Introduction

Mtwara Province doesn’t take up much space in even the best of guide books of Tanzania. Apart from a few development NGO’s such as Danish School Project only a few tourists find their way to this region, though deep sea fishers and divers (and those who have to get as far away as possible from everything) are awakening to the challenge.

The local communities are poor and resources are scarce but if you’re willing to improvise, to take things as they come, you’re in for a great experience.

You can come a long way with a few selected phrases in Kiswahili and a bit of understanding of the state of things.

Mtwara is the south eastern of Tanzania’s provinces, 40 kms north of Mozambique. If you’ve ever heard of it, it might be due to its production of cashew nuts (second largest producer in the world) or due to the exquisite wood carvings of the Makonde Tribe, which are a world apart from the sloppy work found in most places in Dar es Salaam or Zanibar.

The village of Mikindani is situated at the bottom of a natural, protected bay – 10 degrees south of the Equator – and was once the entrance into Africa in the quest for slaves, ivory, and cobber.

The Makonde Tribe were the indigenous population and protected themselves against slavery by filing their teeth sharp as needles and applying extensive tattoos.

By the 9th century Arabs controlled the area, and it has since then been subjected to sovereignty changes like that of Zanzibar and as much of Africa.

In 1884 at a conference in Berlin for European interested parties Africa was divided into suitable chunks and the Germans got Tanganyika (which together with Zanzibar now form the Republic of Tanzania) and used Mikindani as a provincial headquarters.

After the First World War the Germans surrendered the country to the U.K. who moved the whole caboodle to Mtwara – a small village 12 kms southeast of Mikindani with a better natural harbour that was capable of handling larger ships. Since then time has been standing still in Mikindani.

On a Monday in November 2005 we boarded a small Air Tanzanian flight in Dar es Salaam and landed just 50 minutes later in Mtwara. The alternative was about 23 hours of 4-wheel driving on mainly dirt roads and crossing wobbly (if not missing) bridges.

The diving alone makes the trip to Mikindani worth your while, but the whole area has a pristine quality. There are still lots of places and species to discover – both above as well as below the surface.

The southern most border of the marine park is formed by Ruvuma River, which also marks the border between Mozambique and Tanzania. A place well worth a visit in its own right. And shame on you if you don’t catch a game drive once you’re here.

In 1866 Dr. David Livingstone stayed in Mikindani for a fortnight before he embarked on his third and final expedition to discover the source of the Nile. Only his heart was returned – in a wooden box. We on the other hand arrived at home safely – but left our hearts in Mikindani though not in wooden boxes.

In March 2005 Dr. Martin Guard and his buddy Drew Sutton officially opened Eco2 in Mikindani as a Padi International Resort. Martin Guard has lived in the area for more than 10 years, is a marine biologist with four phds in a.o. Cephalopods and has 15 years of experience as a Padi Dive Instructor.

Apart from being a fully equipped dive center with training from Padi OWD to Divemaster and equipment rental Eco2 does marine research and development in Mikindani Bay and in the nearby Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park. When we visited Martin was busy describing a new species of octopus.

Martin speaks fluent Kiswahili and is deeply involved in ensuring a sustainable development of the local community. For each dive a sum is donated to a community fund, which is councilled by locals, who then decide on f.inst. the purchase of new school books or uniforms or something completely different.

Eco2 also endorses locally crafted Makonde wood carvings. Half of the sales price goes to the artist and the other half to the community fund.

Ten Degrees Southis situated next to the dive shop. It’s a cozy little place with five double rooms with kingsize beds, mosquito nets and fans. Toilets and showers are located at the end of the hallway, and the Michelin Guide would most likely not award any stars. But everything is kept nice and clean and it’s a really friendly place with wild monkeys in the backyard.

On the other hand, the food is so delicious that expats come from far and near to enjoy their dinner at Ten Degrees South. Even guests from the more luxurius and much more expensive The Old Boma pop in.

On our way back from the first day of diving we stopped by a fisherman in a small wooden canoo.

The fisherman had just reeled in a 40 kgs tuna which Martin bought on the spot. In the evening we had the most delicious, most tender and largest tuna steak ever – delicately marinated and served with mashed potatoes. Absolutely yummy.

Ten Degrees South is owned by Eco2 but managed by Babu Ali and his crew. Sometimes the English language gets the better of them but there’s definately no sparing of friendly smiles and willingness to help.

