Today we will make a second attempt to visit Ruaha National Park.
Read down for our adventures in the Misuku Hills and other new posts.
Read down for our adventures in the Misuku Hills and other new posts.
Today we will make a second attempt to visit Ruaha National Park.
Read down for our adventures in the Misuku Hills and other new posts.
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Today we left Kisalonza to go to Ruaha National Park...from Iringa to the park gates is over 100km of pretty rough gravel, so it took a few hours and we were ready to stop when we got there. When we asked how much to go in and camp for 2 nights, it turned out to be $600! (yes - that IS US dollars!) We left and went to look for a local campsite where we can reflect on what to do. If this is Tanzania's attitude towards visitors, we may well be leaving sooner than planned!
On Wednesday we left Karonga for Tanzania. We'd been informed that the campsite near Mbeya wasn't as good as we'd hoped, so we decided to make a short hop over the border to a campsite near Tukuyu. Between the Karonga and the Malawian side of the border we were stopped by police 4 times - did we have our passports? did we have a fire extinguisher? Did we have this? Did we have that? At no point did they actually check!At the entrance to the border post a guy approached us - "I run the insurance office on the Tanzanian side, I will see you there" - actually he followed us through the formalities on both sides! The Malawian side was straightforward - a guy came and took our road tax receipt, we filled out the emigration forms, passports stamped, carnet stamped and off we went - oh, we filled in the famous "vehicle register" - there were two of them to do for some reason....As soon as we got to the bridge that marks the actual border, the road was full of touts and motorcycle taxis - this is a big change from Malawi where most local taxis are bicycles. Lots of people offering to change money - these guys all try to rip you off somehow, so as Richard and Sophie had already been through here and had told us that there was an ATM at the border (this I think is a first for us to see in Africa - but why on earth all countries don't do it is a mystery - it would avoid the need to use touts and therefore clean up the act and improve their image), we ignored them. Immigration - pay for visas - they gave us 90 days and clearly explained that they acted as "multiple entry" visas so long as we didn't come back in from outside of "East Africa" - he stressed this, and stressed even more that going to and from Zanzibar would therefore be free - very good of him as we've heard tales of people being charged extra by touts "for visas" when coming back from Zanzibar. Off to customs for the carnet - here we had to pay road tax ($20 per month for the time we were going to be in country - only problem being that we didn't know how long to ask for! So we decided to take 2 months) and "fuel levy ($5 one-off, which I really don't mind as fuel here is so much cheaper than Zambia or Malawi that we'll get this back in our first top-up!). Mr Insurance was following us through all these steps, so I asked him how much insurance was going to cost as I wanted to get cash out of the ATM. He wouldn't say - "oh, there are too many variables...we'll have to see in the office". So we left him and went to find the ATM - just in front of it was a kiosk advertising "insurance" - but no-one was there - just next to it was a bank advertising insurance - but they patently didn't have a clue! So we got cash and drove to the exit gate where Mr Insurance was waiting for us! The police man on the exit gate filled in the famous vehicle register for us (this was a first) - but he was obviously totally stoned! Off to Mr Insurance's office - it was a "hole in the wall" with 3 guys in it - very uncomfortable and not at all inspiring. At this point he explained that insurance would cost 30TSh per engine cc - why he couldn't have told us this in the border area I don't know - that works out at 171000TSh for 3 months. That's a lot more than all other countries so far (except Malawi) - maybe an indication of Tanzanian roads? We explained that it was too much (remembering Ellen's achievement on entering Malawi), after much leaving the office, walking around, talking to other people (touts etc), we finally got him to come down to 125000TSh - more like it, but still more than most countries, so paid up, thanked them and got them to help us buy some chips from a stall for the road - one of the issues with Tz is going to be that very few people speak anything other than English. Getting back to the truck, one of the touts who had been trying to get us to change money suddenly became a SIM card salesman - $5 for a SIM which should cost $1 - we turned him down - more of this later! Off we went munching our chips - to the first fuel station where we effectively recouped our $5, then on to Tukuyu. the road climbed and climbed and climbed - from about 500m at the border/lake to over 1500m at Tukuyu - the scenery was stunning with green, lush, rolling hills everywhere and vistas that made the whole border process seem worthwhile. Tukuyu is a very busy little town - lots and lots of fruit and veggies for sale - bananas everywhere - lots of motorcycle taxis flying around and people all over the place - we were glad that the campsite was a