Tanzania, Pemba and Zanzibar - February 2008
Having not been to Tanzania and Zanzibar for 14 years I was looking forward to revisiting and seeing what had changed in that time and also to seeing some new areas such as the Selous Game Reserve, Pemba Island off Zanzibar and also Tarangire National Park and Loliondo in north.
To start in the Selous was a joy - being one of the largest game reserves left in Africa with relatively few camps, I knew I would just love this place and it has long been near the top of my wishlist. To arrive and go straight to this remote camp, Kiba Point, was a very spoiling start to the trip. It is part of the Sand Rivers set-up, but it is a private camp that is taken exclusively by groups of up to 8 people - it has 4 extremely spacious and open thatched rooms looking down over the Rufiji River, the largest river in East Africa. Complete luxury with your own private plunge pool with a stunning view into the bush, down over the river and way beyond, the rooms are more like little open-sided houses. The main area is just gorgeous and a huge high ceilinged thatched building kept us cool in the heat of the day, as did the pool. Brilliantly run, this camp has a great home away from home feeling as you don't have to worry about other guests around you and you have your own staff to look after you while you are there and you can really settle in. We did a variety of activities here and my favourite was our boat trip upstream into Stiegler's Gorge where we stopped after an hour of game viewing (we saw buffalo, hippos, elephant, giraffe and plenty of birds) or so to get out onto a beautiful white sandy beach surrounded by rocks and steep sides of the gorge bursting with life and trees. Here we tried our hand at fly fishing and between us we caught 3 catfish! High excitement and our expert guides were so patient as we nearly garrotted them with fishing lines! With only monkeys and birds around you, it really was a stunning spot to just stop and be surrounded by nature with the boat engine turned off. Drives take you through beautiful scenery, made very lush from some recent and much needed rain, and some of us went for a lovely walk through the bush only to find ourselves at the top of a hill with a fantastic 360 degree view and a full bar set up for our sundowners. To top this, our manager Ross (an old friend from when I worked in the bush in Zambia) played his bagpipes as the sun went down which was quite a beautiful, even if unusual, experience on top of a hill in the middle of this vast and stunning wilderness. We were ushered through the bush to a dining table where we had a the most delicious 3 course supper in the bush - heaven! Being a huge seafood lover, I was delighted to be served some great calamari and red snapper whilst staying at Kiba Point - they are only a short distance from the coast here, so it was a fantastic novelty to be having seafood in the bush! I could not recommend this place highly enough. And nearby Sand Rivers is also beautifully located right on the river (whereas Kiba Point is set back a bit) and is a stunning camp with some lovely suites in addition to their tents and their special honeymoon spot, Rhino House, where you have your own chef/butler/guide to look after should you wish to be totally private.
On to Pemba Island and Fundu Lagoon - the only lodge on the island so you know you are going somewhere special! A short 20 minutes flight from Zanzibar you are then met by the Fundu Lagoon car, driven 30 minutes across the island to catch your boat to Fundu itself. It was built by two twin brothers Alex and Marcus and it really is a great place with a very good feeling of space - you can be as social or private as you want and they seem to combine the two effortlessly. If it is privacy you are after then go for one of the suites which has its own plunge pool and an open fronted house adjacent to your ensuite tent which is for dining, relaxing in the shade and enjoying the view from upstairs. There is so much to do here as well if you are not one for lying around on beach! You can go snorkelling and diving at Misali Island where the water is the most beautiful I think I have seen, crystal clear like a swimming pool....and visibility over the coral reef was just perfect and made for a great snorkelling spot off the beach there, accompanied by my guide which was a first for snorkelling! You can also go for a walk into the village where Alex and Marcus invest much money in the school and community projects, or you can go fishing for your lunch, take a picnic out....you would certainly not get bored here and the friendly and professional staff always seem to be around for advice on what to do next or help you with deciding which cocktail to try for your sundowner! There are so many different places to eat here whether it's on the beach, at the jetty bar, or the pool bar up the hill - or simply in the cool and breezy thatched dining room.
