A lot of the small towns en-route were pretty unpleasant looking, so we didn't feel like stopping, however we did find a sand road where we could pull off for lunch (for once!). Dodoma was busy (it's the administrative capital, so lots of expensive cars around) - we'd been recommended to try the New Dodoma Hotel in the town centre, so headed there. Its carpark and the entire road outside were packed with Toyota Landcruisers - most looking brand new, many with the big "whip aerials" that are an immediate signal that they're operated either by the UN or an NGO - there was a conference in town and the charities had arrived in force.....We've heard from many locals what they think about how charities spend the money that has been entrusted to them - this sort of underlined what had been said - it was clear that there was "a lot of money" at this conference - just how was it being spent?! Obviously the hotel was full, but the receptionist suggested we try the "African Dreams Hotel" and gave what appeared to be quite comprehensive instructions as to how to find it - off we went - into an area of pretty nice looking housing until we got to a junction that wasn't in his instructions (or at least not in our memories of his instructions) - Sue hopped out and asked a couple of ladies who directed us left - then another unrecognised junction, we went round in a circle, nothing, so Sue went to a bar to get more help - finally we found it (we were breaking new ground as far as the GPS was concerned). The hotel seemed pretty new, modern by African standards, spacious, clean and at £16 for a room with a/c - affordable. When they showed us how we could bring the truck round the back into a parking spot near the room, we decided to stay in the hotel (they were willing to let us camp in their grounds for free - but at that price and with the heat building there was no argument). We had dinner in their restaurant - this however was overpriced for the stringy, chewy fried chicken with good chips, greens and onions washed down with a beer.
We bad farewell to Clive & Ann who were headed for Dar Es Salaam to visit Zanzibar, we had decided to skip on the coastal area as the hot/humid season was on its way and that's something that we're not keen on, so our plan was to head for higher ground (again) by driving north via Dodoma. This is a "route less travelled" - at least by tourists as most people tend to automatically head for the coast. The road to Dodoma is good, but a long uphill slog, a lot of it through dry lands (we started calling them "badlands"), so not very scenic. Around Morogoro there are quite a few Maasai around, many wearing their traditional clothes, a lot herding cattle, most with mobile phones, some with motorcycles, some playing pool(!). A little way out of town we stopped for a "natural break", while Sue was in the back a motorcycle ridden by a Maasai stopped, turned round and came to the truck....he just wanted a chat, turns out that his father owns a lot of the land around, has 1000 head of cattle, the motorcycle is the family transport and he was "just out for a spin" on it - not too unlike a lot of people in Europe somehow. This was one of those really pleasant interludes that makes you reflect on the differences (or rather lack of real differences) between people.
A lot of the small towns en-route were pretty unpleasant looking, so we didn't feel like stopping, however we did find a sand road where we could pull off for lunch (for once!). Dodoma was busy (it's the administrative capital, so lots of expensive cars around) - we'd been recommended to try the New Dodoma Hotel in the town centre, so headed there. Its carpark and the entire road outside were packed with Toyota Landcruisers - most looking brand new, many with the big "whip aerials" that are an immediate signal that they're operated either by the UN or an NGO - there was a conference in town and the charities had arrived in force.....We've heard from many locals what they think about how charities spend the money that has been entrusted to them - this sort of underlined what had been said - it was clear that there was "a lot of money" at this conference - just how was it being spent?! Obviously the hotel was full, but the receptionist suggested we try the "African Dreams Hotel" and gave what appeared to be quite comprehensive instructions as to how to find it - off we went - into an area of pretty nice looking housing until we got to a junction that wasn't in his instructions (or at least not in our memories of his instructions) - Sue hopped out and asked a couple of ladies who directed us left - then another unrecognised junction, we went round in a circle, nothing, so Sue went to a bar to get more help - finally we found it (we were breaking new ground as far as the GPS was concerned). The hotel seemed pretty new, modern by African standards, spacious, clean and at £16 for a room with a/c - affordable. When they showed us how we could bring the truck round the back into a parking spot near the room, we decided to stay in the hotel (they were willing to let us camp in their grounds for free - but at that price and with the heat building there was no argument). We had dinner in their restaurant - this however was overpriced for the stringy, chewy fried chicken with good chips, greens and onions washed down with a beer.