bit further. Bongo Camping(!) is down a very narrow track, but not too bad - when we got there a group of girls welcomed us warmly (Sue had been practising Swahili welcomes on the way from the border - so we were sort of prepared), some spoke a little English, and we settled in for the night. The campsite is very green, the area quite rural, but instead of being quiet it seemed as if it was being used as a bit of a community centre for the locals - so a lot of coming and going, we seemed to be the attraction for the evening, so felt as if we were in a goldfish bowl! We bought some drinks from the campsite, but as the beer was warm we popped it into the fridge and drank the cold one that was already in there. The air up here is so cool and clear compared to the lake - so we slept well. Next day we got ready for an early start as we had 320km to cover to Kisalanza near Iringa - quite a distance for us! It seemed that everyone was there early - lots of very young school children had arrived - it seems as if they hold classes there. Farewells were made, photos taken, and they asked us for the empty beer bottle back! It seems that there are hefty deposits in Tz - so we gave the full bottle back and they returned the money! Further up we went - the scenery becoming alpine with pine forests on the hills and fields in the valleys - we went through a village where carrots were for sale by the side of the road (surprise!) - then suddenly we were going downhill - more and more - there were overturned trucks by the side of the road on corners, and trucks going downhill at almost zero speed, obviously fearful of meeting the same fate! At the bottom, just as we entered a small town, there was a freshly overturned truck with it's contents visible through a large gash and lots of people gathering - it had almost hit a house..... Just around the corner was a weighbridge - we usually just drive up - tell them that we're not "commercial" and they wave us on - not here - they wanted to weigh us. We acted dumb, created some delays, but they still wanted to weigh us...so weigh us they did - we weren't full of water or diesel but were well within our limit (although I could ascribe that to the fact that I got Sue to get out to talk to the officials....!!). We joined the main road from Dar Es Salaam to Zambia and headed East once more. Lots of trucks and coaches thundering along - lots of police, lots of villages with roadblocks and harsh speed bumps - we weren't making fast progress today. More dead trucks - one was across almost the entire road in front of us having jack-knifed, edging round it there was another on it's side with people reaching in through the cab windows taking things out (salvaging or looting?). We finally got to Makambako which was a town that we had earmarked as a possible emergency stop in case progress wasn't sufficient - it was a bit of a mess, so we got fuel and went looking for a SIM card for the phone. Lots of shops/kiosks with Airtel and/or Vodacom signs outside - but none selling SIM cards (or able to communicate) - eventually, on the point of giving up (after maybe an hour) we found 3 guys under an umbrella selling SIM cards....apparently this is how it's done in Tanzania! Sorted we continued - the road got slowly worse - the scenery by now was dry and arid again, until suddenly we were traversing an immense plantation of pines and eucalyptus - not very "African"! Finally, after hours on poor roads we got to a town which marked the start of a beautiful new road built with Danish and Dutch money (thanks guys!) - rarely have we seen such a good road - even in Europe - this led us almost to the front door of Kisalonga..... Saturday 5th October. Having missed out both Nyika National Park and Livingstonia due to issues with road surface, rain and/or tyres, we had decided that we wanted to visit at least one highland area, so headed for the Misuku Hills and forest reserves there, as mentioned in our Bradt Guide to Malawi. The first part of the journey was along a fabulous tar road built by a uranium mine - probably the best road either of us have driven on almost anywhere in the world. The scenery was lovely as we gradually climbed higher and the views got bigger. The guide book told us to turn right at a prominent road block at Kapoka - it's actually at Tondola - and here the policeman gave a critical piece of info, to turn left at the river. Neither source gave a fair description of what the road would be like. From Tondola it was a gravel road, but OK, until we turned left at the river. Here it suddenly became extremely steep with a hairpin bend and I decided I had to get out - turned out to be a good thing as a truck was coming around the corner fairly smartly. After checking the direction with the truck driver, who asked if we had 4x4, I got back in, but then it took at least 2 hours to do the next 15km to Misuku. I don't know how high we climbed, but the road was extremely uppy-downy, with a lot of steep upward stretches where I feared that we would just topple over backwards. It really was quite scary and at times it seemed the journey would never end. Eventually I just had to give in and hope to live through it. This was described in our book as "a lovely roller-coaster ride through undulating hills"!!!!!! Without a 4x4 and very good tyres and brakes it would not be possible. In the rainy season you couldn't do it.