Zanzibar is where I noticed the biggest change - 14 years ago you struggled to find somewhere to stay but now there are hundreds of hotels to choose from, some of them very big, the Stone Town was very busy and full of tourists, and the airport is clearly struggling to deal with the international flights that now fly in and out of this island airport. Sadly it seemed that the sea has been severely overfished as well and the lodges often fail to find fresh seafood from the many fishermen. However, despite these changes and overcrowding, there are a couple of lovely retreats to hide away and enjoy the ocean views. The newest one which only opened last year is Matemwe Retreats which is just 3 private suites where you have a huge amount of outdoor living space where your private chef will chat to you about what you want to eat that day and you have your own private pool and roof terrace above your room with fantastic ocean views (and you can see over to Mnemba Island), whilst there is plenty of shaded space for relaxing and eating downstairs outside your Swahili style cool bathroom and air conditioned room. The Palms is also a quiet haven with just six spacious villas and exceptional food and service - you have your own allocated sala and day bed on the edge of the beach - whilst they are building a 30 bedroomed Oman-inspired lodge next door this did not seem to disturb the peace and tranquility there and their spa remained a cool and peaceful retreat.
After leaving the chaos, heat and humidity of Zanzibar airport it was off to the north and the cooler heights of Tarangire National Park. This is not the best time of year to visit Tarangire but we still saw a variety of animals including a poor impala abandoned up a tree, whilst the elusive leopard that put it there was not going to show itself. We also saw some lions hiding under a bush and many giraffe and elephants. Our camp, Olivers, is in the southern part of the park in the riverine and swamp landscape and there are very few other camps around so we hardly saw another car - the highlight for me was my morning shower which had the most fantastic view over the bush and I watched as a lone bull elephant walked towards my tent where he obviously fancied the tree about 3 metres from my shower as his breakfast. Luckily one of the guides came to see if I had overslept so he was able to escort me up to the mess tent for my brekky rather than missing out! The lovely tents are all very well spaced out and you do get the feeling that you are very much on your own here! A great bush feel to this camp.
Onto Ngorongoro Crater, one of the busiest areas in the north. We were lucky to be trying out the recently opened (December 2007) Lemala Luxury Tented Camp. Whilst it is on the eastern rim of the crater it does not have a view down into the crater but this did not seem to matter as it is in a lovely spot surrounded by acacia trees and you can hear the bells of the local Masai cattle in the hills around. You can take a walk into the nearby local village if you want as well. With eight tents this is a lovely option and fairly unique in this area, a welcome change to the bigger lodges on crater rim, and the camp has been very well planned and built and there is a great deal of attention to detail within the tents. They are very comfortable as well as being hugely practical in terms of furniture and space and the heaters in the tents kept us all very cosy and warm which is all important at this altitude. The location of this camp on the east means that you share the road down into the crater with one other lodge which is the only lodge nearby and it means you avoid the more crowded area to the south and west of the crater.
From here it was a long, and largely off-road, drive up to Suyan Camp in the Loliondo area - our guide was Jacob (from Sokwe) and how he found his way there I will never quite know as we drove over vast open and very barren plains. Jacob was sad to see the area so dry and empty of animals and global warming was a subject that reared its ugly head many times. There should have been wildebeest and zebra heading across these plains to the south for water, but they are still waiting for their rains and the wildebeest were long gone and we later heard that they were to the south west of the Serengeti by this time. We could see the single file tracks that they have etched into the landscape over the years, but we saw only a small group of them all day long. However, soon after we stopped for lunch under a welcome acacia tree we spotted a huge pride of lionesses with 3 young and curious cubs which was a real treat. How they survived in this huge dry expanse I don't quite know but they were certainly a little more shy and curious than some I have seen. As we continued north we started to see more and more animals including a large group of 17 hyenas, a huge group of around 70 mostly young ostriches, plenty of gazelle leaping around in front of us and magnificent eland thinking they could outrun us! It was quite exhilirating to be driving along next to these wild animals in the middle of nowhere. As we neared the camp the landscape slowly turned into rolling green hills that were dotted with giraffe and zebra, and then nomadic Masais. It was great to get to camp after a day in the car and it is in a spectacular location where you can go on some great walks and in addition to seeing game you can see some ancient rock paintings nearby on foot. Normally you would fly up to this area, but I have to say that I really enjoyed our drive in and out of this area as there was just no-one else around. Even if we didn't see a huge variety of game it was a stunning drive and when we did see something it was pretty spectacular and in large numbers, and just for our eyes only! After leaving the main road out of the Crater, we didn't see another car the whole way up to Suyan!