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On Monday we travelled to Morogoro, the next logical place to stay before the long drive up to Dodoma. Mikumi to Morogoro isn't far, the drive took us through the National Park again (but this time not having to pay entry fees as we were just "transiting"), shortly after leaving Tan-Swiss we spotted Ann & Clive parked in a lay-by in the park - they had decided to have their tea/coffee there whilst (illegally) watching any animals (there's a sign at the start of the park warning that you're not allowed to look at the animals if you're transiting!!!). We chastely continued, there wasn't a lot to see (even if we had been looking, which of course we weren't....!), there were further signs indicating the fines for killing various types of animals on the road..... The day was hot and got hotter as we approached Morogoro. Our initial impression of the town was that it was chaotic, busy and difficult, however once we'd found somewhere to leave the truck we were soon wandering around with almost no-one seeming to notice our presence (this is a difference in Tanzania with most other countries - the Tanzanians seem to mainly get on with whatever the were doing, whereas in other places the presence of 2 Muzungus can create some interest). Sue managed to buy a gitenge (it's spelt slightly different here compared with Zambia/Malawi), some mangoes and a cucumber - everything was very friendly and relaxed. We found ourselves wandering through the police compound, on turning a corner there was a group of men surrounding a guy with a mobile stand - he had coconuts! As we slowed down to have a look, a senior-looking police officer asked if we wanted one - when we decided that we did, he promptly handed us the coconut that he'd just been given, saying that he'd get another one. The seller then cut us another one open, followed by a replacement for the policeman. We stood around drinking and eating fresh coconuts, chatting with the various guys around, when it was time to pay, we didn't have any small change so there was a lot of spliiting of notes amongst the small crowd as they helped us get the money right! All very kind and pleasant! (oh, and the coconuts were delicious!). We headed out of town to the Kola Hill Hotel at the foot of the Uluguru Mountains where there was supposed to be a campsite - on getting there we found the entrance and looking it didn't seem to be open, in fact we wondered if there was anyone there at all.... We parked outside and walked in, a girl appeared at the door and told us that yes, they were indeed open, and yes there is a campsite. She showed us a green lawn round the corner which served as the campsite, we parked up and Ann and Clive arrived a little later. The four of us set off early morning in the back of a game drive vehicle - in Tanzania they are subtly different to elsewhere in that almost all of them have the passengers sitting on raised seats in the open air on the back with the driver/guide in an enclosed cab. This seems like madness as the possibility of communication disappears almost entirely - if the driver/guide sees something, they can't tell you what it is, if the passengers see something, the only way they can let the driver know to stop is by banging on the roof - hardly ideal. Why is this? Having read the Tanzanian National Parks charging rules rather carefully (looking for loopholes!) by this time, I noticed that they charge "50% extra for open-top vehicles" - it seems like they are effectively driving down the quality of Tanzanian game drives by pushing the operators to use closed-cab vehicles leading to non-communication - better to go to another country if you want a GOOD game drive!!!! In spite of this, we managed to see quite a good selection of animals and particularly birds - Sue demonstrated her growing knowledge of African birdlife, spotting a few endemic to the region and even a couple that were on the limit (or even a bit outside) of their ranges - luckily we had quite a few photos to be able to confirm some of them later. One of the better sightings of the day was of a herd of 31 giraffe all moving in the same direction - we've certainly never seen such a large group before. A little later there was a distinct panic going on amongst the buffalo, gnus, zebra and giraffe with animals running in various directions, we tried to work out exactly what was spooking them, expecting to see lion, but nothing was apparent. The day was long (we think that an all-day game drive is actually too much - particularly when being jolted around in the back of an uncomfortable vehicle, but we were all quite satisfied that we'd given it our best shot. Another meal in the restaurant with Clive and Ann. Clive & Ann were heading the same way as us (generally) - they setoff from River Valley to go to the Tan-Swiss campsite at Mikumi while we filled with water, we were going to go to Mikumi then head south to a campsite (Hondo Hondo) just outside Udzungwa National Park. We'd heard of this