5/7/12

Nairobi Kenya

Total KMS travelled so far: 20,675

KENYA

Welcome to Kenya! I’m a bit bored with tourists…..
After dodging more than a few trucks on the road to Eldoret and passing through countryside gradually changing from Uganda type tropical to subtropical as we climbed higher and higher to 2400M, the first night in Kenya was spent at a very good campsite 18kms outside Eldoret called Naiberi River Campsite GPS N 00*26’869’” E 35*25’344”. . A favourite with overlander trucks apparently but there was only one there with us (and they were quiet)! Amazingly we met two South African couples that we had last seen in Lusaka Zambia! It’s surprising how one tends to meet up on the road again and again with people seen weeks ago, but more or less heading in the same direction as you are. However, Kenya was their turnaround point and they were slowly heading back to South Africa after this.

We didn’t quite compute the altitude (2300 – 2600M) that most of west central Kenya is at and how cool it can be, especially at night. It also rained heavily at Naiberi and there was mud everywhere. Camping is always not as much fun in the rain and cold! But there was as “banda” to shelter under. Kenya’s got its own potholes too..Next morning, through heavy mist and fog, we crossed the mountains of the Western Rift Valley on a very potholed but beautifully scenic road secondary road to Lake Nakuru rather than take the main Eldoret/Nakuru highway with its trucks and buses. The scenery was not our preconceived mental image of Kenya at all. More like Europe? Crossing the Western Rift ValleyThe only hold up on an otherwise pleasant drive was a one hour hold up 10kms from Nakuru whilst the local University ran a marathon along the road. The impatience of some of the “Matatu” drivers and others as we waited in an increasingly huge jam created by them trying to drive up to the roadblock on the left and the right was something to behold?

Let’s wait for an hour!
On reaching Nakuru, we headed to a new campsite 10kms East of town recommended to us by the overland truck drivers called Punda Milia and owned by a Frenchman Alex. GPS  S 00* 21’954”  E 36* 10’435”    It was new and OK with hot showers and bandas and we stayed two nights as we planned to visit the nearby Lake Nakuru National Park for a day trip next day, but we were a bit disappointed the 2nd night (a Sunday) that it was full of overland trucks and some local campers who listened to football and music until late that night.

Lake Nakuru NP cost USD$80 each for the day plus $10 for the car (and $5 for a map) to get in= $175 plus a further $50 if we wanted to camp there. Kenya’s parks are nearly as expensive as Tanzania’s! But it was worth it as Lake Nakuru NP is very green and beautiful and the birdlife (including flamingos in the distance) was incredible! Birdlife at Lake NakuruWe saw 5 rhinos for the first time also- now completing our “Big 5”!

The Monday morning we cruised the 135km through Lake Navaisha which still has a fairly large white expat farming community and on to Nairobi and rolled into “Jungle Junction” midday and met the illustrious Chris who owns and runs it. Jungle Junction is a cool and casual place and an incredible meeting point for all us overlanders heading either North or South. Everybody very friendly despite being rather cramped and on top of each other on a plot of land full of vehicles being stored for owners gone home for a while, motor bikes and vehicles being repaired and serviced in Chris’ quite extensive workshop with two mechanics with a good knowledge of every type of 4 x4 and motor bike likely to be travelling Africa. We found Chris and all his staff very accommodating and helpful.

The illustrious Chris (left) and Jungle Junction Nairobi
Tin Can had a major service with all oils and filters changed at Jungle Junction and a loose prop shaft uni tightened up. Our only other problem is the fact that our airconditioning stopped working weeks ago and we had to take it to specialists Relac Aircon Ltd the other side of Nairobi. They diagnosed an electrical problem caused by wiring insulation rubbing off. At least its working again  TSH 11,000 ($130)  later! (But not for long – read on..)

We spent 4 days at Jungle Junction basically racing around under some stress trying to get:

• A necessary letter of introduction and recommendation off the Australian High Commission to the Embassies of Ethiopia and Sudan to grant us visas. (The Australian Vice Consul was very accommodating, unbelievably quick for Africa! , and issued the required letter for free in 15 minutes).

