Bagamoyo Beach Holiday  On the eastern coast of Tanzania, directly opposite the island of Zanzibar lies a historical town called Bagamoyo, the oldest town in Tanzania, founded by the end of the 18th century. It was the original capital of German East Africa and one of the most important trading ports along the East African coast. Today the town has circa 30,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the District of Bagamoyo, recently being designated as a world heritage site.

Bagamoyo's history has been influenced by Arab and Indian traders, the German colonial government and Christian missionaries. Although Bagamoyo is no longer the busy port city that it once was, Tanzania's Department of Antiquities has worked to revitalize the town and maintain the dozens of ruins in and around Bagamoyo.

The city was also the starting point for the first European explorers on their way to search for the source of the Nile. Livingstone, Stanley, Burton and Speke all passed through here. Livingstone's body was laid to rest here before being taken first to Zanzibar and then to England. The Mission has a museum with a wonderful collection of photographs and mementoes relating to Livingstone and to German colonial times. A house where Henry Morton Stanley lived a century ago can be seen in solitary splendor near the beach.

Bagamoyo possesses a good, natural harbor ideal for sailing vessels and dhows. Every morning, at dawn, the beach is crowded with people engaged in the launching of the dhows, the fishermen's small sailing vessels. Because of the tide, it is sometimes a heavy work to drag the dhows through the sand and out into the water. A couple of times a week, a boat also leaves for Zanzibar. It is a long wait for its departure and the voyage is not particularly safe.

One by one the dhows leave the shore, sailing on the morning breeze, and after a while the activities lessen. The voices from the morning fade and finally die away over the ocean. The boats are visible on the horizon throughout the day and in the afternoon they return on the breeze, lying low in the water.

When the boats return, the activities increase again. In the small restaurants near the Fish Market, the fish is fried and the smell is spreading over the area. The commerce at the Fish Market is intense. Later, when the fishermen walk through town after a hard day's work, they are overloaded with equipment hanging on their shoulders. Some of them stay mending their boats on the beach. Other people sit in the shade at the Customs House chatting.

All through the day, the beach is used for transports. Women with heavy loads on their heads walk in water up to their knees. The beach seems to be a communication structure used almost to the same extent as the streets of the town. The tidal movements are large and during low tide the beach is several hundred meters wide while at high tide it is sometimes not more than a metre or two.