tanzania
Tanzania
Thursday 10th July 2008:
We drove through no mans land and got ripped off, changing the last of our Malawian kwacha for some Tanzanian Shillings. We parked outside the smart Customs and Immigration building and went in to do the necessary border procedures. First to Immigration, getting our passports stamped with a 3 month Tanzanian visa, costing us US$50.00 each, but there is a reciprocal agreement between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to re-enter on the same visa, so at least we have paid our full for this. While our visa was being processed, the man at Immigration loved chatting to Ross about Landrovers, clearly a Landy fan himself. Next we went to Customs and had the carnet signed and stamped and he asked us how long we intended staying in Tanzania for. We were told to follow the Customs official to make payment...Make payment? What payment and why? In Tanzania you get charged a road/fuel tax for $5.00 if you are in the country for 7 days or less, and $20.00 for 20days, $25.00 for 21 days and more. This was all explained to us and the carnet doesn't exempt you from this! It must be like in Zambia and all their vehicle taxes. Luckily this time we are only planning on taking 5 to 7 days to drive through Tanzania up into Uganda, so we only had to pay $5.00. After our payment details were filled into the book we were able to leave, being told to register the vehicle details with the policeman at the gate before leaving, which we did.
With a 3 month visa and our carnet stamped, we entered Tanzania. The drive from the border at Kiwira to Mbeya was a really scenic drive, probably one of the more beautiful drives we've done in a long time. The vegetation was lush and green and the mountain ranges were breathtaking. The mountains were covered with green trees making us feel like we were back in the highlands and a lot of the landscape reminded us of Cameroon. There was lots of healthy farming on the go. In fact you had to look very hard to find non-farmed land. The people grow smaller, bright green crops in the free spaces amongst their other crops, which included palms, bananas, cassava, lettuce, veggies, mielies, and what we can only assume are tea and coffee. In some parts we felt like we were driving through what we imagine Indonesia to look like, with its rice paddies and bright green rolling hills, covered in tea and coffee bushes. This was such a stunning drive and none of the photos we took captured how beautiful it really was.
We followed the GPS to Karibuni Mission Lodge (Tsh6 500p/p/night camping) in Mbeya, to camp for the night. We were advised by them to go to the Standard Bank to draw money out at the ATM and decided to fill up with diesel too, so we had a full tank for the long drive north. We returned and parked in the peaceful church car park, deciding to have dinner in the restaurant, which was nice, but a rather quick affair. We had chicken, chips and a few veggies with a delicious cold Coke.
It was cold, being so high and in the shadow of the nearby mountain. Knowing we only had cold showers available, we decided to rather get up very early tomorrow morning, have a quick shower and get going up to Kipili as early as we could. We had to chuckle at the notice shown to us, warning us of the dangerous guard dogs that are let loose in the church grounds between 11pm and 5am, written by the Management of the Dogs...
Friday 11th July 2008: Karibuni Mission, Mbeya, Tanzania
GPS Info: S08° 54' 33.2" E33° 26' 38.1"
Miles Today: 300 Total Miles: 28 177
Up early thanks to the alarm clock of our new phone, not that it was possible to get any sleep between 11pm and 4am, due to the massive loud parties happening in the street around us. It was very cold this morning, so our freezing cold showers were brief and refreshing. We wanted to get on the road to Lake Tanganyika earlier rather than later, as we had quite a drive ahead of us. After speaking to James, Jody, Julie and Andrew, we weren't really looking forward to the road conditions too much. We made a hot drink to enjoy along our drive and hoped to stop for breakfast somewhere on route.
The road from Mbeya to Tunduma, on the Zambian border, was mostly tar, but was quite busy with trucks and taxis. We passed many police checks along this stretch of road, which all seem to be where the dotted line was and where it was possible to overtake, which was quite annoying! We were waved through the police checks and after turning off at the border post, onto the gravel road to the west, we arrived at Sumbawanga at around 1.30pm, having left Mbeya at 7am. From Sumbawanga the road deteriorated badly and became very broken and bumpy. We pressed on along the gravel road to Namanyere and after much asking of locals, who couldn't speak or understand English, found the road to Kipili. From the turn off for Namanyere, this whole stretch of driving was on uncharted territory with Tracks4Africa, on our GPS. The road was awful and Duz made some rather worrying noises as we approached Kipili and Lakeshore Lodge. This can't really be called a road in some parts, as it's merely just rocks.
We eventually arrived at Lakeshore Lodge in the early evening and met Chris and Louise, who thought we'd made good time from Mbeya. Chris and Louise are a South African couple who have been living in Tanzania for almost ten years and are building their own lodge, hoping to open in September 2008. Their position is beautiful, right on a beach on Lake Tanganyika, looking onto three islands not far off. They are building luxury rooms, bandas (simple cheap dorm style rooms) and have 4 campsites positioned around massive mango trees, for shade. They are such an enthusiastic, bubbly couple and make you feel at ease instantly. Chris took us on a tour of their place, explaining their plans. Both of them had built a luxury lodge (US$900p/p/night), on an island across the water, 2 1/2 years ago, so have been lucky to learn the ropes and train up locals through that.
We set up the tent and went over to the main lodge building to join Chris, Louise, Vance (the diving instructor), Jolene, and other guests Tony and Ann for a drink and chat. Tony was doing a diving course so they were staying for a week, taking a break from work in Sumbawanga. The sunset over Lake Tanganyika was spectacular from the main lodge building as it looked straight on to it.
We had hotdogs for supper, using our yummy rolls from Malawi and settled into the tent for the night. A big, underwater birthday surprise had been organised for Jo for the next morning, and we had then been invited to join everyone, to go across to the fancy lodge across the lake to watch the rugby - South Africa vs New Zealand at 9am, if we wanted to.
Saturday 12th July 2008: Lakeshore Lodge at Adventure Safaris, Kipili, Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania
GPS Info: S07° 26' 06.7" E30° 35' 28.5"
Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 28 177
We enjoyed a later lie in than we've had in a few days and woke to stunning views over the lake. Everyone else was out on Jo's surprise birthday dive, so we had the place to ourselves, other than the workers who were very busy thatching the new buildings and making furniture out of the local red wood. Ross then also read that Tanzania was GMT+3 making it an hour later than we had thought, so we got a bit worried we might miss going across to watch the rugby. We spotted the big passenger ferry pull out from Kipili village on it's way up the lake to Kigoma and on to Burundi. Through the waves from the ferry we caught a glimpse of the lodge's boat returning with the divers on board. It was quite chilly and grey this morning so not too much chance of catching any rays for a tan. Chris said we still had time for a quick breakfast, but to come back as soon as we were finished. He was all dressed in his SA rugby jersey and a bit anxious we might miss the kick off.
All eight of us set off on the boat across to the posh lodge on the island, all promising to only support SA, as Peter, the manager of the posh lodge is a Kiwi. The lodge is set up on the hill, which is a bit of a trek on foot, but the larny guests get collected and transported up by golf carts. The place is beautifully built and very uniquely decorated, with bits and pieces of furniture and ornaments from all around the world. All the staff were very friendly and welcoming to us "plebbs". We went upstairs to the lounge with it's huge flat screen TV, to place fun bets on what the final score would be. Before the match started Chris gave us a tour of this place too. Lou and himself had built this lodge so beautifully, their own place will surely be stunning too, when it's finished. The two teams stood for the anthems and the Kiwis did their usual threatening hakka. South Africa was playing against the Kiwis on their home ground in Dunedin, New Zealand, otherwise known as the "home of pain" apparently. The Kiwis had never been beaten by SA here before and had only ever been beaten here three times before. With SA being the rugby world champions and the Kiwis still bitter about being knocked out of the world cup, a lot was at stake with this match. The match was initially very frustrating to watch as the ref didn't seem to let the play flow smoothly, but after half time it was fantastic. Unfortunately neither of us had guessed the correct score, but South Africa beat the Kiwis fair and square after an excellent match. This really proved SA to be the true rugby world champions and made history on this field. It was so lovely to watch the match in such luxury and to watch it with such a great Kiwi gentleman.
After the match and lovely Pizza snacks, we returned to our spot on the mainland and typed up some more updates, as it was really hot and we'd have been roasted had we been out in the sun. Later in the afternoon, when the sun wasn't so strong, we each took a sea-kayak out and paddled to an island nearby to explore some of the neighbouring areas. The water in Lake Tanganyika was so clear, even clearer than Lake Malawi, and a beautiful turquoise blue. We saw some of the local cichlids, which are a variety of this fish only found in Lake Tanganyika. We loved spending time out on the water and agreed that Chris and Lou had chosen a superb spot for their future adventure lodge, where they will offer kayaking, diving and quad bike trips. We had kingfishers, bee-eaters and fish eagles flying and calling all around us. The sunset over the lake was stunning, with the sky turning red. The lodge and campsite aren't open yet, as some of the buildings have not been completed and there is no running water or functioning ablutions, but we had been provided with a portable loo and a huge bucket of water to shower/wash with. We cooled off in the lake after our paddle and then showered before making supper.
Chris, Lou, Vance and Jo were having a 'Murder Mystery' dinner to celebrate Jo's birthday and had invited us to come across later to see them all dressed up as the various characters. Everyone had got fully into their various roles and were dressed excellently. Lou was a clairvoyant with all her glam wear, Chris was the son dressed in casual clothing, Jo was the daughter in her black evening outfit, Vance was the French wine maker with dyed purple hands to prove it, Robin, Pete's wife was the mother-in-mourning and someone arrived as the Father in the priest sense, all dressed in robes and headwear, even having his own entry music as he arrived. Everyone looked so good and from the shrieks and giggles, we knew they were having a real ball.
We went to bed enjoying the quiet and wondered who the 'murderer' was in tonight’s dinner...
Sunday 13th July 2008: Lakeshore Lodge at Adventure Safaris, Kipili, Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania
GPS Info: S07° 26' 06.7" E30° 35' 28.5"
Miles Today: 186 Total Miles: 28 363
We were up early this morning, as we knew the road ahead of us today was going to be bad to VERY bad. Lou was up and told us Vance was the 'murderer' in last night's dinner. You buy the murder dinner with 8 character cards, telling each person who they are and what they should wear. You listen to tapes with dialogue, over a three course dinner and everyone apparently has a motive to be the murderer, so no-one knows if they are the murderer or not until the very end. We said good-bye to everyone and wished Chris and Louise every success in their lodge. They will be the most wonderful hosts and have the drive to make their lodge a roaring success.
We then set off on the awful road back to Namanyere, and then up north to Mpanda. It took us about 2 hours to get to Namanyere, much quicker than the other day, but poor Duz took real flack on the road today. We drove all day, on even worse roads with big holes, lots of dust and horrible continuous bumps. Worryingly we heard new noises developing from all around Duz and it made us wish we could be through the western part of east Africa really quickly. We drove through natural miombo or 'moist' woodland and even through Katavi National Park, only seeing 2 giraffe.
On our way out of Mpanda we suddenly had a car flash us and hoot, swerving in front of us and stopping us. A young white, english speaking guy jumped out, begging for a lift. We are very full and were so worried about putting more weight on Duz, so we said we couldn't help him, and drove on. We both felt terrible about leaving a young guy stranded, literally in the middle of nowhere. This is not a route tourists would normally take, and not somewhere it would be easy to get a lift from either, so after much discussion, we drove back into Mpanda to try to find him, having now rearranged our stuff to squeeze him in. John had had a terrible backpacking experience so far, having had his backpack stolen while travelling from the Malawian border to the Tanzanian border, when the taxi he was travelling in broke down, etc. The bus he was hoping to catch into Rwanda from Mpanda had broken down and would only be leaving in 4 days and he was meant to be meeting a friend in Rwanda the next day. John was born in South Africa, has been schooled in England, but still has lots of family in SA. This was all a bit of a last minute trip and now he'd even lost his Lonely Planet, so couldn't do too much research either. We all got on really well and having him with us for company lifted our worried minds from the horrendous Tanzanian road we were driving on and had to still drive on to get up north to Uganda.
After hours of long, hot, horrible and rather stressful driving, we pulled off into a cleared area to bush camp in what looked like the remains of an old quarry. John was very relieved when we told him we had an extra ground tent for him to sleep in. We had a very easy dinner of soup and bread and settled into bed for the night. The stars were amazing and we were once again lucky enough to enjoy our favourite type of camping, bush camping.