Diving is done with Eco2’s boat ”Uchawi”, which means black magic in Kiswahili. At an official ceremony the local witch doctor cast a spell on the boat with the result that a possible culprit will end up with a frog’s head. And it has worked so far (i.e. the boat's still there).

The fiber glass boat is equipped with 2 x 75 hp outboard engines, VHF, oxybox, life vests and not least fresh water to rinse off photo equipment.

GPS is required to locate most of the dive sites as the reef tops usually lie some 12 to 14 m below the surface. Martin Guard gave very thorough briefings and talked extensively about the underwater topography, corals, fishes, and how the dive was to be carried out. Since there is a difference of 3.8 m between high and low tide all diving is planned using tide tables.

Mikindani Bay is open towards the North East and the Indian Ocean, and often big pelagics drop by to have a look. From August to November it’s even possible to “whale watch” as the humpback whales pass by.

One of the ways to check the health of a reef is to note the number of groupers. Not a dive went by without seeing several different species. One of the more curious ones is the Chinese grouper (Plectropomus laevis). It’s a bit difficult to take a predator seriously when it resembles a zebra wearing yellow lipstick. But then, I wasn’t the prey.

Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Parkwas established in 1999 and comprises 200 sqkm of water and wetlands and 400 sqkm of land inclusive of 15 villages. What East Africa is concerned bio diversity is booming, and so far 400 species of fish and 260 species of corals have been discovered.

The trip from Mikindani Bay to Mnazi Bay in the marine park takes about an hour on board the ”Uchawi”. Msimbati Beach in the marine park must have been the original Bounty Beach. Kilometres of chalk-white beach, palm trees, and the merciless sun that bleaches bones and turns haphazard tourists into red skins in no time at all.

Nearest recompression chamber is situated in Mombassa, Kenya

The Monoliths rise from the sea floor some 150 m below as a large limestone formation with columns (monoliths), gorges, and channels that give the site a very dramatic air.

If we were lucky, Martin said, we would be met by one of the resident Giant groupers that often rises from the deep to check out the intruders. But we needed to go down fast to ensure that the grouper didn’t get enough of us before we even saw it. So we threw ourselves over the side, gave the ok signal, and headed downwards.

The reef appeared at 18 metres. We continued down alongside one of the monoliths and at about 35 metres we slowed down and stared intensely into the deep.

At first yellow flashes distracted our attention but it quickly turned out to be a 2 metres long, 150 kg heavy black-greyish monster fish surrounded by a school of bright yellow juvenile Golden trevallies.

Our meeting lasted for perhabs 40 seconds in which we sort of eyed each other. Once satisfied that we didn’t intend to take up permanent residency the grouper disappear again with its yellow entourage.

Looks aren’t on the side of the Giant grouper, one must give him that. But he did very much emphasize the dramatic atmosphere of the Monoliths.

We ascended to the top of the monolith, crossed a deep gorge to the next monolith that stood a bit taller. In this way we had the perfect multilevel dive from one monolith to the other and ended at 11 metres in a cloud of Black pyramid butterflyfish.

Normally, Martin said apologetically, as we once more found ourselves at the surface waiting for the dive boat, we should have seen this and this and this. Cool. But I’m still excited about the monster fish, the Giant grouper.

One of the ways to check the health of a reef is to note the number of groupers. Not a dive went by without seeing several different species. One of the more curious species is the Chinese grouper. It’s a bit difficult to take a predator seriously when it resembles a zebra with yellow lipstick. But then, I wasn’t the prey.

Crypto Mania is diametrically opposed to The Monoliths. The site is situated in the narrow inlet to Mtwara Harbour and consists mainly of sandy bottom with small coral patches, scattered rocks and sporadic sea grass. Maximum depth was about 15 metres – quite suitable for the third dive of the day.

We started by examining a small, hollow rock, which had just enough room for a Peppered moray and a Stonefish side by side. That set the pace for the rest of the dive.

Martin wanted to show us a rock formation with a small cavern that usually housed a pair of yellow Leaf scorpionfish. He stuck his head inside and the Leaf scorpionfish saw fit to hop outside where they sat very still waving back and forth in the current.

In front of the cavern was a flock of seven baby Volitans lionfish and a bit further away an African lionfish.

