TANZANIA & ZANZIBAR DIARY

Dates: 24th June 2009 to 6th August 2009 43 Days Tanzania miles = 3016 miles (4826 km) Trip miles = 12835 miles (20536 km)

Day 136 - Wednesday 24th June CONTINUED Zambia to Tanzania First stop at the Tunduma border was the Tanzanian immigration: fill out the entry forms and hand over with passports to one official; then hand over US$50 each for visas to another official and then waited and waited. Judi stayed on whist I went to the customs desk to get the carnet stamped up; ‘anything to declare?’ He gave me a funny look when I said no but he accepted it. Apart from exiting South Africa in March, nobody has even seen the vehicle let alone look at it or inspect it. Next stop, road fund licence, US$20, and fuel levy, US$5: closed, gone to lunch. And this is the only commercial international border crossing between Zambia and East Africa! Back to the vehicle where an insurance certificate and windscreen sticker had been prepared for us for another US$70 for three months; my advisor assured me it would have been US$70 for just one day. I believed him as he was my trusty personal advisor!

Against all advice we decided to change some pounds for Tanzanian shillings as we probably couldn’t do this at a bank; we knew the rate would be poor but I left Judi to it. I was still waiting for the office to open when I heard a familiar car alarm go off. I wandered back to the vehicle to find Judi, who had locked the doors on the fob rather than door button, inside but had moved to get some water as it was hot and set the alarm off! She was a bit upset as she thought she had been diddled on the exchange rate by a factor of 10. I went and got my advisor and told him to sort it and, to be fair, he phoned the money dealer and got him to return. He had short changed us but not by the factor of 10 as believed. He had given us Tsh1400 to the Pound but had written down 1040 and Judi had handed over £100 and in return we should have got Tsh140,000 but he had given her Tsh104,000. In the heat and all the zeros Judi had got her maths a bit wrong, not like her, but the changer took back the Tsh4,000 and gave us Tsh40,000. We shook hands and agreed everyone had been a bit confused. But, please, never ever trust a money changer and always double check and make sure you are the last one to handle the money once you have counted it! As it happens the exchange was indeed extortionate as £100 should have got us just over Tsh200,000. Trip rule; work out exchange rates in advance of a crossing!

Eventually the Road Fund official returned and opened up after lunch. He was a typical expressionless official who didn’t do conversation or humour. To be fair, most of the other ones at all the other crossings had been very friendly. I handed over the dollars and took my two certificates and departed. Back to the vehicle to follow my advisor down to the exit gate for, hopefully, the final formalities. Someone tried to charge me a parking fee but I summoned my advisor back and he told him to clear off, I think. Down to the gate and park up. Into a small booth one side of the gate and handed over all the documents and passport to a lady who transcribed them in longhand into a register. Once completed I was ushered across to the booth on the other side and here, once again, handed over my documents to the official; again all the details were hand written into a register. I’m sure there must be a purpose to all of this, but for the life of me I cannot readily think of one! Finally we were all done and I handed my advisor US$10 + US$5 to pay off car minders and anybody else who had assisted me without my knowledge. He pointed out the correct road to take out of Tunduma, the Tanzanian border town, and we finally pushed ourselves through the incoming traffic and we were off. The time now was

1 14.30 as Tanzania is one hour forward of Zambia (+3 GMT (+2 BST)) so we had got through in about two hours in real time, even though it felt like days! I find border crossings extremely stressful. Probably, being a Brit, we’re not too used to it all but whilst the self-allocated advisors are pushy and out to make as much money as they can, the reality is, if it is your first time through that particular crossing, they are a necessity if just to know where the various officials are hiding.

We headed the 130 km for the first large town into Tanzania, Mbeya, where we intended camping. We eventually found the place but were not impressed about setting up camp in the small car park of an institution we think was a training centre so we decided to carry on and find somewhere else. However, we were struggling to find anything in Tracks4africa or in the two guide books. The Garmin Nuvi, despite being told it covered Tanzania, only had the main roads on without detail. The nearest campsite we knew of, and had been recommended to us, was The Old Farm House near Ifunda, some 50 km before Iringa on the Tanzam Highway connecting Dar es Salaam with Zambia. This road had been a joint venture funded by the two countries when apartheid cut off land-locked Zambia from the southern ports in the 70’s. The campsite we were heading for was about 350 km further on and by now we had about 1½ hours of day light left and a 4½ hour journey.

Despite our self-imposed rule of ‘no night driving’ we decided to go for it as the road was in good repair with very few animals wandering around loose. We topped up with fuel and were horrified to find that it was nearly a pound a litre going by the money changer’s rate (it was in actual fact £0.68). That took half of our shillings straight away. We made steady progress and stuck to around 80 kph (50 to 55 mph), most of the way but stuck to the 50 kph (31 mph), limit through the towns; 30 kph, (19 mph), in some town centres. The limits started way out of town and everybody else seemed to disregard it but I resisted the temptation to ‘pinch a few’ to make up time. At one village a lorry I had overtaken previously, overtook me. I was actually saying to Judi, ‘Am I the only one complying with the speed limits?’ when the lorry braked. There in the middle of the road was a police woman holding a speed gun. He was pulled over. The lady was showing him the speed on the device, while I was waved through. I felt slightly smug and exonerated and now considered myself as having returned to the status of upright citizen, having passed through Zambia without transgression, ignoring the slight oversight with the road fund licence!

The sun set at 6.30 p.m. and a whole new driving experience unfolded. On the fairly narrow road, overloaded lorries struggled up the hills but then flew down the other side. It was a hilly road and by the time we were at the campsite we had climbed in places to over 2000 metres, 6500 feet, high. The roadside was busy with the usual pedestrians and cyclists, none of whom had lights or bright clothing. The only saving grace was that the mad buses were not allowed to drive at night. I was able to make steady progress when nothing was coming towards me as, with all the lights full on the ‘top spots’ actually picked up the roadside hazards in good time; it was only when I had to dip them that things became a bit hairy. What I did do was to swivel the two top work lights so they shone down towards the nearside verge and, being on a separate circuit, I could operate these when an oncoming vehicle blinded me; at least this way I could pick up hazards, albeit at the last second! Like Zambians, Tanzanian drivers insist in indicating right for approaching vehicles to show they are there, or how wide they are and they will often do so when it isn’t safe to overtake. Conversely, they will sometimes indicate left to show it is clear, which does tend to confuse the issue. I did find that a blast of my lights; two headlamps, two huge driving lights and two top spots, did alert the lorry drivers and made them give me enough room to get by. We watched one brave, or mad, lorry driver go for an overtake on another lorry who wouldn’t pull right over and we were sure the two hit side to side as he struggled past. We dropped right back to let them fight it out. The overtaking lorry just about managed to pull in

2 front of the other and as he did so we realised he had just missed a stationary lorry, without lights, on the other side. The drive itself was challenging but, perversely, I quite enjoyed it, even when one pedestrian decided to dash across the road behind a lorry that was in front of me. He either didn’t see me or just completely misjudged it. How he made it across I’ll never know as I didn’t have time to brake and was probably doing 80 kph. I dread to think what the casualty statistics are like on the road but they must surely be very high. We reached the campsite at 8.40 p.m. Tanzanian time after a long 12 hour day, set up camp and ate before going to bed. Here, being so high, it was fleece weather.

Day 137 - Thursday 25th June Kisolanza Had a well-deserved, after yesterday, nice lie-in and relaxed. Spoke to the manager Mark, who comes from Bletchley, some 20 km from where we live in UK. We walked around the grounds doing a little bird watching and wood collecting. I filleted the huge fish we had bought off the fisherman in Zambia and Judi, rather than waste the head and bones, took them up to the kitchen and offered it to a lady there. A little while later another lady wandered back with the left-over fish. The confusion was sorted and she departed with the fish for their tea; they weren’t sure whether we were asking for them to cook it for us or not. As soon as the sun dropped it got very cold so stoked up the fire while we had our nightcap and when it died down we retired with extra blankets. Judi even threatened to get out the hot water bottles dragged from the UK and hidden in a wolf box somewhere!

Day 138 - Friday 26th June Kisolanza to Iringa Up just before sunrise but it was already 7 a.m.; the extra hour makes all the difference. Packed up and headed for Iringa to collect, hopefully, money, provisions, SIM card and find an internet cafe. From there we will probably go a short way and stay at the Riverside Lodge and then move on tomorrow to the Ruaha National Park which is meant to be very good for both big game and birds. We got to Iringa, having fought through the road works and jams where they were improving the mountain road into town. Iringa was a bustling town but felt quite friendly. We stopped off at a garage and refuelled and parked up on the forecourt while we went to a nearby internet café.

We had been gone about an hour and returned to the vehicle and were sat inside getting ready for the off when there was a tap on the window. David and his wife Bridget were in the garage refuelling their UK registered green 110 Defender and were from Exmoor. They reckon we were only the second overlanders they had met and they were the first UK travellers we had met doing what we were doing. They had driven down the east route heading for Cape Town and we chatted about travelling and Land Rovers for about an hour before exchanging details and saying our fond farewells. We then drove a short distance north-east from Iringa to the Riverside Campsite and set up camp and had a leisurely walk.

We were the only campers there, although the place was busy with people in chalets as they run a language school teaching Swahili. We met an elderly English woman from Wakefield who now lives in Tanzania and was trying to learn the local language. She lives near Dodoma in a mission and invited us to stay there. The place was out in the middle of nowhere, with some complicated directions, but we may take her up on the offer if we are in the area. Also met an Australian couple who live near Lake Victoria who were here brushing up their Swahili as they were Bible translators. Once again, as soon as the sun went down it got cold, as we are still high, so we huddled around the fire cooking dinner before going to bed to get warm.

Day 139 - Saturday 27th June

3 Iringa to Ruaha National Park We packed up fairly early and headed, through the road works, into Iringa to shop in the local market as there were no supermarkets around. We found the bustling market and parked up near the police station, only to be moved on by an officer who said I was blocking the station entrance. He did, however, usher us into the yard next to the station; nice and secure, thank you! We wandered around the, mainly fruit and veg, market but did manage to get a Tanzanian Zain SIM card and stocked up on vegetables and fruit plus some funny looking dried or smoked fish that turned out to be very tasty; I think it might have been catfish. Couldn’t find any meat or, more seriously, alcohol, apart from some cheap (in South Africa) wine going for over £10 a bottle: I had a horrible feeling that we were going to be forced to become teetotalling vegetarians whilst in the back of beyond in Tanzania, but haven’t given up hope yet! The market was an experience but everyone was very polite and friendly without any hassle from people wanting something or wanting to sell something.

We left Iringa for Ruaha National Park some 110 km north-west. Dotty, who we met in Zambia, had previously texted us to say the road was bad and sure enough the road started as a very good gravel road but ended in vicious corrugations that shook the vehicle to bits at whatever speed. We bought some firewood at a good price from a bemused lady roadside; not convinced it was her firewood, before arriving at Chogela campsite just short of the park. We had been advised to stagger our trip as the park fees cover 24 hours rather than one day, so the intention was to enter the park mid-afternoon, return to camp and then re-visit early in the morning. To speed up things in the morning we put up the ground tent rather than the roof tent.

We arrived at the park at 3.30 p.m. and handed over our US$20 per person plus US$40 for the vehicle and then they had the cheek to charge another US$10 for a map. We knew the Tanzanian Park costs were going to be extortionate, and this is one of the cheaper ones, but ….! The park closed at 6 p.m. so we didn’t stray far but were very impressed with what we saw; including lots of brand new birds, lots of giraffe, hippo and crocs and pleasant scenery, with the rock strewn Great Ruaha River running along the southern border. There were not many other tourists around; in fact we only saw one game drive vehicle with a couple in the rear waving frantically. It was the same Australian couple we had met in the Riverside Campsite out on a day trip in the Riverside Camp Land Rover: there goes that small world again!

We left the park bang on time and by the time we got back to camp it was just getting dark. We were the only ones camping and no one was in the few thatched chalets but the place was immaculately kept. We went to the bar to get some sundowners but they had no gin, no tonic, in fact nothing except warm beer, soda and water, so we had to draw on our own diminishing alcohol stocks. They had the fire lit for us so it was dinner, shower and bed, ready for an early off.

Day 140 - Sunday 28th June Ruaha National Park It was still dark when the alarm went off at 5 a.m. and we hit the road by 5.40 a.m. and arrived at the gate at 6.20 a.m. despite this road being also very corrugated. Although the park didn’t open until 6.30 a.m. the two armed guards kindly let us. We drove the short distance to the hippo pool on the river, where we made a cup of tea and egg sandwiches whilst watching the sun come up. We drove slowly south along the river clocking up new birds and plenty of animals but as our 24 hours expired at 3.30 p.m. we weren’t going to have time to cover too far south or north. After a very pleasant drive around we left the park bang on time. Very impressed with the park all round. As we had only just scratched the surface of the park we decided, despite the cost, to come back in for the day tomorrow.

4 Back at camp, along the very bumpy road, to relax before tackling the biggest T-bone steak so far, bought in Zambia a week ago. The Camp was again virtually empty except for a group of locals from Iringa who, being a Sunday, had visited for an evening meal, pre-booked presumably, with their own drinks. One of the chaps from the group wandered over and started enthralling about the Land Rover and took lots of photos: he owned several Land Rovers and was interested in the roll cage and wheel carrier, so we gave him details of Frogs Island’s 4x4, the company that kitted it out for us back in the UK. I jokingly said he was photographing it as a precursor to stealing it!

Day 141 - Monday 29th June Ruaha National Park Another 5 a.m. alarm call and on the road by 5.40 again. En route to the park we only saw bushbaby until we were about a kilometre from the park gate, when we came around the corner face to face with a set of eyes; a lioness on the track. She checked us out for a few seconds before wandering nonchalantly into the undergrowth where she then lay down and our spotlight then picked up three more sets of eyes; three nearly fully grown cubs joined her and after a few minutes they all disappeared into the bush. Not a bad start to the day and they cost nothing!