Happy birthday Flint. We know Donna will spoil you on your special day and hope you have a wonderful year ahead.
Monday 14th July 2008: Bush camp in a quarry between Mpanda and Uvinza, Tanzania
GPS Info: S05° 52' 37.8" E30° 54' 19.0"
Miles Today: 219 Total Miles: 28 582
Woke up to the sounds of nature and birdcalls in the trees around us. We packed up both tents quickly, so as not to draw attention to ourselves should locals walk past and see us. A trucker hooted as he went past, just to make sure we were awake. We took it in turns to have breakfast, only having crockery out for 2 people at the moment. We had all slept so well and felt much more refreshed to tackle the horrible road ahead.
The drive was through more miombo woodland and vast open areas of nothing. We would approach a village marked on the GPS, but not see any sign of it - no cleared ground, homesteads, cattle etc. Today’s road was slow, dusty, long and hard on Duzi2 again. We drove through Uvinza, an active salt mining town that was actually quite big. The road and bridges around the mine were excellent, with fancy bridges and buildings. We saw no litter today, amazing!
Shortly before Kasulu, we heard a horrible grinding/spinning sound coming from the rear right wheel. Ross immediately thought it must have been something to do with the half shaft, which he had noticed at Sangilo, was quite worn. On the side of the road, Ross removed the half shaft to find it was still fine, but the brand new Karsons drive-flange was totally worn flat after just 4 days! The metal must be of such a poor quality for this to have happened so quickly. Luckily Ross had kept the old drive flange, which had more of it's splines left, so he put the old one back on and the car was able to move forward once again. John seemed very relieved too, as we didn't think he was that keen on another bush camp, especially if it was going to be right on the main road this time.
On arriving in Kasulu, John almost immediately managed to get straight into a taxi heading to Kigoma. It was so great to have had the opportunity to get to know and travel with him and we hope his trip in Africa only gets better than what it had been, up until we met him. He wanted to head from Kigoma into Burundi and we were hoping to get to Kibondo, to be able to speak to someone with real knowledge about the road conditions and safety aspects, travelling from Kibondo up the west side of Lake Victoria and up into Uganda via Bukoba. With the half-shaft being a real concern now, we were even contemplating giving Uganda a skip completely and heading straight onto Mwanza, where we knew there was a Landrover dealership.
We stopped in Kasulu and tried unsuccessfully to find a spare half-shaft at the various motor spares shops. One of these places did have a used half-shaft, but wouldn't sell it to Ross as he said it would be unsafe for us to use. We really appreciated his honesty. Something we did manage to buy here were some famously juicy Tanzanian Queen pineapples, which we'll enjoy as we haven't had these since the west. The road from Kasulu to Kibondo was made up of even more bumpy gravel, along which we could hear Duz making even more new noises and squeaks, as the shocks started shaking loose. We passed many refugee villages and camps along this stretch of road, which reminded us that this area is still not settled. There were also many UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) white vehicles flying along the roads, some with refugee workers and others full of refugees. There seemed to be many children in these villages too.
We tried to find diesel in Kibondo and eventually followed a very helpful guy to an out-of-the-way pump with enough diesel to fill us up. He chatted to us finding out where we had come from, what various countries we had travelled through were like, and where we were heading next. He warned us about the road ahead, telling us it was dangerous due to armed Burundi rebels. He also told us which garage to go to try and get Landy spares. The garage didn't have a half-shaft for us, but told us to return in the morning and he would try and source one for us. He also told us that the IRC, International Rescue Commission (dealing with refugees), might also be a good place to try as they might have some Landy spares, because they used to have lots of Landys in service. All filled up with fuel, we decided to head straight to the police station to see if we could camp in their grounds. We needed to get permission from the boss, who couldn't understand why we wanted to camp. "No I don't think it will be possible," were his words and sent us off to a guesthouse far away.
The staff at this guesthouse got all giggly, like a pack of hyenas, when we pulled in, passing comments in their local language about Mazungus, etc. making us decide immediately that we wouldn't stay here. They told us it wouldn't be possible to camp in their car park so we would need to take a SUPER expensive room, trusting these guys with Duz! We drove out and tried to find another guesthouse in the data held on the GPS, but the roads it indicated didn't exist in real life. We pulled over on the roadside to re-assess, contemplating just driving on through and bush camping along the road ahead, although neither of us felt happy about this option.
While we were stopped a bakkie pulled up to see if he could help us. We explained our dilemma to him and were told to wait a moment. In less than 5 minutes we were told to follow him to the police station. He turned out to be the police officer in charge of entire Kibondo District and luckily also in charge of the main man at the police station. His words to us were, "I cannot allow you to continue tonight, as it is my responsibility to ensure your safety. It is unsafe to go further." He showed us where to park in the station's grounds and told us we would be safe tonight with an armed guard around. He and his son explained to us that the road ahead, from Kibondo to Lusahanga is very unsafe to travel at night due to armed rebels from Burundi coming across the border and carrying out armed robberies on cars. A man at the garage we had filled up at had told us this too. God is SOOO good and always provides for us when we least expect it. Not only did we have somewhere to camp for the night, but it was safe and free.
We made a quick pasta, pesto and seed dinner and then got up into the tent for a peaceful night's sleep.
Tuesday 15th July 2008: Kibondo Police Station, Kibondo, Tanzania
GPS Info: S03° 34' 56.1" E30° 43' 00.4"
Miles Today: 231 Total Miles: 28 813
We were up really early as we wanted to get to the garage to see if he had sourced a half-shaft for us. Our friendly chief of police appeared at 8:00am to find out how we had slept. We packed up the tent and followed him, as he insisted on escorting us through tiny Kibondo to the garage about 2km up the road. He had become our new best friend and couldn't do enough for us. He was so kind and genuinely concerned about us. Isma, the garage owner, hadn't managed to source what we needed, but directed us to try at the IRC (International Rescue Commission) or another NGO in the town. We parked at the IRC and Ross went in and miraculously was given a used half-shaft, but in better condition than our one. We were given this for free, as it was considered scrap from a rolled Defender 110! Once again God is so good, because now we could continue up to Uganda and didn't need to go east to Mwanza. It was a miracle we got this part, as they had had an auction a few weeks before, auctioning off all their Landy spares as they had now switched over to Toyota. Incredible that they still had the only part we needed and wouldn't take payment for it. During all this we managed to have a lovely long chat to Mom and Paps and a shorter chat to Mom and Dad.
Duz was really noisy now and had developed a new noise in the front, especially when diff was on. We stopped at Isma's to ask him if he could jump in to hear what it was. We drove a short way with him in the car, but he didn't seem too concerned about the noise. At least he didn't think it was coming from the gearbox, which is what we were concerned about. While we were at his garage, he told us we could use his pit to check on the wheel bearings again, as he suspected they had loosened and to tighten the shock mountings. Ross and one of his staff got busy replacing worn shock rubbers and mounting plates which Foley's in Livingstone had only very badly spot welded on. Ross greased everything up and within a few hours Duz was ready to go. Ross was filthy and it all cost a tiny pittance. We watched a huge grader clearing the road, which is shortly to be tarred, linking the town to the hospital. Isma also told us Kibondo should be receiving electricity before the end of the year, which will help hugely as then they can pump water up from the river far below, rather than having to collect it each day.
Leaving Kibondo much later than we had planned we were back on Tanzania’s awful gravel roads. Within a few minutes the shocks started to squeak again and we were both desperate to get onto a decent road, or even tar, before Duz developed some other worrying noises. These last few days had really been testing Duz to the limit. We were both a bit anxious driving along the road from Kibondo to Lusahanga, keeping alert and wondering which forests the rebels hide out in during the evenings. There seemed to be so many people around and the area seemed so densely populated. Apparently the rebels come over from Burundi in the late afternoon and evening and go back in the morning with their loot. We were perfectly safe, but glad we had done this stretch in daylight.
The road turned to excellent new tar at the intersection at Nyakanazi, which we were so grateful for. We drove along LOVING the tar and when we got to the fork to go up north, either a further 250km on more awfully bumpy gravel up to the Ugandan border, or just 70km on perfectly new tar to the Rwandan border...Duz strongly pulled in the direction of the tar and Rwanda and we didn't complain. South Africans don't need a visa to enter Rwanda, so that was a bonus. We only hoped our 3-month multi-entry Tanzanian visa would still be valid after entering into Rwanda. We arrived at the border within a few minutes due to having fantastic tar to drive on, a REAL treat! We checked about it's validity with the Tanzanian Immigration lady before exiting Tanzania, who told us it should remain valid as long as we re-enter Tanzania through Uganda or Kenya, which is what we will be doing anyway. With our passports stamped and our carnet completed, we left Tanzania and entered into Rwanda, our 20th African country on our trip.
================== Travelled through Rwanda - Uganda - Kenya .............. and then ......... ====================
Monday 4th August 2008:
We left Kenya and entered back into Tanzania again, hoping this time to travel on better roads than we had a few weeks ago, when travelling up the west of the country on our way to Ruwanda. We parked Duz and joined the long slow queue to have our 3 month entry visa restamped, and then went to Customs. The man at Customs was so friendly and cheerful. He stamped the carnet, telling us proudly that there is a now a new bridge that had been yesterday by the president, which joined Tanzania and Mozambique. Our ears pricked up at this news...a bridge, instead of the Rovuma ferry, would be fantastic. This would mean we could cross into Mozambique at whatever time we arrived at the bridge, rather than being restricted to the once a day ferry crossing time. The customs officer couldn't tell us where the bridge was, so asked another man in the adjacent office. With all the excitement in the office, about us potentially being some of the first tourists to cross the new bridge, they asked Ross, "Where are you going?". He answered Arusha, Dar Es Salaam and then onto Mozambique. The response from the Customs officer was, "So you won't be in Tanzania for longer than 5 days?", to which Ross replied, "Maybe". We paid our $5 Fuel Levy Tax, and didn't argue. The officials wished us a lovely stay in Tanzania and waved us out.
With all our documentation taken care of, Ross filled in the police book at the final gate before joining the road to Arusha. The policeman also knew about the new bridge and rattled off a whole lot of names Ross didn't recognise and which we couldn't find on any of our maps. We'll have to keep asking about this new bridge and hopefully it'll be on the road we take, heading south to Mozambique. The road to Arusha was good tar, even if it was a bit narrow in places. We had a very impressive view of Mt Meru as we entered Tanzania, as it rose up clearly in front of us. The mountain was clear, but the daylight was fading so unfortunately we couldn't get photos of it. Mt Meru is a typical volcano shape with a broad base rising to a pointed top.
We arrived in Arusha in the dark and picked our way through the streets, with the laptop plugged into the GPS. We headed for Masai Camp(TSh6 500p/p/night camping) to camp for the night, as we had it's waypoints...We arrived to see two overland trucks parked up and a huge amount of noise coming from the bar/restaurant. There seemed to be a men's acrobatics show on the go, to entertain the overlanders who had all eaten. Both of us didn't like Masai Camp at all and weren't impressed by the ablutions or any part of it. We tried to park in a level place away from the noise, but the music was too loud to not hear it. We were immediately befriended by a cute black and white dog, who became our personal guard dog sleeping under Duzi2 all night. We had a soup and bread dinner and went to bed.
Happy birthday Shaun we know you'll be spoilt by Trace, Jenna and Matthew on your special day. We hope you're feeling better and are able to do something special to celebrate your birthday.
Tuesday 5th August 2008: Masai Camp, Arusha, Tanzania
GPS Info: S03° 23' 07.8" E36° 43' 11.9"
Miles Today: 6 Total Miles: 30 810
We woke up surrounded by all 5 dogs from Masai Camp, sleeping under and around Duzi2. Two minibus loads of young people were dropped off with their backpacks and were waiting around to be taken off to various places. We thought they must've been volunteers being taken off to their various places of work. We had showers which were COLD and the loos were disgusting. Heidz was hounded by ladies wanting to do our laundry as she went in to have a shower, which she had to fight off. We both really didn't like this place at all and were keen to move on. We packed up and drove into central Arusha to change money, do shopping at Shoprite and hopefully do some internet stuff and find somewhere else to sleep for the night.. We had a short 'To do' list, but it took ALL day!