• Enduring an interview with a rather rude Ethiopian official, producing copies of every paper imaginable from passports, drivers licences, credit cards, marriage certificate and Carnet, but thankfully our visas for Ethiopia was granted without the feared need “to go home to your home country or send your passport to get it” as others before us have experienced until recently. It would seem the Ethiopians have come to some common sense? We picked up our passports and visas the next day after paying $20 each into an account at the Commercial Bank of Africa.

• Sudanese visas were relatively easy (although once again the Letter of Introduction and copies of just about everything were required plus the need to fill in a rather complex application with Arabic script). We applied at 11.00am and picked up our visas at 3.00pm after paying the KSH5,000 (USD$60) each.

• New tyres for Tin Can. We were after BF Goodrich AT but could not get any anywhere in Nairobi in our size as the “container carrying a new shipment from USA had got lost – and Kenya’s tyres had ended up in Dar es Salaam last week”! So we had to settle for Goodyear Wrangler AT/ST at the heavy price of USD$1,600. (Tyres in Kenya are surprisingly more expensive than Australia or Europe)?

• Shopping for supplies at a huge Nakumatt Junction Mall that Marianne said “great – looks just like home”! But all the imported goodies were expensive.

• Getting the aircon fixed – and dealing with the fact that whilst backing Tin Can in an incredibly confined lane I backed into a pick-up’s rear tail light cracking the lens and causing a huge commotion with arms waving everywhere! The episode cost me KSH 300 ($4) for a brand new lens, but more in stress.

Tin can at Relac getting its airconditioning fixed
• Doing without some electrical connectors and a replacement for a broken LCD screen for our fault code reader which I had hoped to get our son, Gavin to send from Australia via DHL. He told me that it would cost $300 to send the small 500g parcel to Kenya with DHL! So we said “forget it, we will do without”.

We met a lovely young Swiss/German couple at Jungle Junction called Fabio and Anne travelling in a well equipped Toyota Landcruiser who themselves had amazingly the week before met up with Swedes Chris and Mia (whom we had met at Fat Monkeys in Malawi months ago and have been keeping in contact with) – with the outcome that we have all agreed to travel together with the 3 vehicles on the dreaded, bandit prone road to Marsabit and Moyale (far too close to Somalia and Al Shabab who are causing a lot of trouble in Kenya at the moment – including bombings in Mombasa and Garissa) – and at least as far a Ethiopia. We are also formulating a plan with Fabio and Anne to possibly ship the vehicles from Port Sudan to Mersin in Turkey in order to miss all the hassles that seem to emanate in Egypt – from ferry delays at Wadi Halfa to graft, corruption and paying unfriendly Egyptians for things you don’t even know what you are having to pay for? (The reputation is not good from travellers through Egypt at the moment)? The four of us would then fly from Sudan to Turkey and wait on Turkey’s Mediterranean beaches for the vehicles to arrive. We will see how it works out – and costs will have to be considered?

Campers at Jungle Junction. Anne in the distance
All in all, we enjoyed our stay in Nairobi – Kenya is somewhat more civilised and developed than any country since South Africa and certainly easier to drive around in (despite huge traffic jams at times) particularly with the help of Ms Garmin and Tracks for Africa GPS to guide one around. The weather was cooler than anticipated and pretty cloudy most days. not what one would think on the Equator in Kenya, but Nairobi does sit at 2500M altitude?! Security was pretty tight we noticed – thanks to the current issues with Al Shabab after Kenya has invaded Somalia to sort them out.

Friday 6th we set off for to meet up again with Fabio, Anne, Chris & Mia at Isiola – and then northwards on to Marsabit and Moyale in Ethiopia. We will update more blog posts about Kenya later when we are able……..

 

The Road to Hell – Marsabit/Moyale

15/7/12

Well! The mild knot in the stomach that has existed for the past few weeks as the thought of having to traverse the 500kms from Archers Post to Marsabit and Moyale  in Ethiopia with all the rumours of “shiftas” (bandits) and Somali kidnappers etc etc is gone! We are now in Ethiopia and pleasant climes and scenery await! We were so very glad to have the company of Chris & Mia in their Landrover Defender and Fabio and Anne in their Toyota Landcruiser for this section.

