Livorno

At the end of July we spent a week in Livorno - a port city on the western coast of italy. A friend gave us a downtown apartment to stay in and from there we explored the city, the coast, and neighboring towns.
I can summarize our Livorno week with the three italian words I learned there - spazzatura, scottatura, and ciccala. Increadible seafood, great beaches (which caused G's tragic sunburn), but a rather dirty and smelly city. There are some very nice areas of Livorno though, including the Venexia quarter with its canals and romantic restaurants, as well as the Fortezza Vecchia, which has good sunset views over the water, a bar, restaurant, and open-air concert stage. We also took up to bus to Montenero one day, which is a beautiful small town just outside of the city. It is very steep journey uphill - the bus only takes you so far and then you have to walk or take the funicolo. We took the bus to the main square and then hiked up. The breathtaking views at the top are well worth the trip! a panoramic view of countryside and the sea, including several islands dotting the deep blue of the ocean. After a coffee at one of the piazza cafes, we decided to keep walking and eventually ended up in a neighboring village called Castelaccio. From here it was not much further to the sea so we ate some blackberries on the side of the road and kept going. We made it to the main road along the sea just in time to catch the last bus back to Livorno.

homemade Samosas

despite everyones discouraging remarks about the difficulty of making samosas, i tried making them last night and it worked! they turned out really good and they are healthy too :) we used the same dough that is used for making chapati bread (whole wheat flour, water, oil, salt) and we added in a little bit of flaxseed meal. i tried to make a vegetarian filling the first time but it didnt taste that good - basically, potatoes, peas, and spices - so the second time i added ground beef to the mixture and now they are really great. also, i sauteed them in olive oil instead of deep frying them. this worked well except that i splashed hot oil on myself a couple of times.

travel advice

for anyone who is interested in travelling to East Africa... i highly recommend going to Tanzania! it was definitely one of the best trips i've ever taken. if you do go, don't buy the footprint guide because it is really terrible. i dont think the author ever spent much time in tanzania, and a lot of the information she gives is completely inaccurate. you're much better off going with the lonely planet guide - it seems to offer better information, perhaps due to the fact that it was written by several authors rather than just one. another guide book, which i didn't have a chance to use but which sounds like it's very good is the bradt guide to tanzania.
if you are looking for a cheap place to stay in dar es salaam, check out the YWCA hostel. it is right in the center of dar and is really cheap - especially if you ask for the family room which has two beds but is only 8,000 shillings. breakfast is included! (nothing special - just the normal bread and butter, a slice of watermelon, and coffee/tea - but i grew quite fond of it). the only downside is that the main dala-dala stop is located right outside of the hostel so it is generally very loud at night. bring ear plugs! also the mosquito nets are not always in the best shape so bring ducktape.
whatever you do, don't miss going to zanzibar!! it is so beautiful and definitely worth the 2 hour ferry ride to get there. i think the best time to go is end of may because the peak season hasnt started yet and so the prices are still reasonable. you can get a banda for two directly on the beah for $25 per night (kendwa rocks is a really great place on the north beaches, and mt zion bungalows on the eastern coast). even though may is technically still the rainy season, it barely rained at all while we were there - the clouds came and went very quickly so we had lots of time for sunbathing and swimming.
if you are interested in hiking - the usambara mountains are really beautiful. it takes a while to get there by bus but if you have a few days i think it is worth the trip. unfortunately i didnt' have enough time to explore the area, but there are supposed to be really nice hiking trails between all of the villages around lushoto. there is also a cultural tourism bureau here that offers guides/tours of the area.

goodbye Tanzania

well, today is our last full day in tanzania. sad and hard to believe!