Got to the gate just after 6.30 a.m. to be told the man who dishes out the permits wasn’t there yet and we were to wait, maybe half an hour. I said that wasn’t going to happen; we were paying a lot of money so we wanted as long in the park as possible and we had got up early to get there. I told the armed guard we would pay on exit but I wasn’t sure I was making myself understood. He wandered off and conversed with his fellow guard and then got on his mobile. I was then beckoned over and signed the register and was told I could go in and pay later: nice to see commonsense ruled.

The sun rose at 6.55 a.m. and we found a spot down by the river, one of the special campsites but with no one there, and Judi cooked breakfast; eggs and bacon, all very civilised. We drove north slowly, exploring all the detours down to the river and driving through varying terrain, seeing plenty of elephant, giraffe, zebra and impala. Late morning we came across a male and female lion and I think we had interrupted something as they looked a bit embarrassed! It was strange to watch them: when she walked he walked alongside her, matching her pace for pace; when she stopped he stopped; when she lay down he laid down. They settled in the shade some 50 metres from us and he went to sleep and she watched the nearby zebra. We watched them for about 20 minutes before she stood up and slowly walked off with him alongside.

They headed for us but then went behind a very small bush where she lay down again but it was clear she wasn’t about to rest and that was the cue to the male to do what males do. It didn’t last long and when he’d finished he bit her neck, it did look quite vicious, and she rolled over on her back and went fast asleep: he looked as if he needed a cigarette! After a while they moved back into the shade and settled down so we left them to it.

We drove over a deep sandy river crossing, some 200 metres wide, to get to the extreme top of the park before slowly making our way back to the gate. On the way back we saw a new animal for us, a Grant’s gazelle; superficially similar to the plentiful impala but quite distinctive. We took some new tracks and ended up in a section of large rocks and we both said it was leopard country. We came across a pair of game vehicles who were intently watching something, but we couldn’t see what, so left them to it. We did see a couple of dassies (rock hyraxes), not seen since South Africa. Despite passing through lots of potential cheetah country during the day, our bogey animal remained just that; but like today’s lions, it is a question of being in the right place at the right time and a lot of luck.

5 We arrived back at the gate just before closing time at 6 p.m. and paid our US$80 but he didn’t have change of my US$100 bill as they had already been to collect the day’s takings! I wasn’t going to forget about my US$20 and thought it was going to be a problem until the chap did say he could give the change in shillings; perfectly acceptable and not sure why it took ten minutes to arrive at this arrangement. As the sun was about to go down we parked up at the gate alongside the river and had sundowners. We could hear lots of banging and shouting coming from further up the river and could see a herd of elephant near the park buildings some 400 metres away. Two guards were trying to persuaded the elephants to move on using noise and we realised the permit man was waiting to go home to the buildings but had elephant in the way!

The two game vehicles we had seen earlier turned up to leave and we chatted with them. They were from Israel and proudly showed us pictures of the leopard they had seen in the rocks where we had come across the vehicles! One of them also showed us his picture of a copulating pair of baboons, but we outdid that by showing our lion pictures! In conversation I happened to mention that I had a distant relation called Emily Livingstone who had been married to a descendent of the famous David Livingstone, so they insisted on taking pictures of us alongside the Land Rover. Judi reckons this relationship accounts for my lack of navigational prowess, even though it isn’t a bloodline! We departed back along the bumpy road to camp where the fire was already on.

Day 142 - Tuesday 30th June Ruaha to Iringa Enjoyed not having to get up at 5 a.m. Had a leisurely pack-up, bought a locally woven basket in which to keep our bird watching paraphernalia and left about 10.30 a.m. to head back to Iringa along the very corrugated track. Stopped off at a roadside ‘shop’ and bought a water melon, pineapple and papaya with the bill coming to Tsh300; about 15 pence for the lot! A little later on, stopped off to buy some firewood at the same place as going in but we got a different price. At one point we came across a fallen tree blocking the road completely, with a car trying to negotiate it by driving into the ditch. I gallantly decided to tow the rather large tree out of the way but, being lazy, just used some thin rope that was readily to hand. As usual, ‘if the job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly’, applied and the rope snapped. I then got the proper tow rope out of the roof box and towed the tree to one side. The branches, however, were still blocking the road so out came the bow saw that was very soon taken off my hands as the gathering crowd set about helping; we don’t think they were used to seeing a saw which is why they were fighting over it. The tree was soon reduced to a trunk. After about 30 minutes the track was clear enough to get the infrequent buses through and I finally got my saw back. I should have worn my gloves though as it was full of thorns, most of which were now in my hands. We gave the main workers some sweets and left, although I think they would have much preferred the saw!

Back at Iringa we intended drawing out some shillings and then exchanging them for dollars as we will need quite a few to get into the parks. However, being the last day of the month, pay day, the counter queue was rather long so we passed on that idea. Filled up with fuel and went into the nearby café to check emails and send the latest travel blog. The lad asked how long we wanted on the computer and I said about half an hour; usually you stop when you stop, and pay for the time you’ve used: needless to say I was just about to send the update, with photos, when the clock in the corner of the screen clicked 30 minutes and disconnected us from the internet. Not happy. And I think the lad was aware of my displeasure! Fortunately, on reconnecting the message had not been lost.

A quick stroll round the market and found some reasonably priced wine boxes gathering dust on the top shelf of a cabin, but were about to give up on meat when we asked one shopkeeper where

6 to get meat. He proudly ushered us in and opened the freezer: frozen chicken; fish fillets; sausages; and mince were straight in our bag. We also bought a dozen eggs that he carefully wrapped up in newspapers and put in our bag; if they survive it will be a miracle: new camp rule; retain your cardboard egg cartons.

We returned to the Riverside campsite and decided to eat at the dining boma rather than cook ourselves. Later on in the afternoon a motor bike and Land Rover, both on South African plates set up camp next to us. On chatting to them it turned out that the two lads in the Land Rover, Sam and Tony, were from Belgium from where Stella Artois is brewed (Leuven, apparently) having bought the vehicle in Cape Town. They were now driving all the way back to Belgium. The motorcyclist, Axel, was German but lived in Cape Town and had set off on his bike for a ride but had bumped into the Belgians in Malawi and struck up a convoy; now he, too, was going to ride with them to Germany. A little later on a French Land Rover with a young couple, Anna- Marie and Henri, also turned up. They were also loosely travelling in convoy with the other three. They had an old 200TDI Land Rover that they had driven down the west coast to Ghana, shipped to Durban, and were now driving back to France using the east route. They hadn’t had too many problems with their Land Rover, the scariest moment being when a front wheel fell off!

It is amazing how many European travellers there are in Africa, most of them have either driven all the way; are driving back; or doing the round trip. We had seriously considered doing it but decided to play safe and stick to southern Africa, although we now feel as if it was the soft option! However, just doing southern Africa is going to easily fill the year because our whole ethos for the trip is to do it at a leisurely pace. A good excuse to come back!

Early dinner at the restaurant boma and a chat to our fellow diners, all of whom were language ‘students’, before returning to camp where I lit a small fire as it was chilly. It had been an unseasonable 44oC yesterday afternoon in the park which is some 500 metres lower than here, so we were feeling the cold. We were joined by Sam who invited us over to their fire and as it was a lot larger than ours, we accepted the invitation. We all; Belgians, German, French and British, chatted, in perfect English but of course, about travels and the highlights and lows of our respective trips and the idiosyncrasies of Land Rovers! It was about 10.45 p.m. by the time we left for bed.

Day 143 - Wednesday 1st July Iringa Four months since we set out from Cape Town but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. We decided to stay at Riverside another day as Judi had a load of washing to do and I wanted to check the vehicle over after the rough roads we had experienced. Found a few loose nuts and bolts but nothing horrendous, but did notice that the inner oil seal on the rear axle, nearside, was leaking grease so I need to keep an eye on it. Will probably get it looked at in Dar es Salaam where we are heading for once we leave here, stopping off, probably, at the Udzungwa National Park and Mikumi National Park. We hope to leave the vehicle in secure parking in Dar while we spend a few days over on Zanzibar Island.

I happen to mention the leak to the camp owner, Will, who made a few phone calls and drew us a map of how to get to Neels Autoworks in Iringa, so we decided to take it there first thing in the morning to be on the safe side. Having discussed with Amanda, Will’s wife, the lack of meat, we wandered up to see the camp chef and bought some lovely steaks and some mince off him for later; we’ll enjoy them! We also bought some beer off the barman. I prepared a fish curry for dinner, a new one for me, and left it bubbling on the open fire just as a Dutch lady turned up for a chat, a very long chat as it happened. That delayed things but it turned out to be absolutely

7 delicious and this won’t be my last curry and I shall leave it to bubble as long as I can! In the ‘recipe’ was what we had bought as green bananas but they turned out to be plantain, but when cooked, were fine.

Day 144 - Thursday 2nd July Iringa Up early and packed up as we wanted to get to the garage as they opened. By 8.10 a.m. we were sat outside some locked gates down a back street in Iringa, not convinced we were at the right place, and waited and waited. We got some very strange looks from the passing locals. The owners turned up about 8.45 a.m.; they normally open about 8.30 but as the mechanics had worked late the previous day he’d told them to get in by 9 a.m. To be fair, as soon as the first lad arrived he’d jacked up the vehicle and had the wheel off. The ‘chief’ mechanic took over and with the most basic of tools and working on the sandy yard floor, stripped it down. I leant them my socket set and wheel bearing spanner much to their joy! The inner hub seal was leaking, which had allowed axle oil to leak into the bearings and had washed out the grease. Although still lubricated by oil rather than grease, I’m not too sure how many more kilometres it would have lasted before something horrible happened. Having removed the outer and inner seals the chief mechanic jumped on a push bike and off he went, returning five minutes later with replacement ones, fortunately! On refitting the bits the boss brought out ‘the’ tube of loctite and supervised the chief mechanic to make sure he didn’t use too many drops!

All back together, with axle oil level checked, by 10.30 a.m. but then it was time to pay. Two mechanics for 1½ hours plus two seals and the bill came to the grand total of Tsh30,000: Tsh15,000 for the labour and Tsh15,000 for the parts. That worked out at about £5 an hour: back home you would be doing well to get five minutes for that in a garage! So, all round, it was a good job done.

We then visited a nearby bank and confirmed they were happy to exchange shillings for dollars and then managed to get quite a bit of cash, Tsh400,000 each, out of the Barclays ATM which we then took back into the bank to convert to dollars, getting US$500 for Tsh676,375. We’ll need this for the parks and Zanzibar trip. We wandered around and went into the slowest internet café yet; we gave up in the end trying to open up most of the messages, so we paid our Tsh500 (25 pence) and left. We visited the ‘Hasty Tasty Too’ ‘restaurant’ for lunch before returning to the campsite.

Late afternoon, a huge MAN expedition truck turned up that we thought were overlanders, but it turned out to be German registered with two chaps in it. We chatted to them and when asked where they were going just said they were making it up as they went along but may ship from Cape Town to South America, as you do. They hadn’t visited any National Parks because the entrance fees for the vehicle, being so big, made it prohibitive so we weren’t too envious of them

We were joined later round the fire by a couple; him Australian, her the Dutch lady from last night and their two young children. They also brought their own chairs so we deduced they were staying; we chatted for about an hour before they left and we ate the, by now rather overdone, chicken. We had managed to buy a wine box in town and were rather amused by the road safety message on it – “Don’t drink and walk in the road as you may get killed’: wise words indeed; presumably it would be safer to drive!

Day 145 - Friday 3rd July Iringa to Baobab Valley Camp Having got directions from Will we managed to find the bottle shop in town; it was in a row of dingy looking cabins and had massive shutters at the front through which the boss would serve

8 the locals. He did, however, usher us in, presumably as we looked like big spenders. They had a sealed tray of 24 cans that the owner assured me were beers, so I bought the tray for Tsh28,000; about £14, not cheap but difficult to obtain. We also bought some trays of coke and other soft drinks. Feeling quite pleased with my acquisition I was looking forward to a beer when we next stopped but was a little disappointed when I broke open the tray to find Bavarian Apple Malt: zero alcohol! Must take my specs with me next time! Finally got away from Iringa after a visit to a quicker internet café.

Dropping out of Iringa down the steep hill we had to pass a 100m section in the road works where they had been drilling the cliff side in preparation to blasting on Sunday and we were a little concerned that they had already wired up the explosives and were ramming the sticks into the drilled holes with a wooden stick! We hit the Tanzam highway and after not many kilometres found that it was full of road works due to road widening. We came across several sections of one-way running over quite a distance, probably eight or more kilometres, which meant we were held for quite some time waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear. Each new section took longer to get through, until the final one that was total and absolute chaos. We were in the queue waiting but the buses had their schedule to keep and just pulled up alongside the existing queue, making a second queue and, indeed, more buses made a third line that completely blocked the exit for oncoming traffic. This of course made it nearly impossible to clear the traffic trying to exit the road works and consequently our queue was going nowhere fast. Nobody got the least bit excited about this so it must be the norm; in the UK public disorder would have broken out for sure.

After something like a 45 minute wait the queue finally took off, with a mad fight to get into the single queue through the works, or get left behind. This section was probably the longest and of course the same queuing situation was at the other end. It took probably 15 minutes for the big lorries to squeeze past the utter mayhem, that should have been an orderly queue, holding the convoy up and of course compounding the hold for the oncoming queue. I dread to think what the situation would be like by the end of the day. The total road works probably stretched for 50 or more kilometres and, at the pace they seemed to be working at, set to take several years to complete!

The disruption to commerce must be huge and it was no wonder the buses, once clear, flew along with crazy overtakes and flat out down the steep drops, a descent of 1000m in a few kilometres, at stupid speeds. I dread to think what would happen with a brake failure! They were trying to get back on schedule as they can’t drive at night and many were doing the Dar es Salaam to Lusaka in Zambia route in a day or two, a distance of nearly 2000 km, not to mention the border crossing. It is difficult to describe the utter chaos at each section of road works and the scramble to get back into the queue; it certainly wasn’t the place for the faint hearted; they would soon find themselves at the back of the queue and prevented from proceeding. Having a Land Rover with bull bars and side protection bars and quite a few scratches already did mean one could assert one’s presence over the other cars without too much worry.