First we changed money at a Bureau de Change with a low rate, next we did a shop in a nice Shoprite, wandered around the surrounding shops looking at various souvenirs, as well as buying some real Tanzanian coffee. We found an internet cafe where we could link up the laptop through WIFI, but after more than 3 1/2hrs we left, frustrated at not being able to download all our emails due to it being S O S L O W, as well as the system being down for some time too. We tried to find out about other safe camp sites in Arusha, but no one knew of any others apart from Masai Camp. We were also given a handful of TSh50 coins, which no one except Shoprite will accept, so we later found out. We tried to spend them back in Shoprite, managing to buy about 15 little sugar coated liquorice rice grain looking sweets, being laughed at by the school kids who were buying bowls full of sweets from the pick 'n mix sweet counter.
Leaving the internet cafe in the dark, having wasted so much time doing what should only take a matter of minutes, and still not being able to rectify our GPS, even after reloading software etc, we regrettfully returned to Masai Camp(TSh6 500p/p/night camping) for another night. As we drove in we now saw 4 overland trucks parked up, an overland Landy and a city of ground tents where we had parked the night before. With all this activiity we couldn't wait for another freezing cold dirty shower and even more disgusting loos tomorrow morning. Parking away from the trucks and music in a flat open area, we hoped for a peaceful night's sleep. We were both feeling very disillusioned by Arusha, as we'd expected it to be very different to how it actually is. Also the Tanzanian 'Karibu - Yes we can do that' ,but actually they can't do anything, had really got to us. We decided to try and cheer ourselves up by having a pizza for dinner at Masai Camp. We sat around a big coal fire and enjoyed the warmth it gave off. Our pizzas were very nice and gave us time to plan our route for tomorrow. Feeling refreshed and content, we snuggled into the comfort of our rooftop home.
Wednesday 6th August 2008: Masai Camp, Arusha, Tanzania
GPS Info: S03° 23' 06.6" E36° 43' 13.0"
Miles Today: 669 Total Miles: 31 479
Both of us managed to sleep better last night than the night before, but after visits to the blocked and filthy loos, and freezing cold morning's shower, we decided that there was NO way we were returning back to this place for another night, no matter what! We packed up and were on our way early. We decided to stop in at Meserani Oasis Camp (S03° 24' 20.7" E36° 30' 35.9", TSh6 000p/p/night camping) on the road out from Arusha to Lake Manyara. It is on the left handside just before the Meserani Snake Park. Meserani Oasis Camp looked nice enough, with colourful gardens and lots of birdlife chirping in the trees. They apparently do have hot showers, but we didn't manage to look inside the ablutions to see the loos or showers as they were locked. This would be a MUCH quieter, more private campsite than Masai Camp, even if there might be noise from traffic along the road.
Driving a bit further on, we stopped in at Meserani Snake Park ($5p/p/night camping) which had 2 overland trucks parked in the campsite. The ablutions seemed clean enough and had the 'showerhead' hot water system, so should have hot showers. It looks a bit tired and would be better if there were grassy lawns to camp on rather than the dead, dry grass there is now. Even though it looks tired and rundown, it would also be a quieter option than Masai Camp, but we'd think Meserani Oasis Camp would be the nicest of the three.
We had decided we'd drive towards the Ngorongoro Crater to see how far we could get, and to find out what the actual price is to enter Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, rather than just going on hear say. The drive up to the Ngorogoro Crater is steep and you have a beautiful view over Lake Manyara as you ascend up the mountain ranges. It was funny to see how far from the crater some of the hotels and lodges are, with no view of the crater at all, yet with names like Crater Rim, Crater View etc. We commented on how disappointed we'd be if we had booked somewhere with a name like these and only on getting to the place realised how far and viewless they could be.
It was a lush green and pretty drive with people and villages all along the road. We were passed by lots of safari vehicles, full of tourists heading to the Ngorogoro Crater and Serengeti for their African safari. All these safari vehicles were fully laden with people, leaving little room for luggage. The road to the crater was excellent new tar, a real change and a treat, compared with some access roads into major game reserves. We parked up at the entrance gate with lots of safari 4x4s and school buses, to find out if the insane prices we've heard are true. With dead pan expressions the two people at the entrance gate office said "Ngorongoro Park entry is $50p/p/ 24hours + $40p/vehicle/ 24hours + $200 to enter the crater, the crater fee is only valid for for 24hrs, from 6am until 6pm.". WOW!!! It's true, Tanzania has gone crazy. Who on earth can afford these prices and then to join the queue of cars and 4x4s, loaded with foreigners as you snake your way into and out of the crater for such a short time. Also if you plan to enter in from the Serengeti, your park entry there is also only valid for 24hours and they are very strict about checking these. This puts you under some serious time pressure and makes you really have to plan your timing correctly. We tried to look at the info boards and 3D topographic map of the area, but there were so many school children squashed into the same room that this ended up being quite difficult. We did manage to find some stickers for Duz here, which was a real bonus.
Horrified at the greed, and so chuffed we had seen the migration in Kenya, rather than having to have paid these ridiculous prices, we drove back down the escarpment, overlooking the huge Lake Manyara and turned onto the gravel road to OI Doinyo Lengai. This road wasn't great, so we hoped the road out the top which would join back onto the main road near the Kenyan border, would be better. We drove through parts of the Ngorongoro Conservancy and saw giraffe, zebra, gazelle etc, mixed in with Maasai cattle herds. This proves that the Maasai really do live in harmony with the wildlife. There were many traditionally dressed Maasai in the open grasslands, minding their cattle and goat herds. The Maasai were dressed in red or purple adorned with beadwork and jewellery. They were carrying wooden assagays, spears or small club-like things, for protection. It's amazing to see how little they have to protect themselves from wild Africa and how little they wear. Wrapped in their Maasai cotton cloth, with Maasai woollen blankets wrapped around them for warmth and very simple flat sandals.
We got to a toll gate in the middle of nowhere and saw the sign which said US$5p/p community toll, for passing through this community. We were VERY surprised to be paying such a steep toll for this 'road'. We caught our first glimpse of a huge mountain/volcano and were amazed at it's size towering above us, out of the surrounding openness. This volcano was Engaruka, a dormant volcano. As we drove on a bit more we saw an even bigger volcano, typically triangular in shape and luckily totally clear of cloud.
The road got worse and worse, with big holes and bumps and the gravel became dark grey and hard as it was now made up of volcanic earth and ash. The landscape all around us was amazing with volcanoes, collapsed craters and partially remaining crater walls from previous volcanic activity. The grass was long and yellow with scattered flat-topped Acacias, and the exposed rocks were black, making a stunning contrast. We could even see some relatively small new vents bulging out the base of OI Doinyo Lengai. The scenery was breathtaking and we both felt so tiny. OI Doinyo Lengai is huge with dark grey rivelets trickling down it's sides, from previous lava and ash flows. These rivelets are long and wide, and seem like dry black riverbeds as you drive through them. The volcanic rock is hard and sharp, taking its toll on our tyres. Heidz took lots of photos of OI Doinyo Lengai as it seemed to change as we drove around it. The top was white and we were both wondering if it was snow, ice or ash, as we knew it had been smouldering a few months ago. It rose to 2 942m, half the size of Mt Kilimanjaro, but was SO impressive to see so close. It looked as if it had been lifted high up out of the flat African savannah surounding it. It was a long, not so great drive to get here, but the views were so worth it.
The road past OI Doinyo Lengai, towards Lake Natron, had a hard volcanic rock base, with very fine powdery volcanic dust on the surface, which formed a huge dusty balloon cloud behind us. Our plan was to try and drive to see Lake Natron, but not to pay park entry fees and go in, as we planned to spend tonight close to Mt Kilimanjaro, somewhere near Moshi. On Tracks4Africa there was a gate shown off the main road, on the entrance road into Lake Natron, but if we continued along the main road, there were view points from the road heading north up towards the Serengeti. We picked up a Maasai man who was hobbling along the road and carrying his primitive shoe. His ankle was swollen so we assumed he must have sprained it. He couldn't speak English, but said Lake Natron, which was where we were heading anyway, about 15km further on. Duz was full as normal, so there was no room for him inside, but he stood on the rock sliders next to the driver's window and really appreciated the lift, meaning he did not have to walk the 15kms on his sore foot. We came to a gate across the main road and soon realised this was as close as we were going to get to Lake Natron. We couldn't even carry on along the main road without paying this fee. The entry fee for Lake Natron was US$25p/p/night and US$50/vehicle which was definitely not going to happen, especially as we planned to get to Tanga and the beach tomorrow night. This US$100.00 didn't include the cost of camping either.
Barbs and Kim had sent us details of the place here which they had stayed at and recommended, but with tomorrow's drive already being very far from Moshi, it would make it impossible from here. We had seen the magnificent OI Doinyo Lengai, which was what we'd planned to see and seeing Lake Natron would've been an added bonus. We'll have to look at Kim and Barb's, and Barry and Paula's photos when we see them tomorrow, to see what we missed.
Our return drive on the 'road' indicated on the map, and on T4A, as the main access road to Lake Natron joining with the main road to Arusha at Longido, was awful. We turned off the gravel road onto a small track resembling an animal track, leading through the grass, which looked lovely and more forgiving than the hard rocky road we'd driven on most of the day. After a while this nice little track became a maze of thousands of dusty snaking tracks heading into the dark blue yonder ahead. It was getting towards dusk and we were keen to try and get through this maze of dust tracks before it got dark, hoping the road would improve as we headed further across towards civilization. The dust was so fine, like driving through brown talcum powder and it sprayed up for miles behind us. We had to stop when we turned corners, because we'd be enveloped by our own dust cloud and completely blinded. This route was awful and something we would NEVER recommend anyone to do, especially not as a single vehicle on it's own. It's so remote and isolated and we kept wondering what would happen if we broke down out here, there is no mobile signal and very few people, but we came to the conclusion that some Maasai herdsmen would probably find us eventually. This LONG dusty road took hours and hours. In the beginning taking us 3 hours to cover less than 30km of the 95km. We were very grateful for the GPS, to have at least a vague idea of which direction we should be heading in, especially as not all the dust tracks led off in the same direction. While it was still light we managed to see three Gerenuks and some dark giraffe with white socks. Gerenuks are antelope which are similar to impala, but have very long straight necks.
Eventually, after far too many hours of stressful driving in the dark, along this awful track, we joined the main tar road towards Arusha. It was a clear night with thousands of stars twinkling in the sky. We could see the dark black outline of Mt Meru against the stars, as we approached Arusha, and hoped the same would be true for Mt Kilimanjaro. We drove passed Arusha, definitely NOT wanting to return to Masai Camp, even though it was REALLY late and we were both exhausted. As we approached Moshi the sky clouded over and there was no sign of Mt Kilimanjaro at all. T4A showed a campsite off the main road called Honey Badger Lodge & Camp (TSh6 000p/p/nite to camp). We were hoping this was accurate as it sounded like a good spot to stop for the night, under Mt Kilimanjaro with excellent photo opportunities of the mountain in the morning. We saw the sign on the road, but got a bit lost on the little side road leading to it, ending up in a maize field. Not ideal at 11.30pm!!! We picked our way out and eventually found the spot. What a great find. We popped up the tent and went straight to sleep after a ridiculous day's driving. As we headed to bed the rooster started to crow and at midnight the turkeys joined in, but we were too tired to care and slept regardless.
Happy birthday Warren. We know you'll be spoilt by Jo and your baby-on-the-way, on your special day. We hope the year ahead will be a really good one as you become a dad with your new family.
Thursday 7th August 2008: Honey Badger Lodge and Camp, Moshi, Tanzania
GPS Info: S03° 21' 03.5" E37° 23' 01.0"
Miles Today: 227 Total Miles: 31 706
With turkeys and roosters next door, together with the truly African, early morning sweeping ritual, we were up early, really hoping to catch a clear glimpse of Mt Kilimanjaro from the Tanzanian side. This was not to be. It was totally cloudy and cool. We enjoyed the clean, hot showers and beautiful garden at Honey Badgers. After having breakfast we set off on a long cool day's drive from Moshi to Pangani. This was a very pretty day's drive, with a high steep lush green escarpment on our left and the flat, open, dry thorny Masai Steppes on our right. This area is also dominated by Sisel plantations. We drove past miles of bluey-green sisel growing in huge plantations and being dried on racks, to later be used to make ropes, sacking, bags or other things. There was a strong wind blowing against us the whole day which doesn't help when you're trying to conserve fuel costs. At least the road was really good tar and the scenery was very beautiful.