since last weekend we spent a few more days relaxing in moshi with jan. on wednesday we went to arusha national park and did a driving plus walking safari. the driving safari was incredible because of the many giraffes we saw - i found these to be the most beautiful and graceful animals we've encountered. the walking tour was not as impressive because it was rather short and only allowed us to view a few water buffalo from a distance and hike up to a small waterfall. the next day, on thursday, we did a cultural tourism program to see a coffee farm. all of the money raised through this program goes to the local coffee farmers. we left early in the morning to get up to this village on the slopes of kilimanharo. its a really beautiful area but unfortunately it was cloudy and overcast (as it often is) so we didnt have much of a view. still it was really interesting because they took us through the whole process of coffee-making from planting the seeds to picking the red berries, putting them through this oldfashioned press in order to separate the shells, roasting, grinding with mortar/pestle and finally we got to taste the coffee we made. after that we had lunch and then they took us to some old caves where the chagga people had hid during wars with the masai. we had to crawl the whole way because the caves were so low and without the flashlight leading us it would have been pitch black inside.

on saturday morning we left to head back towards dar and i thought that since lushoto was on the way (in the usambara mountains) we could stop there to see another area of tanzania. unfortunately it looked much closer on the map than it was in real life. so we had a long bus ride to get there, for the most part on very windy mountain roads. the town is really nice though and in a beautiful location. unfortunately we both didnt feel that good when we got there (not because of the bus ride but i think because of the sip of local banana beer we had taken the day before, after the coffee tour). i had weird stomach pains and felt really tired so we just took a nap. after that we went for a walk but it wasnt enough time to do the hiking that i had originally planned to do. there are supposed to be really beautiful hikes in the area, but i guess i'll have to do those next time. anyway, we just had a relaxing dinner (chicken and chips - the only item on the menu, and we saw the live chicken being brought into the kitchen before it came out on our plates) and a quiet evening of playing cards followed. sunday morning we got on the bus back to dar - a really crazy experience. since lushoto is not on the main road, they dont have any of the nice big buses leaving from there. we took the biggest bus possible but i think it was still one of the lowest classes possible. it was completely packed and we had to use all of our strength just to get on, plus we had to fight (literally) for some time before we got our seats (which were reserved). it ended up being an 8 hour bus ride to dar, which we were not prepared for at all. that bus could win an award for slowest bus ever - even all of the dala-dalas were passing us! anyway, when we got to dar we treated ourselves to a nice indian dinner with red wine. the indian food in dar is really great.

so today is our last day and after that busride we are too tired to do any more travelling. so decided to stay in dar and do some souvenir shopping and maybe sneak into a fancy hotel to use the swimming pool. we'll see. right now it looks like a beautiful day - completely blue sky which we havent had in a while, in the mountains the mornings were always cloudy. hopefully tonight we will have a nice sunset since it will be our last in tanzania.

more around Moshi

we've had such a great weekend! jan took us camping in a really beautiful place outside of moshi. its called maji moto (hot springs) and is a really beautiful place for swimming. the water is not really hot though, just warm, but it is crystal clear and when you go under with goggles you can see everything. the place is in the middle of nowhere... we drove through some small villages along a really bumpy road, the landscape was really dry and rocky, and then all of a sudden you end up in this little oasis of mangrove trees with the beautiful spring in the middle. so we camped under the mangrove trees, swam in the water, drank beer around the fire, etc. was a very relaxing weekend. except we all have a ton of bug bites - they are not mosquito bites and i'm not sure what they are. maybe even a kind of poison ivy or something? hopefully it will go away soon. actually i was always wondering about those traditional medicine stands along the side of the road, so just now sandy and i stopped at one and asked if they have anything to get rid of the itching. he gave me some weird sawdust-like powder and said to put it in my tea once in the afternoon and once in the evening. so we'll see if that works. because the cortizone sure doesnt. well anyway, to go on with my story, the weekend was also really fun because i got to drive! jan wanted to take his motorbike so that he could ride on the dirt roads which meant that one of us had to drive his car. sandy didnt want to drive and the two kenyans that we went with (colleagues of jans, really funny and wonderful people) they said they could drive but didnt have their liscences. and according to them a white person never gets pulled over here, whereas black people always do. anyway, so it was my first time driving on the left side of the road! also my first time driving on such bumpy dirt roads, sometimes crossing small streams, etc (he has an SUV of course).