On the same dive we found a crocodilefish, loads of different pipefishes, a seamoth and some really good-looking nudibranchs including Halgarda sp. and Nembrotha sp. And one we thought to be a Glossodoris symmetricus – although this one had white rhinophores instead of red/orange ones.

According to those who know, even slight colour variations in this species usually turn out to be a new species when disected, so Martin has added this to his list of potentially new species to be examined more closely. Exciting.

75 minutes later we surfaced – contented and very happy.

We had barely left the surface before a school of about 50 Blackfin barracudas swam closely by. Once we had recovered from that we discovered that we had landed in the middle of a colony of Aurora shrimpgobies (Amblyeleotris aurora). For every squaremeter two or three gobies could be seen each guarding its own shrimp. In return the shrimp was very busy cleaning their joint dwelling for sand and coral rubble.

Small enclaves in the colony were occupied by Garden eels, though these were so shy that I couldn’t see much more than the heads sticking out.

Martin had prepared us for the fact that not all fishes in this area behave in accordance with what the books say. One of the species he hoped to be able to show us was the Yellowmargin triggerfish (Pseudobalistes flavomarginatus).

Like most triggerfish this one ought to prefer its own company but in the marine park they congregated in large schools. We saw them all right but unfortunately they kept their distance.

Namponda Corner is a flat site filled with rubble but interrupted by rocks and coral formations of various shapes and sizes acting as magnets on most lifeforms in the area.

The current gently took us past small bommies with morays, Moorish idols, bannerfish, snappers, damsels, and a huge variety of butterflyfish. We even had a tuna and a hawksbill check us out.

Twice we encountered a huge school of jackfish that – according to Martin – contained five different species. I never did learn to tell the difference.

A large boulder on the bottom functioned as a cleaning station, and here we had the privilege of watching a large Potato grouper (Epinephelus tukula) getting the full treatment by a couple of Cleaner wrasse.

Unlike Mtwara, Zanzibar is described in every detail on web pages and guide books. In fact, to the extent that it seems an almost insurmountable task to choose where to stay and what to do. So we relied on a few good pieces of supposedly reliable information from good friends and headed off…

The first challenge was the ferries from Dar es Salaam to Stone Town. Lots and lots of people at the ferry station are willing to help you – for a small fee, of course. Hold on to your goods and chattels and politely insist on doing it yourself. The way to go about it is to find out whether you want to spend 2 hours (expensive) or 8 hours (cheap) or anything in between on a ferry and then find the ticket office for that particular ferry. Naturally, we didn’t do that!

We settled on a departure time and then found a ferry that suited us. It wasn’t too bad though. The Flying Horse takes 3 hours and costs 20 USD/pax. At a closer look it could do with a paint job, new interior and possibly some other stuff as well. But we were royally entertained by our fellow travellers’ diversities, an hour and a half of Muslim prayer on the cc-tv followed by an American action b-movie.

The second challenge was getting off the ferry again. The trick is to stay in your seat until almost everybody else has left. We didn’t do that. We found out the hard way that no-one has any queuing culture whatsoever.

When we landed in Stone Town, we got up, took our luggage and and walked to the queue. However, even the tiniest gap between us and the person in front seemed to suck in the nearest person. When we finally stood our ground, a woman behind me placed a big jute sack on her head shaking it from side to side until my ears bled. Lene fared a little better as she was able to rest her head in the bosom of an enormous woman behind her.

The third challenge was to get up north to Kendwa Rocks in a shared taxi at three in the afternoon. We couldn’t. Nobody wanted to take us. Therefore, the trick is to be in Stone Town no later than 1 o’clock if you’re going to Kendwa (peaceful and quiet) or Nwungi (24 hr party). At least if you want to spend only 10,000 Tsch instead of 45,000.

We did get the price down to 37,000 but it took a long time. As soon as we paid a little more attention to one particular driver, all the others ganged up on us to pay what he asked. So whatever we saved on the ferry trip we spent on taxi fare. But then we weren’t here to make a profit.

The rest of the trip was effortless and very relaxed. We stayed two nights at the White Sands Beach Hotel at Kendwa Rocks.

We did two dives with Scubo Do Diving at the sites Nankivell (okay) and Mbwangawa (better) and generally just chilled and enjoyed the sun, the water, the beach, the beer, etc.