There is  no other word for the Archers Post/Marsabit/Moyale road other than shit! We have travelled a lot of roads by now in various parts of the world and it’s fair to say this could be the worst? In comparison the supposedly challenging Birdsville, Streslecki  and Ooodnadatta Tracks in Australia pale in comparison. Not that the Marsabit road is hard core 4 x 4  driving or anything, it is just that there are so many hundreds of kilometres of rock, red bulldust, mud and horrible corrugations at times. Maximum speed at any time is 45km/h and it goes on and on. All coupled with the fact that it is a very  remote area with all the dreadful rumours of bandits and Al Shabaab and stories of destroyed shock absorbers and tyres, men going mad and women wanting to fly home etc. Australian DFAT has a “do not travel” warning on the area of course to boost confidence.

The first 250 kms all the way from Nairobi past Mt Kenya  and Isiola to about 50kms beyond Archers Post is excellent tarmac. (Built by the Chinese who are slowly completing the rest of the road -expected by 2014, but at what “quid pro quo” we know not)? But then the fun starts. The 130Km section to Marsabit is not too bad besides corrugations. The next 250Kms Masabit/Moyale is the worst with sharp tennis ball size rocks  as one travels through volcanic pumice areas and more fine dust than Tin Can has ever seen before. (Mostly now inside the cabin – as the Aircon fixed in Nairobi lasted exactly one day before blowing fuses again! Because of the 35* C heat we had to drive with the windows open and dust poured in)!

We met up with the Swedes and Germans at Archers Post and camped at Umoja Sambaru Womens Camp GPS N 00* 37’883” E 37* 39’ 616” which was quite nice and even had showers (cold) and a restaurant. The following day we made the well known Henry’s Camp at Marsabit (its been there 18 years apparently) and spent a friendly evening with about 20 local school teachers having a sports day party. Next day we only managed about 150kms (at 30 -40km/h) to the tiny Sambaru settlement of Turbi where we planned to bush camp but Anne was a bit nervous about that so we ended up in the courtyard of Turbi Womens Shelter GPS N 00*18’072” E 37*39’616”   where they let us camp for TSH 100 ($1.50) each and supplied water. How safe it was, who knows – as in the middle of the night some guys arrived in a car and shone lights on us? At least they took themselves and their Kalashnikovs away again..

Next day we completed the 130km to the border at Moyale, arriving about lunch time. We stamped out of Kenya in no time at all with friendly officials and crossed “no man’s land” to Ethiopia Immigration – to be told that they had closed for two hours for lunch! So we fortunately found a small restaurant and had our first taste of Ethiopian “injera” and beans for our own lunch and pumped tyres and changed air filters while we waited. Eventually Ethiopia fired up and the process was relatively painless except that Yellow Fever certificates had to be produced and Customs checked the cars for cameras, lap tops and radios. Just as well I had hidden away the UHF “walkie talkies” and mounted radio well as he was very suspicious about the antennae I still had attached to the bullbar! We have been making great use of these 2 way radios to communicate between the 3 vehicles throughout Kenya and into Ethiopia.

We made it! All three vehicles without much of a hitch although Chris’s dipstick vibrated and sheared off its mount and spread engine oil everywhere and Fabio and Annes Toyota’s front shock started leaking and their fridge batteries started “cooking” when charged by the solar panel for unknown reasons? Tin Can? Nothing – except heaps of dust and heat with the Airconditioning cactus again. Our new tyres bought in Nairobi don’t look new anymore. Never to be repeated! Ethiopia is lovely and green and mountainous by comparison and with TARRED roads! Although Kenya as well developed and pleasant, none of us would contemplate going South again along that road even if we had to…..

More photos in the Gallery “Kenya” at: https://picasaweb.google.com/110392977689469430264/Kenya

