this particular vine had a slender reproductive branch that had numerous little round, green beads on it that were about the size of peppercorns. There is a good reason for that. They were-----peppercorns. But the color—and flavor—differences were quite interesting. With the immature green skin on the peppercorn, this can be ground to make green pepper. Let the skin ripen to its mature red color, grind it, and you have red pepper. Process that skin off of the kernel inside, which is white, grind that kernel, and you have white pepper. Or, put that white kernel in the sun to dry and blacken, grind it, and you have black pepper. As you stand there in the plantation with the slender branch in your hand, it all makes sense.

MYSTERY ITEM 3 The crushed leaves from another shrub had a familiar odor, but it was still hard to identify. Underneath the shrub at ground level there was a delicate seed branch not growing from the above-ground part of the plant, but actually sent out by the root! How curious to see a root going “into business” on its own. The seeds on this branch had hard shells, and proved to be-----cardamom (or cardamon). Cardamom seeds are hard to shell, but when ground the seed makes a fragrant spice. Cardamom, which came to Zanzibar from India (picture that sea route) is a favorite in Sweden, where many Swedish households keep a spice jar of “kardamomma”. Beverly’s family, her grandmother, mother, aunt, and others, has always enjoyed making a cardamom-flavored Swedish coffee bread. As a matter of fact, that’s where I first heard of that spice.

MYSTERY ITEM 4 We came to a few skinny trees, each about as thick as your arm. But there was a series of (totally) healed oval scars along the length of the bark, each about as long as your hand is wide. The kid took a penknife and cut us each a fresh strip of bark, and the guide assured us the scar would heal in no time, just like all the others. We smelled and tasted the bark and it was-----cinnamon. It can be ground, or allowed to curl into cinnamon “sticks”. The cinnamon tree was brought to Zanzibar from Sri Lanka in 1600 by the Portuguese—note the sea route again. The root of the tree is used to make menthol, and the leaf, which we had sniffed first, is brewed to make cinnamon tea.

MYSTERY ITEM 5 The smell of the crushed leaves of one small plant were a dead giveaway, and when he dug a bit and cut off a piece of the root, then peeled it, so was the yellow color a giveaway. We even tasted it, and it was-----ginger. When they harvest this plant, they have to kill it, but it grows back in 18 months.

MYSTERY ITEM 6 There was a longish grass that he crushed, which smelled lemony. It was, of course-----lemon grass. It came to Zanzibar from China, is used in Thai food, and is also used as a mosquito repellant!

MYSTERY ITEM 7 Our final mystery spice is actually two in one, which might be a giveaway to you, as it was to me, because I know of only one situation like that, but it was very interesting to see how they grow together. It looked like a hazelnut wearing a red veil. The “hazelnut” was-----nutmeg. Americans use nutmeg infrequently, perhaps on top of a holiday egg nog, but in German households, Muskat (nutmeg) is frequent, and people usually have in the kitchen a Muskatreibe, a nutmeg grater. Now, picture pouring red nail polish over the top of a “nut” of nutmeg and watch it dribble down in irregular strips about ¾ of the way to the bottom. This “veil” of “nail polish” is rubbery, and slips right off the nut with ease. This red, rubbery part of the nutmeg plant, when dried and ground, goes under a different name-----mace. As a spice, mace can be used, for example, in soups, but I was very surprised to find the other use for it. Mace, the spice, has characteristics that makes it, in sufficient quantity, a skin irritant, and it was originally used for crowd control and as an anti-mugging device. I believe that later it was referred to as “chemical mace”, presumably manufactured artificially, but I understand that now it’s properly referred to as “pepper spray”. Even the term “chemical mace” is problematic since “Mace” is now a trademarked name.

I will say again that this adventure at the spice plantation was my second most entertaining experience in Tanzania, after Ngorongoro.

The flight from Zanzibar back to Dar es Salaam was in a full-size plane of maybe fifteen rows of 2 + 2 across, but will remain unique to me as being, at just 20 minutes, the shortest flight I’ve ever taken in a regular plane (that helicopter was 12 minutes, but was quite different). We were barely up from Zanzibar when we pointed down to Dar. The representative from Rovos was there with my wheeled bag, and I had a couple of hours until it was time to fly overnight from Dar to Zürich. I had arranged this myself on the four-star airline Swiss International, the successor to Swissair. (An open secret: Swiss International is owned, either wholly or to a major extent, by Lufthansa.) I was also pleased that this flight was scheduled to make another local stop before the long haul to Europe, in Nairobi, just an hour from Dar. Therefore, Kenya is now my TCC # 115. Of course, this was no accident—I’d planned it this way.

Shortly after leaving Nairobi (in the dark), we crossed the equator, which apparently only I took notice of. The flight was 10h05, gaining one hour, since Central Europe and South Africa, where I had started, are on the same time. I had an interesting conversation, that evening and the following morning, with the guy in the next seat (we were just two across) about his adventures in Tanzania and in other offbeat locations around the world, including his language learning in those locations. And, given what I’d said at the beginning of my African experience in Dakar, Senegal, he had actually been to Timbuktu!