We took the tar road to Tanga and branched off on the second small road towards Pangani. We didn't know what to expect from this short cut road, but it was really lovely and looked to be the shortest link between the tar road and the campsite. A narrow earth track through the villages, with date and coconut palms, long lush green grass, and other wild trees and plantations. This little track reminded us of one of the roads we drove on in Nigeria, through the little villages. After the pretty shortcut we joined onto the corrugated main earth road from Tanga to Pangani, luckily for only a few kilometers. We knew the two families were here and they had made a campsite available for us for tonight and tomorrow, even though Peponi was officially full. We were met by Catherine, the lovely friendly receptionist and shown to where our site was. Catherine also asked if we would be eating in the restaurant tonight, as we would need to book and order immediately.
Unfortunately Catherine seems to be the only nice staff member at Peponi and the other staff couldn't be bothered to help you, answer any questions, or even take notice of things that have been reported to be broken or stolen. The barman is one of the rudest men and couldn't care about trying to help out clients at all. Unfortunately everything you need done at Peponi needs to be done through him - laundry, meal orders, reporting totally blocked up toilets etc. His obstructive nature is most unhelpful and sadly this seems to echo the attitude of the owners too.
Once we had been directed to our site, we popped open the tent and instantly relaxed, with the sea only a few metres away on the other side of the natural bush. Kim warned us to watch our stuff, as he'd had his Crocs nicked the night before. Barbs and Heidz went to check about the dinner time which Barbs had booked yesterday afternoon, when they arrived. She had booked for 12 of us to eat at 7:00pm. The barman said this was impossible and the earliest time we could come would be 8:00pm. He hadn't bothered to take their booking yesterday afternoon and couldn't care that there were 6 children involved, ranging in age from 6yrs to 12yrs. We all had to order our meals immediately and could come for dinner at 8:00pm only. These 6 children were the ONLY children at Peponi and once again the attitude was one of 'I don't care!', when it was put to him that it was very late for them to be eating.
The two families had been on a dhow cruise to Sand Island, not too far off Peponi's coast, which they had booked at reception. They highly recommended the dhow trip as Sand Island was different, being all sand and there were lots of shells on the island, including pansy shells. They had taken snorkeling gear to snorkel and exlore the coral reef etc., but were shocked to discover that the reef seems to have been quite badly destroyed and damaged, and there was very little fish or sealife. They had been told that the fishermen do spear fishing and dynamite fishing, which will obviously have a very negative impact on these fragile eco-systems in the sea. The children told us of some of the things they had seen - moving shells with things living inside the shells and even live star fish.
Peponi has hot showers from 6:00pm to 7:00pm, so we needed to do this promptly and managed to grab the last bit of warm water before they turned cold. All 3 ladies loos were blocked and disgusting. Paula had reported this to management yesterday lunchtime, but sadly were still not clear. After sundowners, lots of chatting and fun being back together with such good friends, who we felt like we'd known for ages, we walked up to the restaurant all excited about the prospect of fresh seafood for dinner. Ross had ordered peppered steak while Heidz had ordered prawns. After more chatting over Konyagi and bitter lemon or tonic water, and nearly an hour of waiting, our food FINALLY arrived, around 9pm. The youngest child, little John, was fast asleep and the other children were well on their way too, after a full day's fun in the sun. Most of us had ordered lemon butter prawns with coconut rice, but these were a HUGE disappointment. The prawns weren't fresh and you really had to struggle to de-shell them. They were dry and over done. Barbs asked for some sauce to pour over the prawns - butter, garlic or peri-peri, and was brought a whole green chilli on a saucer, unchopped!!! Need we say more. After waiting SO long, none of us were very impressed, especially after the raving food reports we'd all heard. Maybe we had caught them on a bad day, let's hope so!
After a lovely evening together, despite the meal, we all headed off to bed laughing and joking as we each climbed into our tent homes. The sound of the waves lapping so close was so calming and we really hoped to be able to enjoy the beach tomorrow.
Friday 8th August 2008: Peponi Beach Camp, about 25km from Pangani, Tanzania
GPS Info: S05° 17' 13.2" E39° 03' 59.5"
Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 31 706
We enjoyed a bit of a lie in this morning after our last few days of crazy driving. The families were up and about having breakfast and getting ready to enjoy the water and sunshine. Today was our day to unpack Duzi2 and to try and repack our stuff to make room for Mom and her luggage to fit in tomorrow. We handed in our big washing items like bed sheets and duvet cover, specially requesting it to be back tonight, as we plan to leave really early to get to Dar airport to fetch Mom. This was a BIG ask, being told it would only be returned if it was a sunny day, which it was luckily.
After breakfast, more chatting and hot drinks around the fire, we did our long overdue mountain of hand washing. At least having this done and clean, meant we would be able to pack stuff back into our boxes, rather than have it on the back seats. The two families had recommended buying fresh baguettes from the resort next door. These are baked freshly each morning. We went over and followed our noses, smelling out the fresh bread as we approached. Fresh baguettes made a change from ProNutro muesli for breakfast.
Most of the day was spent re-arranging and sorting out all our bits and pieces, plus all the rather bulky souvenirs we've managed to collect. Duzi2 has become very disorganised and chaotic, so it was so good to sort things out and pack things away properly, and even to find things we'd managed to misplace in the car. It got hot and really sunny. The tide went far out making the beach huge and long. There seemed to be a lot of plant material left on the beach when the tide was out, and there were probably some big shells too. We were too busy to go and check for shells, which is probably a good thing. We could see the waves crashing far out on the horizon and also breaking around Sand Island.
Everyone was having haircuts in the Hulley and Hertzberger families, so Heidz jumped at the opportunity to have hers cut by Barbs too. Initially Barbs cut a tiny bit off, but the dead dry ends were still there, so she then cut about 6inches off, making Heidz so happy to have bouncy healthy hair again. Ross got out his clippers to cut his hair too, and Barry and Kim seized the chance to shave off their beards. John didn't want to be left out, so asked if he could have his hair clipped too, which Barry loved doing quite short, much to Paula's surprise. We eventually finished repacking in the late afternoon, and sat with everyone on the beach, enjoying the view and eating a very late ham and salad baguette for lunch.
We joined the families for a spaghetti bolognaise and salad for dinner, which Paula quickly wipped up on the jiko, using their magic gas fire-lighting stick. Dinner was delicious and we enjoyed another night of fun and laughter all together.
Saturday 9th August 2008: Peponi Beach Camp, about 25km from Pangani, Tanzania
GPS Info: S05° 17' 13.2" E39° 03' 59.5"
Miles Today: 251 Total Miles: 31 957
We set our mobile alarm, to wake us up early enough to be able to have a sunrise walk along the beach, before leaving for the airport to fetch Mom. We sadly hadn't had time to enjoy the beach properly yesterday, so were glad to have the time to do a short walk towards the mangroves. At first when we woke up at 5:30am, it was pitch black, so we decided to wait for it to get a little lighter first, rather be safe than sorry. We left for our walk just before sunrise, with the dhows leaving the shore with their sails up, to start their early morning fishing. The water was warm and calm with a few beautiful whole shells scattered along the beach. The vegetation turned a reddish yellowish shade as the sun rose, which made it beautiful for photographs. Walking along the beach at this time of the morning was such a lovely way to start our day. We came back to Duz, had breakfast and said good-bye to the families. We really hoped we would meet up with each other again before getting back to SA.
We left for Dar International airport at 7:30am, knowing we still had a long drive ahead of us and we had to get there before Mom arrived at 2:30pm. Being a Saturday morning the roads were initially fairly quiet, with us passing some pretty horrific accidents along the way, which must have happened through the night or in the early hours of the morning. Many trucks had rolled or lost their loads. We passed a very obvious police presence all along the road into Dar. The Tanzanian policemen and women are all very smartly dressed in their bright white uniforms and hats. We were eventually stopped by a policeman, who took ages to walk over to Duz. Ross asked if there was a problem as we were needing to move on, to which he replied, "Yes there is a problem. Your tail light is not working...".
We were amazed at this because he had stopped us as we approached him from the front. Ross queried how he knew our tail light wasn't working when we had first approached him, to which he ridiculously answered. "Ahh, but I can sense this". Ross's reply was just as ridiculous, "Aahh, I wish I was as clever as you, I'd be a very clever man. I could see things before they happen." We talked our way out of a fine by saying we had checked all our lights before leaving Peponi and they were all working, and were now on our way to Dar to have our wheels balanced so hopefully the lights would be fixed then too. He was happy with this and let us leave, both still chuckling at his "ingeniousness" or ridiculously silly seventh sense.
We arrived at Dar airport early. The international airport is tiny with little curio shops and a few container type places. We went in to the only place to sit and have something to drink and had some tiny samusas for lunch, at the Pink Flamingo. While we were waiting we caught a glimpse of some of the Olympics on the TV in this cafe place, which was a real treat for us. The waiting area to wait for people arriving and departing, is just off the pavement in an open area, with TV screens that switched from showing the flights that had arrived and departed for the day so far to football. Mom's flight arrived and she took ages to come through, as did the rest of her flight, due to needing to get visas on arrival. Today, and at the airport especially, it was far more humid and hot than we had experienced so far in our time in Tanzania.
Mom waved through the glass and eventually found her luggage off the carousel, with the rest of her flights luggage. It was SO lovely to see her again. She had only brought a small hand luggage bag with her, which fitted easily on one of the back seats. Duzi2 had changed a lot since she had last seen her/him in Windhoek. Now covered in a lot more stickers and with our gorgeous Malawian painting on the back left panel. We jumped in with LOTS of chatting, catching up and laughing going on and headed to Sea Cliff, on the northern peninsula of Dar, where Uwe and Birgit had very kindly arranged for us to spend the night. Kilombero Sugar Estate has an employee's house in Dar, which employees can use to get away to and restock on supplies. We found the huge house with a security guard, Raphael, at the gate, so Duzi2 would be very safe, as Veronica, Uwe's mom, had said in a text she had sent us. We met Joyce, the lovely lady working at Dar house, who showed us our two rooms and welcomed us warmly. We were so lucky to be able to stay in such luxury with so much space and security. There was a kettle in the kitchen and a toaster and hot water and lights and electricity - all such luxuries and so quick and convenient compared to the normal ways we need to boil water or make toast in our world. Mom unpacked the treats she had brought from family for us - chocolate, biltong, liquorice, sweets, Zoo biscuits and cappachino sachets for Ross. Her bag was half empty after this. We were SO spoilt by everyone.
After unpacking a bit, we went for a quick walk around the neighbourhood, passed some huge fancy homes and passed some rather sad looking buildings which have definitely seen better days. It got dark fairly quickly and Joyce had said it wasn't too safe to be out after dark. We decided to go out for dinner, so tried to contact the two recommended taxi services, rather than go out in Duz, but had no luck there. On deciding where to go, we found there was a Spur at the Sea Cliff complex, so decided to head there in Duzi2 for a rib night. We had a ball together and all had wonderful, delicious ribs. We kept having to pinch ourselves to realise Mom was actually with us. It was a real pity Paps couldn't come too, but hopefully we'll be able to do more holidays together in the near future, once we settle down south.
After a fantastic evening together, we settled into a very comfy night with aircons and space.
Sunday 10th August 2008: Dar Guest House (Private Ilovo House), Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
GPS Info: S06° 44' 58.0" E39° 17' 07.9"
Miles Today: 223 Total Miles: 32 180
After a very comfy night's sleep, we had a yummy fried egg and toast breakfast and packed up to go to the Slipway market before driving on to Uwe and Birgit near Mikumi Game Reserve, about 5 1/2hours drive away. It was such a treat to be able to pop bread in the toaster and a few minutes later to have perfect toast popping up. Slipway was just a few minutes drive away from Dar house. There is a Shoprite at Slipway, where we were hoping to be able to find Ouma rusks, something Ross was REALLY missing. This Shoprite was AWFUL. It was smelly and dark and we wouldn't trust any perishable items bought from here, as their fridges looked really suspect. We did buy some Konyagi here, to enjoy as sundowners with Mom and then headed to the market. Mom had success finding some lovely beaded sandals with shells on them, but Heidz had no luck with sandals, as all of them were too small. Mom bought Heidz a stunning blue recycled paper necklace made in Uganda, and we found a few other bits and pieces. The view of the sea from Slipway is beautiful. It looked like a real tropical island with bright turquoise water and white sandy beaches. The water was so clear we could see fish swiming in the shallows.