Then it was on to southern Serengeti which involved heading back over the plains of the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area where we saw 2 male lions lazing in the morning sun, more hyenas and a hyena trying to chase off the vultures from its kill of a baby wildebeest. Ol Donyo Lengai was spewing out volcanic ash from its crater and producing a rather ominous looking cloud over the horizon. And when we got to the southern Serengeti it was like a dust bowl, so much so that we did not really open our roof hatch that day. Lake Ndutu, which should have water in it at this time, was bone dry. Again the rains are being eagerly awaited and there was not much sign of animal activity, and certainly no migration. But it was still quite busy in the park and it was not until we got to Sayari Camp that I felt we had lost the other tourists. What a lovely camp in a beautiful setting, very comfortable tents with a comfortable sofa outside to enjoy the view down onto the plains in the distance. There was a great atmosphere here and the private dining tables in the mess tent made for a very jolly and noisy evening all round. The manager here was great and very chatty and clearly very experienced and ran a tight ship. The Serengeti is a huge area and you will no doubt see great game there and this is definitely the nicest of the camps I had time to visit in the park....excellent food too!
So all in all, Tanzania now provides a huge mix of areas and camps to visit and there are still so many other relatively untouched parks to explore in this huge country. The Selous is definitely one of my new favourite places and Pemba is also a winner location for some great beach time. Whilst some of the camps I saw were a little in need of some TLC I would put this largely down to end-of-season fatigue. They will now (March) all be taking down their camps, hoping that their much needed long rain appears soon and doing lots of maintenance work over the next couple of months. It is a beautiful and vast country with views to match, classic Africa. There is something for everyone here and still so much more to see.......
-----Original Message-----
Millie Summers
Africa, Country Director
Travel House, 51 Castle Street, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 1QD
T 01285 650011 F 01285 885888 Millie@steppestravel.co.uk
http://www.steppestravel.co.uk
To start in the Selous was a joy - being one of the largest game reserves left in Africa with relatively few camps, I knew I would just love this place and it has long been near the top of my wishlist. To arrive and go straight to this remote camp, Kiba Point, was a very spoiling start to the trip. It is part of the Sand Rivers set-up, but it is a private camp that is taken exclusively by groups of up to 8 people - it has 4 extremely spacious and open thatched rooms looking down over the Rufiji River, the largest river in East Africa. Complete luxury with your own private plunge pool with a stunning view into the bush, down over the river and way beyond, the rooms are more like little open-sided houses. The main area is just gorgeous and a huge high ceilinged thatched building kept us cool in the heat of the day, as did the pool. Brilliantly run, this camp has a great home away from home feeling as you don't have to worry about other guests around you and you have your own staff to look after you while you are there and you can really settle in. We did a variety of activities here and my favourite was our boat trip upstream into Stiegler's Gorge where we stopped after an hour of game viewing (we saw buffalo, hippos, elephant, giraffe and plenty of birds) or so to get out onto a beautiful white sandy beach surrounded by rocks and steep sides of the gorge bursting with life and trees. Here we tried our hand at fly fishing and between us we caught 3 catfish! High excitement and our expert guides were so patient as we nearly garrotted them with fishing lines! With only monkeys and birds around you, it really was a stunning spot to just stop and be surrounded by nature with the boat engine turned off. Drives take you through beautiful scenery, made very lush from some recent and much needed rain, and some of us went for a lovely walk through the bush only to find ourselves at the top of a hill with a fantastic 360 degree view and a full bar set up for our sundowners. To top this, our manager Ross (an old friend from when I worked in the bush in Zambia) played his bagpipes as the sun went down which was quite a beautiful, even if unusual, experience on top of a hill in the middle of this vast and stunning wilderness. We were ushered through the bush to a dining table where we had a the most delicious 3 course supper in the bush - heaven! Being a huge seafood lover, I was delighted to be served some great calamari and red snapper whilst staying at Kiba Point - they are only a short distance from the coast here, so it was a fantastic novelty to be having seafood in the bush! I could not recommend this place highly enough. And nearby Sand Rivers is also beautifully located right on the river (whereas Kiba Point is set back a bit) and is a stunning camp with some lovely suites in addition to their tents and their special honeymoon spot, Rhino House, where you have your own chef/butler/guide to look after should you wish to be totally private.