AS we entered Misuku people looked pretty surprised to see us. We stopped by the school to ask directions from the teacher, and bumped into 2 young Peace Corps volunteers, one of them actually based in Misuku. We found our way to Mwalingo Guesthouse at the coffee co-operative, more or less causing a sensation on the way. The friendly watchman let us in and then Mr Levi Siame the supervisor appeared to show us around. We camped but used the bathroom and electricity at the guesthouse. After settling in we set off for a stroll, hoping to find the road to the nearby forest reserve. We were stopped by the forest guardian, Mr Khayira, because a permit is needed. We couldn't get one that day because the committee were all at a local dance, so we returned to the guesthouse and asked to speak to the boss. Levi Siame reappeared, along with Mr H B K Zimba, a man of some substance and with very good English. They went off to discuss with Mr Khayira and later returned having sorted it for the morning. We had a nice chat with lots of laughing, and we showed them their entry in the Bradt Guide. The watchman made a huge fire in the donkey: the water was scalding and the cold tap not working so a plan would be needed for the next day. Sunday 6th October. At 7am we set off to find Mr Khayira. He was there outside the gate and informed us that the committee was waiting for us. We were expecting the Spanish Inquisition, but met two nice men outside Mr K's house, who really just wanted to make sure that we weren't there to remove anything from the forest, and for us to pay a small visitor's fee and sign the register of visitors - the only others in the register were two forest inspectors. All a bit bureaucratic, but very good that the forest is being protected. While Mr K was eating his breakfast I managed to persuade him that we didn't need a guide and would be OK on our own because we would stick to the main track. We didn't really want a guide because everyone we had met was obviously so much fitter and more used to the hills and would probably exhaust us within half an hour. Also we like to stop and gaze around at where we are. Mr K just told us how to avoid going into the other half of the forest, looked after by a second committee. A very steep path led up past a few homes and through coffee fields, with absolutely stunning mountain views everywhere. After a while we came to a forest road and we turned left onto it. This followed a much kinder gradient. We enjoyed the fresh smells of pine and eucalyptus, and we walked for another hour or so in a beautiful mixed forest. We heard lots of birds, but they were mainly high in the canopy and the only ones visible were the huge silvery-cheeked hornbills, advertising their whereabouts with nasal calls and noisy wings. We also saw some blue monkeys - very shy. Where we stopped to eat some nuts and raisins we also saw a bar-tailed trogon!!!!! The way down seemed shorter and also gave us the chance to see the forest from another angle, plus the views across the cultivated mountain slopes as we came out into the open. WE also caught glimpses of the monkeys again. The whole morning we were walking with a variety of lovely butterflies around us, some of them really big ones. A very lovely area altogether. The few people we met along the way were mostly very shy, but polite. It was nice to visit a place where so few tourists come. Mr K was waiting for us outside the church and we gave him something for assisting us. One of the committee men also came out for a brief word. At dusk we had a visit from Christopher Jokye, whose role is something like "protector of intangible culture". He wanted to speak to us confidentially. It was all a bit confusing, especially as he recorded our conversation, but we had an interesting chat and he showed us his register of visitors, begun in 2010. When we saw that we were the first tourists in Misuku at least in that time, we realised why everyone seemed to be wondering what we were there for. Monday 7th October. Megan, the Peace Corps volunteer, came to visit us as arranged. We made a veg curry and sat about talking for ages. It was good for all of us to compare experiences and have a laugh. As we were staying another day I put lots of white T-shirts etc in to soak, but didn't get the chance to finish the laundry as the water at the guest-house ran out. Much later we discovered that they had been cleaning the water source up the hill and had forgotten to put the water on again (or something). Meanwhile our cleaner had run the whole of the guest-house tank down the hill for someone doing some building work. Africa wins again! We felt OK because of our own water, but then, with impeccable timing, our water pump packed up. It was the pressure switch. We filled various bottles for drinking and started saving every drop of grey water for flushing the loo in the guest-house. Mr Zimba kindly sent us a couple of buckets of water from his tank to keep us going. Then poor old Barney had to get to work to fit our spare pump, which was done before dark. Just a shame that a relaxing day was turned into a worrying one again. A good job we had already had our meal. By dark water was also restored to the guest-house and the 18 homes in the locality, so we had visits from various families fetching water from the tap. In the evening we had a few more visitors. Mr HBK Zimba came to say goodbye, as he would be off early the next morning, and we had a good long discussion with him. Christopher Jokye also came to wish us well, and brought us a nice papaya, about 10 rather knobbly citrus fruits and another fruit we didn't recognise. We tried it - like a softer, more watery apple, very nice. We are taking the seeds home to see if we can propagate them. At 5.50pm exactly we sat down to watch the bats flying out from the roof