The Truth About Dhows!

A dhow is a wooden sailing vessel used mainly in the Indian Ocean. They originated from Persia in the 6th century and by the 8th century they were strong enough to travel to China from East Africa. They are defined by their large triangular sails, which allows them to go faster than their original square sails.  Sadly, after the engine was invented, dhows changed to use motors rather than sails.  An interesting fact is that they are sewn together with coconut fibres rather than nails.  This is because the sailors believed that there were magnetic rocks athe bottom of the ocean that would pull the iron nails dowwn and sink the boat!
Originally dhows were double ended and could go forward and backwards, but now they are mostly square at one end..  There are many different types of dhows in two main catergories which are coastal and ocean going dhows.  Some of the coastal dhows were the Sambuc and the Jalbur:  the Sambuc was a double ended cargo ship that was capable of carrying 15-60 tons; the Jalbur was square ended ship that could carry 15-20 tons of passengers or cargo.  Some of the ocean goping dhows were the Bum and the Baghala:  the Bum could carry 20-200 tons in the 1800's, but by 1940 it could carry 60-300 tons; the Baghala was a very large dhow that could carry 150-250 tons and later upto 300 tons.
The main cargoe in the 10th to 19th century was exporting ivory from Africa to India and China.  In the 13th century they also exported Zimbabwe gold until the 16th century.  Before that, in the 8th and 9th century they had exported slaves to Iraq for cultivating, and again later in the 19th century they imported slaves to Zanzibar to work on date plantations and dive for pearls.  In the 13th centry until mid 20th century they also exported dried and salted fish.  Dhows have also carried dates to all countries in the Indian ocean.
The dhow era ended in the mid 20th century when safer and faster methods were introduced, for example steam.  Dhows are still used by local fisherman in East Africa and by tourism companies.  I had the awesome experience of sailing on a dhow in the Indian Ocean while snorkeling and looking for dolphins!

I learned most of this information at the House of Wonders Museum in Stone Town, Zanzibar.  There is a cool dhow right in the middle of the museum.

Princess Salme Spice Tour

Yesterday we went to "Beit el Mtoni", or house at the creek in persian. It is in persian because the first Sultan of Zanaibar was from Persia. He was called Sultan Seyyid Said Bin Sultan and his daughter, Princess Salme, was the princess of Zanzibar. Salme's mother was actually a slave to the Sultan, but Salme was born with all the priviledges of a free child. After going around the ruins of the palace and the persian baths, we went on a donkey ride around the gardens. Salme used to like riding by donkey cart. She also enjoyed taking a trip on a dhow, which we did next, sailing up the coast to Salme's uncle's home which has been restored. We had a coffee ceremoney here, but I didn't really enjoy the coffee. Afterwards, we took a dadala (a small taxi like a matatu) to the spice plantation that was once owned by the second Sultan of Zanzibar (Salme's brother.)

At the spice farm I learned about many different fruits and spices some of them were:
1. Cinnemon which is called the king of spice. It can cure 20 diseases including blood pressure, digestion, headaches, and asthma. You can use the roots, the bark and the leaves.
2. Cardamon is called the queen of spice and can cure 16 different diseases including the hiccups!
3. Cocoa is used to make chocolate
4. Lime, which was my favorite smell, helps prevent colds and headaches.
5. Starfruit really looks like a star shape and it is very high in vitamin C.
6. Kapok cotton comes from the kapok tree. The adolesent trees have spikes on their trunks to stop animals from climbing it. The cotton is used for plaster casts, pillow stuffing and to seal the dowhs at the seams.
7. Lemon grass is very healthy and used to make tea, as well as an scent to keep mosquitoes away.
8. Jackfruit was one of my favorites. It is very big and heavy with lots of single fruitlets like pineapple.  I had the chance to eat one and it is very sticky.
9. Ginger grows close to the ground and we only use the roots.
10. Pineapple also grows on the ground in small bushes, with one or two fruits per bush. If you cut off the top of it and plant it, you will get another bush.
At the end of our tour, a boy climbed up the coconut tree using just a short rope around his feet and shimmied up the tree to throw coconuts down for us to drink and eat. He aslo made a top hat and tie for our each of us.

I really enjoyed ths spice tour and I think I will eat more spices and tropical fruits now that I know about them!

Moivaro Coffee Plantation

I didn't find the coffee plantation very interesting because our guide wasn't very good, but I learned that:
- Coffee trees take 3 years to grow before they can be harvested.
- The coffee trees grow best in the shade so people plant them with banana trees to give them shade.
- The workers harvest them every 4 months.
- Coffee is one of Tanzania's top exports.
- The harvesters are paid $1 per day for each row of trees.
The process of going from tree to the market place is as follows:
1. The tree gets small white flowers which turn into beans. When the beans turn red they are ready to be picked.
2. Once they are picked, they are peeled with a small hand held machine, but the larger plantation companies send them straight to the factory for processing.
3. The beans are then dried in the sun for 14 days.
4. Next, the beans are roasted in an open fire fueled with charcoal.
5. The beans are then ground in another hand machine and turned into a powder for Aribica Coffee. Some beans are also exported with out being ground.