After a lot of time and patience, Ross came over to Heidz and Mom telling us we only had 15 minutes left before we needed to leave, to get to Uwe and Birgit's before it got too late and dark. We left Slipway and headed out of Dar onto the road to Mikumi. The road was tar and luckily, being a Sunday, there was very little traffic. We phoned Uwe when we got to Morogoro and he offered to meet us along the road, to lead us to the Kilombero Sugar Estate and their home. It was a bit strange as Heidz remembered Uwe as a little boy, from MANY years ago, and now he is married and has been living and working at Kilombero for 3 years. The drive from Dar to Morogoro was lovely with big baobabs mixed in with palms and cultivated sisel fields. Along today's drive, we drove through Mikumi National Park and saw lots of game just from the main road. We saw impala, small ellies, warthog and more. Mom and Heidz couldn't believe they were ellies, because they really were small being bush height rather than tree height. While we were driving through Mikumi a white Toyota Rav4 flashed us and there was Uwe. We followed him, taking the turnoff left after Mikumi town and then turned into the Kilombero Sugar Estate. The estate is huge and bordered with high mountains on its one side and a channel from the Great Ruaha river running through it. The cane was so green and healthy looking. What a beautiful driveway to have to drive through to work and home. We drove passed one of the big sugar-mills running 24hr a day and passed through many security booms to Uwe and Birgit's home.
Birgit was waiting for us and both her and Uwe welcomed us warmly to their home with so much enthusiasm and generosity. We unpacked a few things and were shown our beautiful rooms. We got chatting outside and within no time at all, we felt like we'd known them for ages. Birgit had made a delicious pasta dinner with fresh, home grown salad. We had a delicious meal together and sat chatting and laughing for hours. Veronica, Uwe's mom and a friend of Moms, phoned very enthusiastically to check on how things were going, having a good chat to Mom. Mom left a few messages for Paps telling him the number and telling him we were all together and having a great time, but missing him.
After a wonderful night, with lots of chatting and fun, we headed to bed rather late. We did manage to watch a bit more of the Olympics on TV though and marvelled at Uwe and B's beautiful home and gorgeous Tanzanian wooden furniture.
Monday 11th August 2008: Uwe & Birgit's House (Private home), Kilombero Sugar Estate, near Mikumi National Park, Tanzania
GPS Info: S07° 41' 03.1" E36° 59' 29.0"
Miles Today: 3 Total Miles: 32 183
Duzi2 wasn't too happy and had a few things that needed to be sorted out. We had planned to do this in Dar, but Uwe very kindly offered to let Ross use the Kilombero garage to work on Duz. The front wheels were wobbling again, which we suspected was from worn panhard-rod bushes. Mom had brought two spares over from SA for us. On close inspection in the workshop this morning, Ross and the excellent Kilombero mechanics realised the problem wasn't the panhard-rod bushes at all. Instead the left front swivel bearing had completely disintegrated, leaving just a fraction of the inside bearing cone visible. This made the front left wheel really loose once it was jacked up. One of the guys went off to a nearby village to find a new swivel bearing, while Ross and Uwe and Birgit returned back to the house for lunch. Birgit works in accounts at Kilombero and they both come home to have lunch together. Jadina had made amazing fresh bread, which we thoroughly enjoyed for lunch with other yummy bits and pieces. Heidz had watched Jadina make the bread step by step. She wrote down the recipe, hoping to be able to repeat the amazing bread somewhere in the near future.
After lunch, Heidz and Mom stayed at the house, but went for a walk around the estate and it's golf course. The estate is so lovely and has stunning views of the mountains. Heidz caught up on some more updates, while Mom tried to relax, which is something she doesn't do very often. After a full day with Duzi2, Ross arrived back in the late afternoon with a thoroughly checked Duzi2, a new swivel bearing fitted and non-wobbly wheels. Uwe and B arrived home from work a little later and we all went to the club for a delicious dinner. B had a girls' birthday party which she went to initially. The three of us chatted and met a lot of the Kilombero staff, all out for a social night out. For dinner, Uwe and Ross had big hamburgers, while Mom and Heidz had the most delicious prawns for dinner. B joined us for another very enjoyable evening together.
Happy birthday Gill. We hope you are richly blessed today. We know Brad, Nicole and Kirsty will treat you like a queen on your special day.
Tuesday 12th August 2008: Uwe & Birgit's House (Private home), Kilombero Sugar Estate, near Mikumi National Park, Tanzania
GPS Info: S07° 41' 03.1" E36° 59' 29.0"
Miles Today: 194 Total Miles: 32 377
With Duzi2 all sorted out, we were able to leave for Ruaha with Mom, at whatever time suited us. We packed up and set off on our long drive, deciding to stop in at Iringa to change money and fill up with diesel. The drive from Mikumi to Iringa was pretty, but had some really nasty potholes in the tar road. We passed green grassy patches with tall coconut trees, backdropped against tall spikey mountains, which looked more like Thailand than Africa. We also passed many baobab trees (the upside down tree), which are mysterious looking with their weird unique shapes. We drove through Baobab Valley, where the hillsides are full of baobabs, and then up 'Death Valley' pass, which is a very steep windy pass which results in many nasty truck accidents. Along our route today, we were waved through by smartly dressed, uniformed police dressed in their bright white uniforms.
We had had texts from Barbs and Kim, and Barry and Paula, to say they were heading to The Old Farm House for the night too. We bumped into Barry and Paula in Iringa and heard a little bit about their amazing time in Ruaha National Park. After a bit of a stress, we managed to change money in Iringa and with Duz full of fuel, we finally arrived at The Old Farm House, Kizolonza Farm, in the early evening. The Old Farm House, Kisolonza Farm, (TSh5 000p/p/night camping) is a really lovely spot with a bushy feel to it. There are hot donkey showers and clean pit loos and the staff seem friendly. We popped open the rooftop tent for Mom to sleep in, and put up the ground tent for us to sleep in. Luckily we had found our single blow-up mattreses, which are far easier to blow up than the double blow-up mattress.
All set up for the night, we went over to join in the fun with the Hulley and Hertzberger families. The children were busy doing their trip diaries when we arrived and after dinner they went to bed. Britt read a beautiful poem which she had composed about the flamingoes at Lake Natron. It was so good to be back together again, and so lovely to have Mom with us to meet them too. We had a wonderful evening chatting, laughing and joking around the fire. It got really chilly as the evening drew on. Mom climbed the ladder to sleep upstairs, while Ross and Heidz climbed into the ground tent for the night. Only when we lay down did we realise that maybe the single blow-up mattresses were not the best thing. They were SO narrow and not as hard as they were a little earlier on in the evening...
Wednesday 13th August 2008: The Old Farm House, Kisolonza Farm, 50km south of Iringa, Tanzania
GPS Info: S08° 08' 44.7" E35° 24' 45.6"
Miles Today: 121 Total Miles: 32 498
There seemed to be a lot of movement in the campsite in the early hours of the morning, with cars entering and leaving, even though our three cars seemed to be the only cars camping. Our single blow-up mattresses had gone flat in the night and so we were glad when it was morning and we didn't need to try and sleep on those uncomfortable things anymore. We were woken by chants coming from all around our ground tent, of; "Coffee, coffee, coffee...", instigated by Kim and Barbs, with all the kids involved. We had breakfast and packed up to leave for Ruaha. Barry and Paula had had a problem yesterday, with their HUGE Ford F250 truck overheating, and as they started it this morning, liquid came pouring out from under the vehicle. This didn't look good at all. Barry suspected a blown cylinder head gasket. He filled up with water and decided to press on ahead to get into Mafinga, with Barbs and Kim following behind a little later. Sadly the Hulleys only went about 5km before returning back to the campsite.
The men got busy diagnosing the problem with the the engine, with Ross lending Barry his overall to preserve his clothes as he got stuck in, as only a farmer can. After much tinkering and phonecalls to Ford and to Uwe, Barry thought he'd found the problem - a "welsh plug" had popped out of the cylinder head. In true farmer style ('n boer maak 'n plan), Barry wedged it back in and made a plan to keep it in, to try and at least get to Mbeya for help. The Hertzbergers decided to stick with the Hulleys, at least until they were sorted out. It was horrible saying good-bye when we knew things weren't all fine. After the two families had left we stayed on a bit longer at the campsite, sorting ourselves out.
While Heidz was in the shower, two familiar faces from our time in Mauritania, in the north of West Africa, approached Duzi2...Barry and Ester, the Dutch couple we had met very briefly in Mauritania. It was SO lovely to see them again. We had never expected to see them again, as they were travelling much slower than us and were not planning to do the east. We chatted for ages and caught up on some of their experiences. It was amazing to finally meet people who had been exactly where we had been and knew exactly what we were talking about with West Africa.
After a VERY delayed, but fantastic start, meeting Barry and Ester, we left The Old Farm House and headed to Ruaha, very far away. The road was earth and got a bit slippery in places, travelling through areas where there were annoying tsetse flies. We knew we weren't going to enter into the park today as the park fees are valid for 24hours and we didn't want to waste any of our time unnecessarily. We hoped to find a good bush camp site, which Barry and Paula had recommended we try - a quarry outside the park, but nicely hidden from the main road. This spot was great and nicely cleared. There definitely were ellies around and about and they had obviously been in the quarry too, as their dung was scattered all around. It was still quite light, so we decided to pop into Tandala Lodge, very nearby, which the Hulleys had also suggested we stop in at, just to have a look. The manager at Tandala was very friendly and offered us accomodation for the night at local residents' rates, as it was late (US$90p/p/night all inclusive of dinner, breakfast and lunch). Tandala is a lovely place and the ellies were there when we arrived. A tempting offer if we had a bigger budget, but not possible this time.
We decided to drive a bit into the park, towards the main gate, to find out fees and gate times, but turned around just before the main gate as the light was fading fast. We didn't really see too much on this drive and set up our bush camp in the quarry. We decided to all squeeze into the rooftop tent for the night. Mom was incredibly brave, being very happy to bush camp, but more happy that we were all going to be together.
After a yummy beef stir-fry dinner, eating outside under the stars with no animal visitors, we all climbed up the ladder and were comfy in our rooftop bed.
Thursday 14th August 2008: Bush Camp outside Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
GPS Info: S07° 46' 31.4" E35° 00' 59.7"
Miles Today: 52 Total Miles: 32 550
With three in the tent sleep can be a bit difficult, especially when two of the people snore and it's in stereo, with one being on each side of you. Ross thought more ellies had visited us through the night, but none of us had heard them. We had breakfast and drove slowly into the park, trying to time our 24hrs to last as long as possible. We didn't see any game on our 12km drive through from the parks boundary to the main gate, and it was getting hot. We parked at the gate and paid our entry fees (Park fees US$20p/p/24hrs + $40p/vehicle/24hrs). We double checked the camping fee, of US$30p/p for no facilities, but had decided we'd bush camp in the same place tonight, on principle.
The Great Ruaha river runs through the park where the current entrance gate is. The river is wide, full of rapids and pools and is quite fast flowing, with hippo, crocs, various buck, lots of fish and lots of birdlife. We heard many fish eagles calling and caught sight of some of them in the trees alongside the river, one even caught a large fish. There was one Maribu stork poking its way around in the shallow water and reeded grass. They are very unfortunate looking birds - really ugly. We read the scattered signs dotted around, informing people of the birdlife, antelope species, vegetation and the river's importance.