On to Pemba Island and Fundu Lagoon - the only lodge on the island so you know you are going somewhere special! A short 20 minutes flight from Zanzibar you are then met by the Fundu Lagoon car, driven 30 minutes across the island to catch your boat to Fundu itself. It was built by two twin brothers Alex and Marcus and it really is a great place with a very good feeling of space - you can be as social or private as you want and they seem to combine the two effortlessly. If it is privacy you are after then go for one of the suites which has its own plunge pool and an open fronted house adjacent to your ensuite tent which is for dining, relaxing in the shade and enjoying the view from upstairs. There is so much to do here as well if you are not one for lying around on beach! You can go snorkelling and diving at Misali Island where the water is the most beautiful I think I have seen, crystal clear like a swimming pool....and visibility over the coral reef was just perfect and made for a great snorkelling spot off the beach there, accompanied by my guide which was a first for snorkelling! You can also go for a walk into the village where Alex and Marcus invest much money in the school and community projects, or you can go fishing for your lunch, take a picnic out....you would certainly not get bored here and the friendly and professional staff always seem to be around for advice on what to do next or help you with deciding which cocktail to try for your sundowner! There are so many different places to eat here whether it's on the beach, at the jetty bar, or the pool bar up the hill - or simply in the cool and breezy thatched dining room.
Zanzibar is where I noticed the biggest change - 14 years ago you struggled to find somewhere to stay but now there are hundreds of hotels to choose from, some of them very big, the Stone Town was very busy and full of tourists, and the airport is clearly struggling to deal with the international flights that now fly in and out of this island airport. Sadly it seemed that the sea has been severely overfished as well and the lodges often fail to find fresh seafood from the many fishermen. However, despite these changes and overcrowding, there are a couple of lovely retreats to hide away and enjoy the ocean views. The newest one which only opened last year is Matemwe Retreats which is just 3 private suites where you have a huge amount of outdoor living space where your private chef will chat to you about what you want to eat that day and you have your own private pool and roof terrace above your room with fantastic ocean views (and you can see over to Mnemba Island), whilst there is plenty of shaded space for relaxing and eating downstairs outside your Swahili style cool bathroom and air conditioned room. The Palms is also a quiet haven with just six spacious villas and exceptional food and service - you have your own allocated sala and day bed on the edge of the beach - whilst they are building a 30 bedroomed Oman-inspired lodge next door this did not seem to disturb the peace and tranquility there and their spa remained a cool and peaceful retreat.
After leaving the chaos, heat and humidity of Zanzibar airport it was off to the north and the cooler heights of Tarangire National Park. This is not the best time of year to visit Tarangire but we still saw a variety of animals including a poor impala abandoned up a tree, whilst the elusive leopard that put it there was not going to show itself. We also saw some lions hiding under a bush and many giraffe and elephants. Our camp, Olivers, is in the southern part of the park in the riverine and swamp landscape and there are very few other camps around so we hardly saw another car - the highlight for me was my morning shower which had the most fantastic view over the bush and I watched as a lone bull elephant walked towards my tent where he obviously fancied the tree about 3 metres from my shower as his breakfast. Luckily one of the guides came to see if I had overslept so he was able to escort me up to the mess tent for my brekky rather than missing out! The lovely tents are all very well spaced out and you do get the feeling that you are very much on your own here! A great bush feel to this camp.