campsite from a few people, Patrick and Chloe (who we'd met at Kisolanga) had warned us that maybe the entrance would be too small for our truck, but I'd called the campsite with our dimensions and been assured that it would be fine. The road to Mikumi was quite interesting as it heads downhill from the highlands onto what is effectively the coastal plain - a lot of attractive mountain scenery with the road passing through gorges and river valleys, one of which was full of baobabs - very impressive. Other scenes along the way included a regular procession of broken down or post-accident trucks by the roadside, at one breakdown on a steep hill in the middle of nowhere a very desperate driver(?) was asking for food - he'd probably been there for days trying to repair his truck - all that we had in the cab were biscuits, so we gave him some, but they wouldn't have lasted him very long unfortunately. We caught up with Clive and Ann taking tea in a layby on the way, so stopped for a break ourselves, then caught up with them again as they struggled up a very steep hill behind an incredibly slow truck, then lost them as we turned right towards Udzangwa and they went straight on to Tan-Swiss. We followed a good winding tar road south, entering a small town where it turned to gravel - in fact it turned to clay and boulders as roadworks had just begun and we seemed to be the first vehicle to have the pleasure to drive over their newly laid mess - it consisted of sticky clay interspersed with large stones (large as in 2 to 3 foot diameter) - so we picked our way through hoping it wouldn't be too far - it was only 500m or so, but felt longer. After this the road was generally poor to average, so we made reasonable progress to the Hondo Hondo campsite. Getting there we spotted the problem Chloe and Patrick had mentioned - they had a bamboo fence surrounding the campsite with a gate in it just a bit wider than the truck but at right angles to the entrance and with a tree leaning over it with only 2m clearance. Having confirmed that this wouldn't be a problem, we asked where the entrance for us was - the manager and his deputy indicated this gate and seemed somewhat amused by the fact that we wouldn't fit - they suggested driving the truck through the branches (and therefore damaging the solar panels and hatches on the roof) - when we asked about cutting the branches back they didn't react - we've never seen such indifference before, taking this as a bad sign for the rest of the campsite which didn't seem at all appealing, so we decided to debark back to Mikumi (oh well, only another 50km of gravel,,,,,). The manager really didn't seem perturbed by the fact that they'd made us do a 100km round trip for nothing - this is one campsite that we definitely would not recommend to anyone else travelling this way. Back at Mikumi, we quickly found Tan-Swiss - it has a good reputation and lived up to it - the reception was very good (complementary granola juice when they saw how tired we looked!), the restaurant looked excellent and it had an air of efficiency about it. We surprised Ann & Clive who were just getting ready to eat in the restaurant, so they waited for us to settle in, get washed before we all had a meal together. They have ahd some very interesting experiences both in Africa and elsewhere, so the time passed quickly - they were considering taking a game drive into Mikumi the next day and were hoping to find someone to share the vehicle and costs with - a natural choice for us - Clive organised it all while I slaked my thirst from the day (thanks Clive!). In Iringa we parked outside the police station (checking with them that they didn't mind), and went shopping - following Archie and Nicky's instructions we found the hardware shops where we purchased not only a new spark plug for the generator, but also the jubilee clips that I've been looking for since Windhoek - not only were they the right size, but they were also good quality! I was instantly impressed by Iringa! In fact this small town has a very relaxed feel about it - almost organised in fact! We found the recommended supermarket - we had a "wish list" of things that we would really like to buy but wouldn't expect to be able to - we found almost everything in the one shop! Including a bottle of port as we'd found that not carrying much to drink beyond a few bottles of beer meant that if anyone invited us for a drink on a campsite then we could never really take anything in return. The shop was expensive though (we even decided not to buy bacon - the first that we'd seen for quite a long time as it was so dear). We tried to buy some fruit & veg on the market, but being tired and hungry from the drive here didn't help, combined with the rats running all over the produce meant that we got a bit stressed and left without buying anything - we must try to eat before going shopping..... On the way out of town, after filling up with fuel, a truck driver flagged us down and explained that the road ahead was closed due to the