Driving to a pool in the river, we saw more hippo contentedly wallowing in the water and sunbathing on the sand banks, enjoying the beautiful rocky river. We could get lovely views of the Great Ruaha river from various high points, looking down on to the river below. Where the vegetation seemed dry and brown, the river meant life. We kept to the roads along the river and saw lots of game - huge buffalo herds, zebra, giraffe, impala, banded mongeese, waterbuck, crested guinea fowl, elephant, baboons, vervet monkeys with bright blue bottoms etc. In the river we saw hippo, crocs and a terrapin, as well as lots of birdlife including kingfishers, storks and fish eagles.
We stopped in at the 2 campsites in the park. Campsite-2 had NO ablutions at all and no running water, but they seemed to be busy building a new pit-loo building. Campsite-1 had a pit loo, but nothing else. Campsite-2 has a lovely view over the sand banks of the river and had a sign to collect water from the Headquarters, but Campsite-1 was not so isolated and private. For all their views, we still couldn't justify the fees of US$30p/p/night to camp. We also stopped off to look at the Bandas, in the middle section of the park, near the airstrip and the park headquarters. The bandas are simple rondavels with a bed and clean linen, mosquito-net and a shelf unit, but they have new clean ablution blocks, with cold showers and flush loos. Bandas are US$20p/p/night, US$10 cheaper per person per night than camping and this is with their new clean ablution blocks and the same lovely view overlooking the Great Ruaha River...The bandas also have a communal kitchen and diningroom area to use, to cook your own food, or there is a simple restuarant nearby to order meals from if necessary. This didn't make sense to us at all, how can camping with NO facilities cost more than a banda with all these facilities.
We left the bandas feeling confused and carried on driving along following the river. At a stunning spot, with giraffe and open views of the river below and the bush behind us, we stopped in the shade of a big tree for a picnic lunch. It was fantastic to be in such a quiet park, with so much game around and of course to hear the sounds we've become so accustomed to - the grunting hippo and shrill fish eagle calls. We saw lots of game and a huge herd of buffalo. A little before seeing the buffalo herd we stumbled across four sleeping lionesses. They were all totally passed out sprawled out in cool shade. They didn't flinch at our presence at all. They looked in excellent condition, but were fast asleep. One of the lionesses looked like she was about to roll down the side of the bank which she was sleeping very awkwardly along. We decided to drive on and stop by again later on our way back, to see if they might be more active when it was cooler in the day.
There were lots of cute little banded mongeese scuttling along the river on the sandbanks and amongst the bush. All three of us looked up every tree in the hope of spotting a leopard, but still the elusive leopard hid itself from us and Duzi2. Even with Mom's imported leopard-spotting eyes, we still didn't manage to catch a glimpse of one. It was getting late and we still had a long drive back to our bushcamp spot, so we turned around. We stopped off at the 4 lionesses again, who actually stirred and each one then got up individually and they walked in a line, after each doing a perfect cat stretch to wake up. One got up and set off with determination in the direction of a barking impala and the buffalo herd, but the last two didn't manage to walk too far before flopping back down to lie, squashed between the road and some bushes. We got quite hopeful at one stage, that they might be starting to hunt the huge buffalo herd just a few metres ahead, but realised it wasn't going to happen while we were watching. They were all very healthy, two still had spots on the side of their tummies. Between the four of them, they seemed of similar ages and all quite young. Following them while they hunted could take time, especially with the rather lazy last two.
We were in a dilemma as to whether we should take the family banda with two rooms joined together and wake up in the park tomorrow, or whether to drive all the way out hoping to get to the gate before dark. We stopped in at Ruaha's headquarters to check the banda price. They confirmed the bandas were US$20p/p/night and that we could stay as they weren't fully booked. Mom kindly paid and we unpacked our stuff into the rooms. We were each given a rechargable torch to use, when walking outside, then we went up to the restaurant, near the staff quarters and the shop, to buy a cooldrink and sit outside enjoying its coolness. Being in this basic kind of rural environment was totally new for Mom and by this stage of our trip seemed totally normal for us. The bar, restaurant and shop was very basic with a TV, pool table and local music, but was full of people enjoying a night out, chatting in groups. This was the Ruaha National Park's equivalent to the staff club at Kilombero Sugar Estate.
After our drink, we drove back down to the bandas near the banks of the river, showered and cooked savoury omlettes for dinner in the kitchen area. We were chatting so much while we were cooking that we were oblivious to what was munching just outside in the bushes. The moon was almost full, so we had lots of natural light to try and view game by night, as well as a security guard to check we got to and from the banda safely. After finishing dinner we walked out of the kitchen to pack our stuff back into Duzi2 and heard breaking branches very close by. A big grey shape became visible less than 10metres from us - a bull elephant. He was minding his own business munching happily on the bushes and we were minding ours keeping an eye on him. The guard waved him off, but the bushes were too tempting and he only moved around the shower block to another bush close to Duzi2.
It was still early so Ross loaded the movie, 'The God's must be crazy', onto the laptop for us to watch together in the banda. We also enjoyed one of the BIG slabs of chocolate Mom had brought with her, from family back in SA. We lay on the beds under the mozzi-nets and put the laptop on a chair, to settle in to watch a movie we enjoy so much. Ross and Heidz were chuckling away, while Mom watched bits of the movie before drifting in and out of sleep. Before bed, we all looked through the windows again, trying to see if we could see any game outside, but there seemed to be nothing around - all was quiet in the African bush. Tucked under our mozzi-nets we quickly settled to sleep...
Happy birthday Ashley. We hope you are very spoilt on your special day.
Friday 15th August 2008: Ruaha Bandas, inside Ruaha Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
GPS Info: S07° 41' 02.5" E34° 56' 07.7"
Miles Today: 230 Total Miles: 32 780
In the early hours of the morning we were woken by scratching, brushing noises coming from outside against the banda's corrugated iron walls and roof. These noises increased and got louder, coming from all sides.Something banged into our open window and then we saw a big shape moving silently passed the window - Elephants! Mom jumped out of bed and was marvelling at them through the windows, in the bright moonlight. Our banda was built under a tree which dropped orange-coloured seed pods, which obviously the ellies love. They also seemed to be enjoying feasting on the trees and bushes all around our banda. They were actually quite quiet for their size and even being so close to us, we couldn't hear them chewing. Some of them had rather active tummies and we could hear them passing wind really loudly, but luckily we weren't in the line of fire of any of these. Amazed at our night visitors, we each settled back to sleep until morning.
We had until 11.30am to exit the park, so planned to do a morning drive before leaving, also planning to get there with time to spare, so as not to be charged for another day - something Headquarters had warned us about with the gate guys. We all enjoyed a hot drink with breakfast overlooking the Ruaha River, under the thatched huts alongside the bandas. The view was open and strangely devoid of animals other than a beautifully coloured stork, with its mulitcoloured beak. After breakfast, we drove around the southern part of the park along the river to River Camp. There was a lovely green area with lots of water and an abundance of different types of game - it looked like a scene from the garden of Eden. The game seemed relaxed and were all healthy. We saw two big herds of ellies drinking alongside each other with giraffe, Grant's gazelle, impala, zebra, hippo, crocs, kudu, dassies, banded and red mongeese, and lots of birdlife - storks, fish eagles, kingfishers etc, in this area. We also noticed the lovely natural flowers - bright red straw-like flowers growing in bunches on branches, pink and purple upside-down tube shaped flowers and bright yellow, full flower bouquets growing on a single stork. River Camp was beautifully camouflaged amongst the rocks and had an idylic setting.
We needed to turn around to ensure we were out of the park with time to spare. Arriving 15minutes early, the gate guard still tried to see if he could charge us more!!! Once we were outside the gate we took our time, to enjoy the river and game from outside the car. The ugly maribu stork was still fishing where he had been yesterday when we arrived and the hippo were huddled tightly in one small deep pool. The crocs were lazing in the sun and the fish eagle were calling from their tree tops, but the fish we'd seen fluttering across the water surface yesterday were gone. We had something cold to drink before setting out on the long road back to Kilombero.
The return drive to Kilombero was pretty, with baobabs and trees flowering in different colours. We approached the steep Death Valley pass slowly and carefully, but about three quarters of the way down, we heard a familiar whizzing sound coming from the back of Duzi2 and immediately lost our engine-breaking ability ... the 1/2 shaft or drive flange had worn through again! Miraculously this happened right opposite a layby area for us to pull off on. God is SO good. After parking up, Ross jumped out and got busy taking the drive flange off and checking the half shaft, while Heidz tried to phone Uwe to tell them we'd be delayed. Every truck driver and vehicle that passed us stopped to see if we were alright, which was amazing. Luckily the 1/2 shaft was still okay, but the drive flange's teeth had totally worn down. The whizzing noise we'd heard was from the drive flange's teeth not being able to grip onto the 1/2 shafts teeth as the wheel turned. Within a few minutes, after replacing the drive flange, we were all fixed up and on our way again, but worried.
As we were passing Morogoro, we decided to drive into town to see if we could get a new or good second hand 1/2 shaft and a new drive flange, as we had no more spares of these, and the Karsons spares don't seem to last very long at all. We found a spares shop advertising landrover spares. Mr Saidi shut his shop up, and jumped into a taxi with our 1/2 shaft to go to another shop to get a new one for us. We waited for his return, amazed at how he had shut his shop for us, with no guarantee that we would even buy anything from him. He returned with a new 1/2 shaft in his hand, a new drive flange and a smile. Ross was taken aback with the price he charged for these two things. The problem was, the 1/2 shaft he'd brought back for us was about 2cm longer than the original...we weren't convinced and weren't prepared to pay the steep price he was asking, so drove into town to try and change money, only to find that the only Bureau de Change was closed! With limited money we went back to Mr Saidi to bargain and he settled for slightly less, but still quite a steep price for his spares. We at least had piece of mind that we had something else to put in, should the whizz return.
Uwe and Birgit were relieved to see us when we finally arrived at their house on the Kilombero Sugar Estate at around 6pm. Today had been a long day's drive, with us travelling very slowly after the 1/2 shaft episode, and the added stress that brought. Uwe and Birgit had decided to have a braai with us tonight. Uwe and Ross started the fire with a tea bag soaked in paraffin and a few neatly stacked coal pieces. Soaking old teabags in paraffin is such a clever idea and works amazingly well. Birgit had made a lovely homegrown salad from their garden and a delicious potato bake, something we haven't had for ages. We shared another really special evening together, chattering and laughing. They are such an easy going couple and have been so incredibly generous to us. We all watched a bit more of the Olympics on TV before heading off to bed for another very comfortable night's sleep. It's horrible to think tomorrow is Mom's last full day with us and the last time we'll be spending with Uwe and Birgit in Tanzania. Luckily we still have the whole of tomorrow with Mom, and we'll hopefully see Uwe and B in SA when they come out in October.
Saturday 16th August 2008: Uwe & Birgit's House (Private home), Kilombero Sugar Estate, near Mikumi National Park, Tanzania
GPS Info: S07° 41' 03.1" E36° 59' 29.0"
Miles Today: 228 Total Miles: 33 008
Uwe left early for an early morning's work meeting and Birgit got up later, deciding that she wouldn't go in to work today as she had met all her deadlines during a rather stressful week. Uwe then returned after his meeting and we all enjoyed a full fried breakfast with fresh homemade bread toast, eggs and bacon. Yum yum! We packed up Duz and filtered more water, filling up the 70 litre water tank. Mom walked around B's garden, chatting to Birgit about the different types of plants she had planted in their lovely garden. Gadina had made two huge bread loaves this morning, one of which Uwe and Birgit insited we took with us.
We finally left after a relaxed start and headed back to Dar es Salaam, to camp at Sunrise Beach Camp. The road wasn't too busy and luckily there were no flying buses on the road today either. We approached Dar in the early evening and stumbled upon a Steers and Debonairs Pizza, on the road to the ferry which would take us from Dar to the southern beaches and Sunrise Beach Camp. There were a few curio sellers outside the eating area, but they were quite expensive, and didn't really have nice things. It was difficult to choose whether to go for Steers or Debonairs, as they are both such treats to have. We all settled on different pizzas, which were very yummy, finishing off with caramel coated soft serve ice-creams, a dinner treat from Mom.
Having had dinner, we headed to the ferry to cross over to the southern beaches. Luckily we drove straight onto the ferry (TSh1 000p/driver & car + TSh100p/pasenger thereafter) without even having to stop. The blue metal ferry was quite large with a bridge, typically African in design and simplicity. Being a Saturday night, it was fairly empty. The ferry crossing takes just over 8minutes from one side to the other, and moves quite quickly through the water for its size. It was dark and Dar looked quite lovely with it's buildings all lit up.
