This is a post to suggest Tanzania to all our traveller friends  as a possible trip destinations in the near or far away future. That’s because January and February are amongst the best months to visit this country together with June to October

Why Tanzania? For a lot of reasons. Extraordinary people, many different cultures and ethnic group to understand more about this immense continent – Africa, some of the most stunning parks and natural reserve of the world (Serengeti, Ngoro Ngoro), the chance of going easily off the beaten track to some remote destinations (Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganica), and, if you’re physically fit, the opportunity of climbing Kilimanjaro, being at 5,895 metres (19,341 feet) the tallest mountain of the whole African continent.

And then there’s Zanzibar Island, wich is gorgeous, but don’t fly straight there. this would be an offence to the magical African Skies, to the bright red dusty tracks, to the Bantu, Maasai, Sukuma, Nyamwezi, Chagga, Gogo, Kutu, Mwera…

If you want to travel helping the local economy avoiding the ugly western tour operators take a look at our page Suggestions – Responsible Travel. You will find detailed description of the local agency (our friends in Arusha) – www.ilmaasai.com – they could help you. Don’t forget to read info on the Mto Wa Mbu local association. It’s a beautiful project that we have personally experienced.

This is a post to make you dream, in these rainy February days (at least in our town – Turin).

Suggestions

Images – Pictures

Maps and Itineraries

Tanzania – Kilimanjaro

Well, after months of training in our mountains (the Alps) we’re ready to face the big mountain: the Kilimanjaro. From our point of view (we’re not mountaineers, only trekkers) it’s a lot. We’ve been preparing this adventure for months, we have choose to do one of the least followed of the 7 routes to Kilimanjaro: the Rongai Route.

It’s a 6 days trek starting from a small village near the Kenya border. Our guide Gabriel is great and so are the guys we hired from the local company  ilMaasai Expeditions (you can’t do this climb alone, by law you have to hire guide and porters). The first three days are quite relaxing, if you’re at least a bit fit. After 4000m /13100 ft of altitude, things are different, the nights are cold, and there’s only a tent for shelter. There’s nothing technical about this climb, not even ropes or crampons, it’s just very long, we’ve walked 6-8 hour a day to get to the last camp at 4800m. / 15738ft. for the last night before the ascent to the crater.

Then, from there, we started at midnight for the serious day: it’s about 1100mt / 3280ft ascent to the top of  Kili, then a 2000mt / 6500 ft. descent di Horombo Hut all in one day (it’s about 14 hours). The ascent seems infinite, it’s bitterly cold (to the top there were -20 celsius) , but in six hours we finally got to the top, and man, i cannot describe what we saw from there, the dawn from the crater is magical, although you can only stay there for a few minutes, it’s too cold, and so we left that fantastic vision behind and started descending fast.

A word about Porters

It’s been a beautiful adventure, thanks to the guys who brought us there, carrying everything including water up there. They deserve a better pay, some of them weren’t wearing  proper clothes or shoes for that altitude and coldness, so if you go there, please bring with you some extra jackets or boots (something you don’t use anymore). You can donate it to this association www.mountainexplorers.org. They volunteer on raising funds and clothes to ease the job of this guys that carry 20 kilos of gear or more somtimes for a dollar a day.

After Kili, we went to visit the National Parks of Tanzania : Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro, Serengeti. The pictures explain better than words the magnificent things we’ve seen, these are really the last wild areas were you can see planet earth as it would probably looked thousands of years ago.

Then we left the organized tour and proceeded from Mwanza on the Victoria Lake by bus toward south to Shinyanga and then east by train (a terrible train!) to Kigoma on Lake Tanganica. In Kigoma we finally found the real Africa: in town there was only another white person except us. Our intention was to go visit the Mahale Mountains National Park, which is one of the last reserve where you can see the Chimpanzee in the wild. But we wanted to go by boat and not by plane (far too expensive), but we made some miscalculation on the time we needed, so we had to change our minds and head to Zanzibar for the last part of our trip : relax!

In Zanzibar we stayed in a beautiful bungalows on the south coast (the least crowded) for 4 days, then we went to Stone Town for a brief tour and finally back home…

Africa is a special, special place. It catches your soul like no other place… so as you will see in the next year we had to return to see our friends there  and those unbelievable skies, African Skies

Here’s our:

Map and itinerary

Pictures of Tanzania

26 august 2006 – Turin – London – Dar es Salaam – British Airways flight

27 august 2006 – Dar es Salaam – Arusha – Air Tanzania flight – Arusha – around the city

28 august 2006 – Arusha – around the city – preparing Kilimanjaro trekking

29 august 2006 – Kilimanjaro trekking – Day 1 – Rongai (1800 mt) – Simba Camp (2700 mt)

30 august 2006 – Day 2 – Second Cave – Kikeleva (3700 mt)

31 august 2006 – Day 3 – Kikeleva (3700 mt) – Tarn Hut – Mawenzi (4200 mt)

1 september 2006 – Day 4 – Tarn Hut (4200 mt) – Kibo Hut (4750 mt) – Gilman’s Point (5710) – Uhuru Peak (5895 mt)

2 september 2006 – Day 5 – Uhuru Peak (5895 mt) – Kibo Hut (4750 mt) – Horombo Camp (3700 mt)

3 september 2006 – Day 6 – Horombo Camp (3700 mt) – Marangu Gate (1900 mt) – Arusha

4 september 2006 – Safari – jeep and tent camp – Arusha – Tarangire National Park

5 september 2006 – Safari – jeep and tent camp – Lake Manyara National Park near Mto Wa Mbu

6 september 2006 – Mto Wa Mbu – village tour

7 september 2006 – Safari – jeep and tent camp – Ngoro Ngoro National Reserve

8 september 2006 – Safari – jeep and tent camp – Serengeti National Park

9 september 2006 – Safari – jeep and tent camp – Serengeti National Park

10 september 2006 –  Lake Victoria – Mwanza – around the city

11 september 2006 – from Mwanza to Tabora by bus

12 september 2006 – from Tabora to Kigoma by train – lake Tanganica

13 september 2006 – Kigoma – lake Tanganica – around the city

14 september 2006 – from Kigoma to Dar es Salaam by airplane – Air Tanzania

15 september 2006 – from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar by airplane – Stone Town – Jambiani (east coast)

16 – 19 september 2006 – Jambiani (east coast)

20 september 2006 - from Jambiani to Stone Town – Spices tour

21 september 2006 – around Stone Town – to Dar es Salaam by plane – to Arusha by bus

22 september 2006 – from Arusha to Dar es Salaam by bus (10 hours)

23 september 2006 – Dar es Salaam – around the city

24 september 2006 – Dar es Salaam – London – Turin – Flight British Airways

Pictures – Tanzania

Tanzania – notes from the journey