president having visited and being on the point of departure. We parked up and waited - the police had indeed closed the road, everyone waited, and waited. Suddenly police motorcycles and army bakkies shot past followed by a courtege of maybe 30 vehicles, mainly new-looking Toyota Landcruisers with tinted windows - people were out to their president - he didn't stop or slow down to greet or thank them, just shot by.... We left town down a winding road that was full of vehicles trying to make up for time lost by driving as quickly as possible - only problem was that not only was the road winding, it was also lined witht he infamous Tanzanian sppedbumps - it seems that Tanzania has taken the design and construction of these menaces to a whole new level - on this particular stretch they were spaced about 200m apart for maybe 3km, each one being so violently steep on both sides that the only way of crossing them without risking damage is to slow down to 10k/h max - most Tanzanian drivers don't seem bothered about damaging their vehicles (or do they all drive someone else's vehicle?) - so they all try steaming ahead over them, causing some interesting scenes as they try overtaking on blind corners, crossing speedbumps, with vehicles coming the other way trying to do something similar. All very amusing if you weren't driving yourself.... We camped at River Valley just outside Iringa - to get there you follow a trck off the main road which descends between trees, getting smaller all the time. When we got into the grounds I could see what looked like a wooden bridge ahead, so we elected to stop, get out and walk to have a look. The security guard on the gate was keen to get us to keep going - but we've seen this sort of issue before, so ignored him. It turned out that the bridge didn't lead to the main campsite, so we were ok, however there was a truck - a Mercedes truck - an English-registered Mercedes truck - in fact registered in the same year as the Mog - parked in the campsite - we were intrigued (but hungry). As we got something to eat ready, a couple appeared from aforesaid truck, approached us and greeted us with "Sue and Ian we presume?" They'd already heard of us - in fact had heard of us from quite a long tome ago - having met the Colin & Diana Windley somewhere in Mozambique who I had met in Windhoek in April and then Ellen and Vince more recently in Malawi. We got chatting - they are a very well-travelled couple (having been to the far east in their trucks previously) who had driven UK-Singapore then shipped across to South Africa to drive up that continent! Make us seem like real beginners! We took our new bottle of port round and polished off 1/2 of it in 2 hours chatting! The following day we stayed at River Valley to get some laundry done - I profited by using the jubilee clips to modify the left hand front portal oil system to stop oil-pumping and a couple of other small jobs around the truck. We walked to a waterfall and back - at this time of year there wasn't too much water flowing, but it was nice - and interesting to see the irrigation channels that had been built into the head of the falls. The campsite dog came with us - in fact it seemed that she somehow knew that we were going for a walk as she turned up outside the truck about 15 minutes before we went, and waited for us to go! River Valley campsite hosts a Swahili School - it was full of missionaries (mainly American) who were learning Swahili before being sent off to do their thing. We had dinner witht hem that evening in the on-site restaurant - there was no proselytising (?) luckily, in fact we got chatting to a very nice American teacher from Dar Es Salaam who gave us some good tips/information. Then we finished the bottle of port off with Clive & Ann in their truck - that didn't last long!!!! When we discovered the price to get the truck into Ruaha we were somewhat taken aback - particularly when we discovered that it is a "standard price" for ALL Tanzanian parks, no matter if they are major or minor. We went to a campsite close to the entrance (Chogela - only 15km away, but down a gravel road that has literally been torn up by local "safari operators" screaming up and down it with tourists in the back hanging on grimly) and decided to go into the park just for 24 hours, but only when we were ready to do so to maximise our time spent there. The next day Sue had a terrible back from the vibrations due to the corrugations, so we decided to wait another day until she felt better. This was a good idea as the campsite turned out to be a good birding spot - sue enjoyed a day "armchair birdwatching" and visited a local "income generating project" based on the campsite selling locally produced items - she came back with a Masai "Chiefs Staff" - maybe it's for me?! The next day we took the terrible road back to the park gate, paid $270 for 24 hours and went in - initially the rad was just as bad - 15k/'hr a lot of the way to a "picnic spot" with shady bandas and seating where it's allowed to get