for the last time. First you hear them scuttling, then there's a pause, and then about fifteen all seem to zoom out at once. After another pause this happens again, several times, and we found it highly entertaining, as the bats first swoop low and then do a sort of Red-Devils last minute recovery from almost bumping into you. Tuesday 8th October. We were up at first light to get ready for the (dreaded by me) journey back to the lake. I had my first issue-free normal shower at Mwalingo, with both hot and cold running water. I also managed to tip both watchmen, but not the guy who tried to sell us firewood that was included in the price and also ran all the water away. Driving through the village was a bit embarrassing as we were treated like film stars, with many people stopping to wave and smile at us. We stopped at the school and went to Megan's house during her break to have a last chat. She gave us some real Misuku ground coffee. The journey downhill was much less scary, thank goodness. On the way we bought tomatoes, sweet potatoes and onions beside the road, and bread from "Oats Bakery" in Karonga, where B had another chat with the tyre guy next door. We had a bit of a mood blip here, probably both shattered from the journey, but eventually made it together back to Mikoma Beach Lodge, where Weizi gave us a second warm welcome. There was even time to rinse out yesterday's soapy laundry and hang it to dry in the breeze. Not a long drive this time. We bought more tomatoes by the side of the road - we are used to this now, and produce is much better value if we buy it this way, plus we don't have to fuss about in a town. Outside Karonga we wanted to stay at Malema Camp, but the track deteriorated and we didn't want to chance our tyres just for this. On the way back to the road we had a horrible experience. We were chased by 50 or 60 children as they came out of school, all screaming at us for money, and a few of them clinging to the truck. We could only crawl along as we didn't want to crush any of them, so they were easily able to keep up, and we were really worried that one would trip and be under our wheels before we knew it. The whole thing felt very threatening and unpleasant. We ended up staying at Mikoma Beach Lodge instead, where we had a very nice welcome, but the set-up was most odd. It was difficult to tell whether the lodge had never been finished or if it was in the early stages of falling down. They clearly didn't have enough visitors to make it profitable and it seemed to be slowly turning into an African village. Staff seemed to be living in some of the rooms, and there were chickens around, plus a goat with a comical haircut (honestly!). Under-occupied staff were playing pool in the bar and children were walking through to get water from the lake. All the same, someone was moved out of their room so that we could plug in through the window, and we had excellent and very friendly service at the bar and the restaurant, so they can obviously pull their socks up when needed. We actually had a very good meal there, and chatting to the staff made us feel more comfortable. Another slightly difficult walk on the beach led to me doing the Hokey-Kokey with some of the kids in order to distract them from begging, which caused some amusement to v
We said goodbye to Paul, Charity and baby John, and left Mzuzu for the more northerly section of the lake. It was a lovely scenic drive through forested hills and valleys. The idyll was rather spoiled, though, when we were stopped for allegedly speeding - our first taste of blatant police corruption. Their claim was that we were doing 68kph in a 60 limit - rather an unlikely scenario for us on an uphill stretch anyway. They wanted 5000 kwatcha for the fine (about £10). We argued, and Barney didn't have this amount in his pocket anyway. They suggested that we could pay 2000kw instead, but without a receipt, so it was quite clear that this would go straight into their pockets. Perhaps we shouldn't have paid it, but we just wanted to get on with our day.
We drove through a very pretty valley and came to Khandawe cultural heritage site, where we stopped to see the basket bridge. It's a pedestrian bridge over a river that the people use to get to the next village, and it really is made of bamboo and basket work (with a little bit of wire for reinforcement here and there). We crossed, feeling somewhat insecure, but as villagers were overtaking us in both directions and hanging about on the bridge looking relaxed, we felt a bit silly about our nerves. The bridge definitely wouldn't have got past " 'elth and safety" in the UK. We couldn't visit the museum, as the curator was in hospital having been bitten by a snake, but we did see the facsimile traditional shrine with snake totems. The large print sign in there asking people not to touch was no match for the gaggle of schoolchildren who all wanted to be in our photos. The rest of the journey down to Chitimba was quite steep, with lots of nice views of the lake, and distant hills of Tanzania, as we rounded the corners. We stayed at Chitimba camp, largely because our guidebook mentioned 4x4 trips up to Livingstonia. However, these were only available on an informal basis and we had some misgivings about the arrangements, so sadly decided to give it a miss rather than be ripped off again or feel unsafe in the vehicle. Camping on the beach again was nice and we had lovely views of the lake and the escarpment, but the workmen walking by while we were having lunch were a bit off-putting. We took a short walk on the beach, but as often seemed to happen this was also the time when Malawians were there bathing so it was a little bit awkward in places, but we did have a nice chat with a couple of young girls - very small for their ages. Rain in the night again, and we had a