29/6/12
Jinja Uganda
Total KMS travelled so far: 20,076
UGANDA

First stop after crossing the Rwanda/Uganda western border at Cyanika was a fairly new and pleasant campsite at a place called Muko Campsite at the northern end of the lovely Lake Bunyoni. (Co ordinates lost but the campsite is in Tracks for Africa). We were the only campers and the evening was spent around the campfire with the manager Phillip, his wife Connie and 1 year old daughter Blessing with them telling us about life in Uganda. Ugandans have been a fairly friendly and talkative lot in general we have found. Their country is very green and tropical (except for the Queen Elizabeth NP savanna) and nearly as hilly and beautiful as Rwanda. They say if you plant a walking stick in the ground in Uganda, it will grow! Rainfall is in excess of 1500mm per annum – and we experienced some heavy downpours. (Tin Can kept up to Landrover form and leaked water onto our feet through the windscreen/dash)!
Next day we stopped off in the larger town of Kabale for some fruit and vegetables at the market and to try and find an ATM that actually worked with Visa and then hit a fairly rugged road north towards Kihihi and the Queen Elizabeth National Park. (Incidentally, we have found that Mastercard is virtually unusable in both Rwanda and Uganda – but Stanbic and Barclays Banks accept Visa. Just as well we have both)! The road from Kabale to QENP had miles of bulldust of talcum powder consistency interspersed with washaways where it had been raining and was reminiscent of Australia’s Northern Territory bulldust. Fine dust got into everything. Beautiful mountainous and green scenery though. Furthermore, our air-conditioning in Tin Can suddenly stopped working for no good reason. (Don’t know if its too much dust or a coolant leak or electrical fault? We will have to wait until servicing in Nairobi to find out)? I hate anything complex and electrical after our 3rd inverter!
We were tired as we entered the QENP and headed 15 kms to Ishasha River Camp on the Congo border.
We were the only campers in a lovely site with two guards with AK47’s to guard us all night! GPS S00*36”780’ E 29*39”530’. Previously a year or two ago they have appaerntly had trouble with nasties coming across the river from the DRC it would seem- as well as lions and other dangerous animals about? Josef the “askari” guard even insisted on coming along with his AK47 when I had a shower to keep watch outside and be sure I dried my toes! Good guys actually, one had been a ranger since the 1980’s, but we had to feed them and they talked (quietly) at the fire next to us all night. Their murmuring voices mingled with the sound of hyenas and hippos blundering around and lions roaring in the distance to cause a fairly fitful night.
Ishasha area is famous for its tree climbing lions (the only type in Africa other than a few at Lake Manyana in Tanzania that can climb trees- to escape the biting Tsetse flies apparently), but despite a few hours the next morning cruising the tracks through the bush along the river along the DRC border, we saw no lions in trees or on the ground in fact. Plenty of Ugandan Kob antelope, which were a new species for us and monkeys. On returning to camp we met a young Dutch doctor and his partner (Joris and Miathe) traveling in a Toyota Landcruiser from Amsterdam in Holland to Cape Town. We chatted much about information to the north of us and the south of them.
In the afternoon we drove 100kms along a gravel road to Mweya in the north of the QENP where we camped on a hill next to a grand old lodge where Queen Elizabeth stayed in 1954 and after whom the Park was renamed. Great view at Mweya across Lake George and the ranger Tobias chatted for hours to us that night about the animals. Elephants and warthogs trotted past the camp as we talked, but not the lions he told us are always there!
We did some more game spotting the next morning around a part of QENP which was very beautiful around old volcanic craters and with plenty of bird life (including the Grey Crowned Crane the Ugandan national bird on their coat of arms). We crossed the Equator in the north of the Park and then when our permit expired at 3.00pm, headed South East towards Kampala on a fairly good tar road for once. We were expecting to camp at a place in the largish town of Mbarara called Agip Motel, but on getting there late in the day, it was a pit – and also going to be noisy that Friday night with the usual loud weekend African music and drums? So we moved on – wondering where we were going to stay for the night when amazingly another Landrover Defender overtook us with 3 young white people aboard. When we all stopped a bit later on to let one person off and had a chat, it turned out that the driver, Chris, was setting up a new lodge near Lake Mburu NP some 10 kms to the south and he invited us to camp on his property. Chris proudly showed us around his lodge under construction called Rwakobo Rock GPS S 00*31”702’ E 31*00.022’ It is going to be great when it is finished. Magnificent view from the kopje it is built upon across the hills with eventually 8 pretty luxurious rooms all with a view. There was also a tame bushbuck, Ug and a baby waterbuck keeping us company as we camped on the building site. His lodge is not really geared to campers, but will be mid range luxury accommodation at $80pppn when it opens in December. A good spot though with magnificent views.
Next morning was an easy 3-hour 250km cruise along a mostly very smooth road into the capital Kampala –where we headed for the well known Backpackers Lodge and Camp which has been run by an Australian for some 18 years. Driving in Kampala traffic was an exciting business! There is no such thing as traffic lanes, traffic lights, stop streets or any known road rules! More like a dodgem alley. But it was an interesting challenge and we hit (or were hit) by nothing in the 3 days there whilst finding the new Forest Mall with a Shoprite supermarket to stock up in, sort out our MTN Internet data sim, which wasn’t working and finding a place to get a new inverter. One of the workers at Backpackers called Moses kindly drove with me one morning to a solar panel repair shop to have them look at our inverter. (Turned out, as expected, that it was unfixable without spare circuit boards they didn’t have). We ended up having to spend yet another $390 on inverter #3. This time an 800w Dutch made model which looks fairly robust and hopefully will last the rest of the trip)?