Fortunately we weren’t going too far that day and stopped off at the Baobab Campsite in the Udzungwa Mountains, on the edge of the National Park on the banks of the Great Ruaha River. We were the only ones there but the owner did mention that an overland truck was arriving later but they wouldn’t be any trouble! A huge orange truck duly arrived, called Rotel Tours, full of elderly Germans. We realised no tents were going up so when they all went off to the restaurant we inspected the vehicle; the rear section was the bedrooms, seven windows in three rows, some with single and some double beds, a window each, but only about 1 metre headroom; a bit like those Japanese hotel pods. I don’t know where they got changed etc. but it all looked a bit cosy and claustrophobic for our liking. And they were on the road for 23 days, going from Dar es

9 Salaam to Windhoek in Namibia! We wandered up to the bar for sundowners and ended up buying a few bottles of tonics from them as we have had great difficulties in sourcing tonics. Judi had a niggling back ache and pain down her leg, symptoms of a trapped nerve we think, probably from doing the clothes washing by hand at Riverside where the sink and cold water supply were at odd heights. So far we have only used our drug stocks once, when we had a stomach bug in Botswana, so we weren’t doing too bad on the medical side.

Day 146 - Saturday 4th July Baobab Valley Campsite to Bagamoyo On the road by 9 a.m., heading for a campsite the other side of the Mikumi National Park. We have decided to head for Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and then north to the more famous National Parks but, unfortunately, this has meant we shall miss out on visiting the Selous Game Reserve as this would involve a lengthy detour south. Selous Game Reserve is the largest in Africa and bigger than Switzerland, so to do it justice would have involved several days; next time!

En route we stopped at a roadside charcoal seller selling the usual huge bags that I could hardly lift: I had two smaller bags and eventually got myself understood that I wanted one big bag split into two so I could get them on the roof. The main Tanzam road goes through the Mikumi National Park for 50 km and sure enough we saw elephant, giraffe, zebra, warthog and impala close to the road. The guide book says, ‘the lorry and bus drivers don’t waste brake material slowing for anything that won’t damage the vehicle’. Few obeyed the speed limit. We only saw one corpse, with a few vultures and a marabou stork cleaning up. We also passed a couple of tourists merrily cycling along. Got to the turning for the Melela Nzuri Campsite where the sign indicated it was some 4 km off the highway but also noticed the sign had a cross through it: sure enough it was deserted and although we could have wild camped there it was only 11.45 a.m. so we pressed on. We couldn’t find any more sites in the books or on Tracks4africa so we decided to press on to the coast.

We stopped off at Morogoro town for fuel and got ourselves surrounded by sellers and bought some bread, tomatoes and bananas. We later stopped for someone holding up some corn cobs; for sure we paid over the odds for them, especially as later we found that they were nowhere near ripe. The corn seller was just before a police check and for the first time in Tanzania we were pulled over. At every other of the many checks we’ve passed we’ve been waved through. The officer wanted to know what we had bought from him but was happy when we showed him the corn; he did confirm he would have paid a Tsh1000 for them rather than the Tsh4000 we paid! It did cross my mind that he was possibly also selling dope, but in which case why didn’t the policeman bust him! I have heard stories of dealers selling dope and then a bent or fake policeman happens upon the scene and a bribe is required to avoid arrest: of course the dope is seized and recycled!

We passed through some busy, being a Saturday, little towns and villages and in one I noticed a billboard proudly announcing the presence of a “Drive-in Filling Station” – but of course! We headed for the north of Dar rather than go into Dar at this stage, having not researched camping options as yet. We eventually reached a town 80 km north of Dar es Salaam called Bagamoyo. It was a busy seaside town with lots of shops and shacks and people. It was a shame to see, as we drove into town, that the road was being widened and that huge roadside trees were being bulldozed down and burnt, a great shame about the trees but also a great waste of wood.

We camped in the grounds of the Bagamoyo Beach Resort right on the sandy beach; our only neighbour appeared to be sleeping in a beach shelter! According to the books this little town was once the richest and most important city in East Africa, as here all the slaves and ivory were

10 transported across to Zanzibar. I had a quick paddle in the Indian Ocean but Judi was finding it a bit difficult to walk on the uneven surface as her back ache and leg pain were getting worse. She took some ibuprofen. Went to bed and to sleep, despite loud music and a nearby mosque that seemed to call to prayer at some strange times; it seemed to be a competition to drown each other out. The music eventually quietened down but was back full on by 6 a.m., as was the Muezzin calling out his adhãn prayer through the loudspeakers to the faithful. There are many mosques in the area signifying the large Muslim population and, indeed, the eclectic mix of races; a legacy of the various nationalities that have ruled and traded here over the many years.

Day 147 - Sunday 5th July Bagamoyo We awoke thinking it was raining but it turned out to be the wind in the palm leaves. It was, however, a cloudy start with the sun not breaking through until about 10 a.m. We spoke to our neighbour in the beach shelter; an American chap who had brought his push bike in the plane from the States and had been cycling around the north-east of Tanzania for the last five weeks. And this was his first time in Africa! I managed to pick up a weak Wi-Fi signal but it wasn’t good enough to fire off the blog update. I wandered up to reception as they had an internet terminal but their internet was down; maybe tomorrow! We decided to eat in the restaurant that night but were disappointed with it; we both had a huge whole crab, that we had to dissect ourselves, for starters but then they brought the fish main course before we had finished the starter so consequently it was cold; our complaints only got an, ‘Oh dear’!

Day 148 - Monday 6th July Bagamoyo to Dar es Salaam On the road by 8.30 a.m. and headed to Dar es Salaam which was only some 80 km south. As we got close to Dar the heavens opened and it poured for quite some time. The traffic into Dar was stop start all the way, with tuk-tuks (3 wheeled scooter taxis) weaving in and out, so progress was slow. There were quite a few road sellers with phone top up cards so when one approached us I bought a Tsh10,000 (£5) one and handed it to Judi only to be told I had got a Vodacom one instead of a Zain one: no specs again! We had driven off so couldn’t exchange it. The next lad that approached us was asked if he did Zain and on saying ‘yes’ took one off him but instead of handing him Tsh10,000 I swapped the Vodacom one for it and drove off. He was somewhat surprised!

We had to drive into the centre of Dar to the ferry terminal that took us across the river to the south peninsular where we intended finding a camp site. Dar, with a 3,000,000 population, is a large and busy city and something we hadn’t experienced since leaving Lusaka. We drove to the ferry ticket booth and paid Tsh1000 for the car and driver and Tsh100 for Judi. However, they made Judi get out and walk onto the ferry but that involved joining the queue thronging to get onto the ferry while I drove straight on as the last vehicle. I had only been on for a minute or so when the ferry started to make ready to sail, but with no sign of Judi. At the very last minute she walked on as one of the last foot passengers and we were off for the short trip over the harbour to the south side. On the other side it was total chaos with those of us arriving trying to fight through the vehicle and pedestrian queues now trying to get on the ferry.

We called in at the first of the campsites, Mikadi, but it was a bit small and a bit busy with overlanders. We did spot the French Land Rover we had camped with at Iringa parked up. Presumably Anna-Marie and Henri were in Zanzibar: we left a note on their windscreen but doubted it would survive the rain. We ended up in the Kipepeo Beach Resort and camped right next to the lovely beach. We both went for a swim in the Indian Ocean before lunch at the bar. Late afternoon saw an overland truck arrive and twelve tents sprung up all very close to us; I did

11 pass comment but there wasn’t anywhere much for them to go. As it turned out they were all very quiet and left first thing in the morning.

Day 149 - Tuesday 7th July Dar es Salaam Today was a public holiday (Industrial or Peasants Day) so we decided it might not be a good day to leave for Zanzibar so stayed put and made the most of the sun and sea and got ourselves ready to go to Zanzibar the next day. Being a holiday there were quite a few visitors to the beach. The was a beach massage hut as part of the resort so Judi arranged with the girl to get a back massage to see it that would ease her pain as the back was still playing up but it didn’t make much difference.

We went across to reception to arrange to leave our vehicle in storage whilst we were in Zanzibar. We asked the girl there if she knew of anywhere good to stay on the island and she did no more than phone up a friend in Zanzibar and then put him on to me. I spoke to Ali Keys (Tel +255 777 411797 or 0747 411 797), a Zanzibar fixer, who would meet us and sort out hotels for us and hire us a car if needed. We booked a taxi for 8 a.m. to take us back over the ferry and into Dar to the Zanzibar ferry terminal. We dined that evening in the restaurant.

Day 150 - Wednesday 8th July Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar Up nice and early with the vehicle all packed up and parked up for the next few days. Any food we had that we didn’t think would keep we gave to various camp guards. At the gate for 8 a.m. for the taxi when it started to pour. Another young South African couple, Jan and Marita, were also there and asked if we were going to Zanzibar and if so could they share the taxi? Jan was from Cape Town and was back-packing while Marita was a lawyer from Johannesburg and had flown to Dar to join him for a fortnight. The taxi duly arrived and we arranged for him to take us all the way to the terminal rather than drop us at the ferry and us then having to get another one to the terminal. We boarded the first ferry as foot passengers while the taxi, with all our bags in the boot, drove on; we then realised none of us had clocked the number plate and all we knew was it was a white car! We did, however, find it again.

Arrived at the terminal and were ushered into the office of one company who issued us tickets for the 10.30 a.m. sailing on the Sea Star which took two hours to get to Zanzibar. It cost US$35 each to get to Zanzibar but we bought an open return ticket for US$65 each so not cheap at all. They would have taken shillings. The boat departed on time but as the weather was cloudy with likely rain we grabbed some seats and settled down inside and watched the ‘in flight’ entertainment: a new film called ‘Home Alone’, (the original!) was shown on a 12 inch screen with the sound turned right down. The trouble is it is difficult not to watch a telly that’s on, so for the next two hours that entertained us. I think it may be the first time I’ve seen it all the way through; I must watch it again with the sound on sometime.

We arrived at Stone Town, the old part of the capital, Zanzibar Town, just after 12.30 p.m. and were due to meet Ali at 1 p.m. outside. We had to fill in arrival forms and health forms and pass through immigration. Zanzibar still considers itself autonomous from Tanzania even though they fused when Tanganyika gained independence in 1964 and both became Tanzania: Tan from Tanganyika and Zan from Zanzibar. All the books warn of the hustle and bustle of locals trying to get your business and sweeping you off to ‘their’ hotel, for a commission but all we had to mention was that we were with Ali Keys and they left us alone. Ali was late but on the phone we arranged to meet him outside the nearby Mercury Bar; as in Freddie Mercury, born nearby on the 5th September 1946 – same birthday as me but many, many years before me! He, Ali, not

12 Freddie, turned up on his Vespa scooter and bundled us and Jan and Marita into a taxi and escorted us to some hotels until we found one to our liking at a good price.

We stayed at the Mauwani Hotel, we think it was formerly the Mwembe Hotel. We went for a walk around the near vicinity of Stone Town and ended up back at Mercury’s Bar for a late lunch. Stone Town had once been a grand place with Portuguese, Arabic and English influences over the many years, evident in the labyrinth of the many crooked, narrow alleys. Now it was much worn at the edges. However, the numerous carved doors were fabulous. It needed an injection of money to restore it to its former splendour; money, unfortunately, probably never going to be available. Went back to the hotel to get ready to go out for dinner later.

In the reception area the staff were glued to the television and on the screen were weeping people and images of Michael Jackson; apparently it was a memorial service for him. When we asked if he was dead we got some very strange looks. It seems we were the last people in the Universe to know. Apparently he died on the 26th June and it was then that we realised this was probably the first television we had seen on the trip, some four months, and we hadn’t missed it one bit.

Everywhere we went locals would pester you to go in a friend’s taxi or on a boat ride or visit a restaurant, or whatever, but just a mention that we were with Ali Keys and they backed off. Some said they worked for him but around these parts the name Ali Keys seemed to hold sway. We had found a nice place earlier, the Tembo Hotel which had been the former American embassy, so headed there for sundowners and dinner. We managed to grab a table right down on the beach front, perfect, and ordered a gin and tonic from the waiter. ‘No gin sir’, ‘Oh, what have you got?’ ‘No alcohol sir’. There are many Muslims in Zanzibar and mainland coast many of whom own restaurants; hence the no alcohol. Needless to say we left.

We ended up in the African House Hotel, a former English club, which has a famous sunset balcony. We got our sundowners but no sundown to which to drink it due to a large cloud! Here we had a reasonable meal before returning to the hotel and retiring. The four of us had earlier arranged to meet up in the morning to go on a Spice Tour arranged by Ali. Into bed and realised this was the first real bed since Maun back in April and only the second bed of the trip.

Day 151 - Thursday 9th July Stone Town to Matemwe Up for an early breakfast, included in the price, before being collected by a taxi at 8 a.m. to take us out of town to a spice farm. Breakfast, however, was a very leisurely affair and was finally put on the table at about 8.15 a.m. and was hardly worth waiting for. We headed off to the spice farm and en route we were stopped in a police check. I noticed the driver shake hands with the officer, exchanging a shilling note of some denomination as he did so, before the officer inspected his documentation and waved us on. This was the first open display of corruption we had seen.

At the spice farm we spent a couple of hours being shown the various spices which was quite fascinating even though we had done a similar thing in Sri Lanka. We bought a few spices that we shall probably never use; we still have some from Sri Lanka that seemed like a good idea at the time! The tour was over fairly early and so we got the driver to take us back to town rather than drive us up to the north of the island where we were spending that night at ‘Ali’s Bungalows’. We arranged to meet him again outside the Africa House Hotel at 2 p.m. We had a wander through the market and got a little lost in the back streets; very narrow, a bit like Fez in Morocco but without the charm and vibrancy. Eventually we ended up on the sea front not far from Mercury’s Bar so we just had to have a light lunch!

