About Africa / Tanzania

About Africa:

Continent Number 6 - Africa.  

Must see items - a wildlife safari (Tanzania), Sahara desert (Egypt), Victoria Falls (Zambia/Zimbabwe), and Cape of Good Hope - though not truly the southernmost point of Africa, which 150 miles further east (South Africa.)

Can you fit this all in one trip?  Not really.  So in the end, we settled on the top two - a safari in northwest Tanzania and a river cruise in Egypt - one week each.

For many centuries, cartographers have drawn maps that show Africa (as well as South America) to be much smaller than they actually are.  Africa is the second largest continent after Asia, and covers 20% of earth's land mass.  Check out the true size and how many countries would fit inside it: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/problem-with-our-maps/

See how many of the world's countries fit comfortably within it:

Africa straddles the equator, which passes just north of Tanzania, and extends from northern temperate to southern temperate zones.  Top-most part of Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) is about the same latitude as San Francisco, whereas the southern tip of Africa is almost the same level as the southern part of mainland Australia. 

By all accounts, humans originated here - probably in Ethiopia, about 1000 miles northeast of Tanzania.  Oldupai Gorge, as correctly spelled, in East Serengeti Plains within NCA (Ngorongoro Conservation Area) is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world, where you find human evolution of 2 million years in one place.  Homo habilis, probably the first early human species, occupied Oldupai Gorge approximately 1.9 million years ago (mya); then came a contemporary australopithecine, Paranthropus boisei, 1.8 mya, then Homo erectus, 1.2 mya. Homo sapiens is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago.  (There is still a significant gap in between.  And in case you wondered, no, we apparently did not descend from the apes.)

The six layers of human evolution in one place.  The plants in front are Oldupai.

Oldupai Gorge is worth about half an hour stop, which many tourists make it in to a lunch stop as well - either on their way to, or returning from, Serengeti.  Not far (about 28 miles), on the South side of dirt road B144 is Laetoli, another important archaeological site.  How do archaeologists stumble up on these sites in the middle of nowhere has always been a mystery to me.

About Tanzania: 

Tanzania, so named when Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged in 1946, has population around 50 million.  Although the official language is Swahili, English is widely spoken - like much of the rest of the world.

Its flag, created by combining the flags of the former two countries, represents the natural vegetation(Green), rich mineral deposits(yellow stripes), Tanzanian people(Black), and numerous lakes and rivers found in Tanzania as well as the Indian Ocean(Blue.)

The flag does represent the country well.  About 38% of the land area is set aside for conservation.  Naturally, tourism is a growing industry.  It is still the third behind agriculture and mining/construction.

Much of its population is concentrated near the northern border and on the east coast.  

Masai people (more so in Kenya than in Tanzania) take pride in their historical way of living and reject modern technology and conveniences.  They do not want/like their pictures taken - them, their villages or their livestock.  "They will snatch your phone away," we were warned.  The exception, of course, is if you visit their village, where they would be happy to take you around, dance for you and let you take pictures for money.  On guided tours, that is one of the "required" cultural stops.  We were able to skip that.

As for rejecting modern technology and conveniences, exception applies to cell phones and riding buses for local transportation.  Buses and rickshaws run on Highway A23 from Arusha.  They will pick up people anywhere along the way.  Every couple of weeks, Masai - who live in villages in the bush away from the highway, will congregate near towns along A23 to purchase and sell groceries and supplies.  A farmers market.  

Shopping:

I rarely shop, in general, and even less so on my trips - mainly because I am carrying only a backpack with not much room to spare.  I do however have an eye open for something unusual or unique that I might be interested in - for myself or someone else.

When you are on guided tours, there are obligatory shopping stops - and occasionally lunch stops - along the way.  If you are in a big group like a 40-seater bus, you just can't escape it; but a small group has much more latitude in deciding whether to stop.  Our guide kept asking us about some shopping or "optional" activities - for additional cost, of course - and I kept saying NO for much of the trip.  The optional activity on this trip was to visit and experience local culture.

One thing I wanted to see was Tanzanite, (so named by Tiffany & Co. after Tanzania, the country in which it was discovered.)  These very attractive shiny blue (appearing alternately sapphire blue, violet and burgundy depending on crystal orientation; occasionally yellow and reddish brown) precious stones are found only in Tanzania.  It was discovered in the Mererani Hills 10-15 miles southwest of JRO (Kilimanjaro) airport, only in 1967.  Naturally formed Tanzanite is extremely rare and is endemic only to the Mererani Hills.  It is usually a reddish brown in its rough state, requiring heat treatment to bring out the blue violet of the stone.  In 2002, the American Gem Trade Association chose Tanzanite as a December birthstone, the first change to their birthstone list since 1912.