14 - Tanzania
"Hakuna matata" - The Lion King, Timon, Pumbaa, & Simba
A few friends have asked me when the next blog post was coming out - sorry, I know I’m super behind!! But here it is!
I wrapped up a truly memorable four weeks in East Africa in July, visiting Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. This leg of the journey was packed with wildlife-focused, bucket-list experiences: witnessing the Great Migration in the Serengeti/Masai Mara and trekking with the mountain gorillas in Uganda. As a cherry on top, two of my best friends, D and C, joined me for one of those weeks. Lots of pictures to share, so let’s dive right into Tanzania first.
Cities
As you may remember, I had quite a journey to get to Africa from the Bay Area. I first flew from San Jose to Dallas and spent a few precious hours with my family.
It was so nice to be home. My nieces and nephew surprised me with a big welcome at the airport, and my dad prepared a feast for lunch. Yep, that’s ten dishes you see below + a soup that didn’t make the picture. Part of me wanted to forget about the rest of the trip and stay put!
Alas, off I went to Arusha, Tanzania via Doha, Qatar. Between the three flights and an eight hour layover, 33 hours passed before I finally landed in Africa.
But don’t feel too bad for me! I had the opportunity to fly arguably the best business class product in the airline industry - Qatar Airways’ QSuites - from Dallas to Doha. The flight was nearly 15 hours, and I spent an obscene amount of credit card points to secure it, but it was worth every one. Top top-notch service and food, and I got plenty of sleep in the comfy lie-flat seat.
The layover at Doha airport was a treat, too. This place looks more like a city from a science fiction novel than an airport. I spent most of my time there in Qatar Airways’ incredible business class lounge. I highly doubt there is a better lounge out there at the moment. The food was restaurant quality, and I got to work out in the gym, shower, and grab a latte before my flight to Arusha.
D, C, and I had been planning this trip for several months, so it was surreal to finally be together so far from home. Two of the three of us were impeccably dressed and ready for safari…and then there was me in my all-black attire 😅
We met our guide for the week, Santi, and began our safari through three national parks - Tarangire, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater. Each had its own unique landscapes and atmosphere.
Tarangire was filled with taller bushes and probably had the most elephants we saw out of all three.
We spent most of the week in the Serengeti, which in Swahili means endless plains. The name is fitting - the park covers 30,000 square kilometers (11,500 square miles), and the plains stretch endlessly into the horizon and beyond.
We took a hot air balloon ride at sunrise. Pricey, but incredible. Can you spot the monkeys in the second video?
My favorite park might have been the Ngorongoro Crater, a vast volcanic caldera filled with birds, water buffalo, zebra, hippos, lions, etc. We were lucky to spot the ultra-rare black rhino (with her baby!) in the distance. Estimates suggest there are fewer than 100 black rhinos in Tanzania, so seeing two was incredible. It also meant we completed the Big 5, one of our goals going into the trip!
We stayed at the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever experienced - a stunning property located on the rim of the caldera, complete with an infinity pool.
In the blink of an eye, the week was over, and I bid farewell to D and C at the Arusha airport. I’ll touch on our friendship more in the Pondering section, but I always feel incredibly blessed to spend time with these two, especially when exploring new places.
From there, I headed to Zanzibar. I hadn’t realized before that “Tanzania” refers to both the mainland and the Zanzibar islands. I explored two main areas on Unguja, the largest island: Stone Town and Nungwi.
Stone Town played a significant role in the East African slave trade until the early 20th century. Touring the former slave market and other sites was somber, chilling, and emotionally heavy.
Perhaps Stone Town’s most famous claim to recent fame is that it’s the birthplace of Queen’s Freddie Mercury. I hung out here for a couple of days, taking a walking tour and sampling the excellent local food (Zanzibar is known as the Spice Islands!).
I then moved to the north part of the island for a few days of scuba diving in Nungwi with a shop called Spanish Dancer Divers. The diving was decent, although some of the coral was damaged and bleached.
The coolest macro critters I saw were frogfish and nudibranchs. Here’s a shaky, non-color graded video of my dive guide, H, pointing out a frogfish. I recently bought a red light filter for my GoPro, so future diving videos should look much better.
All in all, it was a relaxing few days of hakuna matata and beach bumming: morning dives, late lunches, naps, beach walks, dinners, sunsets, catching the Euros, sleep, repeat. And, it got me excited for the Southeast Asia part of the schedule, where I plan to dive a lot.