13 We all met up again at 2 p.m. and Mohamed our driver took us north about an hour to the ‘bungalows’ on the east coast near Matemwe. It was a very nice spot right down on the beach although in the middle of a small village. Our tour was supposed to have included lunch, so we arranged with Ali that his staff would rustle us up lunch. Mickey, the Rastafarian chef, duly, albeit it took ages, dished up a very nice fish dish at 4.30 p.m. The four of us agreed it bode well for dinner. The beach was fabulous, with a coral reef some 400m offshore and the whitest, softest sand we’ve ever seen. Walking on the wet sand was like walking on talcum powder with our feet sinking, in some places, up to the ankles. The four of us walked along the beach to the next establishment before heading back. A flotilla of moored up dhows added to the tranquillity of the place.

The evening meal was a disappointment for a variety of reasons and words were exchanged with Mickey, who seemed to lose it and run off. I was expecting him to return with a meat cleaver but he was nowhere to be seen. He eventually returned and apologised for the meal. He was new to cooking and only had one small gas ring to prepare everything was his excuse! The rooms, as it happened, were little more than adequate. Jan and Marita intended moving on tomorrow further north and we arranged with Ali to hire a car for the next day with the intention of leaving it in Stone Town to catch the Saturday ferry. Off to bed, but not too peaceful due to a nearby filling water tank that disturbed Judi. But that was nothing compared to 5 a.m. prayers in the very, very close mosque. That in itself was bad enough, but when they all departed they set up a debating group nearby and argued loudly until it got light … and some more.

Day 152 - Friday 10th July Matemwe to south of island Due to the local noise we decided we would pack our bags and put them in the car, scheduled to arrive at 10 a.m. We would then probably move on rather than drive all the way down south, as we wanted to visit the Jozani Forest, only to drive back up north. It might have been different had the bungalows been better. The Suzuki Vitara (spell check is coming up with Viagra!) jeep duly arrived. It had seen better days and obviously had been thrashed on its journey from Stone Town to Matemwe judging by the smells and tinkling of the cooling engine.

We squeezed us, Jan and Marita, our and their bags in, somehow, and headed north to drop them in the Kendwa area. The Suzuki was running very rough with the smell of petrol but somehow it kept going. We took them to a few places before they settled on one and we said our fond farewells.

We headed south but the maps and road signs were sadly lacking and we hadn’t brought any of the GPS’s with us so it was back to good old fashioned navigation, i.e. getting lost more than a few times. We got stopped at several police checks and had to produce my driving licence. Even though this is Tanzania you need a local driving permit or an International licence; fortunately we had both got them from the RAC in the UK for £5.50, so a good investment. The licence seemed to be accepted by the officious police who were clearly disappointed that all was in order. I now intend to produce this licence in future in the other countries. The beauty is that should they unlawfully seize it you have your UK licence to fall back on.

Time, by now, was getting on so we decided to leave doing the forest until the next day and spend another night on the island. We managed to find a lovely Thai restaurant down on the beach near Kaebona for lunch and I had a delicious green curry fish dish whilst Judi had prawns. We continued with our travels and ended up at the Sunrise Beach resort on the east coast in the south near Bwejuu. It was fairly upmarket but had a delicious sounding menu; not cheap but the rooms were good and had sea views. They cut us a deal and gave us one of the superior rooms for the price of a standard one and this included a Zanzibar bed; a huge four-poster bed with

14 carved wooden panels and glass panels on the end and a netting canopy. We took our sundowners onto the beach and I went for a swim in the sea. We dined in the restaurant and had a very tasty meal and very nice wine but it came at a price.

Day 153 - Saturday 11th July South Zanzibar After breakfast (included in the US$100) we drove the Jozani Forest. En route we came to yet another police check with drums in the middle of the road and barriers to the side with a few police chatting by the barriers, so I headed for them. I got a filthy look and was waved to the middle where the drum was pulled to one side; of course I was supposed to know that but seeing as I was waved through, I bit my tongue!

At the forest, a very reasonable US$8 each, we were assigned the best bird guide they had, they assured us, and off we headed in search of the rare and endangered endemic Kirk’s red colobus monkey. The book says they are shy and difficult to spot but there is a habituated troop near the centre. We saw quite easily the Skye’s monkey but no colobus. Until that is we went to cross the road to walk to the mangrove swamps when we came across about 15 feeding alongside the road unconcerned by our presence; in fact one sat down less than a foot from my foot!

We walked for about three hours and returned to the centre and took lunch in the small restaurant … and watched a colobus run across the floor. Very shy and difficult to spot indeed! This forest is the last remaining fragment of forest on Zanzibar and it was quite worrying to hear the pressures on the environment and in particular the remaining trees. It was a fascinating to learn that each and every day Zanzibar Town uses 60 tonnes of wood just to bake the morning bread!

We drove around the south of the island, passing three camels walking along the road, slightly incongruous, and eventually settled at the Kilimani Kwetu Bungalows just north of Bwejuu village and not too far from where we stayed the previous night. Initially we couldn’t find anyone at the premises and were about to give up and leave when a chap wandered along the track and announced that he was the manager and checked us in. This was a small communal set up and we were the only ones there and they only had a couple of small rooms. The manager asked if we didn’t mind waiting for the room to be made up as the maid hadn’t been in today and he would have to summon her.

We wandered across to the beach and waited and waited; eventually after a good hour our room was ready. The notices in the room contained various warnings, the best of which was ‘Do Not Walk In The Village Wearing Underwear’ – we assume it meant swimwear, but who knows? The manager asked what we would like to eat for dinner and we said any seafood would be fine and off he set on his bike returning sometime later with a large package that he said was crab. He also got me to move the hire car from the front around to the back next to the room but that wasn’t as simple as it sounded and he had to come with me to show the way. At 8 p.m. he served up the biggest two crabs we’d ever eaten and it was cooked to perfection; absolutely delicious. Following that we went back to our room, had a cold shower and got into the huge bed that nearly filled the only room.

Day 154 - Sunday 12th July Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam Our intention was to leave Zanzibar today so wanted to be on the road by 9 p.m. after breakfast. Over breakfast the manager, Wadi, asked if we had enough room to give him a lift to Stone Town, about 80 km away. Off we set and we came to the road check with the drums where I was stopped previously. I had to produce my licence. I was then told to park up; ‘we have a problem!’ says the officer: the road tax had expired on the 25th June and despite the fact I argued

15 it was a hire car and how was I to know we were going nowhere! In the end we had to phone Ali who spoke to Wadi and then the police officer and then me. Ali told me to pay him Tsh10000 and he would refund it. I was about to follow the officer into the office but Wadi told me to stay put and do any dealings in the open. I was told to sit in the car while the officer wrote me out a note, in Swahili, to produce at any other stop to the effect that I had already paid up.

I noticed another car drive slowly through the check and the drop a Tsh1000 note on the road. That was picked up by another officer and the car waved through. The officer gave me my ‘free pass’; I took it and went to drive off. ‘You give me some money!’ so I had to hand over the agreed Tsh10000 but when I asked for a receipt was told he had none. I must have one to get my money back says I and he reluctantly agreed to write the amount on the bottom of my note, but refused to sign it. That’s straight in his pocket, Wadi informed us. It was a good job that none of the other dozen or more police checks had spotted the expired tax! When I queried with Wadi why people put up with it he just said, ‘that’s Africa’. He was surprised there was no corruption in the UK and that, if caught, you would go to prison. From this point onwards I resolved never to pay a bribe to anyone, regardless.

Off we set and got as far as Tunguu when the car started spluttering more than it usually did and although the gauge was on ‘empty’ there was no light on and for the kilometres we had done the Tsh50,000 worth of petrol we had put in earlier should have been plenty. We had passed a garage not too far back so I turned around but only got half way back before the engine died. Wadi volunteered to run back to the garage with a two litre water bottle and Tsh5000 of mine. We knew he’d come back as he had left his bags! He was soon back and the vehicle started and we drove to the garage to put a drop more in to get us to Stone Town. It was a good job Wadi was there to navigate us to and through Zanzibar Town and Stone Town: a large town with 150,000 inhabitants, apparently. After we had found an ATM and said goodbye to Wadi we parked up outside Mercury’s Bar and phoned Ali to collect the car and for us to pay the extra day’s hire, and to get my bribe refunded. The abysmal fuel consumption was dismissed by Ali, but he did refund my bribe.

We waited for the ferry and boarded by 12.00 p.m. for a 1 p.m. departure and as it was sunny we bagged some chairs on the rear deck. One young lad came on to the rear deck, placed his prized, live, chicken, wrapped up in a paper bag with just its head sticking out on the floor next to us and disappeared back inside. The chicken, needless to say didn’t move. We had a good crossing but the swell was enough to make some of the young tourist look very green. Just before we docked the lad returned for his chicken. I do hope the chicken had a happy ending!

Back in Dar we negotiated a taxi price to the other ferry and there got our tickets over the river. It was a good job we didn’t have our vehicle or a taxi as the vehicle queue was massive, being a Sunday. Another taxi ride the other side and we were back in camp and set up, only to be invaded by five overlander trucks, many of whom were camping: the nearest pitched tent to us was literally ½ metre from the front bumper.

Zanzibar was pleasant enough but to be honest not my favourite island and I certainly wouldn’t rush back but glad we had done it.

Day 155 - Monday 13th July Dar es Salaam The overlanders were actually no problem and we heard nothing of them during the night. Before we were up the tents were down and they were whisked away to catch the Zanzibar ferry. We decided to stay today and move on tomorrow for shopping, etc. We lazed about, interspersing swimming in the sea with lunch and drinks. Chatted a long time to a group of South

16 Africans, in particular Yvonne and Patrick, who had been to the north of Tanzania and now were heading back to Cape Town. Also spoke to an English lad who was back-packing from Vienna to Cape Town. This site was a real eclectic mix of travellers, besides the hordes of overlanders, including a German lad cycling from Cape Town to Nairobi but joined by his girlfriend for the Dar/Zanzibar portion. We dined in the restaurant again as we had run out of fresh food and more importantly, wine!

Day 156 - Tuesday 14th July Dar es Salaam to Segera Said goodbye to the South Africa group who were ready for the road by 7 a.m. Yvonne left her business card with a lovely note wishing us a safe journey. We were away by 8.30 a.m. and straight onto the ferry without a hold-up, with Judi walking alongside me as the gates were open.

We had programmed the Tracks4africa to the nearest Shoprite and passed it on the other side of the dual carriageway. The GPS told us to make a U turn but because the traffic was solid and stationary the other way, I decided to cross over at the junction into the other side road. I completed this manoeuvre without problem and pulled into the side, checked it was all clear and then made a U turn and stopped on the other side, again checked it was clear and then headed the 50 metres back to the dual carriageway without any problem. There before me was a very large policewoman in the road with her hand up; she directed me into the side.

The conversation went something along these lines: She – ‘Is it possible to make a turn like that?’ Me – ‘There are no signs saying I could not’ She – ‘Listen to me; is it possible to make a turn like that?’ Me – ‘Well I did it so, yes, it is possible’ She – ‘Listen to me, no, it is not possible to make this turn so I shall have to fine you’ Me – ‘But there are no signs to say I couldn’t turn, so what have I done wrong?’ Things weren’t going too well at this stage! She – ‘So you want signs do you?’ Having already decided I was not going to pay her a bribe. Me - ‘Look, I was in the police for 37 years in England and I know you must have signs to say you can’t do it’ We are now on a collision course. She looked me up and down and thought for a while before: She – ‘Okay, you can go’ Me – ‘Thank you’ Feeling very smug with myself I resolved to adopt this tactic at future stop checks!

We made it to Shoprite and stocked up on provisions but there were no other shops like internet nearby so decided to high-tail it out of Dar without visiting any other shopping centres. We headed out on the Tanzam Highway as far as Chalinze, the turning we took for Bagamoyo on the way up and then turned north on the A14 intending to camp at a town called Segera some 180 km from the turn.

We passed through many police checks but were waved through them all. I tried my best to work out the start and end of the speed limits when approaching and leaving the villages but that was not altogether easy much of the time as the start or end, or both, signs were missing. If you were lucky you could spot the sign on the opposite side and read it in the mirror as a clue. At one village it was signed 50 and then 30 which went on for ages, way beyond the village end and I saw the back of the opposite sign but could not read it. I assumed we were clear of the limits, honest, and sped up a little. Cars were flashing me and I could see the police in the distance on

17 the brow of the hill and even though Judi said, ‘you’re not speeding are you?’ the policeman pulled me over and showed me the speed gun: 61 km. ‘You were speeding; I shall have to fine you’ was the greeting. ‘I’m sorry, I thought I was out of the limit’ says I. And so the conversation went on with him saying I should drive carefully; ‘I know’, I say, ‘I am in the police in England so I always drive carefully’, slightly inaccurate now, I know, but needs must: I didn’t mention the peccadilloes in Botswana. He paused before saying, ‘Okay, you can go!’ And off we went on our merry way with my unblemished Tanzanian driving record intact, just. We arrived at Segera on the junction of the Tanga road and camped in the grounds of the Segera Hotel which was adequate for the one night. We had a pack of dogs around us but they were friendly enough. We passed on the showers as they didn’t work, had dinner and went to bed.

Day 157 - Wednesday 15th July Segera to Amani Nature Reserve Awoke to rain and low cloud. We headed off on the coast road towards Tanga on the relatively short drive to the Amani Nature Reserve in the Usambara Mountains, some 50 km inland from the coast at Tanga. The rain persisted and when we turned off the tar at Muheza we were on a very slippery red dirt road for the next 30 km. We passed the odd logging lorry coming towards us including one idiot going far too fast for the narrow track; how he avoided taking my side out heaven only knows but I saw him go into a skid behind me and disappear around the bend. Whether he made it or not we shall find out on the return journey!

Arrived at the park HQ and coughed up the entrance fee: the usual extortionate Tanzanian rates; US$30 each + US$30 for the vehicle but with the saving grace being this was a one-off payment rather than for just 24 hours. The girl at the gate also wanted US$30 each to camp here at the gate on a piece of grass, with no facilities, but after a few phone calls she arranged for us to drive into the park and camp at the Malaria Research Centre Rest House for US$5 total! We shall stay two, but probably three, nights and have tried to arrange for a guide to take us bird watching early in the morning but as it costs US$25 each we shall get our money’s worth by walking all day; if we can survive it!