Getting to the other side, we drove a few kilometres to Sunrise Beach Camp, following T4A's one road which hadn't been used for ages and obviously is now a back road, judging by the looks we got when we stumbled upon the campsite entrance. We were directed to the main road and reception to check in. The campsite guard was very friendly and told us another car with a rooftop tent was also camping and they were from Holland.
Driving into Sunrise Beach Camp (TSh4 000p/p/night camping) was a real surprise. It was beautifully lit with lovely gardens and very helpful friendly staff. We wandered through the grounds which were right on the beach. There was loud, live music playing, serenading the people eating in the restaurant and on the beach. We were shown where we could camp and met Barry and Ester eating their dinner near their tent, with two young Dutch doctors who have volunteered to work in a hospital in western Tanzania for 6months. We moved Duz next to them and popped open the tent. The ablutions at Sunrise are immaculate and there are 4 security guards who patrol the campsite area, as the area open to camping opens right out onto the beach. The moon was up and the tide was out. We walked out on to the fine, soft, white sand and enjoyed the fact we were on the beach, looking onto the Indian Ocean again. The sea was calm and the moon reflected beautifully off the water, gently lapping onto the shore. The sky was clear, showing thousands of twinkling stars above us. The beach looked amazing and the water looked clear, we couldn't wait to see it in the morning.
As we had eaten already we joined Barry & Ester and their friends for drinks and a chat. Mom and their Dutch friends headed off to bed and the four of us ended up chatting about, and re-living, our West African experiences together. Sadly we heard Barry and Ester had had two awful experiences in our two favourite West African countries - Cameroon and Gabon. They had bush camped at "mile 18", along the beach in Cameroon and were attacked, beaten and robbed. Ester was hit so hard her arm was broken and this meant they had to fly back to Holland to have it operated on and set properly! Shortly after returning to continue their trip, when they bush camped for the night at Lekoni Canyon, in Gabon, they had their car broken into and were robbed. This gave us a real fright and made us realise how God had really protected us on our trip. We had followed a hunch/feeling and moved Duz onto the beach at Mile 18 in Cameroon, not wanting to be too far from her/him when we helped the fishermen pull in their nets. Further down the track, in Gabon, neither of us had felt comfortable during our bushcamp at Lekoni Canyon and we'd had a horrible feeling the whole time we were there. This made us realise how important it is to follow your gut feeling about things, places and people. Amazingly, despite Barry and Ester's two bad experiences, they still LOVED West Africa so much that they changed their original plan to ship their vehicle from Cape Town to Holland, and are driving up the East coast instead.
Sunday 17th August 2008: Sunrise Beach Resort, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
GPS Info: S06° 50' 59.5" E39° 21' 31.9"
Miles Today: 37 Total Miles: 33 045
This morning we awoke to lovely lighting as the sun had just risen up over the sea. We all decided to go for a long early morning walk along the beach and were treated to so many beautiful whole shells. We even found huge unbroken pansy shells lying in the clear turquoise water as the tide was going out.Ross found a live pansy shell lying washed up, which he threw back into the sea, and a beautiful live red starfish in the shallower water further along the beach. The beach was wide and long with fine white sand and stunning views. The fishermen were setting off in their dhows, raising their sails up as they got deep enough in the water. The horizon was dotted with dhows and smaller fishing boats. Walking this morning was such a lovely way to start our last day with Mom. We kept saying how weird it was that this morning she was walking on a truly idyllic beach in Tanzania, and tonight she would be back home in Durban. We were so blessed to have had this week to share with Mom and hoped she'd had a restful time too. We were also SO glad we had decided to camp at Sunrise for Mom's last night, so she could get a glimpse of how stunning the Tanzanian beaches are.
We arrived back at Duz with shirts full of shells and huge pansy shells, which we wrapped up so they wouldn't break on Mom's return home. Heidz made pancakes for breakfast for a change and chatted to Barry and Ester while Mom got ready to fly back. All packed up and ready, we had no time left to pop back to Slipway for some last minute shopping, as we drove to catch the ferry back to Dar and the airport. Even though Mom had had no time to shop for souvenirs at Slipway as planned, we'd had a lovely relaxing morning enjoying the beach instead. Luckily there was no queue for the ferry, so we drove straight on and within an hour were at the airport, with time to spare before Mom needed to check in. We waved good-bye and waited for Mom to go through Check-in before leaving. We look forward to seeing her again in only 3 weeks time!
We stopped in at Shoprite on our way back from the airport and bought some more fresh supplies, deciding to then head to Slipway to see if Heidz could find some lovely Kenyan/Tanzanian beaded sandals, and have an ice-cream to cheer us up. Slipway was full of people and children. Heidz tried for hours, trying SO many pairs of sandals on and eventually managing to find two pairs of lovely sandals, while Ross had spent the time paging through the books in a bookshop nearby. Afterwards we enjoyed an ice-cream overlooking the turquoise bay lined with white sand. It was still hot and very humid, but so lovely to be at the sea.
Arriving back at Sunrise Beach, we returned to our same spot next to Barry and Ester. It was a bit late to go too far on a beach walk, so we had a quick swim and then showered and changed into our long clothing to keep the mozzies at bay. We had a simple bread and soup dinner hoping for an early night. Barry and Ester had invited us to join them for dinner at a local cheap restuarant, but we were too tired for that. We headed for bed fairly early and slept really well.
Monday 18th August 2008: Sunrise Beach Resort, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
GPS Info: S06° 50' 59.5" E39° 21' 31.9"
Miles Today: 17 Total Miles: 33 062
The view out of the rooftop tent, onto the turquoise water about 200m from our tent, was idyllic. The dhows were on their way out, pulling up their sails as soon as they were deep enough off shore, to catch some wind. The sun was up and hot as we huddled under the shade from the scattered coconut trees. Barry and Ester were up and about and getting ready to pack up to leave today. They were heading into Dar to replace a BFGoodrich tyre and needed to do a few other things before heading on to Peponi. We chatted in the sunshine over breakfast and then packed up our stuff too, before heading into Dar to find a new rear-right 1/2shaft and drive flange, as well as more swivel bearings for the front wheels. Ross is hoping that the wobbly wheels might just be because the front right swivel bearing might have worn like the left one had, which we had found out at the Kilombero workshop. The clicking/slipping noise coming from the rear right wheel continued as we drove into Dar. There was a queue to board the ferry so we needed to wait for the second ferry, but enjoyed watching a few fruit sellers set up their stalls as we waited. It was hot and the perfect day for the beach. We had decided not to go for a walk along the beach this morning, as we would rather do one when it was cooler in the afternoon. We only had the spares to get, so thought we would be back at Sunrise beach fairly early..."pole pole" in Africa (Swahili for "slowly slowly" in Africa).
We boarded the ferry to cross over to Dar (TSh1 100 = TSh1 000 for the vehicle and driver + TSh100 for each passenger), this was the fifth time we had boarded this particular ferry. The crossing is quick, 8minutes, and uncomplicated. We headed into Dar and it's traffic and were amused at the total chaos of this 'city'. There are no rules and most of the traffic lights don't work, so it's a total free for all and everyone pushes into any gap they can find. We picked our way through to Landy AutoParts along the unmarked one-way systems. After chatting to the guy there, we both felt he couldn't give us a straight answer about anything. He was nice enough and carried the whole range of parts - genuine to cheap immitation Indian and Chinese parts. He told us the half shaft we had bought in Morogoro was an immitation Indian part and wouldn't fit, which Ross had realised while trying to fit it this morning. His prices were still very steep and he was raving about Karsons, the Indian manufactured parts we now are VERY cautious of. He didn't have a 1/2shaft so Ross went across the road to AutoRover, who were closing up shop for midday prayers at the mosque and lunch. Ross spoke to a knowledgeable guy who did have stock, but his prices were also steep. At least at AutoRover they had British-made Bearmach parts, rather than cheap immitations that wont last!
We decided to stop in at the official Landrover dealer, knowing we would NEVER be able to afford buying parts from them. They told us their price for a 1/2shaft would be TSh386 000.00, but unfortunately they didn't have any in stock. What a pity, we would need another mortgage to buy from them! The staff at Landrover were very friendly and helpful. They old us to try Victor AutoParts (S06° 48' 57.1" , E39° 17' 10.6") in Morogoro Road, as he supplies to them. They allowed us to park Duzi2 in their service area and gave us directions on how to walk to Victor's. The shop was closed, so we assumed he had gone to Mosque and lunch too. We decided to sit on the shop step and wait. Victor arrived at 3pm, as he had being trying to source a book. He is not a muslim, so doesn't go to mosque and would normally have been open at 2pm. He is incredibly professional and knowledgeable. His price for a 1/2shaft was TSh 45 000. His stock is all genuine stuff, imported from the UK, and the BM 1/2shaft was identical to the one we had had in Duz. We bought a brand new plastic wrapped 1/2shaft with rubber coverings on each end protecting the teeth, a BM drive flange and Timken(UK) swivel bearings. All these parts didn't come to too much more than what we had spent with "Mr Shark" Saidi in Morogoro. We would highly recommend Victor's AutoParts for Landy spares and parts, as there's no wheeling and dealing here. His stock is cheaper than the back street shops and it's GENUINE!!!
We walked back to Landrover feeling very chuffed and relieved. We changed money and then paid for and collected our parts, before joining the chaos of the Dar traffic and one-way systems to get back to Sunrise Beach. It took hours to get back and we needed to wait for one ferry, but got back before sunset. Ross got busy changing the rear right 1/2 shaft and then putting a silicone gasket on too. This would hopefully stop the clicking, slipping noise coming from it too. The sun set and the light faded fast and then the mozzies came out in full force. Another overland car arrived and then another, so we staked out our spot. A little while later a third overland car appeared, but this had familiar faces. Barry and Ester had also had a rather slow day in Dar, only managing to get a new tyre, so had decided to come back for the night and go to Shoprite when they leave for Peponi Beach tomorrow. It had taken them 3 hours to get from a tyre shop near the airport back to Sunrise, due to the crazy traffic. It was great having our lovely Dutch neighbours and friends back for another really enjoyable evening together. We cooked a meal together - veggie fried rice and used our jiko from Kim and Barbs to braai some wors and chicken wings. Ester cleverly made some yummy peanut sauce. Our jiko worked so well, we were all very impressed. Ross lit the coals the way Uwe had for our braai there, and they lit like a dream, only we substituted firelighters for the paraffin soaked teabags. Dinner was good and the company was excellent. We sat laughing and chatting, recounting events until 2am!!! So much for the early nights which both of us couples had planned. This was the first time in our respective trips that both couples were able to chat to people who knew exactly what we were talking about. It was sad that we're again going off in opposite directions. We were SO glad we'd met up with Barry and Ester again, as we've been priviledged enough to get to know them as friends, who we'd love to meet up with again. They have a big adventure ahead of them, driving back to Holland up the east of Africa, before heading down to settle in Australia, as we do too heading down to live in SA...
Tuesday 19th August 2008: Sunrise Beach Resort, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
GPS Info: S06° 50' 59.5" E39° 21' 31.9"
Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 33 062
We woke to a rather grey start to the day, even with a few rain drops. The clouds cleared, to bless us with another beautiful day in paradise and with Barry and Ester's company, we enjoyed a very sociable morning together. It was so lovely to get to know Barry and Ester more. It was very sad saying good-bye to them, but we really hope we will see them again somewhere in the future, either in Africa or Australia. They were heading to Shoprite and on to Peponi, before continuing up to Kenya, Uganda and further north.
Ross jacked Duzi2 up to check the front wheels, trying to see if he could find out why the front wheels are wobbling again. He tightened the bearings, but didn't find anything obvious. It got really hot and the sun was strong so we were thankful for the shade the coconut trees provided. The weather was perfect, making the sea turquoise and clear, with only small waves lapping every now and again. Sunrise Beach is stunning and the beach itself is true paradise. The friendly, helpful and interested staff make this place a really lovely place to stop, if you have the time.
