Although we havent been to any of the tourist areas of Tanzania yet, weve been absolutely amazed at how friendly and helpful the locals are. Our deep dark Africa experience has been awesome except for the fact that weve decided we HATE Tsetse flies, they;re an absolute scurge!
Daily GPS co ordinates:
S 8 54 624 E 33 26 908 Mbeya
S 8 10 967 E 33 15 869
S 6 48 215 E 33 12 326
S 5 31 408 E 32 41 260
S 5 00 870 E 32 48 617 Tabora
S 3 24 434 E 33 28 007
S 2 31 028 E 32 53 808 Mwanza
Average petrol costs: R7 / litre
Average cost of camping: R20 pppn
Average cost of motels: R50 pppn
Average cost of bush camping: nothing but being subjected to beautiful sunsets.
Exchange rate: USD 1 : Tsh 980
Entry into Tanzania cost us USD 50 each for visas, USD 5 for some sort of car tax and USD 20 for third party insurance. This was a little more than we had expected and we hoped that it wouldnt be as sign of things to come. The realization that we were in TANZANIA hit us hard. We had been in a nervous-excited anticipation and now we were finally here... and we soon found that we loved it!! Tanzania met us with green, rolling hills, fertile soil and friendly people. Weve actually been pleasantly surprised at how extremely friendly these people are. I suppose because the routes weve travelled so far are not the touristy ones and the locals dont see too many muzungus. Weve found that theyre generally just interested in talking to you as a person rather than trying to get something from you. This is real Africa, the way I expected it! I just wonder if well have the same opinion after weve been to the touristy areas of the country.
Mbeya, which is the central rail junction between Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, reminded us a bit of Maputo: Dusty streets lined with makeshift shops, badly in need of a paint job. We settled in at the Karibuni Church Centre, which provided excellent camping facilities at a good price. I had already had my first experience with the local toilets in Tanzania. They are those Islamic "put your feet on either side, squat and hope for the best" jobs. And yes, our campsite had those too. Brett reckons it's like having a flushable bosk@k (without the view!). But it was OK, 'cause the local church choir sang so beautifully, that most of us had a lump in our throats... and we had hot water!
Dinner was... wait for it... pizza!!!!!!!... followed by a mass discussion of our future route. Wed already decided to deviate from our original planned route (as seen on the map on the web site), and not go straight to Dar Es Salaam. This was largely due to the fact that Heather , Clackie and Stu are flying into Dar and Zanzibar in the first few days of August. We therefore had 5 and a half weeks to ;kill; before they got there. Our amended plan was to travel up the eastern side of Lake Tanganyika to Rwanda and ultimately Uganda so that we could go and see the mountain gorillas. Our plan was then to drive right around Lake Victoria and straight back to Dar.
The problem was that on the eve of our departure from Mbeya, we were told that Burundian rebel refugees had apparently been high jacking and robbing motorists in the northern parts of Tanzania, between Kigoma and Rwanda (close to the border). So we had to find an alternative route. After much deliberation, we decided to head north to Chunya (pronounced like I tune ya bru!) and on to Tabora. From Tabora we would head to Mwanza and then ferry on Lake Victoria, around the problem area, to Bukoba.
The fact that the road was marked as a "main road" provided us with much amusement the next day, as we inched our way over sharp rocks and through potholes in the dirt road. Our top speed was pretty much 20 km/h and we reached Chunya (80km away) by lunchtime (after leaving at 6.30am...).
We had also been studying the limited Swahili that our Lonely Planet book provided and tried having an elementary conversation with the okes at the petrol station. They, of course, found it really amusing that the muzungu's were keen to learn Swahili and made it their mission to teach us for at least half an hour! Fortunately, there were a few who could speak limited English; otherwise it could have been an interesting episode! Luckily we knew how to ask for some mkate (bread) at the duka (shop)!
I have been amazed to see how most children in Africa seem to be around 4 years old (or maybe they are all just small). It seemed as though the kids in this area hadn't seen many muzungu's before and were careful, if not scared, of us. I came up from behind a little boy and tickled his tummy. He gave a surprised squeal and ran away laughing his head off. He wouldn't come closer again, but stood at a distance waiving, laughing and shouting "Jambo"(Hallo).