We drove up the steep, wet and very slippery 8 km to the village where the Research Centre was. We found the Rest House and were directed to a tiny lawn at the back of the building that was to be the camp ground. Okay if one wanted to pitch a tent but it was a squeeze to get the Land Rover onto the lawn as it involved driving through the flower border! We managed it and set up camp. We also put up the side awning, not used since South Africa, as the clouds were gathering again and it looked like rain. The rain shouldn’t have been a real surprise as where we were in the Usambara Mountains at 400 odd metres high it is actually classified as a rain forest and by inference, it rains a lot! However, the locals reckoned it hadn’t rained for a fortnight. We walked down the track to the Nature Centre to find the internet facility. Although we were in the middle of nowhere up in the rain forest there is actually quite a busy and thriving community around and on our walk we passed children of all ages. Many of the school children, if not too shy, tried to practice their English on us; the most amusing being one little lad who said to Judi, “Hello madam, how is your condition?” I have taken to using this myself!

We found the internet facility in the centre offices and I managed to fire off my blog and check emails. We also tried to arrange a bird guide for the morning but were told that the resident expert was away and they had nobody else. However, a lad in the office volunteered to take us, so we agreed to see him in the morning. We didn’t hand over any money at this stage. Back at camp and we cooked on gas as we couldn’t light an open fire on their well-tended lawn. Once in

18 bed I had to get out and go into the rest house to turn off the TV that had been left on blaring but with no one watching it. It did spoil somewhat the peace and tranquillity of the place.

Day 158 - Thursday 16th July Amani Nature Reserve Up early as our ‘bird guide’ was meeting us at 7 a.m. Duffa duly arrived but I had my doubts about his expertise especially as I had to, whilst putting my boots on, tell him the first two birds we saw and the third he proudly proclaimed was a weaver. When told there were about 30 different kinds of weaver he was at a loss; it was in fact a Baglafecht weaver, new for us. I politely told him I wasn’t paying US$50 for someone who knew less than I did and to cut a long story short, that was the end of the walk with him. He was a nice enough lad but when it came to birds, he lived up to his name!

Judi and I went for our own walk around the village that was quite productive, including a good sighting of a beautiful green-headed oriole and black and white colobus monkeys, before returning to the camp for lunch. Duffa turned up with a bird guide he had tracked down with the grand name of Hunter and it was agreed we all shall go for the day tomorrow starting at 6.30 a.m. Hunter said he was good so we shall see! We lazed around the pitch for the rest of the day.

Day 159 - Friday 17th July Amani Nature Reserve Up and ready, bar me having a dodgy stomach, for the 6.30 a.m. departure. Hunter and Duffa turned up bang on time and off we set. It was immediately obvious that Hunter was, thankfully, very good on his birds. A good guide should know where to find the birds and be able to identify them on their calls as many of the little darlings like hiding in dense bushes, giving only fleeting glimpses … if you’re lucky. We walked and we walked passing along the way a constant stream of folks all heading for the community dairy in the village. There were boys with buckets; boys with buckets on bikes; men with buckets on bikes; woman with buckets on heads. Apparently they come from up to 12 km away, once in the morning and again late afternoon; nearly 50 km daily along atrocious steep tracks.

We walked for hours, ticking off the birds with our ultimate quarry being the long-billed tailorbird, a rare, shy and elusive little bird found only in the Amani Nature Reserve and, it seems only in two particular bushes! When we finally reached one of the known sites it was surrounded by tea pickers: ‘I don’t think the bird will show’, says Hunter, ‘but there is another site eight kilometres further on’; ‘We won’t bother’, says we, especially as this particular bird fell into the LBJ (little brown job) category. We did, however, get cracking close up views of a huge crowned eagle, the ones that take monkeys.

We set off on the return trek passing through a village where Hunter said he was born. He introduced us to his little brother who was four and when asked how many brothers and sisters he had he came up with four sisters and six brothers the oldest of whom was 40! I said his mother had been busy. ‘She has stopped now!’ We also passed the ‘garage’: an enterprising chap with a gallon of petrol who was selling it by the litre to the many small motorcycles used as beasts of burden and general transport. We arrived back at camp at about 3 p.m. having walked all of the time; needless to say we were shattered and called it a day. As the guide was not an official park one we agreed on a total price of US$25; half the US$50 we were going to pay each. We also gave Duffa a tip and advised him to learn more birds. He proudly said Hunter was now teaching him.

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Day 160 - Saturday 18th July Amani Nature Reserve to Moshi Moved on this morning back along the track to the tar. The roads had dried considerably so was fairly easy going. Even so it was nothing short of miraculous to see open backed trucks carrying thirty or more workers, men, women and children, negotiating the track which in places was very steep, rutted and slippery with deep gorges: they must have a faith!

Once back on the tar we back tracked to Segera and then headed north on the B1 (T2 on some maps). The scenery changed from the mountains to flat, low acacia plains that looked over- grazed and arid, interspersed by large fields of sisal plants. We passed a couple of nasty looking accidents attended by the police and a couple of speed checks but being law abiding I wasn’t stopped. Passing through the town of Kifaru we realised we were only a kilometre or so from the Kenyan border to the east and were further north than Mombasa. We camped just short of a town called Moshi in the Honey Badger Lodge and could just about make out Mount Kilimanjaro some 30 km north. This site was an ideal stopover as we plan to visit the nearby Arusha National Park tomorrow and the next day before moving on to the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti: places near the top of my list of places to visit before I die.

The pitch had a covered wash station so Judi made the most of the facilities and did some washing. I tried to update my Roberts Southern Africa bird list on the computer but without success. I bought the DVD in Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town and try daily to update the sightings. This, however, involves inserting the DVD every time into the external disc drive but now the Toughbook computer wouldn’t speak to the drive: I reverted to the tried and tested method of pen and paper!

Day 161 - Sunday 19th July Moshi to Arusha National Park Arrived at Arusha National Park on the slopes of Mount Meru at about 11 a.m. and queued along with the game drive drivers to get a permit. Parted with our US$110; US$35 each + US$40 for the vehicle but as of last year it seems the major parks will now take visa cards etc. which will make life easier not having to have loads of dollars. This will save us having to get local currency from the ATM then queue in the bank to convert to dollars, which all takes time and involves two exchange rates and fees. With the pound to dollar rate in our favour it’s also cheaper to pay directly from our UK bank. This covered us for 24 hours so the plan was to leave at the 6.30 p.m. closing time and camp immediately outside the gate in a site we had checked out.

We visited the Ngurdoto Crater and drove around the volcano crater rim stopping off at the various viewpoints to look down the 300 metres into the crater floor that was some 3 km across, like a mini Ngorongoro Crater, but with very little game. We walked up a steep track and came across a makeshift hut with a couple of young men cooking. They were rangers and apparently they stay up here for several months at a time; not sure what they do for entertainment! We then dropped down to the lakes that from a distance looked pink but turned out to be thousands upon thousands of flamingos, mainly Lesser. To see the gaudy mass of pink set against a back-drop of a now clear but snowy Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance was quite something. This was a much better view of the mountain than the one we had many years ago from the Kenyan side; then it had been cloudy too but the top of the mountain popped out through the cloud for a matter of seconds, just long enough for a couple of photos, before the clouds shrouded it again.

The nearby Mount Meru had also cleared of cloud. Kilimanjaro is Africa’s tallest mountain at 5895 metres, the tallest free standing mountain in the world, but Mount Meru used to be taller

20 until it blew its top a few thousand years ago and is now a mere 4566 metres high. We exited the park with a few minutes to spare and headed to the ‘quiet’ camp site only to find it was now full of tents and English school children! We went to leave but the staff insisted we stayed and found us a quiet secluded spot on the other side of the restaurant and as we intended leaving by 6.30 a.m. we stayed. I endeavoured to light a fire but the wood I had was pretty useless, probably green, and it took ages to dry out and burn sufficiently to cook on. To help things along I went to split the logs but the guard came up to me, took the axe off me and split them for me. Eventually the fire was going enough to get dinner on but it might have been easier to have eaten in the restaurant. We phoned my Dad to wish him a Happy 92nd Birthday before retiring.

Day 162 - Monday 20th July Arusha National Park to Arusha Packed up and at the gate just after 6.30 a.m. opening time for the rest of our 24 hours. The clouds had come in overnight and there was low cloud and light drizzle; we were at getting on for 1500 meters. We didn’t do the crater again but slowly drove around the lakes as we had to exit by 11.05 a.m. on the dot. Saw lots of giraffe, zebra, buffalo, waterbuck and warthog but not much else animal-wise. We saw evidence of elephant and picked up some rhino tracks on the path at one point and leopard tracks later on. We had heard hyena during the night but never saw one. There were quite a few birds around including several new for us ones but not as many as we expected, We both agreed the park wasn’t near the top of our favourites. A crowned eagle in a tree right alongside the track delayed us and we got to the gate bang on 11.05 a.m. ‘You’re late’ said the armed guard until we pointed to the three clocks we had. He checked on his phone and grudgingly agreed we had made it on time. Not sure what he was going to do with us, possibly charge us some extra, or whether he was trying to be funny.

We back tracked to the tar and headed for Arusha Town and then got pulled over in a police check; fire extinguisher, triangles, driving licence and documents. The officer seemed disappointed we were all in order but before he let us go he asked if we had any gifts from England for him: NO! The Motor Vehicle licence I had bought at the border for US$20 was due to expire in five days and as this was the first time I had had to produce it I thought I had better renew it in Arusha in case I didn’t get a chance later on. We endeavoured to draw some cash from the Barclays ATM but both cards were rejected but had more luck at a Lloyd’s one.

We eventually found the Tanzanian Revenue Authority offices. Judi stayed in the Land Rover while I went inside. I had to queue for ½ hour along with people getting driving licences renewed and other official bits but eventually I reached the door of the office. When it was my turn I sat before the very slow official. He issued me with a certificate and said it would be Tsh27,000, not dollars as I was expecting. But now I had to take the form and the money to the nearby bank to deposit the money and then return to him with the deposit certificate. I popped outside to let Judi know what was happening. Needless to say there were huge queues in the Bank with many from the earlier queue also waiting to pay. Eventually I had the form stamped and I returned to the official. Thankfully the queues had died down so that part was reasonably quick and I left with my new form. This all took more than an hour and had I known it would be that difficult I would have left the country early!

We then fought our way out of Arusha and headed for the Snake Park Campsite down the road, only to find it was full to the brim with overlanders. We left and back-tracked to a very nice and quiet camp up the road with the additional bonus of several new birds in the trees. The young girl, the daughter of the lady in charge, came over to collect our camping fees, US$7 each and she couldn’t convert that into shillings so it was easier to pay in dollars. I gave her a US$10 note and four US$1 and off she went. She came back later holding a single US$1 note saying her mother wanted a different one as this one was old. I couldn’t really work out why but in the end

21 it was easier just to give her another. I think the dollar bill may have been an old version even though it had come from a UK bank just before we left.

As we had missed out on lunch we had a late one at the restaurant; duck and chips. The chips were very nice, the duck was mainly bone but was okay. As we left the restaurant we read the notice that the ducks and rabbits, also on the menu, were all raised on the site! We also had a late dinner there even though we were slightly full up from lunch!

Day 163 - Tuesday 21st July Arusha to Tarangire National Park We headed off for Tarangire National Park not too far from the overnight campsite. We arrived just after 12.00 and debated what to do. In the end we decided to go into the park and stay overnight in one of their ‘special’ campsites and leave at our allotted, 24 hours, time tomorrow. ‘Special Campsite’ in the parks equals very expensive with no facilities but you are on your own in the middle of nowhere with just the wild animals for company. We waited while the ranger on the reception phoned wherever to confirm availability of the special camps and to allocate us one. While we waited we sat around the bird bath where loads of birds of quite a few species, many new to us, came down to drink and bathe.

Eventually we had our booking and we paid the usual US$35 each plus US$40 for the vehicle plus US$50 each camping: the public camp in the park was US$35 each but would more than likely be full of overlanders. We also convinced ourselves that a mediocre room somewhere would cost the same, so that made us feel a little better. We always knew the Tanzanian parks were going to be expensive and an analogy would be going to Florida but not doing the theme parks due to cost. There were a lot of game vehicles with clients but they were soon lost in the park which was large. Saw loads of wildebeest, zebra and elephant and two lots of lion: six lionesses and then a male and lioness; the last two were sleeping off a zebra kill while the vultures and marabou storks picked it clean.

We spent most of the afternoon making our way down the riverside reaching our special camp, Njiwa, which was all signposted but the actual site was just an open patch of bush that looked just like any other bit of bush. We off-loaded chairs and tables and then drove to find a vantage point to catch the sun going down with a G and T. We got back to camp in the dark to find two bat-eared foxes checking out our possessions. A new one for us but they soon ran off before we could get a good view of them. Got a roaring fire going and ate. We had zebra nearby and distant trumpeting elephant but that only added to the sense of remoteness and solitude and didn’t keep us awake.

Day 164 - Wednesday 22nd July Tarangire National Park Up at first light to find the zebra really close but unconcerned by our presence and a large herd of buffalo some way off. We packed up and headed further into the park before turning and heading north for the main gate where we had to exit by 12.33 p.m. precisely! Saw a different pair of lioness, along with most of what we had seen yesterday and a few new birds: this is an excellent park for birds. We exited the gate with a few minutes to spare and spent some time around the reception complex where we watched the birds in around the bird bath. We left intending to stay at the Zion Campsite, formerly the Kigongoni camp, further up the track not far from the tar.

As we made our way along the badly corrugated track we stopped off at one of the women’s community stalls to buy a Maasai necklace even though we have said no souvenirs thus far. As we pulled up all the women came out and started ululating us as a welcome. We browsed the racks of trinkets with each lady trying to get us to buy one of her necklaces. We bought a few

22 and the ladies seemed genuinely happy that we had stopped. It wasn’t far up to the campsite and an early stop was welcome. We set up camp and Judi did some washing while I tried to get rid of a little of the dust that had got into anything and everything in the vehicle. We tried to work out a plan for the next few days and decided we would probably make for the Lake Manyara National Park on the way to the Ngorongoro Crater as it has a good write up for birds and scenery in the Bradt guide.

