Country #90: Bouncing into Tanzania

Although it may not seem like it, there was actually a method to my madness. There was a reason that I voluntarily boarded a local bus for the 13 hour bone-jarring ride from Mombasa to Dar Es Salaam. It is not for naught that I spent more time sitting across from a woman whose carry-on was a cranky and vociferous rooster than I did on my flight from Miami to Amsterdam. It is not without cause that I put myself in a situation where, as the only non-African passport holder, I took the longest being processed at the Kenya/ Tanzania border and subsequently had to run like a crazy woman lest the bus continue on without me. Like the proverbial chicken (but not the one on the lady's lap), I simply had to get to the other side.

This is where I would begin my first Intrepid/ Dragoman overland trip.  I confess that in the past, when planning my own travels, I have cribbed many an itinerary from these companies.  In many countries, this is actually pretty easy to do, relying on public transportation in lieu of their signature overland trucks, at a fraction of the cost.  However, East Africa is different. My experience on the chicken bus had only emphasized my suspicion that this was in no way a practical alternative in this part of the world.  So, instead, I had signed up for a 14 day excursion, dubbed the Road to Zanzibar, that would eventually bring me back to Nairobi.
I began my time in Dar Es Salaam by spending a couple of days diving and relaxing north of the city on Jangwani Beach. As the start date of the tour neared, I became eager to meet the group and headed south a day early to Kigamboni, the designated meeting point. Had this place sucked, I probably would have been concerned for what lay ahead, but the  Kipepeo Beach Camp, was ideally located on a sandy stretch of Indian Ocean beachfront with a nice veggie-friendly restaurant and some of the coldest beer I had found to date.

I checked into a beach banda and spent the afternoon enjoying not doing much of anything....

...except for diligently trying to avoid the Masaai trinket salesmen.  They are like ninjas, these guys.  You think there is no one around and all of a sudden you find all sorts of beaded necklaces and knick knacks dangling in your face.  Notice how this photo is taken from a distance- that is because they are not permitted onto the Hotel property, as a matter of fact there are plenty of signs advising guests not to buy from them since that only encourages them, so I quickly learned that if I stayed on the 'correct' side of this invisible force field, I was relatively safe.

Later in the day, I decided on a kayaking trip through the Mangroves.  Thanks to the extremely low tide, what I actually did was more a 'get out and pull the kayak' kind of outing but it was scenic and  my guide was an affable guy who kept the trip entertaining.  About mid-trip, he mentioned that he was ready to get married and it took me a moment to realize that what I thought was a casual conversation was actually a marriage proposal.  I politely declined and undaunted, he then asked if I had any friends in the US that he could marry.  None came to mind but if anyone reading this would like to marry a nice Tanzanian man, who (I think) owns his own kayak, please feel free to leave your info in the comments section.

Slowly, I began meeting the people that would be my traveling companions for the next couple of weeks.  First it was Patrick, our  jovial Kenyan camp chef with a wonderfully contagious Woody Woodpecker-like laugh and next Olly, our witty, easy-going British tour leader.  Through them, I met the group that had just finished the tour I was about to embark on and heard nothing but rave reviews all around.

Day 2 at Kipepeo, which incidentally means "butterfly" in Swahili (and Kipe Fart in Spanish), I got the first taste of setting up my tent and some pretty prime real estate.

But more importantly, I finally got to meet the rest of the group.  It was a dream team blend of ages, backgrounds and interests.  We had three sweet-natured women from Oregon, who collectively came to be known as "the ladies"; a couple from Washington State who had just climbed Kilimanjaro and who I immediately feared would be fitness freaks (they weren't); two Australian ladies whose long friendship led them into some hilariously vicious bickering and the only other solo traveler, another Aussie, whose impressive camera and quick timing saddled him with the label of 'official photographer'.  At our next stop, Zanzibar, we rounded out the team with a pair of fun-loving British friends, who both possessed the preternatural ability to always look clean and pressed, even as the rest of came closer and closer to resembling train-yard hobos and finally Arthur, our soft-spoken Kenyan driver and dancer extraordinaire.

And of course, we were also introduced to Neema, our truck (not bus- not sure why, but this apparently is an issue and I saw t-shirts testily proclaiming that it was NOT A BUS). She was a roomy and surprisingly comfortable conveyance whose carnival-like appearance would draw waving Tanzanian children to the roadside everywhere we went.

It was now time to begin a new phase of this adventure, one that would take us to the beaches of Zanzibar, to the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro and eventually to a dive bar in the middle of the Serengeti.