well now we are back in moshi relaxing a little bit. we originally wanted to go down to climb mt. hanang but it is such a pain to get there that now we are thinking of just doing some hiking around here. we'll do a walking tour in arusha national park and maybe another cultural tourism program around here. we did one a few days ago in arusha... it is a really great program because you get to know some of the local villages and people, and all the money you pay goes directly t the community. usually they use the money to build schools and the one that we went on - to the n'giresi village - already helped build a primary school in the village and they are now working on a secondary school. so we got to wander around the foothills of mt. meru, have lunch with the chairman of the village, drink tea in one of the traditional houses of the wa-arusha, and walk to a waterfall.

Moshi & Arusha

we've had a really nice and relaxing last few days in moshi. our friend there has a really nice apartment in town and we've gotten really spoiled with warm showers and really good (aka not instant) coffee for breakfast. we've also been eating eggs and cheese and real milk for the first time in weeks so its a big change from our usual ugali and tomato sauce diet. on sunday we went with jan to go for a walk in the foothills of kilimajaro. every second sunday all of the expats in and around moshi get together to go for these walks - one person organizes it by marking a trail (in a different place each week) and then people either run or walk the trail, usuallly lasts about 2 hours and in the end you meet back up for a beer and to watch the sun set. we were really lucky because we had incredible weather and really beautiful views of the sun setting over kilimanjaro. on monday sandy and i went back to mwanga to visit some people there and that was a lot of fun. tuesday we came up to arusha and met up with lawrence, one of our camp leaders. he spent the whole day with us showing us around the city so that was really cool. we were planning on going down to climb mt. hanang but then lawrence said that his friend is giving a concert tomorrow, traditional dance and music, so we decided to stay around here for that. during the day we will do a cultural tourism program where we visit some of the surrounding villages and take a walk to a waterfall nearby.

Sadaani National Park & Mwanga

Saadani National Park - what a crazy experience. we attempted our first national park visit here and it did not turn out the way we'd hoped. Our driver and 'guide' were basically two kids - 16 and 21 years old - and they had each only been to the park once before. Because of all the rain, the roads were terrible and we couldnt make it through the park - not for lack of trying though and Michael was really a great driver. Anyway, we slept in Saadani village (a very small village inside the boundary of the national park) on a plot of grass at the edge, actually next to some ruins (the ruins of a German missionary house, we were told). We expected a nice quiet night of sleep since we in such an isolated location, far from any cities or cars; for some reason though, this was the loudest night yet. There was no electricity in the village but they had set up some kind of generator so they could watch TV and they blasted the volume until late into the night. As soon as this stopped, the woman who was living in a part of the ruins next to our campsite (a witch? an outcast? or just pissed off because we set up our tent too close to her house?) turned up her radio as loud as possible and left it on all night long. That, on top of the fact that I had no sleeping bag and was sleeping on the ground with nothing but my stolen airport blanket to cover me, made it the worst night yet. We did have a nice campfire before going to bed though, and interesting conversations with Samwe and Micheal about the Tanzanian educational system and other things. Samwe also entertained us with his obsession over Mr. Bean. At any rate, the sunrise the next morning was beautiful. We left very early but again because of the poor road conditions couldnt make it very far. We saw some giraffes in the distance but couldnt get close enough. So overall it was rather disappointing but, still, an adventure.
So now we are back in our Dar home - the YWCA - making our daily trips to the supermarket and internet cafe, and hanging out a bit. We went out to a bar last night with an American guy from the youth hostel. Played pool which was really hilarious because none of us could hit any balls. didnt help that the balls are also much smaller here. Plus the fact that our taxi driver who was on my team kept aiming for any ball whether it was stripes or solid didnt really help. In the end, we miraculously managed to win though.
Mwanga - things are going great. the workcamp went by so quickly though and today is our last day already. we've been working on the hospital/health center every morning this week. basically we help carry the bricks from a big pile to the building. so as you can imagine i've been sore all week and my muscles are HUGE ;) but really it's a lot of fun. the mornings were usually cloudy which was really nice. actually the weather is beautiful here - not at all humid like it was in dar es salaam. the air is pretty dry, it hasnt rained at all, and there is usually a nice breeze during the day. mwanga is really beautiful because its situated at the base of the pare mountains. yesterday we drove up to a really small village up in the mountains - it was so beautiful! really great views and tons of different trees - eucalyptus lined the road for much of the way up and in the village i saw a jackfruit tree! in the afternoon we went to visit this HIV/AIDS awareness youth group in mwanga - they travel around the region promoting awareness by singing and dancing. so we got to talk to them and then they performed for us and we all ended up dancing with them.