Day 165 - Thursday 23rd July Tarangire to Lake Manyara Left the Zion campsite and tracked back a few kilometres to Makuyuni to then head north to Lake Manyara National Park. We stopped off at a garage in Makuyuni for fuel and got surrounded by pushy and persistent men and women trying desperately to get us to buy their trinkets or tee-shirts. Bought a few things in the local ‘shops’ but when asked if they had any meat, like chicken, were asked if we wanted it cooked or alive; we declined both! Some of the items we selected, or more correctly, were selected for us, had a hugely inflated price tab so we told one of the shop owners, most of those helping us seemed to claim ownership, what he could do with the various items. Judi ended up buying a tee-shirt she said she wanted and I bought a Maasai blanket, called a shuka, at what I was assured was a very good price!

We stopped off at the Lake Manyara National Park gate to check it out before carrying on up the road that became steep and bendy, not helped by a broken down lorry that blocked much of the road, in turn not helped by the ‘warning’ brushwood placed on the carriageway front and back that was actually a greater obstruction than the lorry itself. We climbed up onto the top of the Rift Valley escarpment to the Panorama Lodge that looked back out over the shallow Manyara Lake and park. The site, being terraced, didn’t really lend itself to the Land Rover so we decided, all round, it would be easier to set up the ground tent and then go into the park mid-afternoon with an early start the following morning for the rest of the 24 hours. We set up our table and chairs on a patio area just down from the tent over a rocky path right at the edge of the escarpment.

We dropped back down the escarpment and paid our park fees and were in the park at 2.27 p.m. precisely. On our official receipt they put us down as Italian for some reason! We made our way to the Hippo Pool that had impressive numbers of hippos, pelicans, storks, game plus vehicles and people watching the spectacle! On the way we spotted a troop of baboons next to a small river who clearly wanted to get to the other side. It was quite comical to watch them individually pluck up courage, race at the water and leap as far as they could before swimming frantically to the other side. They all made it. It is surprising what the fear of crocodiles can do to improve the length of ones jump and swimming speed! We drove south in the park and were over-awed by the sheer numbers of lesser flamingos that stretched as far as one could see over the shallow soda lake. We weren’t very good at estimates but both agreed there must have been over a million of them.

We left the park just as it got dark but the rangers seemed very relaxed about leaving times and we were back in camp just after 7 p.m. We went to have sundowners at our table and had to ask one of the overlanders to vacate as it wasn’t a public facility! We had arranged to have dinner in camp and they had volunteered to serve it at our pitch and when it was ready they brought some fish down and served it on our own table, perched right on the edge of the Rift Valley escarpment. That was about 8.30 p.m.: the next thing we knew it was gone 11 p.m. and we were to be up at 5.30 a.m.

Day 166 - Friday 24th July Lake Manyara National Park

23 We were up and left camp and entered the park not long after 6 a.m. We were the first ones in. Within 100 metres of the gates we were forced to stop as two large rear ends waddled down the road in front of us, one of whom decided to stop and do her business right in front of us: quite a deposit of elephant dung! Stopped off at the Hippo Pool and made a cup of tea and ate our egg rolls. This time we were all alone as it was still too early for game vehicles. From here we headed further south to the bottom of the park. Again, all the way down the lake, it was a sea of pink flamingos. We saw much the same animals as yesterday but in good numbers. We stopped off at the hot springs and walked down to where they percolate out of the Rift Valley slope before running into the lake. They were indeed hot but apart from that, not too impressive.

A game vehicle stopped and we chatted to the English clients who told us about the lioness they had seen climbing an acacia tree; the lions here are famous for this phenomenon. We headed off but detoured out to the lake shore and tracked quite some way intending to get back out on the original track and come back up to the lion. Out on the flood plains were thousands of baboons; quite a sight. We headed back towards the track and came round a corner near the up-market Lake Manyara Tree Lodge to be confronted by a herd of huge elephant many of whom had the longest tusks we had ever seen. They were feeding contentedly and didn’t look to be in a hurry to move and let us through. I didn’t fancy my chances of squeezing through them so we turned around and back-tracked.

Once back on the original track we continued on south and not that far on we found the tree with the lioness perched uncomfortably in the crown, some 4 metres up. Considering all the thorns, I can think of more comfortable places to rest up and not sure why they choose to do so. Apparently this is one of only a few places where lions climb trees. We carried on and having reached the extreme south of the park, but not the lake, we headed back as we had to be out on time. We made it with a few minutes to spare.

We stopped off at the exit gate to update the blog as we now intended driving to Karatu where we hoped to find an internet café before returning to camp. In towne we drew some money, shopped, of sorts as there was still no meat or fish, and found an internet café. We had missed out on lunch so plucked up courage to order off a roadside ‘restaurant’. Didn’t exactly get what we thought we ordered but the goat, we suspect, kebabs and the chip omelette wasn’t bad at all. Back to camp to settle in with early sundowners while we took in the splendid view back over the pink lake. We had dinner at the camp restaurant which was ‘interesting’ to say the least. The few other diners had soup and some sort of meat. We had no soup, just some coleslaw and cold potatoes with a bit of banana and a pancake, all on the same plate, all of which wasn’t very nice. We complained to the manager, Paul. He told us the other parties’ drivers had brought their own food for cooking, which is why we had what we had because that was all they had in the store! It seems we were very lucky not to have got the same thing last night. We did give him some positive feedback about how to improve the restaurant! He offered us breakfast to make up. He also asked for a lift to town next morning, which initially we said we had no room, but then traded a seat for a steer on the shopping front as he said he could get us meat at non-muzungu (white man) prices.

Day 167 - Saturday 25th July Lake Manyara to Ngorongoro We had our free breakfast which was not bad. In the camp grounds there was a curio seller and I had my eye on a full size, two metre long, mean looking authentic Maasai assegai (spear) but, one, our rule was no souvenirs due to space, and two, it was too long to fit anywhere. Judi also had here eye on a large decorative mask. The chap had already said he would give us a good price, a local price not a tourist price. As we were about to leave I had another look at the spear; nice but too long says I. And with that he separated it into three shorter sections. The good price

24 for both the assegai and the mask was bartered down some more until both he and we were happy and we shook hands on it. I was very pleased with my acquisition as my only other assegai, bought on a previous trip, was a much shorter version that I still had to saw in half to get in my suitcase to get it home.

Having found a temporary home for the new purchases we squeezed Paul in and drove the 30 km to the town of Karatu where we went yesterday. He said he had to visit the town but without the lift it would have been an all day job waiting for the bus there and cost him quite a bit; we didn’t volunteer to take him back though! In Karatu he took us into the market to a butcher. They didn’t have a great selection of meat but he got us a large chunk of meat, cheap by our standards. We walked over to the fruit and vegetable market where we bought quite a bit to keep us going. Nobody in town, it appears, had frozen chicken, although we had plenty of offers of live ones which I suppose is as fresh as you can get! Paul did manage to track down some frozen fish, which now forms part of my really tasty fish curry, to tide us over.

This town is the only sizeable one around but with little in the way of shops and provisions it is little surprise that our camp restaurant wasn’t too well stocked. We said farewell to Paul, who begged us to visit him again, topped up with fuel and visited an ATM that didn’t work and then found another that did. There was a fair queue at this one, probably the only working one in town but at least we got there before the passengers out of an overland truck joined the queue. We had drawn out money yesterday but wanted to draw out more as we thought this would be the last opportunity to do so before we were out the other end of the Serengeti in five or six days’ time and we weren’t sure how much we would need.

From Karatu we drove the short distance to the Ngorongoro Crater. This was a place I’d long wanted to visit having seen it many times on the television but never really thought I’d ever get to. We pulled in at the Lodware Gate to check in, where, to our horror, they now wanted US$50 each per day entry; US$40 a day for the vehicle; US$30 each for camping PLUS US$200 for the crater fee. For the two nights we wanted to stay that came to a total of US$600. We had expected to pay US$100 for the crater visit for either the morning or afternoon session; the saving grace now being the US$200 now covered all day. This park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, is not part of the National Park set-up and didn’t take credit cards and we only had US$499 cash.

I wandered back to the vehicle where Judi still was to discuss the cost and the lack of dollars and to come up with a contingency plan. We could stay just one night or we could return to Karatu and cash some shillings for dollars. We both double checked how they had got US$600 and kept coming up with a smaller figure. We both went back to the reception to double check but of course he was right and we were wrong. We explained that we didn’t have enough dollars, No problem, you can pay the balance in shillings! Brilliant, but why do all the books and signs say dollars only? We paid and got our permits and were told that was all we needed. We were in but we did resent having to pay tourist prices for everything, they also wanted US$10 for a rubbishy map that we passed on as we would be running Tracks4africa anyway.

We made our way up onto the top of the Ngorongoro crater rim, 2437 metres, nearly 8000 feet, high, from where we looked out across the 20 kilometre wide caldera and the crater floor some 600 metres below us. This is the largest unbroken caldera in the world and we could only begin to imagine the size of the eruption that created this 8th wonder of the world two and a half million years ago. We drove around the rim to the Simba Camp to set up camp, arriving just after lunch. We were the only ones there except for two groups of overlanders packing up to leave for Arusha. We found a nice spot with a view of the lake in the crater and tied down the tent extension as the wind coming off the crater was really strong.

25 During the afternoon the site began to fill. A group of five South African vehicles turned up and parked on the grass behind us. It turned out they were, as part of the trip, making a 13 part documentary about bush cooking in interesting places, going out on an Afrikaans channel and a BBC food channel. Three separate huge bull elephants wandered through the camp, scattering the small group of Maasai children hanging around hoping to get a little something off the tourists. A small herd of zebra grazed amongst the tents, acting very much like donkeys.

Just as it got dark this stroppy young woman came over and we heard a heated discussion going on with the South Africans: she then came over to us to tell us to move as we weren’t allowed to park on the grass, the fact we had a roof tent was lost on her as was the fact nobody had told us and we hadn’t seen the one and only, small, sign on the way in. ‘Where are we to park then’, says I, ‘On the road’ says she, ‘I’m not paying sixty dollars to camp on an uneven track’ says I, ‘Then I’ll fine you’ says she. By now some of the South Africans came over and with a united front we all stood our ground. 30 minutes latter an official with an armed guard and a Maasai warrior with assegai spear turned up and a very heated debate ensued with the South Africans, but they left us alone. A compromised was apparently reached and the roof top tent vehicles could stay on the grass but the ground tent vehicles had to move onto the roadway. As I said to one of the South Africans; we won the battle but lost the war. It seems to me that many of the parks we’ve been to are not geared up to independent travellers such as we. The South Africans sent over a plate of the meal cooked to camera and invited us to join them later round their huge camp fire. We intended doing so but as we had to be up and away by just after 6 a.m. we never did make it. It was bitterly cold with a cold wind blowing so we went to bed early to keep warm.

Day 168 - Sunday 26th July Ngorongoro Conservation Area Up early and packed away the roof tent in the dark and freezing cold and managed to be on the road by just after 6 a.m. having collected our permit from the camp gate from the same ‘lovely’ lady from yesterday who just said, ‘you will not park on the grass tonight!’ I started to argue that I wasn’t paying sixty dollars to camp on the road but Judi just quietly told me to forget it and shut up, and so I did! We arrived at the top of the crater descent road by 6.40 a.m. expecting not to be allowed down until 7 a.m. I handed in our permit and an equally officious young lad told me to read out rule 7 on my permit; I had to get my glasses out of the Land Rover and then read out loud, like a naughty school boy, rule 7 that basically said that if we didn’t have an official guide we must take in a park guide with us. I was told that I would have to back track all the way to the Park Headquarters to collect one … and pay for him. I knew from when Peter and Jackie Viner visited some years ago they had to argue against having to take one and although they had succeeded they still had to pay for one. ‘No room’ says I ‘and I’m not paying $200 and having to take another passenger and nobody mentioned this at the gate when we paid’. ‘They should have’. He opened the door and grudgingly agreed we had no room. ‘Do you know the park tracks?’; ‘I have all the tracks on the GPS’ says I. That seemed to swing it and we were on our way, probably just as well as I was beginning to get a little peed off with officious staff who seemed to have forgotten, or never knew, that the customer comes first. I might have said something I was to later regret ... and he had a large rifle! To be fair, this is the only park where we have been treated like second class citizens.

The descent from 2162 metres to 1740 metres to the crater rim side was not too bad, in fact not as bad as I was expecting and I think they may have put in a new road since the Viners were here as on that occasion it had been a little hairy, although we were in a Land Rover and they had been in their Land Cruiser! We were soon down on the crater floor. It was quite spectacular with

26 the sun rising and to look across the vast crater was awesome, especially as the few clouds had the sun shining through them sending Biblical shafts of light down to the crater floor. As we were the first in the crater it was really peaceful and we saw plenty of game and a nice pride of lion doing what lions do best, sleeping. Later on we saw two males and a couple of lioness at a kill but a bit distant. Didn’t spot the black rhino, but they are elusive, but did see plenty of hyena.

At one stage we could see a gaggle of vehicles and inquisitively we made our way over to check it out, just in case we were missing something. We couldn’t really see what they were looking at until we noticed, in the middle of the track surrounded by tyres, a small snake, a sand snake I would guess. It didn’t move which is probably just as well. At the hippo pool we spoke to the occupants in a game vehicle who were from a small village called Brightwell-cum-Sotwell in the UK and not that far from us. David, a medical doctor was there with half the family while wife and one son were climbing Mount Kilimanjaro instead! He told us he had driven from Guildford to Nairobi in the early seventies in a Land Rover so was really interested in our trip and we chatted for some time and exchanged contact details.