I also learned about avocado trees. I found out that it only takes 2 years until a tree bears fruit and four months for the fruit to ripen. The fruit is harvested by climbing into the tree and shaking it so that the ripe fruit falls down to the ground.

New Pictures!

I have had a chance to update the blog and have added many new pictures. Go back and check them out!

Dancing with the Maasai

After leaving Tarnagire National Park, Stanley arranged for us to visit a Maasia boma. We were greeted with lots of singing and dancing. After welcoming us, and suiting us up in Maasai cloths, they had me dance with them. It was very easy because all I had to do was jump up and down. My Mom was also dressed in cloth and traditional Maasai beaded necklace which she had to make bob up and down using her shoulders. She danced with the women, also jumping up and down. After dancing, they had me smear cow dung on one of the huts, and then they showed me inside the hut and talked to me about Maasai culture. I found that the inside was much bigger and nicer than Solitei's Maasia Bomba which was of a much older tradition.
My Mom told the kids the story of the Greedy Zebra (Stanley translated) and we bought some of their intricate bead work. When we left, they sung us another leaving song.

Lake Manyara National Park

Lake Manyara National Park has very different vegetation from anywhere else that we've been. It is more like a forest than a plain, and it has underwater streams that come out of the mountain. The water is very fresh and drinkable. The name Manayara came from the Maasai word Amanyara tree, of which there are many at the park. There are lots of interesting trees like the quinine tree which is used as an anti malaria drug. There are also wild mango trees, juvenile baobab and interwoven fig trees.
lake Manyara is home to only resident animals (non migratory) like baboons, zebras,

giraffes and elephants of which we saw many up very close. We were hoping to see the famous tree lions, but they are very scarce. We did see some wilder beast that were lighter in color than the migratory wilder beast because of the different vegetation that they eat.
The park is also good for birding, but we only saw the silvery cheeked horn bill. We didn't see the 1000's of flamingos as we had hoped because the water was so far away due to the rains.

Our guide, Stanley, still made it a lot of fun for us because he can make so many animal noises like wilder beast, zebra, hippo, lion and elephants. He was so funny and great guide to have!

Serengeti Plains

The Serengeti Plains were named by the Maasai because when they were in search of water they were walking through the plains for along time and called it "siringeti" which means 'endless plains" in Maasai language. It is a very appropriate name because it seems endless: it is 14,763 km squared, and it is the size of Connecticut or Northern Ireland!
As we entered the Serengeti we saw a huge bull elephant - he was at least 6 tons and he walked right in front of our jeep. We had to be very quiet. Awesome! We headed further into the central plains and saw extremely strange rock formations. They stuck out on the flat horizon. They are called kopjes (pronounced copies) and were formed because of volcanic activity in the area. The two most exciting things we saw on our first day in Serengeti were 2 leopards up in a tree (this was our number 5 of the big 5) and a pool of hippos with their mouths open, including 2 on land.
We stayed the night at mobile tented camp called Kati Kati. It was cool sleeping in a tent in the middle of the plains with the sound of lions around you. The next day we went out and saw more new things. It was fascinating when we watched 2 ostriches doing a mating dance and I learned from our guide that one ostrich egg can feed 15 people, and only Egyptian eagles and vultures can crack the eggs open with a rock. The most exciting thing, however, was when we saw a troop of baboons and two of the males were fighting to be dominant. We also saw a large Nile crocodile sunbathing on land and a monitor lizard, which is one of the biggest lizards.
We stopped at Serengeti National Park Visitors Centre ( a very interesting exhibition) and there were many, many rock hyraxes. Did you know that the rock hyrax's closest relative is the elephant, even though he's the size of a small ground hog!
We were mainly looking for lions in the Serengeti, but sadly we didn't see any. On our way out of the plains, the road was very muddy because of the rain, and at one point we almost got stuck and had to drive into the grass. We were not able to go back because of the risk of getting stuck, but I think I saw a toad the size of a large guinea pig - but it could have been a rock! Just as we left the park we did see a cheetah sitting proudly on a rock looking around for prey.

I did enjoy the Serengeti a lot, but I didn't find it as exciting as Ngorongoro because of the large spaces between seeing animals. This might be because the migrations were early, and most of the wilder beast, zebra, antelopes and their predators were already on Ngorongoro Plains.

Ngorongoro Plains

This day was broken into two halves. The morning was spent touring the Ngorongoro Plains where we saw a lot of migratory wilder beast together with zebras. They travel together because zebra have good eye sight and wilder beast have good sense of smell, so they protect each other. The sound of their hooves as they run was awesome. The migration is the biggest in the world, where 2.5 million migrate between Maasia Mara and Serengeti Plains. One of the exciting things that we saw was a lioness with her day old wilder beast kill that had no inner guts because she had eaten them all. She came right up to our jeep and I could see every single fly on her face (about 100!) Also, we saw a family of bat eared fox (their ears are as big as their whole face) and some blue headed and red headed gammer lizards which have very colorful heads. Just as we were about to go back for lunch, we also saw 3 cheetahs, all brothers, walking along the road and then relaxing in the shade under a tree.
We had lunch back at Ndutu lodge and watched wilder beast and elephants pass by as we sipped our soup!