Working on Duz, Ross got roasted in the sun, but managed to finish in the early afternoon. Heidz did washing which dried very quickly. Both of us were feeling weary and decided due to the time, we'd stop for the afternoon and enjoy the stunning setting and the beach before heading down to Kilwa Masoko. We'd also been told by our rasta overland truck driver neighbour, that the road to Kilwa is about a 7 to 71/2hour drive and gets pretty bumpy in places. Unfortunately he had not heard of the new, recently opened bridge, but told us to go over to Kipepeo Beach next door, to see if any of the overland truck drivers there knew anything. Kipepeo campsite was full of overland trucks, but none of them drive south through Mozambique so couldn't help us. We spoke to the owner who said a guest had arrived yesterday without their vehicle, as the Rovuma ferry had become water-logged and stranded on a sand bank. He said the ferry definitely wasn't running and that the ferry driver had been texting people in Dar to try and arrange for a 50-ton crane to rescue the ferry. The owner also told us the new bridge may be open, but it is incomplete, being 25m too short. We couldn't understand how a bridge could be officially opened by the President of Tanzania without being complete. Maybe it is complete on the Tanzanian side, but not on the Mozambican side. We are in Africa after all and here anything is possible.
After hearing this news, we decided to text Gaston, the Rovuma ferry captain, directly ourselves and get him to confirm the ferry and bridge situation, rather than just believe what could be an over-dramatised traveller's tale. With the ferry not running and the bridge not being complete, there is no way of safely crossing with a vehicle into northern Mozambique. This meant we would now have to back track the way we'd travelled with Mom, but right back to Mbeya before heading south to transit through Malawi and entering central or southern Mozambique. We spoke to the manager at Sunrise Beach and he said he would phone people in Mtwara and find out info about the ferry and bridge for us and let us know his findings tonight. Once again, showing the genuine care and concern all the staff at Sunrise have shown.
After a fantastic afternoon relaxing in paradise, reading magazines and doing Sudokus, we both felt much better and ready to tackle the next few long days of driving in which ever direction we needed to head in. We went for a short walk along the beach and then showered to warm up, after swimming in the sea for the first time so far at Sunrise.
We decided to have a cheap meal at Sunrise, with Ross choosing to have spaghetti bolognaise and Heidz having a huge veggie fajita with salad and chips. We were served by a lovely waitress and had a very enjoyable candlelit evening sitting on the beach, watching the moon rise over the calm ocean a few metres away from our table. The lights from the fishing boats and dhows made the sea twinkle and it was hard to believe we were looking a the sea rather than onto a lake. We chatted to a couple driving an SA registered vehicle who had arrived in the late afternoon. They had the blue and yellow triangle mounted on the front righthand side of their vehicle, a requirement for Mozambique. We wondered if they had managed to cross over the Rovuma River, either by ferry or over the new bridge. They confirmed to us that the Rovuma ferry definitely is NOT running or operational, and there is NO completed bridge or safe other option to cross over the river. They had got that far in northern Mozambique and needed to turn back and go through Malawi. They also told us that the church and monument at Ilha de Mozambique are currently covered up and closed for renovations, so it would be a long drive to see that.
We got back to Duz and found a text on our phone from Gaston, "Ferry is NOT working, there is NO bridge to cross the border. Gaston" Well done to him for replying, even when it's not good news.
With this confirmation, our plans have now changed to back track to Mbeya, sleeping at Kisolonza tomorrow night and hopefully crossing into Malawi the next day through Mbeya, before heading as fast as possible through Malawi to get to Mozambique, still aiming to be in Durban by the 6th September. This means LONG hard days of driving until we get into Mozambique, but then hopefully we'll be able to stop and relax for a bit. SO much extra mileage and diesel expense just because the ferry is broken..., but at least we found out here and didn't drive all the way to Mtwara to find this out!
Wednesday 20th August 2008: Sunrise Beach Resort, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
GPS Info: S06° 50' 59.5" E39° 21' 31.9"
Miles Today: 348 Total Miles: 33 410
In the early hours of the morning, we were woken by screaming and the security guards escorting a women away from the rasta tents. She had come back with our neighbours and then tried to steal stuff, including cameras, from their tents. They were shocked and very apologetic for the commotion and her hysterical screaming. After falling asleep again we woke up once the sun had risen and were immediately offered fresh Kenyan coffee from our neighbours, who again, together with the security guards, apologised profusely. Our rasta neighbours were really nice guys and had been great neighbours, very chilled and busy getting prepared for their next guests to arrive. They run overland tours for older guests 50yrs plus. We'd seen their last guests on Mom's last day, just before they ended their trip on Zanzibar. These guys had done washing and sewing and made some jewellery, and are in transit back to Entebbe, Uganda, to fetch their next guests - they have a long way to go back.
We went for a lovely long walk on the beach as the tide was going out, and Heidz was restricted to only collecting extra special shells. The water is SO clean and clear along this stretch of beach and the sand is fine and white. There are so many beautiful types of whole shells, including cowries, many other twirly ones of all different patterns and colours, typical 'Shell' shells, and pansy shells in all different sizes. The water is turquoise with dhows and other fishing boats bobbing up and down on the horizon. There are coconut palms growing out of the white sand and each resort/lodge has little roofed beach shelters to relax under. There are no big flash hotels, as far as we know, and there are still some open stretches of nothingness. True paradise and on a par with Mauritius, only more natural!
Even mangrove forests are found on each bay head area, where fresh water rivers feed into the sea. The water temperature was very pleasant and we both wished we had longer to spend here...we'll just have to come back one day. Seeing this stunning stretch of beach near Dar, which is never advertised, makes you wonder how much more stunning Zanzibar must be, another holiday for the future.
Returning after our lovely walk and both having picked up a bit of colour and only a small handful of shells, we showered, had breakfast and set off to join the long slow queue to cross the Dar ferry (TSh1 100 for us and Duz). We were sad to leave Sunrise and their lovely staff, who had all befriended us. Today was the first time we had really had to queue for the ferry and we waited for 2 or 3 ferries before we could board, taking 1 1/2hrs. We crossed over on the big ferry with the bridge, the same ferry we crossed over on the very first time with Mom on our way from Dar to Sunrise Beach. From the ferry we again joined in the chaos of Dar's no-rules traffic and took another 2 hours to get through town and out onto the less congested road to Morogoro and Iringa. Having lost so much time waiting this morning mean't we'd be driving late into the night, but we had decided to camp at The Old Farm House, on Kisolonza Farm, 50km south of Iringa no matter what time we got there. We had stayed there with Mom last week and it was a nice place with clean ablutions and hot showers. We would have less distance to cover tomorrow before crossing again into Malawi.
On the way back past Morogoro, we decided to chance it and stopped back at Mr Saidi's shop, to see if we could get some money back for the 1/2shaft we'd bought from him, which we'd never used as it's too long. He is a bad lier and told Ross he only had TSh16 000 to give him, as this was all the money he had in his shop, but couldn't look Ross in the eyes while saying this!!! Ross reached through and showed him a container with more money in it which he seemed to have forgotten about, but which still wasn't much. The shop he'd bought it from was also apparently closed, although it's hard to believe this as these little container shops NEVER close. Oh well, we tried, but drove off with the shaft, which we could at least cut down to size if we HAD to. We also tried to find a Bureau de Change to change over some Euros for fuel, but had no luck there either. We drove through Mikumi National Park and saw giraffe, ellies, impala, a big herd of buffalo and wildebeest at dusk. Shortly afterwards we passed Uwe and Birgit's turn-off, who we'll see when they come out to SA on holiday too, and then continued through Baobab Valley in the dark. There are some nasty potholes along this stretch. Luckily today we had no flying red buses tormenting us along this road, as we've had on the two other times we've driven this stretch. There were big trucks, but they were mostly lit and helpful, indicating when it was clear for us to overtake them. We drove up windy 'Death Valley' pass in the dark and suddenly felt the temperature difference. We eventually arrived at The Old Farm House (TSh5 000p/p/night camping) just after 11pm. We were the only campers and the security guard assured us we could have HOT showers if we wished. We were both tired and weren't tempted by hot showers at all. Popping open the tent, we went straight to sleep.
While we had been driving today, we had received texts from both the Hulleys and the Hertzbergers, telling us of their whereabouts and offering for us to join them. We don't think we'll catch up to the Hulleys, but will see them in SA, and probably won't stop along Lake Malawi with the Hertzbergers either as we'd rather try to get to Mozambique. We'll definitely see both families back in SA in a few weeks when we've all stopped. We also got a text from Debbie and Andrew, who had met up with Barry and Ester at Peponi. They'd hoped to meet up with us at Kilwa, but we were obviously not heading there anymore. We'll meet them in SA too, when they've finished later on in the year, or when they fly back for a wedding in October sometime.
Thursday 21st August 2008: The Old Farm House, Kisolonza Farm, 50km south of Iringa, Tanzania
GPS Info: S08° 08' 46.4" E35° 24' 45.9"
Miles Today: 402 Total Miles: 33 812
Both of us slept SO well and woke up later than we had planned, but at least felt rested. We enjoyed the lovely HOT showers and something hot to drink. It was quite cool, being at 1754m, as opposed to about 2m the morning before at Sunrise Beach. Ross checked up on yesterday's route covering 557km, travelling at an average speed of 48km/hr, for a few minutes short of 12hours! We paid for our night's camping, had a quick breakfast and continued along the road towards Mbeya and Malawi.
We stopped at Mafinga to change money and refuel, both being really easy to do. We changed €150 and spent it ALL in one go, filling up with diesel! There was a car which had smashed into a shop, over another car. We couldn't understand how it had smashed into the shop as there was no access to the shop from the road, and how had it managed to ramp on top of another vehicle. Only in Africa. There were quite a few trucks on the road, but at least the road to Mbeya was really good tar. The drive to the border is very pretty with wheat and maize fields patchworked along the hillsides, banana, palm and bright green tea plantations, in which we saw tea pickers picking the tea leaves to load on trucks. Some of the tea plantations, which were green when we drove this road a month or so ago, were brown now, so maybe their leaves had been cut. We'll have to read up and learn a bit about tea when we stop our trip. In the highlands of the mountain pass we climbed to over 2 000m and passed trees with pink and white blossoms. These looked like apple, cherry or plum blossoms. The houses also had beautiful white arum lillies, multi coloured hydrangeas and golden trumpet like flowers growing in bushes, in their gardens. It was lovely doing this pretty drive in daylight, because the last time we drove this stretch was in the early evening when the lighting was too difficult to take photos in.
We were still keeping our eyes open to buy a new aggi/jiko, if we saw any being made or sold along the roadside. Just before the border we saw a man hammering out the corrugations in some corrugated iron sheets. He was an aggi maker and seller, and went across the road to his store room allowing us to chose which aggi or jiko we wanted. The iron was shiny and new and had been painted on the outside to protect it from rusting. With two aggis on our roof, we continued to the border.
We swopped our remaining Tanzanian Shillings into Malawian Kwacha with a money tout at the border, at a rate of Mk1.00 to TSh10.00, which was the rate we had worked out before. We at least now had some Malawian Kwacha to pay for wherever we are going to sleep tonight, rather than carrying worthless money around.
We parked Duz outside the smart Tanzanian border control and went in to have our passports stamped with our exit stamp at Immigration, before proceeding to Customs to have the Carnet stamped. They asked to see our receipt for road tax and queried as to why we only had one piece of paper instead of two for our second entry. We said we had been delayed in our time in Tanzania, as the new bridge we'd been told about in Namanga was incomplete and the ferry crossing the Rovuma River at Mtwara has been broken for days. We had to go to the superiors while they all discussed our situation in Swahilli, with us not understanding a word. Two men seemed to be apologetic towards our plite and said something about having been inconvenienced enough so not to be fined. We needed to follow the Customs Oficer out to the front desk again, and he said we could now leave, after back dating our carnet. Luckily we had all our facts straight.
We left the land of Swahili words, which we've become so accustomed to: "Karibu (Hello), Mambo / Jambo (Hi greeting), Habare (Good morning/news), Asante (Thank you) Asante sane (Thank you very much), Safari Njema (Travel safely) and where the people end their words with "i" for example "one shillinggi", for the second time and entered Malawi again. Sadly this time we won't be returning to Tanzania with Duzi2 for a long time, unlike the last time when we were off to explore more of beautiful Africa.