Tanzania

8^th October - 8^th November

There are two things that become immediately evident in Tanzania. The first is the love affair that the Tanzanian road builders have with the concept of the speed hump. Unfortunately they are not quite so enamored with putting signs up before the humps or painting the humps. It is quite common to be zooming (as much as Nyathi zooms) along the highway when you suddenly for no apparent reason find yourself plastered against the ceiling of the vehicle. Bugger! All the careful packing that morning out the window.

The second issues immediately apparent in Tanzania is the cost of everything. Diesel is almost double the cost of South Africa, at near US$1 per litre. Food - even in the markets - does not come cheap. And the crowning jewel is the cost of the National Parks. The average National Park would have cost us around US$130 per day. That price includes very badly maintained roads and campsites with almost no facilities and those that are available are probably not working. This is really unfortunate because Tanzania has some incredible scenery in the National Parks, but the cost and lack of maintenance keeps a lot of the tourists we met along the way (including ourselves) out of the parks. It is very evident that the Tanzanian government is using the parks to make a quick buck, but it does not look like there is any reinvesting in them.

So, what did we do in our month in Tanzania? Well, if you remember from Zambia we had some pretty urgent work required on old Nyathi. The clunking in the gearbox was now downright scary. I don't think either of us would have been particularity surprised if the whole thing had just fallen out of the vehicle. Gratefully we limped into Mbeya, the first big town in Tanzania and a town where we had heard of a good vehicle workshop. The town itself was nothing to write home about, but fortunately one thing that is very cheap and widely available in Tanzania is Internet Cafe's. In the 5 days Nyathi spent in the workshop we spent a lot of time on the Internet.

It turned out that we had reached the workshop just in time. The third gear was almost completely broken and only just usable and the timing chain was hanging in by a thread. Had the timing chain gone we would have been completely buggered. So it was that after five days of extensive work on the old vehicle we drove out of Mbeya with a much quieter vehicle and a gratefully silent gearbox.

From Mbeya we decided to take the old girl on a test drive before leaving the area completely. So we drove town to the Malawi border, about 180km away. The vehicle performed fine and the drive was stunning so there were big grins all round. Mbeya is in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, at about 1700m. However, when driving to the Malawi border the road goes over a mountain range and gets to 2200m. The countryside up the mountain was incredibly lush with an amazing amount of intensive agriculture going on. After Zambia where the locals don't seem to do all that much, we were really impressed with Tanzania. It seemed like every patch of fertile ground had a field of some crop on it. The people on a whole seemed significantly more industrious than their cousins across the border.

Satisfied that Nyathi was now all systems go, we pointed in the direction of Dar es Salaam. Outside of Iringa we stopped for the night at Kisolanza Farm, which has a campsite, chalets and a guesthouse. The next day we had a good long chat with the English lady (Nicky) who owns and runs the farm. She told us about how much needed to be done on the property and the problem finding help, etc. After not much thought we decided to volunteer ourselves as labour for a week or so. In the end we spent two weeks in Kisolanza, and thoroughly enjoyed the time there. We spent most of the time putting up log pole fences, but also helped with the campsite, assisted with the catered dinners for the overland trucks (we got dinner free, which was great seeing as it was fillet steak every night with soup, veggies and puddings), and the occasional fire fighting stints.

The story of fire fighting actually requires a bit of elaboration. Scott and I were relaxing one late morning after having finished the fence we were working on and not having much else to do. At around 11am on of Nicky's friends came running down from the main house to tell us there was a fire on the other side of the farm and the wind was blowing it in the direction of the house. We jumped into Nyathi and roared off to see what was going on. Sure enough, the fire was blazing across one of the open fields and heading vaguely in the direction of the house and cattle barns. There was a tractor with a plough busy making fire breaks in front of the fire but with the wind the fire kept jumping the fire breaks (and of course no-one thought of filling up the tractor with diesel so it ran out). It even jumped the main road onto the other side of the farm. After a full day of building fire breaks, attacking the fire with branches, throwing buckets of water at the fire and running like hell when the wind gusted up we finally defeated the bloody thing. It was a group of very weary and dirty fire fighters that dragged themselves up to the house that evening.

Two days after the dramatic fire we left Kisolanza (after a stay of almost two weeks) and once again headed off for Dar Es Salaam. The highway went through a National Park and we were lucky enough to witness a lion kill just off the road. With two stopoffs along the way we finally drove into the capital of Tanzania - a frightening experience. We've decided that Tanzanian drivers are the worst in Africa so far. Road rules are almost nonexistent. We managed to make the Silver Sands campsite without incident which was a relief. We were knackered from dealing with the traffic and the long drive, and the campsite was pretty average, so we didn't even bother putting up the tents or making dinner. Big mistake. We were about to realise that we had driven slap bang into the start of the Northern Tanzanian rain season. 2am that morning and our lesson began. The skies opened up and poured down on us. We were just sleeping outside in the sleeping bags. I tell you, you haven't seen two people wake up and get ourselves and our kit into the Landy as fast as we did that morning. After a very uncomfortable rest of the night we resolved to a) put up our tent every night in the future and b) find a better campsite.

We found a great campsite called Kipipeo Lodge, South of Dar Es Salaam and were prepared for the nightly rains from then on. After a couple of days we had completed all the tasks we needed to accomplish in Dar Es Salaam and set off for Bagamoyo North of Dar. Bagamoyo was the original German colonial capital of Tanzania. It is pretty rundown now, but the sense of history still pervades the place. The next day we drove back to the main road, up to Tanga and found a great campsite South of Tanga called Piponi Lodge.

From Tanga we turned West towards the Usumbara Mountains and Arusha. We found a great campsite called Muller's Lodge outside Lushoto in the Western Usumbara Mts. and stayed there for a good few days. The mountains are a cross between Tropical and Alpine and really well worth a visit. There is still evidence of German settlement in the area, in the architecture of the houses and churches. We only got a brief glimpse of the endemic colobus monkeys, but heard them loud and clear every night.

After a relaxing stay in the Mountains we meandered back down onto the plains and set off for Mt Kilimanjaro. It took us a lot of driving around to finally find a campsite at Maranguru, which surprised us as this town was at the entrance to the Mt Kilimanjaro National Park. At US$600 per person we decided that climbing the mountain was out of our league, but it was good to see the area and get a glimpse of the mountain through the clouds. The next day we drove into Arusha, which is the jump-off point for Ngorogoro Crater and the Serengeti. The next day we set off for Ngorogoro Crater. 40km into the drive we had a rapid change of plans. We decided that the cost and lack of maintenance in the parks was going to cause unnecessary angst (the purpose of a holiday after all being to minimise angst), so we turned tail and set off for Nairobi in Kenya.

The drive up to the border was interesting because it was through Masai land. Gone were the constant villages along the side of the road. In fact we didn't see any dwellings at all. However the herds of cattle and donkeys with their herdboys were much in evidence. The Masai are a nomadic tribe split between Kenya and Tanzania. They were historically fierce warriors much feared by the other tribes in the area. They have managed to maintain much of their culture and traditions, and are still impressive people. They are tall, slim people with aristocratic features and striking dress. All the men carry sticks and knives on their belts, and in the rural areas still carry their long scary looking spears. They are a very proud tribe still much feared by the other people of Tanzania and Kenya.