Onto Ngorongoro Crater, one of the busiest areas in the north. We were lucky to be trying out the recently opened (December 2007) Lemala Luxury Tented Camp. Whilst it is on the eastern rim of the crater it does not have a view down into the crater but this did not seem to matter as it is in a lovely spot surrounded by acacia trees and you can hear the bells of the local Masai cattle in the hills around. You can take a walk into the nearby local village if you want as well. With eight tents this is a lovely option and fairly unique in this area, a welcome change to the bigger lodges on crater rim, and the camp has been very well planned and built and there is a great deal of attention to detail within the tents. They are very comfortable as well as being hugely practical in terms of furniture and space and the heaters in the tents kept us all very cosy and warm which is all important at this altitude. The location of this camp on the east means that you share the road down into the crater with one other lodge which is the only lodge nearby and it means you avoid the more crowded area to the south and west of the crater.
From here it was a long, and largely off-road, drive up to Suyan Camp in the Loliondo area - our guide was Jacob (from Sokwe) and how he found his way there I will never quite know as we drove over vast open and very barren plains. Jacob was sad to see the area so dry and empty of animals and global warming was a subject that reared its ugly head many times. There should have been wildebeest and zebra heading across these plains to the south for water, but they are still waiting for their rains and the wildebeest were long gone and we later heard that they were to the south west of the Serengeti by this time. We could see the single file tracks that they have etched into the landscape over the years, but we saw only a small group of them all day long. However, soon after we stopped for lunch under a welcome acacia tree we spotted a huge pride of lionesses with 3 young and curious cubs which was a real treat. How they survived in this huge dry expanse I don't quite know but they were certainly a little more shy and curious than some I have seen. As we continued north we started to see more and more animals including a large group of 17 hyenas, a huge group of around 70 mostly young ostriches, plenty of gazelle leaping around in front of us and magnificent eland thinking they could outrun us! It was quite exhilirating to be driving along next to these wild animals in the middle of nowhere. As we neared the camp the landscape slowly turned into rolling green hills that were dotted with giraffe and zebra, and then nomadic Masais. It was great to get to camp after a day in the car and it is in a spectacular location where you can go on some great walks and in addition to seeing game you can see some ancient rock paintings nearby on foot. Normally you would fly up to this area, but I have to say that I really enjoyed our drive in and out of this area as there was just no-one else around. Even if we didn't see a huge variety of game it was a stunning drive and when we did see something it was pretty spectacular and in large numbers, and just for our eyes only! After leaving the main road out of the Crater, we didn't see another car the whole way up to Suyan!
Then it was on to southern Serengeti which involved heading back over the plains of the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area where we saw 2 male lions lazing in the morning sun, more hyenas and a hyena trying to chase off the vultures from its kill of a baby wildebeest. Ol Donyo Lengai was spewing out volcanic ash from its crater and producing a rather ominous looking cloud over the horizon. And when we got to the southern Serengeti it was like a dust bowl, so much so that we did not really open our roof hatch that day. Lake Ndutu, which should have water in it at this time, was bone dry. Again the rains are being eagerly awaited and there was not much sign of animal activity, and certainly no migration. But it was still quite busy in the park and it was not until we got to Sayari Camp that I felt we had lost the other tourists. What a lovely camp in a beautiful setting, very comfortable tents with a comfortable sofa outside to enjoy the view down onto the plains in the distance. There was a great atmosphere here and the private dining tables in the mess tent made for a very jolly and noisy evening all round. The manager here was great and very chatty and clearly very experienced and ran a tight ship. The Serengeti is a huge area and you will no doubt see great game there and this is definitely the nicest of the camps I had time to visit in the park....excellent food too!
So all in all, Tanzania now provides a huge mix of areas and camps to visit and there are still so many other relatively untouched parks to explore in this huge country. The Selous is definitely one of my new favourite places and Pemba is also a winner location for some great beach time. Whilst some of the camps I saw were a little in need of some TLC I would put this largely down to end-of-season fatigue. They will now (March) all be taking down their camps, hoping that their much needed long rain appears soon and doing lots of maintenance work over the next couple of months. It is a beautiful and vast country with views to match, classic Africa. There is something for everyone here and still so much more to see.......
-----Original Message-----
Millie Summers
Africa, Country Director
Travel House, 51 Castle Street, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 1QD
T 01285 650011 F 01285 885888 Millie@steppestravel.co.uk
http://www.steppestravel.co.uk
posted by Millie Summers at 4/03/2008
