The Abode of Wild Encounters
Incredible wildlife spots, beautiful beaches, fascinating cultures and affable people, Tanzania has all these and more, packed into in one. Baraka Haran Luvanda, High Commissioner of the United Republic of Tanzania To India tells us about the country, his stint with India and several other interesting facts.
We tell you about Tanzania, unforgettable, the great land of Kilimanjaro National Park, home to Africa’s highest mountain. This beautiful country is also home to seven world heritage sites, the great lakes, rivers, the plains of Serengeti National Park, home to world spectacular annual animal migrations. It is a country known for its vast wilderness areas. It has the mystical tropical islands of Zanzibar and Mafia where is home to whale sharks and coral reefs. Yes, we are talking about Tanzania which lies in East Africa. It is yet to be fully discovered in so many ways.
1. What does Tanzania offer to its first-time visitors?
Tanzania has an array of iconic tourist attractions, which are also included among UNESCO list of world heritage sites. These places include:
The Kilimanjaro National Park
The Kilimanjaro National Park protects the largest free-standing volcanic mass in the world and the highest mountain in Africa, rising over 5895m at its peak. With its snow-capped peak, the Kilimanjaro is a superlative natural phenomenon, standing in isolation above the surrounding plains overlooking the savannah. The mountain is encircled by mountain forests. Numerous mammals, many of them endangered species, live in the park.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area spans vast expanses of highland plains, savanna, savanna woodlands and forests. It is a sanctuary where wildlife coexists with semi-nomadic Maasai pastoralists, practicing traditional livestock grazing. The area includes the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater, the world’s largest caldera. The area has global importance for biodiversity conservation due to the density of wildlife inhabiting the area, and the annual migration of wildebeest, zebra, gazelles and other animals into the northern plains. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area has yielded an exceptionally long sequence of crucial evidence related to human evolution and human-environment dynamics, collectively extending from four million years ago to the beginning of this era, including physical evidence of the most important benchmarks in human evolutionary development.
The Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti National Park is best known for the famous annual migration in search of pasture and water. It is the most impressive nature spectacle in the world where over two million wildebeests plus hundreds of thousands of gazelles and zebras – followed by their predators, go on an annual trek.
The Stone Town of Zanzibar
The Stone Town of Zanzibar is a fine example of the Swahili coastal trading towns of East Africa. It retains its urban and townscape virtually intact and contains many fine buildings that reflect its particular culture, which has brought together and homogenized disparate elements of the cultures of Africa, the Arab region, India, and Europe for more than a millennium.
The Selous Game Reserve
An immense sanctuary, which measures 50,000 km2, relatively undisturbed by human impact. The reserve harbours one of the most significant concentrations of elephant, black rhinoceros, cheetah, giraffe, hippopotamus and crocodile, amongst many other species. The park has a variety of vegetation zones, ranging from dense thickets to open wooded grasslands. The exceptionally high variety of habitats found in the reserve make it a valuable laboratory for on-going ecological and biological processes.
2. What is there in store for wildlife lovers to discover?
Places recommended for wildlife lovers include, inter alia:
- The Serengeti National Park which we mentioned above. It is also a place, where wildlife lovers can enjoy seeing the annual wildebeest migration from the month of January through December.
- The Ngorongoro Crater, which is home to the world’s highest density of lions and other wild animals.
- The Tarangire National Park, which offers unrivalled elephant sightings because of the largest elephant population in Tanzania.
- The Mahale and Gombe National Parks, are undoubtedly the best places to see chimpanzees in Tanzania. A tour to the Parks gives a tourist a thrilling experience of coming face to face with these closest living relatives to humans.
- The Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania’s largest game reserve and home to massive herds of elephants as well as hippos, wild dogs and a diverse collection of birds. Split by the Rufiji River, it is an excellent place for water-based wildlife observation.
- The Ruaha National Park is the largest in Tanzania. The inclusion of Usangu Game Reserve and other important wetlands to this park in 2008 increased its size to about 20,226 square kilometres (7,809mi²), making it the largest park in East Africa and larger than the Kruger National Park in South Africa.
3. Tell us about the gastronomic delights of Tanzania. Do we also have Indian cuisine available?
A Tanzanian meal that could be considered the country’s national dish is “ugali”, a stiff porridge made of cassava flour, cornmeal (maize), millet, or sorghum, and usually served with a sauce containing either meat, fish, beans, or cooked vegetables. Again, depending on the regions, the most popular foods are green bananas cooked with meat and beans mostly for the people living in the highlands. Rice and fish is popular for people living along coastal areas.
Traditional Tanzanian food can be on almost any street. From grilled meats, “mishikaki” or rather “nyama choma” to BBQ corn on the cob, and chips and eggs “chips mayai”. But, if you are looking for something a little more in the specialities category, like veggies, there are quite a number of hotels and restaurants that serve buffet-style meals at lunch time which also offer a variety of Tanzanian stews, deep fried fish and chicken, and vegetables.
The local “hotels” or restaurants can be found on just about every major street and you can get all kinds of delicious meals. With a large native South Asian population, Indian restaurants can be found in all major cities and towns.
4. Any similarity between India and Tanzania…
It is a well-known fact that India and Tanzania have enjoyed long-standing historical relations. These relations have been fostered not just by proximity but by the fact that we are connected by the Indian Ocean. In pre-colonial times, travellers from India stopped in Tanzania to restock supplies and to trade.
Some of them settled in Tanzania and are still there, living as descendants-Tanzania citizens of Indian origin. From these first links, Tanzania, and indeed the whole of the East African Coast, learnt several useful skills, like cloth weaving and dyeing, reminiscent in the Kikoi found along the coast and gained some commonalities with the Indian subcontinent through our adoption of their food, spices and music, that exist to date, albeit in an assimilated form. Incidentally, even the Swahili language, which is widely spoken in the whole of East Africa, has borrowed some Indian words, such as “chai”, “Chapati”, “biryani”, etc. Interestingly, Tanzania happens to have a substantial large population of Tanzanians of Indian origin, who still maintain their Indian connections.
5. Which is your personal favourite place in Tanzania and why?
My favourite place to have visited so far remains the Ngorongoro Crater. For reasons given herein above, I still have a nostalgic feel since 2004, when I visited the park. While in the Crater, the scenery was so awesome. I recall pretty much having had lunch while in the company of some wildebeests! It was also more interesting to see the Maasai roaming about in the Crater with their herds of cattle, with lions admiring them! One needs to see this instead of being told such stories.
6. Travel to you is…
Travel to me is an amazing expedition. It opens the mind; it teaches you new things and diverse cultures; it widens knowledge and understanding horizons, as well as provides the relaxation effects that accompany it.
7. One thing you love about India…
This relates to the earlier question where talk was about the similarities between India and Tanzania. It is none other than the connectivity. It is much easier for us to decide to go anywhere in India, outside India, anytime and at any budget, unlike in some other duty post. My three-year experience in India has been an exciting one and I do hope that by the time I complete my tour, I will have the best experience one can have, in a foreign country.
8. Which are the three things you don’t travel without?
Obviously, for any travel one undertakes, he or she has to have his or her passport, a ticket and funds, to sustain.