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Tanzania
Tanzania can truly claim to be the home of the safari as the word is Swahili for a journey. And there is no better place to enjoy an enriching cultural and wildlife experience than Tanzania. The magical names trip of the tongue – Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, Selous, Serengeti and exotic Zanzibar.

Tanzania’s game viewing experiences are widely regarded as the best in Africa. It is the place to see seemingly endless herds of wildebeest and zebra trekking across the plains on their annual migration – followed by the predatory lions, leopard, cheetah and hyena. It is elephant country, boasting some of the largest populations in the world. And, at Gombe Stream and Mahale Mountains National Parks, it is home
to chimpanzees now so rarely seen in the wild.

Tanzania also boasts beautiful beaches – hundreds of miles of palm-fringed sands. Its cities are relaxed and friendly. Its huge lakes, Victoria, Tanganyika and Nyasa, are bountiful with fish. Its mountains are massive and mysterious and include Mount Meru, Ol Doinyo Lengai and the Usambaras in addition, of course, to Mount Kilimanjaro – the ‘Roof of Africa’ and the tallest free-standing mountain in the world. Yet this, the largest country in East Africa, is untouched by the holiday-making hordes of mass tourism.

It was in Tanzania that Stanley uttered those famous words – “Dr Livingstone I presume” – when he tracked down the Scottish explorer after a long trek into the interior. Indeed Tanzania was a magnet for
several Victorian explorers who made epic journeys of discovery in search of the source of the Nile.
Today’s visitors are able to explore the country, and see its remarkable seven UNESCO World Heritage
sites, with none of the hardship but all of the adventure of those early pioneers.

HISTORY
Tanzania is the “cradle of mankind” for it was here, in the Olduvai Gorge, that Dr Louis Leakey discovered the fossilised remains of Homo habilis, or “handy man,” calculated to be 1.75 million years old and the fore- runner of modern man. Tanzania was occupied by various African tribes most recently the Masai from Kenya, who have retained their proud traditions. Arab merchants visited the coast some 2,000 years ago and settled in Zanzibar around the eighth century AD later establishing trade routes into the interior.

The inter-marriage of Arabs and local people created a new people with their own language - Kiswahili (Swahili) whose word for a journey - safari - has become the international description of a trip into the wild. The Portuguese established temporary settlements in the 16th century, supplanted by the
Omanis in the late 17th century who developed the infamous slave trade. The scramble for Africa by the
European powers at the end of the 19th century led to occupation of the mainland by Germany although Zanzibar became a British protectorate. After World War I, Germany was forced to surrender its territory to the British. Tanganyika, as the mainland was then known, achieved independence in 1961. Zanzibar became independent two years later and shortly afterwards joined with the mainland to become the United Republic of Tanzania.

GEOGRAPHY
Tanzania covers 937,062 sq km making it the largest country in Eastern Africa. Just south of the equator, it borders Kenya and Uganda in the north; the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi in the west; and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique in the south, and is therefore a splendid centre from which to explore eastern, central and southern Africa. Through the interior runs the Great Rift Valley, that vast fault-line down the spine of Africa that, in Tanzania, has created many fascinating topographical features such as the Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Tanganyika. The central plateau (1,200m above sea level) is a huge expanse of savannah and sparse woodland. To the north, the 5,890-metre (19,340 ft) Mount Kilimanjaro rises, the highest mountain in Africa. While the interior is largely arid, the 800 kilometre coastline is lush and palm-fringed as are the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia.

CLIMATE
The coastal areas are hot and humid with an average day time temperature of 30°C. Sea breezes make the climate very pleasant from June to September. The central plateau experiences hot days and cool nights. The hilly country between the coast and the northern highlands has a pleasant climate from January to September, with temperatures averaging around 20°C. Temperatures vary around Kilimanjaro according to the season registering a low 15°C during May- August rising to 22°C during December-March. For the whole country the hottest months are from October to February. The main, long rainy season is from mid-March to late May.