Zanzibar Beaches

zanzibar is so beautiful! we actually decided to stay an extra two days so we are still here. we originally planned to take the ferry yesterday afternoon but we realized that we both dreaded going back to dar and since it is so much nicer here we thought we may as well stay for the weekend. we'll go back tomorrow and stay with charles and ancilla for a few days, do some day trips to bagamoyo, etc. and then on saturday our volunteer program starts.

so we spent two days on the north beaches - Aziz, the guy that we met in stone town, is friends with the owner of a hotel (Kendwa Rocks) so we got a good deal there. the beach was incredibly beautiful - clear blue water and really white clean sand. we had our own banda (small hut) right next to the beach for $25. it was very relaxing and we spent all day on the beach. as we were on the bus back to the ferry, we spontaneously decided to stay and explore the east beaches, which is where we had originially planned on going. the drive down here was really nice because the landscape and vegetation is quite different here. and we ended up in a really cool hotel with an eclectic style of bungalows on the beach (called Mt. Zion Bungalows). there are also pine trees on the beach here which i really like. also there are more stones and a lot of seaweed on the beach here, all of which we thought was very nice until we got closer and saw there is also a lot of trash mixed in. so that was rather disappointing. but anyway, the people are incredibly friendly... since its the low season there are very few people here. actually at our hotel here there is only one other person - Katie, a girl from portland oregon, she is doing her residency there. so the three of us eat dinner together, etc. there are very few people working at the hotel but they are all extremely attentive, always telling us karibu, you are welcome, enjoy, do you like it, etc. last night they made a fire and sat around it playing the guitar, drums, and singing. everyone is so musical here. they randomly break out into song at any time, and they often make up the words as they go long. i'm especially impressed by that because i'm not musical at all. i tried to play the drums but since i have no rhythm it didnt work too well. there is also a group of young girls from the village (Jambiani) and they always come hang out around the beach. yesterday sandy and i were lying in a hammock reading and all of a sudden looked up to see that we were completely surrounded by all these girls. they stared at us and we stared back. they were also eating some strange fruits from the trees, but the fruit is very tough and stringy so they spit it back out - i think they just get the taste and a little juice from the fruits. at any rate, it was very bizarre how they just chewed right in our faces, staring at us in curiosity. then since we smiled at them they jumped into the hammock and started swinging with us.
next time i go to zanzibar i would love to go to the International Film Festival! unfortunately we werent there are the right time but who knows, maybe someday...