In the middle of all the wild animals and lions we came across a small group of Maasai goat herders grazing their goats. They do have grazing rights but it must be a fraught relationship with the lions; what a way of life! We stayed in the crater until leaving time, 6 p.m., and climbed the steep ascent track and although the Land Rover coped with it, she didn’t like it much and the old temperature gauge fault returned half way up. Arrived back at the same camp and the young lady from the night before stopped us and sternly told me not to park on the grass. ‘If you can find me a level section for my sixty dollars then I will’, but it was lost on her. We did actually find a spot away from the tents, a lot less tents than the previous night, with a nice view and set up camp. It was, however, on the track where a large elephant had walked through yesterday.

We chatted to a young South African couple who were with an organised tour into the crater and the Serengeti but had left their UK Land Rover in Kataru whilst they spent a few days on the trip. They had driven from Scotland, down through Syria and Egypt, and were on their way to Cape Town where they lived. We had eaten and were sat round our small fire when I noticed a nearby movement. Thinking it was an elephant I told Judi to get in the car and grabbed the torch; not an elephant but a hyena turning tail, not three metres away. A young Canadian, Jeff, came up to us and said he had seen a jackal near us and was a bit shocked when I told him it was a hyena. He was on a placement in Tanzania from a Canadian University and we chatted to him for quite some time until a guard joined us and we told him about the hyena. He told us not to have food in the tent. We were all right but Jeff was concerned as he had peanut butter and bread in his: that ended up in our foot well for the night. Peanut butter and bread seems to be the de rigueur food of back packers!

A young Scottish lady, Liz, and her son came over and asked to photograph the vehicle as they thought it was brilliant. We got talking to them. They were from Wilshaw in Lanarkshire, Scotland near where my mother was born and had a house near Dunoon, not far from Ardentinny: places that hold dear to my father as he met my mother there, many, many moons ago. It was still bitterly cold, but not as windy, so early to bed only to be awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of a hyena right alongside the vehicle; a really unnerving and chilling noise but one that really is one of the sounds of Africa. I clapped my hands but by the time we had the torch out the window it had gone. As I lay in bed I reflected upon the crater experience and came to the conclusion that, to be honest, I was slightly disappointed. I had probably built it up too much but I still wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Day 169 - Monday 27th July Ngorongoro to the Serengeti

27 On the road in good time as we had to leave the Ngorongoro conservation area by 11.17 a.m. and it was some way to the other gate from the campsite. Before we left we saw a huge bull elephant squeeze between the dining shelter area and showers sending campers scattering and retreating into their tents. One brave soul who tried to leave the shower was trumpeted and charged back into the block; I think the elephant was used to people and was just enjoying himself!

En route we passed a traditional Maasai village with quite a few tourist trucks stopped for an official visit. The Maasai don’t like having their photos taken unless you pay them. We passed on this cultural experience. We diverted and called in at the Olduvai Gorge and Museum where some of earliest (3.7 million years old) preserved hominid footprints were found in 1972. We spent longer here looking around the small museum than we intended and consequently had a bit of a journey to cover back onto the main track and on to the exit gate. The track in had been fairly well defined but the exit track took a slightly different route and fanned out across the plains but we just followed the Tracks4africa and eventually got back on to the main track. The main track was pretty bad in places but we made it with minutes to spare. I shouldn’t have bothered worrying though as nobody was on the gate to check us out. We stopped at the Serengeti Naabi Hill Gate and paid our US$400 entry fee for two nights camping and park fees and had a spot of lunch.

The road was still very badly corrugated and I had to drive at a reasonable speed to prevent us being completely shaken to pieces. This of course made viewing what game was around difficult. Judi told me to slow down and we fell out. I stopped the vehicle and told her to drive if she could do better. She did try but didn’t go far. I have done all the driving so far this trip leaving Judi to navigate, an arrangement that works well and with which we are both happy … usually. We swapped back again and I think I may have even driven off and left her sitting on the verge. I didn’t go that far though and reversed back to her; the grandchildren would never have forgiven me had she been eaten by lions. The reality was that although we had been married for 35 years and started dating when she was 15 and I was 19, we were now in a situation where it was a total 24/7 relationship with nowhere really to go when things got tense. We actually had very few fallings-out, all things considered, and when we did we blamed it on the weekly lariam!

The road didn’t get any better and at one point they were re-grading the surface and had dumped lorry load upon lorry load of hardcore down the middle leaving the passing traffic to find its own way down either side of the heaps. Some sections where quite challenging for the Land Rover if you choose the ‘wrong’ side. Although most vehicles we saw were 4x4s it was in actual fact a public road, the B144 open to through traffic and also a public bus route between Arusha and Lake Victoria: passengers still have to pay the park fees though which probably makes it one of the world’s dearest bus routes!

As soon as we reached a side track off this track we took it. There was plenty of game around and the vastness of the plains was breath-taking, a bit like Salisbury Plain in the UK times a thousand. We got ourselves lost in the myriad of tracks but Tracks4africa helped us to stay in the right direction. We did see a young lion sitting awkwardly in an acacia tree; so much for the famous tree climbing lions of Manyara being the only ones to do it! In Seronera camp we topped up with fuel and ended up paying £0.89 pence per litre compared with the usual Tanzanian price of £0.65 pence, but to be fair it was in the middle of the Serengeti and the only fuel for kilometres around. We arrived at our allocated campsite, Pimba, near Seronera in the centre of the vast park and in the absence of any officials asked the overlander drivers where I could set up camp and was told I could drive behind the tents and park there.

28 We found a spot on the outskirts of the site as far away from the tents as we could get. Needless to say later on, when an official came round inspecting permits I was rebuffed for parking too far away from the camp and having an open fire. He did appreciate I couldn’t move and was reassured when I said I would keep an eye on the fire; I had already collected some large rocks to contain it. We saw loads of bats leaving their roost in the shower block. Later on, Liz from Scotland who happened to be staying in the same campsite, came over and we chatted some more: I think she was inspired by our adventure. There were quite a few eyes out on the plain next to us and when we went to bed we had a hyena fairly close.

Day 170 - Tuesday 28th July Serengeti Up reasonably early and packed up intending to spend all day driving in the park. We hadn’t gone far before we saw a gaggle of game vehicles and overland trucks and joined them. A pride of lions were lazing around but after a while some zebra came closer and the lion picked up interest. A couple of the lionesses started to hunt them. At first they kept out of view by using the vehicles for cover but once clear of the vehicles they adopted the classic belly crawl. The lions still had 100 metres, maybe less, to go and we were beginning to think we were going to witness a kill. However, a vehicle on the other track near the zebra spooked them and they moved away from the lions who then lost interest. I suspect the zebra knew exactly where the lion were and how close to let them get.

We moved on seeing quite a lot of lion in various prides, big and small. Made our way to a spot on the eastern edge of the park which was supposed to be excellent for cheetah, our bogey African animal. We passed several rocky outcrops called kopjes, rising out of the vast grassy plains. At one we stopped for lunch. It happened to be called Simba Kopjes. Simba is Swahili for lion as many of you will know from the Lion King. Judi was about to get out of the vehicle to go to the back door when she jokingly said, ‘have you checked for lions?’ ‘What, that one there?’ says I staring at the lioness sitting on the rocks ten metres from us. Good job it wasn’t yesterday! We watched her for some time but didn’t stop for lunch as it was still in the back!

We failed to see any cheetahs but really enjoyed the experience of driving on the Serengeti Plains, miles from anywhere and anyone on tracks that looked as if they hadn’t seen a vehicle for months as we were way off the game vehicle and overland truck route. We did spot a rosy- throated longclaw, a pretty little bird, on the track in front of us. We both joked that that was an easy spot as we recalled an earlier visit with the Viners to South Africa. There we had spent a happy four hours in a cold game vehicle zigzagging over a flood plain with a driver intent on finding us the longclaw. Fortunately we eventually found one as we would probably still be there now if he hadn’t. We made our way slowly back towards camp and after several kilometres started to see the odd game vehicle. Not that far from camp we spotted another group of game vehicles: love them or hate them they are a good indicator of having spotted something. We pulled up and there at the base of a small tree was a mother cheetah and three cubs. Finally we had bagged a cheetah; what a truly brilliant day. We watched them for an hour during which time she lifted her head, looked around, stretched a few times and slept a lot. The cubs didn’t do much more either but still we were over the moon with the sighting just 100 metres away.

As we left we spotted two bat-eared foxes sitting 10 metres from us in broad daylight. They sat there until another vehicle pulled up and they ran off. Another brilliant sighting for us. We saw several more lion on the way back, along with large herds of zebra, buffalo and various antelope including the beautifully marked topi that we had never seen before. There really were a lot of lion around. Arrived back at the same camp and set up, not quite where last night’s official told us to, but near enough. We never did see him that night so a roaring fire was lit. There was no water in the toilets or showers so off to bed with our thick layer of Serengeti dust; it really does

29 get into every nook and cranny. With a campsite full of overlanders using just one toilet block, flush toilets without water are disgusting; much better to have a good old long-drop. We slept well with just the nearby hyena waking us up occasionally.

Day 171 - Wednesday 29th July Seronera to Lake Victoria Still no water and the toilets by now were even more disgusting so we opted out of visiting for our ablutions. We were on the road for just after 6 a.m. as we had a long drive through the Western Corridor of the park across to Lake Victoria and had to be out by 12.30 p.m. We had been told the famous wildebeest migration was still moving north through the corridor and over the Grumeti River. It is here, but more so the Mara River in Kenya, that the scenes of carnage with the huge crocs, as seen on TV, takes place as the wildebeest cross over en route to the Maasai Mari in Kenya following the rains before heading south again. The migration pattern of the wildebeest is quite fascinating.

The migration should have cleared where we were by now but I guess the rains had been late which had delayed things and we came across thousands upon thousands of wildebeest and zebra ambling, rather than journeying, north. It was just as I imagined. Even though not the full-on migration it was much, much better than I had hoped for having assumed we were too late for it. To actually be here and actually driving through the middle of vast herds of animals making the sound that only wildebeest can do, is enigmatic and indescribable. We crossed, fortunately by bridge over the Grumeti River which was dry save for odd hippo pools with the famous large, no, absolutely huge, crocs, so guess they had had their feast earlier.

We came across three lionesses laying up, all with blooded faces. Some poor beast wasn’t going to make the rest of the migration. We also stopped at a couple of kills now being picked clean by various vultures and marabou storks. We could have spent all day there but tore ourselves away and exited the park with ten minutes to spare.

We both really enjoyed the Serengeti and maybe we’ll be back as there are still loads more to see and do. We would have happily stayed for many more days but quite frankly the cost was prohibitive; oh to be a rich American; Japanese or European tourist! To be in our own vehicle with the funds for several days, in a special camp with no facilities, on our own, would be superb.

We reached the Ndabaka Gate and checked out. Drove a short distance to a campsite right on the shores of Lake Victoria and set up camp for a day or two’s rest. Lake Victoria is the second largest lake in the world, after Lake Superior, laying at 1124 metres. There was no one else around, either in the chalets or on the lawn that was our pitch. Having set up camp we had an authentic African self-cooked meal; beans on toast with an egg on top!

I was sat there minding my own business updating my travel blog when the following spectacle unfolded. Judi noticed a dog behaving strangely and then realised it was looking at a snake near our camp and the restaurant. The dog wisely left it alone and we walked over to see a two metre black mamba slowly make off heading for the restaurant. I alerted the ‘manager’ in the restaurant who panicked a little: Africans do NOT like snakes and will kill them every time. Instead of heading for the reeds of Lake Victoria right next to us and freedom the snake went up the steps into the restaurant with the manager disappearing rapidly out the other door closing it behind him; effectively trapping it in the restaurant! He said he would have to kill it and regrettably I would have to agree with him as the nearest snake catcher I knew was Steve Tolan at Chipembele in Zambia and realistically they couldn’t risk having a deadly snake amongst the diners, albeit not many of us, actually just us two!

30

He armed himself with a large stick and I heard a bang but he retreated quickly. I looked in and saw the snake disappear into the bar area. I left him to it and waited for the scream! He went to get help and his assistant duly arrived with a longer stick … but you have never seen anyone walk that slowly. Half an hour later they were both still standing on chairs trying to work out what to do with this deadly snake now hiding in with the coke bottles. I was fully expecting to hear a scream and have to get out my snake bite kit and rush him to hospital! After about an hour of various people and implements going into the restaurant the poor creature was finally dispatched. The manager proudly brought it out for us to see. It was clearly dead but still writhing so nobody went too close. I asked if they got many snakes around here and they said no which accounts for their inability to deal with it. As they said, they had to kill it because if it bit anyone they would be dead. Very, very true but still a shame. While all this was going on Judi took the opportunity to wash our filthy clothes. After doing the first bowlful on her knees using the low garden tap that started to run dry a lady came up to her and she readily accepted the lady’s offer of finishing it off for her! The lady carried on and to get more water she paddled into the lake ignoring the risk of bilharzia, and rinsed the washing. The restaurant didn’t have any food so we catered for ourselves but did order dinner for tomorrow night. The establishment only had one generator, meaning there could be water pumped out of the lake for showers and washing or electricity, but not both together!

Day 172 - Thursday 30th July Lake Victoria Had a reasonably decent lie in for a change and spent the whole day checking the Land Rover over and emptying the contents to try and get rid of some of the dust which was everywhere and really thick. The plan was to move on tomorrow heading south via Mwanza and onto Malawi in a few days’ time. We were still in the middle of de-dusting the vehicle at 6.30 p.m. when the manager came over and in his very bad English announced that dinner was complete. We had had to order it yesterday and would hopefully be fish. The fact that we were filthy and in need of a shower was lost on him although he did concede we could have a shower first. He went off to change the generator over to the water pump.

At the restaurant we were expecting to get dried up fish but we had to wait for it and it was freshly cooked and delicious. Went back to our pitch and lit a fire to sit round with a night cap before retiring. We were in the middle of nowhere on the shores of Lake Victoria and we went to bed to the tranquil sound of … blaring African music from, we guessed, the village further down the shore. It was so loud that I ended up wearing my trusty (stored in the tent pocket) ear plugs that gave some relief. The night before it had stopped early but now it was to go on past midnight. When we mentioned this to the manager next morning he informed us the next village always had loud traditional music going: it didn’t sound very traditional to us.