Having learned from our challenges (and not to trust our friends) we got a shared taxi back to Stone Town, where we had booked a room at the Garden Lodge (budget) to do a little sight-seeing. Many Zanzibaris are paranoid when it comes to taking their photo, and a local guy even fetched the police when he saw that his picture had been taken by a Swedish girl. It was promptly deleted.

Stone Town is really dirty but very charming, indeed. One did get the feeling that most pictures in the guide books were either taken a long time ago or right after restauration.

We decided to take a spice tour to Kizimbani which turned out to a highlight of our short visit. Not just because of the beautiful countryside but it really was educational and interesting to learn about the stuff you find at your local greengrocer’s. Now I understand why a vanilla pod costs what it costs.

We spent the last couple of hours at Mercury’s down by the harbour waiting to board the ferry back to Dar. At Mercury’s they are used to being used as a waiting room and they are not just going to let you sit there and enjoy the weather. So after several cups of coffee and whatnot we waddled onboard the Sea Express II and were back in Dar es Salaam two hours later.

We booked our trip through Makomo Safaris, which had the distinct advantage of our being picked up at the doorstep in Dar es Salaam. Wildlife guide Julius Mtuy then took us on a five-hour drive east to Mikumi National Park, the fourth largest park in the country.

On arrival at the boundary of the park we opened the roof of the Landcruiser enabling us to stand on the seats, keep a lookout and take pictures. We also saw our first zebras: A female with her foal. Mummy Zebra had a large wound on her stomach – presumably from a lion attack.

First we drove to our lodging: Vuma Hills Luxury Tented Camp and were greeted by the manager, Mette, a Dane who has lived in Kenya and Tanzania for more than 25 years. To our great relief the camp wasn’t made up of tents but more like log cabins with tents inside and furnished with shower, toilet, electricity and all with a view of the savanna. And as a very nice luxurious extra a small swimming pool to flush off the dust from a busy day on the game drive.

One of many highlights was our lunch break at the Hippo Pool (there’s a hippo pool in every park, I’m sure). We sat in the shade of a big tree and watched the drama of everyday life on the savanna. Two adult elephants and a relatively newborn baby elephant were down by the water line getting a drink and some mud.

The zebras wanted a go as well but the elephants were quite attentive, not letting the zebras get too close to the baby elephant. A zebra was cut off from the shore and was in obvious distress, the crocodiles were near, but finally it decided to gallop in deep water in a big arch around the elephants. Then the elephants left and the zebras approached. And with them the two crocs – very slowly, and only eyes visible. Soon they disappeared from the surface. The zebras were all jumpy.

This lasted a while but it turned out that, unfortunately, the water was too shallow to allow the crocodiles any form of surprise attack. In the midst of this drama we had visits by monkeys, herons, ducks, impalas, vultures, small birds.

Late in the afternoon we still hadn’t seen a lion. Julius was constantly on the VHF with his buddy Filippo who drove around elsewhere in the park, and finally we got the position of not one but two male lions.

I must admit I was slightly comprehensive about being just 2 metres from a lion that could easily jump into the car and eat us all – well, at least jump into the car. But Julius was quite relaxed with his elbow out the window chatting to Filippo on the VHF so what the heck.

The lion didn’t move until someone flashed it right in its face. Then it growled a little bit, looked straight at us (*gasp*) but simply turn its back on us and plodded headfirst into a large bush for shelter and protection from the sun and the stupid humans as well. Great stuff.

But we got it all. We were bitten by tse tse-flies (use mosquito spray) and saw lions, elephants, crocodiles, hippos, buffalos, girafs, zebras, monkeys, baboons, ducks, wildebeast, and birds, and a whole range of different deer like impala, eland, gazelles and possibly some more we didn’t notice.

In the evening after yet another sumptuous 3-course meal we were left to ourselves on the restaurent terrace – only watched over by a Masai whose job it was to follow us to our cabins after generator shut down at 22:30. It really wasn’t a big deal walking from the restaurant to our cabin but apparently some one at one time did miss the cabin in the dark and got lost.

But we heard squashing in the forest below and soon we could see a couple of elephants on their way up to the camp. We went over the to cabins, got comfortable on the porch and soon saw three adult elephants and a baby elephant drinking from the pool (the chlorine content had been drastically reduced because of this as nobody wanted the elephants to get sick), and they passed very close to the cabin before they headed back into the forrest. Really cool and recommendable experience.