Mwanza was a random shot. I had three more days left in Tanzania and looked back on almost two weeks of hiking along the Ngorongoro Crater, escaping angry elephant herds in Ruaha National Park, marveling at the blood-red Lake Natron from the air and cooling off in the waterfalls of the Udzungwa Mountains. However, I was still looking for an even more authentic African vibe, so when I found Mwanza on the map, I knew I had to visit “Rock City”: a gold mining town with little touristic attractions – located directly at Lake Victoria.
Out of the roughly 140 passengers on the plane, about ten were foreigners: a German family, a few Caucasian mining engineers and two Chinese businessmen. When I arrived in Mwanza, I didn’t see any tourists in the streets while we drove through Mwanza’s city center.
Exploring Mwanza
After getting settled at my hotel, I decided to visit Tanzania’s smallest national park for a relaxing afternoon: Saanane National Park. The little island just off the coast of Mwanza was named after a lonely old man who had lived there and ultimately had to make way for the national park. They imported zebras and made it a funny little picnic island that you could explore only on foot, while enjoying the view on Lake Victoria. Saanane National Park was a nice walk and kind of cute, but that’s about it. I enjoyed talking to the friendly and professional guide Patricia who told me a lot about Mwanza. From the island, you had a great view on the city to your left and its slums to your right. While one side of the bay was romantic, the other side was dangerous and desperate. Patricia told me that they had piles of old tires as toilets, where all the feces simply poured out at the end. She didn’t recommend to go there, and I agreed. Mwanza was very hard for me to understand. In many situations, I wasn’t really sure if I should be there or not. When I walked up a Capri Point with huge villas where well-dressed school kids directly asked me on the street for money, when I was followed by a curious guy when I climbed the Bismarck Rocks at the shore for some photos or when I entered the huge Kirumba Mwaloni fish market as the apparently only foreigner. I always went forth with the assumptions that people in Mwanza were simply shy, even if they did not smile or wave back at all.
I can’t judge if it really was an “African” vibe, but it clearly was a different vibe than anything else I had experienced in Tanzania. Mwanza did not have as much to offer in regards to tourist infrastructure – hotels and similar often felt tailored to businessmen. The people (obviously) did not seem to be accustomed to tourists in the same way as in other extremes, such as in Moshi or Arusha. As I mentioned before, Mwanza was hard for me to grasp, but it did spark my curiosity and I would be willing to return there again. But next time definitely with a friend with good local knowledge that could help me make better sense of Rock City.
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