out and walk around - the spot is by a bridge over the Ruaha River with a pod of hippos and several large crocs just at the bottom of a short slope. We stopped and had lunch, in the meantime a herd of elephants arrived on the other side of the bridge to quietly feed. There was a very good selection of birdlife around including a few endemic to Tanzania, one of which caught both our eyes - a Superb Starling - very blue on the back, very rufous on the chest with a flash of bright white setting it all off - they make European starlings look quite drab.. We continued further into the park on the bad road which slowly got better (maybe the tour operators feel that they can slow down once they've shown their customers a hippo or two?) - coming over a hill sue grabbed me by the arm and shouted "BIRD"! this usually means "stop" - but not usually quite so emphatically pronounced nor so violently. There were some black, red and white thrush-sized birds flying between bushes - we'd definitely not seen these before! After some detective work with her books, sue declared them to be White Headed Buffalo Weavers - so now we knew! The map that we'd been given (err, no, paid quite a bit of money for - at the gate) was wrong - or at least according to the Tracks For Africa mapping we use on the GPS. We decided that we trusted T4A more than the map - particularly as when we'd asked the guy who'd taken all our money from us to confirm where the campsite was located, he'd hovered his finger over the map for some time before spotting the magic word "campsite"! As T4A is built from the GPS tracklogs of people who have been previously, we tend to trust it quite a bit....turned out we were right - it led us straight to the site, lucky we hadn't followed the map which would have taken us miles in the other direction....after all "This Is Tanzania" to quote Archie from Kisolanza! The campsite was, ummm, dreadful - a dustbowl on the banks of the riverbed (mainly dry). The remains of previous campers' fires were liberally spread about and bricks abandoned in piles giving the whole place a desolate feel (don't forget how much we were paying for this pleasure....). There was a group of tents with a large table and many chairs all set out ready for someone's dinner - it looked like a tour group as there were also a few people hanging about looking like cooks etc., so we parked the truck on the banks of the river at the other end of the site to ensure peace and quiet for the night. Once positioned we looked around - on the other side of the river there were a number of vultures sitting in a couple of trees, some evidence of eles having passed that way at some time, but not a lot else, so we decided to explore slightly upriver, to do this we passed by the guys waiting for their customers to return from their afternoon game drives - as normal here we all greeted each other "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? etc several times.... anyway we asked if they'd seen anything interesting, one asked "Like lions? Like that lion over there with a kill?"!!!!! Directly in front of where we'd parked, close to the vulture trees he pointed out a lioness sitting beside a killed kudu - we'd looked there and not seen her - we really do need to get better at spotting things (particularly as all the signs were there - vultures, no prey animals etc...). So we sat down and watched - all afternoon until it got too dark to see - elephants, hippos and giraffe came and went - she stayed close to the kill, guarding it from scavengers. During the night we were woken by a hyena calling very close to the truck, we looked out of the bedroom window and could see it in the bright moonlight, it appeared to be waiting - maybe for reinforcements to take the prey from the lioness? We woke in the morning to find 3 lionesses feeding on the kudu and keeping the many vultures at bay. We watched this for a couple of hours along with various other wildlife including a black-backed jackal and a smaller hyena. As we were getting ready to leave, the lions dragged the remains away from the kill site and up the far bank behind a tree, so we weren't going to miss any more by departing. We left the park the same way that we came in, stopping again at the picnic spot, it was a shame not to see more of the park, but it was too hot and far too expensive. We set off down the "never-ending road" back towards Iringa, trying to avoid the worst of the corrugations - Sue describes this road as "hell" - I'm sure we've seen a lot worse, but the combination of distance/corrugations/stones/heat weren't good. We're in the park - we paid for 24 hours and 1 night camping, braved the awful roads and masses of tsetse flies and here we are.
In the space of just 2 hours Sue has filled a page with birds she has seen 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. 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..... |
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October 2014
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