We managed a total of 115km that day, before finding a suitable spot to bush camp. There were ruins of houses (important for changing, etc. when you are the only girl between 4 guys!) and nice flat ground for the tents. Luckily firewood was plentiful and soon we were cooking tree-butchery beef goulash on the coals. The boys wrote in their diaries, read by the final sunlight and tried their Swahili skills on the locals who passed through the middle of our campsite... Turns out we were camping on a bicycle "highway" connecting the surrounding villages! This was cool and there was a whole lot of "Jambo"-ing going on.
On the road by 8am Tanzanian time (7am our time) we managed a top speed of 40-60km/h for a while. Soon the villages turned to bush. Suddenly we were infested by tsetse flies and had to close our windows. Not having aircon with temperatures around 25 degrees did not help the situation. Thousands (or so it felt) surrounded our cars. We tried accelerating in an attempt to loose them, but they kept up by slipstreaming the cars. This was crazy!! They were so bloodthirsty that they followed the cars for over 80km! One got his big, ugly sucker into Daz and when I squashed him (the bug that is) on the window, he oozed a good 2ml of blood, running down the window. Meanwhile Andy commented about the tsetse flies congregating outside his window saying: "I attract great company, don't I..."
By 4pm, we reached a small village, called Katunda (no you won't find it on the map!) and asked whether we could stay at the local mission for the night. We were bargaining on camping, but the pastor's wife had a room with 3 beds, so the boys stayed there. They could not speak English, so we didn't communicate much, but they were very friendly. We videotaped the kids and played it back to them, in an effort to entertain them. This worked like a charm and they shrieked with laughter as they watched themselves on TV!
An overly ambitious cock woke us at 4am Tanzanian time (3am our time) and kept it up until 6am when we gave up. We left as the sun was rising, before the tsetse flies woke up. We thanked the pastor and gave him some old clothes and a few bucks for his hospitality.
Two days later we got to Tabora, where we could finally mail our families. It took us 4 days to complete the 520km journey, which included us driving from 7am every day until about 4pm. However its amazing that no matter where you are, however deep into dark Africa, for that hour that youre on the net its almost like being transported home. You literally get sucked into cyber space and feel like youve never left western civilisation by the time you finish. My, how travelling has changed, when even a place like Tabora has a pretty decent internet caf� with fast connections.
Daniel, a very friendly local from the internet caf�, was very helpful and recommended a nice Motel close to the train station.
Hotel Wilca became our house for the next 2 nights. The owners are absolute belters (thats very good). They have been the friendliest hosts one could expect and have been extremely helpful in all departments from changing money to teaching us Swahili to negotiating prices with local mechanics on our behalf. Today they invited Lou and Daz to lunch and have extended the invitation for us to join them for dinner as well. The locals have a banana that they use in their dishes that can best be described as a mixture between a banana and a potato. We had it served in a chicken stew and it was actually quite nice!
We also met a really interesting South African muzungu, Louis, in Tabora. He was almost bowled over when he saw the 2 ;GP registrations; in the parking lot and inquisitively came to investigate this strange phenomenon. As it turns out he and his wife have come out to Tanzania for two years and live in Mwanza. He consults to the Tanzanian breweries and works with all the reps in the region and travels to them as a result. Theyre even fellow RAU-tjies!
We officially have our first casualty. Grandpa aka Johnny has been diagnosed with malaria. Fortunately his count is pretty low, so the 3 Fansidars that hes had to take should clear it up without any problems. Well keep you posted!
Brett and Andy decided that they were keen on seeing Kigoma, so theyve left Mr J in Tabora while they caught the train overnight. Speaking of Brett, hes only now shaved off the moustache (after almost a week), which is quite scary because he almost seemed sad to see it go. Grandpa (Johnny) reckons Brett looks like a kid now, bearing in mind that theyve never seen Brett clean-shaven before.
We had all agreed that while the boys were in Kigoma, Daz Lou and Johnny would start heading off to the gorillas and get our names on the waiting list. In fact permits to see the group in the Bwindi National Park are normally booked out 3 months in advance. Although permits for the group in Mghingi arent booked too far in advance you normally wait a week or so and so it made sense for us to wait for the guys in Uganda.