Accounting
Since our safari package was all-inclusive (accommodation + game drives + three meals/day), I’ve listed that as one expense (including tips for our guide), followed by my usual breakdown for the Zanzibar portion.
(Mainland) Total spending for 5 day/4 night safari (luxury accommodation) - $4,160.00 ($832.00/day)
Definitely an extremely pricey few days. We went during peak season, and you’re paying for your guide’s accommodation and food as well (they stay at the same hotels as you). We thought the price was fair for the level of service and comfort received.
(Island) Total spending for 8 days - $1,077.84 ($134.73/day)
Activities/Tours - $449.00 ($56.13/day). Mostly scuba diving.
Food - $117.00 ($14.63/day)
Lodging - $389.34 ($48.67/day)
Miscellaneous - $7.50 ($0.94/day)
Transportation - $115.00 ($14.38/day). Mainly taxis going to/from the airport, and to/from Nungwi. Public buses were an option but would have doubled the travel time, so I splurged a bit here.
Total Tanzania spending - $5,473.09 ($421.01/day)
Pondering
Two main reflections to share about from these two weeks.
First off, as I mentioned earlier, I felt incredibly blessed that D and C - two of my favorite people in the world (D was my best man, and C was one of my groomswomen) - made it all the way to Africa to join me. We typically try to take a big international trip together every couple of years, but between work, life changes, and COVID, five years had passed since our last adventure.
We talked about rhythms in the last post. With some friendships, no matter where you are in life, or how long it’s been since you last saw one another, you can effortlessly pick things back up. That’s how it is with D and C, who are more family than friends at this point in my life. It’s easy to sync up with them and match each other’s energy.
I’ve always found it fun to travel with these two, and this trip was no exception. But I don’t take that lightly - not everyone makes a good travel companion. I only wish we had more time together! Five days flies by when you’re on game drives for 80% of the day.
My second reflection comes from a series of humbling experiences with locals in Zanzibar:
I was chatting with some of the hotel staff in Nungwi and they asked where my family was from (Taiwan), and how much it typically costs to fly there from where we live (USA). Without thinking, I said that you can sometimes find “cheap” flight deals for $600 and almost immediately afterwards realized that my definition of cheap was drastically different than theirs.
On Nungwi Beach, it’s a guarantee that you’ll be approached by locals (usually teenagers or young men) trying to sell you souvenirs, necklaces, boat tours, etc. These interactions can get tiring after a few days, but I later learned that the unemployment rates for the 18-35 age group are extremely high (some estimates suggest upwards of 20%). Many have to hustle to make a living.
The security guards at my guesthouse in Nungwi were part of the Maasai tribe, a minority ethnic group. I went on a walk with John, one of the guards, and asked why he left the mainland. He said that the pay is better on Zanzibar, where he can make $75/month as a guard. He mentioned he’d likely switch to selling necklaces next month, as it could double his salary.
These conversations stirred up a few emotions, and you might be able to guess where I’m going with this.
Shock at the extreme wealth gap that exists between developed and developing countries. Seeing it in real life is a different experience than reading about it. I guess this thought has often been present when I travel, but this is the first time I’ve mentally slowed down while abroad to really let it sink in.
Guilt at the unfairness of being born into a life of far more opportunities. John worries about sending money home to his family; I worry about whether dinner will be tasty. How is that fair? It’s not.
Gratitude for my own circumstances. How lucky am I to be taking a year off from work without really worrying about finances? How fortunate am I to be typing this post on a pricey MacBook, uploading pictures from a pricey iPhone, while listening to music on pricey AirPods?
Going on a bit of a corollary here, but one of the main reasons I left my cushy wealth management job was that I was unsure if I could continue to serve the top 1% of earners in the US (which probably translates to the top 0.01% of the world?) for the rest of my career. These experiences in Africa have only deepened my desire to include some kind of service to the less fortunate. If I stay in the financial services industry, a direct application would be to provide pro-bono tax/financial planning services for, let’s say, 10%-20% of the workweek. More and more, this feels like a necessity rather than a luxury for the next phase of my career.
And that was my two weeks in Tanzania! Here’s a fun little Instagram recap.
If you’re planning a similar trip and want to hear more about our logistics, let me know, and I’d be happy to share additional thoughts.
Onto Uganda!
Ngorongoro crater my fav too <3 But I wish I had time for Serengeti too. Those close up shots are amazing!