j + j travelblog

Farewell Tanzania

Today -- after getting a partial refund from "Sunny" Safari after a 30 minute bitch session -- we left Tanzania for Kenya, hoping to book a safari in the highest point of high season on less than 24 hrs notice. In keeping with tradition:

Stuff we found endearing about Tanzania:

• The People: The friendliest we've met thus far in Africa
• Swahili: with a greeting like "Jambo" (hello), a response like "Mambo" (how are you) and a retort of "Poa" (cool), how could you not love the language?
• Konyagi: yummy locally produced gin (and this comes from a man who generally hates gin)
• Stonetown, Zanzibar: a magical place
• Just about any beach, Zanzibar: the color of the water was impossibly turquoise
• Ngoro Ngoro crater: see below!
• Ginger & spiced tea

Stuff falling somewhere on the amusing / annoying / disturbing scale:

• The "White Wallet Syndrome": my term for describing what any vendor - and most people in just about any service industry - saw you as (a large, walking wallet which might dispense large amounts of shillings if you harassed them enough)
• "The Art Factory": the art we saw in Tanz, including necklaces, Tinga Tinga paintings, etc. looked almost exactly the same, which was a bit of a bummer and started to get monotonous when hawkers harangued you to come into their shop ("free to look!")
• Reckless drivers: we met two couples who had been in vans that rolled -- one of which got into their vehicle 10 minutes after we did at the Moz border