The drive to Mwanza starting showing Tanzania in a different light. We were starting to head into the more developed (and more westernised) part of the country. We bush camped at a school and the teacher was so keen on teaching us Swahili that we virtually had to turn in early to try and escape him. They were however very hospitable and extremely good hosts.
Mwanza is apparently Tanzanias second largest city and it was with amazement that we saw how bad the infrastructure in town was. The actual city only had remnants of the once splendid 2 or 3 tar roads while the surrounding sand roads were probably more pot-holed and jaggered than the road between Mbeya and Chunya. Only in Africa!; is all we could say as we found that the city does not even have clean drinking water and every one that can afford it, lives off bottled water.
As a result of its size theres quite a big ex-pat community in Mwanza, made up of a lot of South Africans and Aussies. On Saturday evening we were invited with Louis and Corlia to another ex-pat Safas (Name given to South Africans by Aussies) house. They were from Durban and had decided to have a bunny-chow evening. Penny had got her chef to bake a few loafs of bread and explained the type of curry she wanted. It was certainly interesting to hear some of their stories and what brings them to the middle of Africa. One thing, which definitely didnt bring them to Mwanza, is the cost of living. In the local supermarket a normal box of Corn Flakes cost around R40 and a Kit Kat about R7.
Lou managed to obtain an itchy skin rash and it has been with her for nearly 2 weeks, so we decided to make use of the ex-pats doctor and have it checked out. Turns out she might be allergic to doxycycline. Or anything else in the air or food, so;.
Johnny got given another dose of malaria tablets, Coartem this time, and id as fit as a fiddle after a week.
On Sunday, before we caught the ferry, we once again revisited our good old South African roots. Louis and Corlia invited us around for a typical South African braai with excessive amounts of red meat, boerewors, potatoes, salad and a good South African red wine. We even listened to Highveld stereo on their satellite receiver! Its cool to be South African!
Daz got to kayak on Lake Victoria when he and Louis took the canoes out for a quick spin, while Lou got to use Corlias washing machine and tumble drier (What a treat!)
The relaxing we had done in the morning was quickly undone that evening while catching the ferry. Firstly we had to wait around for about 5 hours because the ticket guy had told us we had to be there by 4pm to book our car in. The car was the other stressful situation. Seeing your car being lifted up about 3 stories by crane and loaded on the deck of the ship is enough to make anyone swallow their heart, especially when its only held on by 4 wheel clamps! We also nearly didnt get our car on board because the back of our car is so heavily loaded that it was hoisted at a lob sided angle resembling a jumbo jet taking off (with its nose heading straight for the clouds). However all said and told the MV Victoria set sail at 10pm for Bukoba. Soon the locals had made themselves quite at home on around the car, using the bonnet as a bar table and inspecting all the windows; Patience and tolerance is a dear lesson learned when travelling through Africa..
We woke to a gorgeous pinky-red sunrise over Lake Victoria, thankful that ourselves and our car were safe. After another heart stopping offloading exercise in Bukoba (along with 3 coffins), we were on our way at around 8am, to complete the 100kms to the Ugandan border.
Trying to get out of the harbour was another laugh-worthy experience. It seems that here in the heart of Africa it is each to himself. Im sure you can identify with it if you think of the behaviour of our taxi drivers in sweet ol RSA. So here we are at the gate trying to get into the road, which by now is only a single lane due to cars parked everywhere. If you happen to leave even a metre between yourself and the car ahead, you can be guaranteed that some other fellow WILL push in front of you which is of course what happened to use; so we waited. Soon there was a whole lot of yelling going on as cars travelling in both directions tried to get through the single gate. I packed out laughing when Daz finally had enough and joined in yelling ;moja kwa moja!!and hooting! This actually ensured our speedy exit and we were on the way in no time.
About 40 kms from the Ugandan border we had our first encounter of anything that could suggest the history of a volatile and war torn country. A sign: STOP POLICE ESCORTS, met us as we entered into Kayaka. A burned down church stood on a lonely hill, overlooking the town as children played in the dusty streets, but had no trouble. Soon signs of development and rebuilding were present and it was clear that the time of terror in these peoples lives are over.