Day 173 - Friday 31st July Nyatwale, Lake Victoria to Mwanza This was about as far north as we would be going on our trip. Packed up and on the road by 9 a.m. and made our way south to Mwanza, a large town on Lake Victoria where we hoped to draw money, get provisions and find an internet café. Eventually got the money after queuing for quite some time; the last day of month is never a good day. Had a very nice lunch in a restaurant serving both Chinese and Indian food, then on to an internet café to check mail and send off the last travel blog update; very slow though. Found a supermarket but not well stocked and ended up with two frozen chickens and little else.

31 Decided on an early stop to allow plenty of time to make some distance tomorrow down towards Mbeya as we didn’t think there would be much in the way of campsites as it was well off the tourist route. We camped in the grounds of the Mwanza Yacht Club right next to the lake just five metres from our vehicle. There were a couple of South African vehicles with us including a large truck containing Paul Eberhard, a Tracks4Africa representative. We got chatting to him and in the end he checked out our system and managed to get the Garmin Nuvi talking to the computer, the first time since buying it in Cape Town so a good job done although we shall continue to use the UK one and have the other as a back-up.

The town of Mwanza for some reason, was full of circling yellow-billed kites and marabou storks. W’d never seen so many together and at any one time there was at least a dozen up above us. We were joined by one of the German Rotel Wagons, the same as we had seen earlier in Tanzania, with its older German clients. This effectively filled the camping area and filled the showers. We went to the hotel next door for a drink overlooking the lake and to see what snacks they did as we couldn’t manage a full meal after the lunch. Ordered a pizza but just as he was taking the order the power went off across much of the town so pizzas and most things on the menu, were off. We ate the complimentary peanuts and decided that would do us and left for early bed. We took our weekly lariam but the pill made me throw up a little later, probably because it was on, for me, an empty stomach; must watch this in future.

Regrettably the power came back on and the hotel disco started up and boy was it loud, very loud and went on and on what seemed like all night and into the early and late hours of the night: my ear plugs drowned out some of it but neither of us got much sleep.

Day 174 - Saturday 1st August Mwanza to Tabora Five months on the road. Up early and on the road by 8 a.m. First port of call was to a recommended supermarket called UTurn which by Tanzanian standards was well stocked, with the exception of fruit and veg. Stocks were replenished to last us into Malawi. Also replenished the cash at an ATM. We were out of Mwanza by 9 a.m. having picked up charcoal roadside but couldn’t find any veg that we needed. We drove on the tar as far as Nzega which then went into gravel for the next 120 km to Tabora where we hoped to stop for the night. The road was very bumpy and corrugated and quite busy and didn’t arrive until late afternoon.

In our travels in Zambia and Tanzania we keep seeing what looked like logs suspended on ropes in trees and couldn’t quite work them out but suspect it was to do with honey collection. We passed one on the ground and had to stop to check it out. The bark off a trunk, about a metre long had been removed and tied back up to form a hollow chamber and sealed either end. Couldn’t really confirm it was a bee’s nest but couldn’t think of any other purpose for it. In the town of Tabora the gravel ended and we hit lovely tar … but only lasted to the town’s boundaries. It was a fairly large town that had an affluent feel about it probably thanks to being on the Dar es Salaam to Lake Victoria railway track that runs through it.

Here we found a garage for fuel and the chap recommended the Orion Tabora Hotel for camping. It looked rather posh and expensive and the sign outside the restaurant said ‘suitable attire only’. Not sure what that meant but we were covered in dust, in shorts and sandals and not looking our best so we would probably fit the category of ‘not suitably attired’. We asked if we could camp. No problem and we were directed around the back into the gardens where we set up camp by parking on the yard and opening out the tent over the lawn. We had the use of one of the rooms that had hot showers, something not experienced for quite some time. The chicken in the slow cooker hadn’t all been spilt en route so we freshened up, ate and had another early night in

32 readiness for a long day tomorrow. Then the hotel live band started up and out came the ear plugs again!

Day 175 - Sunday 2nd August Tabora to Mbeya All packed up and on the move just after 8 a.m. heading the very long way to Mbeya. Tracks4Africa had this road labelled as ‘not recommended’ and we had getting on for 550 km, 350 miles, to do with not much in the way of camping or towns en route. The plan was to wild camp late afternoon. Passing a few stalls, bought onions, a pumpkin, tomatoes and bananas. The road started off not too bad and very soon I had a bus blasting me to get out of the way so he could get a move on. How the buses survive the horrendous daily journey from Tabora down to Mbeya and back I really don’t know.

The first four hours didn’t produce too many challenges drivingwise but then alternated between reasonably graded gravel, untouched sections and sections under repair. I certainly wouldn’t want to be sitting in the back of a bus being bounced around over much of the journey. There were quite a few people around walking to and fro and all very friendly. It reminded us of Zambia. There were very few wild animals around, most of the area seemed to be grazing for the numerous cattle. Each village, like every other one in Tanzania had the obligatory bright pink shop or house advertising the mobile phone network Zain. Very colourful!

The road was so bad that you couldn’t afford to take ones eyes of the track for fear of missing a pothole, rock or bump and a few times I did hit ‘things’ a bit too fast. We actually made better progress that we anticipated and the GPS was telling us we should arrive in Mbeya just after 7 p.m., just after dark and in the absence of suitable wild camping sites due to the number of villages in the southern sector we decided to press on all the way to Mbeya. The road all the way wasn’t exactly busy but there was the odd lorry chugging along and the odd bus thundering along, both of whom demanded right of way on the narrow track! There was one bus in particular that would overtake me, stop at the next village where I would pass it and then he would come up behind me. I would wave him through and in the end we struck up a rapport with him tooting on his horn and us waving at each other.

Shortly after 6 p.m. with about 100 km to go and an hour of light left we heard a metallic sound from the rear that needed checking. Looking underneath it transpired that the nearside shock absorber mount to which our double shock absorber mount was bolted had snapped off the actual rear axle. I had to remove the two top bolts holding on the two shockers and then could remove the whole assembly. It didn’t take long and we were soon mobile, but without the shocks had to take it even more carefully and slowly. The campsite we were heading for in Mbeya, the Karibuni Centre we had checked out on our first day in Tanzania, was run by a man called Marcos who also runs a workshop specialising in Land Rovers. We had met him in Zambia at the Kapishya Hot Springs six or seven weeks ago so we decided it would be best to get there in order to arrange for repairs first thing in the morning.

Day became night but the road didn’t improve. In fact it deteriorated in places and progress was very slow for fear of further damage although to be fair to the un-absorbed spring, it was difficult to notice the lack of shock absorber. Fortunately the roof-rack mounted spots are brilliant at picking up potholes in good time so made life a little easier. We got to within 25 km of Mbeya when we started climbing and climbing up a very dark, narrow and extremely bumpy track, with the odd broken down, unlit, lorry or pick-up blocking most of the space. We got to 2465 metres, just over 8000ft, before we dropped down to Mbeya which was still at nearly 1800 metres.

33 We arrived at the Centre in the middle of Mbeya at 9.20 p.m. and they squeezed us in a spot where we could set up camp. Not ideal but we were too exhausted to care. One of the warnings was not to wander about between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., including to the toilet block as the dogs ran loose and one wasn’t friendly. By the time we had cooked and eaten we had about five minutes to spare so we forgoed the shower and took a small night cap up into the tent to escape the ‘beast of Mbeya’. It didn’t look too vicious to us but we didn’t intend finding out. It had been a very long day driving for 13 hours for a distance the equivalent of a journey from London to Glasgow but on a bumpy farm track rather than smooth motorways. Needless to say we were tired but fortunately there was no disco music! We did hear the guard dog mooching around but we were soon asleep.

Day 176 - Monday 3rd August Mbeya Went to the Centre reception to enquire about the vehicle workshop. The lady telephoned the workshop and I spoke to someone and arranged to bring it in straight away, having got directions. We drove through Mbeya and on about 8 km and found the workshop and explained what the problem was. The welding of the mount back onto the axle will be a simple task but apparently as it was so close to the disc brake and seals they had to strip down the hub before the could weld; the same hub stripped down in Iringa! It will take some time they say but so be it as we are going nowhere without it.

We sat in the waiting area and I updated my travel blog and generally killed some time. Also there were a German couple in an old Land Cruiser trying to get the air con fixed … as if! They had shipped to Namibia and are doing much the same as us, also taking a year. I went off and found Marcos and reintroduced myself and chatted about our travels and the joys of owning Land Rovers. The vehicle was all fixed by about 2.30 p.m. and I went to pay the bill which should have been 72,000Tsh but Marcos, the boss, told them to make it 50,000Tsh (about £25). All in all extremely reasonable. Fingers crossed that it holds up to the Malawian and Mozambique roads!

Went back into Mbeya and eventually found a bank without long queues where we changed some shillings into dollars in anticipation of Malawian border fees: nothing compared to getting into Tanzania though. No visa fee; US$15 insurance and US$1 temporary import fees, according to the book. Found an internet café in the post office and then set off to a new community centre that had a proper campsite, also run by Marcos, some 15 km out of Mbeya. He showed me an aerial photo of the complex so I knew where I was going.

We arrived and drove up to the gate and the guard let us in; ‘Mister Marcos said we could camp’. The surprised guard said, ‘okay’ and in we drove. I went to the lawn area Marcos had showed me on the photo and set up camp. I had just broken out the beer when the same guard came over and tried desperately to have a conversation with us but we both failed to communicate with each other so off he went.

He came back a little later with a white guy and I explained how Marcos had told us where to camp; ‘I think he may have meant the next complex’ which I could now see some 500 metres further on! We packed up and left after apologising for camping on their lawn and asked him and his wife to apologise to the guard for confusing him. Found the right place and set up camp again and broke out the beers again. We had good views of the mountain range we had driven over yesterday in the dark, minus the rear nearside twin shocks!

Day 177 - Tuesday 4th August Mbeya to Matema, Lake Malawi

34 Set off for the 160 km drive to a camp site not too far from the border right on the shore of Lake Malawi but on the Tanzanian section. Lake Malawi (Lake Nyasa if you’re Tanzanian) is the third largest lake in East Africa so we have now camped on the shores of all three: Victoria; Tanganyika and now Malawi. We passed through several police checks some of whom pulled us over but were only interested in where we had come from and where we were going, all without hassle. It is strange that the police we have seen are not armed whereas many wildlife officers, bank guards, campsite guards, shop guards etc., are.

We climbed out of Mbeya on a rather scenic road up through the highlands where there was a lot more cultivation than in many other places in Tanzania; mainly bananas, potatoes, peas and cabbages. We stopped off at one deserted roadside stall and soon had four or five women running over to us. What we tend to do now is rather than ask the price, which is lost on them, is to hand over a Tsh1,000 note and get them to put an amount into our bag with which we all seem happy. We bought potatoes, real peas and a cabbage and a little later on we topped up the onions and tomatoes.

In addition to the many fruit and veg stalls there were areas where there were huge piles of large rocks with men and women sitting on the floor with lump hammers reducing the rocks into small chippings that were available to buy. This use to be called hard labour many years ago but here it was subsistence work. What a life! At one point we came across what looked like a hayrick on the side of the road but then realised it was moving and we could just about make out the bicycle and trailer wheels. As we passed we could just about see the rider completely enveloped in the hay! In one busy market town we saw two men with one large pig with a rope tied to one back leg. This served very well as a brake but was pretty useless as an accelerator or steering mechanism. Needless to say the pig was refusing to go anywhere except back the way it came; it was probably aware of what fate awaited it!

We turned off the tar onto a reasonable gravel road but took it very steady trying to give the repairs an easy life for a while. Again we passed through large areas of cultivation including one tree with strange fruit which grew directly off the trunk - quite large like an elongated pointed melon. We thought it may have been cashew nuts (they weren’t) but need to check (eventually found out they were cocoa pods). There were lots of them in between areas of bananas. We arrived mid-afternoon at the Matema Lake Shore Resort right on the lake beach; very peaceful. We set up camp and had a late lunch, laid on the beach and even went for a swim. Unlike Lake Victoria this is meant to be bilharzia free. We decided that the campsite was a lot further down the gravel track than we had thought and also quite a way down to the crossing so we decided to spent two nights here and then cross into Malawi on Thursday.

Day 178 - Wednesday 5th August Matema A leisurely start with the day spent catching up on jobs like washing and vehicle checking and also getting papers together to get out of Tanzania and into Malawi. No doubt Mwandenga, the border town will be the usual frenetic place with lots of helpers volunteering their services. However, the book does say the crossing into Malawi is fairly friendly and relaxed plus it doesn’t seem we need endless different bits of paper from various offices. We’ll see. We had a dip in the lake and then wandered up to the bar to try and get a drink but that turned out to be a waste of time. It took ages to find someone to serve us and when we did the stock room was virtually bare so we resigned ourselves to getting our own back at the vehicle.

Day 179 - Thursday 6th August Tanzania to Malawi

35 Away by 9 a.m. back along the first section of bumpy track until we hit tar and on to Mwandenga, the border town. We stopped off to top up fuel so we could get rid of some shillings and have full tanks in case we struggled to get Malawian kwachas for a while. A couple of money changers came over and we had already worked out that an exchange rate of Tsh10 to 1 kwacha would be reasonable and as that was what they offered we changed Tsh100,000 for MK10,000: I don’t think they diddled us but they probably did!

We drove on to the border crossing and just short of it we had our last police check in Tanzania just before leaving the country. You might imagine they would be interested in such things as drug smuggling, gun running or other illegal goings-on but no, he wanted to check all my lights and insurance! All in order and another country completed with a spotless criminal record.

We arrived at the Tanzanian Mwandenga crossing and a few touts leapt out in front of us but soon ignored us when we said we had already changed our money. We parked up outside the office and entered a deserted complex where the carnet was stamped up without queuing and our passports stamped after filling in the departure forms, again no queues and absolutely no hassle or problem. Back to the vehicle to drive over the Songwe River to the Malawian side.

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