good sleep. No inner tubes of the right size/valve combination are available here. We therefore decided to go and get the puncture fixed, then decided what to do next. Paul kindly talked to his friends who recommended that the best place in town would be KwikFit - yes they have branches here! Before going down to KwikFit we got news of Richard and Sophie - they had taken the Rumphi-Livingstonia "backroad" the day before - it turned out to be very slippery due to the rain, they had slid off the road and were stuck camping at a school. Jason and Liza were just leaving Makuzi beach - a croc had been spotted the previous day in the lake and swimming had been curtailed - the cat wanted to come with them. At KwikFit the fitters were not only quick, but friendly and efficient - they soon repaired the puncture by using an externally-applied sealing plug, then asked us exactly what was wrong with the emergency spare on the roofrack. We climbed up there, they had a close look and told us that they could repair it - so down it came, it was washed, dried, then two of them set about gluing it with a combination of superglue and what seemed to be ground rock(?), this is a process that I had previously seen the results of in Namibia, but never seen applied. After something like an hour of very careful work they were satisfied - the beading was reinstated and even the sidewall cuts had "stitching" applied over them. We'll have to see if it really does hold up - but they are very confident that all will be ok - it certainly isn't worse than when we started! This has given us a lot more confidence in our ability to get to Arusha, so we're off in the morning for the next (small) step. It's still cold and rainy, Paul had a fire going in the restaurant tonight, so I took my last chance to have one of his sticky toffee puddings (except that we already have two stashed in the fridge "for later"!!) along with a fabulous fillet steak cooked in brandy and cream..... By the way - anyone passing through Rumphi - even at lunchtime - you'd be mad to eat anywhere else - Paul's menu is possibly the best we've seen this trip, is varied and the results are top quality without breaking the bank. Oh it was only 16C this afternoon - a far cry from the 43C in the shade we saw in Zambia just 2 weeks ago! We were awoken in the night by a very strange noise. What is it? It took a little while to work out that it was rain - not just rain, but heavy rain. This is the first time in 3 months that we've had rain! We had to close the skylight and re-connect the bellows between the box and the cab to prevent leaks, but the temperatures are so comfortable that we got back to sleep easily. It was still raining as we had breakfast - Paul supplied a full English breakfast for me and hot porridge for Sue - just what we needed for what was to be a long day.... Off we set through Mzuzu (via a cash point) towards Nyika - we were in cloud through the town with very low visibility. Sue got drenched because I insisted on driving with the windows open through town as the tinting on the side windows was limiting my rear view due to the reduced light - and the water that had collected in the spare tyre on the roof comes out on corners - hehehehe - or at least until I got my fair share!!!! We hoped that this was only a local downpour - 60km to Rumphi, by then it wasn't raining anymore, but there was evidence that it had been.... A little after Rumphi we left tar for a good dirt road, we stopped a little bit later to let the tyre pressures down when I noticed that the pressure of the rear right was a bit lower than I expected - I'd checked the pressures a couple of days ago, so it must have been a slow puncture.... The next 50km were slow going but with mainly a good dirt road surface, passing small Malawian towns and villages, slowly climbing from Rumphi's 1000m altitude towards Nyika's 2000m. Life in the villages was interesting to see, the mountains and hills were appearing in the clouds ahead when , almost at the park gates, climbing a steep, stony hill, Sue saw men pointing at us in an unusual way. We stopped and found that the rear right tyre was almost flat (but only at the bottom....) oh dear - bad news - we were now down to just 4 tyres. All of the men from the village/hamlet came to help -all very quietly and unassumingly - we had a few little jokes as we got the truck jacked up, old wheel off, the new wheel on and everything tidied up. During this time, Sue walked down the road and sat and chatted with one of the village women called Charity. We then realised that one of the guys helping us was the village chief, so we gave him some money and sweets to share out amongst his people as a token of our appreciation of their help and willingness, Sue gave a blouse to Charity, we did a U-turn and set off back to Rumphi. Looking at the few "tyre repairers" in Rumphi, all of whom were working under trees etc, we decided that the safest bet to avoid any potential further problems would be to head back to Mzuzu where we knew there would be something better. On the way we stopped briefly at the crossroads in Rumphi to buy a portion of chips from a roadside seller who probably ripped us off, but the chips were welcome. Jason had emailed to say that they had looked up the phenomenon of the light in the sky online - apparently it was caused by an American rocket as the booster tanks separated. Paul had already spotted us coming back through town, so when he and his lovely wife (also called Charity) returned they weren't surprised to find us waiting! Paul called a friend in town to see if an inner tube could be found - it seemed possible, so we had another meal cooked by Paul ( and went to bed hopeful. |
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October 2014
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