Zanzibar Stone Town

So, we are in Zanzibar! Its really beautiful - we've had some short rains but the sun always comes out again very quickly. We've walked around exploring Stone Town which is really nice but rather touristy. good thing that it is the low season because i dont think we would like it much if it were overfilled with tourists. the downside though is that everyone is overly pushy to sell things and offer services. everyone is constantly after our money. so it is definitely not as cheap as i expected because they are always trying to rip us off.

we went on a spice tour yesterday and it was incredible. i tried to write down all the plants that we saw when i got back but i already couldnt remember them all. i took lots of pictures but a lot of the trees look similar so i might not be able to recognize them when i get back! anyway, some of the cooler things we saw: vanilla!!, nutmeg/mace, ginger, jackfruit!!!, turmeric, cassava, taro,cinammon tree, pepper, lemongrass, starfruit, coffee, curry tree.

after the spice tour we walked around town - saw the palace museum, the old slave market, hamnani baths.

the sun goes down really early which is unfortunate because we dont like to walk around much after dark. it usually goes down around 6 already!! but we did get to enjoy a really nice sunset yesterday - we went up to the rooftop bar of a fancy hotel to see it. had to pay outrageous prices for a beer but it was worth it anyway. it was so peaceful just to sit and look out over the water, watching the sun going down. we also met someone there who has lived in zanzibar his whole life but he went to a university in tanzania so he is very educated and we had a really good conversation with him. we talked about the education system here, poverty, the government, etc. thats something we cant really do with the tour guides or people on the street because their english is often not good enough and/or they dont think about those things, or are just preoccupied with selling things to us.

afterwords we ate grilled squid from a street vendor in the fordhoni gardens - next to the water - but both sandy and i felt kind of sick from it last night/this morning. it just didnt sit well in my stomach. but other than that i've really been feeling fine! havent gotten diarrhea yet so thats a good sign.

today we are going to the beach!! we cant wait. it will be nice to get away from the crowds and relax a little bit. although stone town is nowhere nearly as crowded as it was in dar.

first few days in Tanzania

we made it to dar es salaam. our flight here was fine - incredibly nice airline with our own tvs! - but we were completely exhausted by the time we got here. i couldnt sleep much at all on the plane. but we got here and went out of the airport to look for niwas family. we didnt see any signs with our names so after a while we decided to take a taxi to the youth hostel downtown. we stayed there overnight and then yesterday morning sandy bought her sim card so i called charles. he said he will come to our hostel before noon - so we waited for almost an hour but he didnt come. then we went around the city ourselves and came back around 5. all of a sudden he called us on the cell phone and said he'll be there in 10 minutes. and guess what - it turns out that they use a different time system here!?? everything is shifted by 6 hours. so when you say noon it means 6 (!!?). crazy crazy place. but its really great so far. the city is not really our favorite place - it was incredibly loud all night and we are dripping in sweat all the time. its very crowded and the people drive like crazy. but they are also extremely friendly and everyone always tries to talk to us (mostly trying to get us to take taxis or buy stuff from them, but first we have to exchange greetings, etc). the coolest thing yesterday was when we went to the fish market on the beach - very stinky but incredibly lively and colorful. all kinds of fish, people scaling them, frying them, etc. it is weird though because we stand out so much and everyone always stares at us. also its unfortunate because then we dont feel comfortable pulling out our expensive cameras and taking pictures. which means we really havent taken many pictures at all. i think most of my pictures will end up being of nature rather than cities/people. so anyway, last night we went out with charles (giovanni's friends brother) and it was really great. he was sooo nice and even paid for us!! we actually wanted to pay but we didnt have enough shillings with us, so we said we would pay next time. and it was funny because i told sandy that he doesnt drink because i thought they were religious since giovanni's friend doesnt drink - but after we all ordered juice, he asked us if we drink beer and i said yes, of course, we're german after all. so after that he ordered beer for us. then he took us to another place (by the way, these were all fancy touristy places that he took us to - i guess he wanted to show us the "nice" places in dar) and we ate at this next place too. our first time eating ugali!! it was awesome. well it doesnt taste like much but its nice with different sauces. i had it with beef stew. but anyway, since it was kind of a touristy place, they really didnt have ugali on the menu, they usually have fish&chips, pizza, etc. on the menus - i guess also because everyone eats ugali at home so they dont usually want it when they go out - but the chef made it extra for us since we asked for it. the portions are huge though and i couldnt even finish it. ok so now we are going to catch the ferry to go over to zanzibar.