After deciding not to try for Ethiopian and Sudanese visas in Kampala as we had heard from Swedes Chris & Mia that they had just got theirs in Nairobi without trouble, nor to buy new tyres for Tin Can yet as they are apparently cheaper in Kenya, we headed East towards the Nile River at Jinja in eastern Uganda. (As an aside, we camped next to an Austrian couple in Kampala traveling south in a Defender who had Cooper Discover Mud Terrain tyres which were coming apart at the sidewalls with long cracks after only 10,000kms? He was most upset as he couldn’t make a warranty claim in Uganda and was up for $1,500 for new tyres)! Methinks we won’t get Cooper tyres in Nairobi but will stick to the pricier BF Goodrich AT?
Jinja is an attractive town on the banks of the Nile. We stayed at Nile River Camp GPS N 00*28”957’ E 33*09”882’ which is very nice with a pool, bar and excellent restaurant on the Nile some 8kms North of Jinja. Run by South Africans – and even has hot showers that work and a swimming pool! There were a lot of young backpackers in Jinja and the River Camp doing things like whitewater rafting and canoeing on the Nile as well as paintball fighting.
After two days at Jinja catching up on chores like blogging and washing, we bade Uganda fair well and headed to the Kenyan border at Totoro and the road to Eldoret and Lake Nakuru. We liked Uganda a lot despite its general air of disorder and chaos (especially in Kampala) and would recommend a visit to anyone. There was never any threat or problem that we were aware of- quite the contrary with locals trying to be very helpful and friendly. It is a green and tropical country with interesting scenery and generally OK roads.
We crossed the border into Kenya at Mabale uneventfully despite a “fixer” who helped us uninvited through the process and was annoyed that he only got $5 for his pains rather than $10! Those guys annoy me! We paid our $40 Kenya road tax and $50 Visa costs and were in! Let’s hope Kenya (and particularly Nairobi {or “Nairobbery” as its known} with its reputation for crime) can be as pleasant as Uganda?….

card
More photos in the Gallery at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110392977689469430264/Uganda

21/6/12
Kigali
Total KMS travelled so far: 19,318
RWANDA

The first thing that struck us about Rwanda (other than how mountainous the “country of 1,000 hills” is with greenery all around) was how neat and orderly most things seemed to be compared with other countries in Africa? The government of Paul Kigame has certainly kept a tight reign on things after the 1995 genocide – including law and order, tidiness and not even allowing plastic bags to be sold!
As we rolled into the capital Kigali we felt that it almost looked European. Traffic lights even! The traffic was orderly and even driving Tin Can on the right hand side of the road for the first time was not too difficult.
We stayed at the One Love Guesthouse GPS where we had to camp in the car park, but it is the only camping in Kigali. It was OK but the room they gave us to shower in was pretty basic and cold water only. Rwanda in general, we found, is not exactly geared towards independent camping. Hotels and guesthouses are the norm and campsites are difficult to find.
After getting the rear brake protectors welded up (for $30 at a good place with a French proprietor Tony who helped with ideas of where to go in Rwanda also – AZ Impex Ltd GPS S01*57”762’ E 30*04”712’in the industrial area ), we searched for the Rwanda Tourist Office in order to get some maps of Rwanda and information of which we had little. This proved rather difficult, but eventually we found them in the rear of a new RDB (Rwanda Development Board) building GPS S01*57”282’ E 30*06”185’on the airport road. Maps in hand and Tin Can fixed, we planned our next route to Kibuye and Gisenyi on Lake Kivu while enjoying an (expensive) cup of coffee at Kisali Airport which we drove to as it was close to RDB and knew it was the only spot where coffee might be had.

Kibuye is a beautiful spot on the shores of Lake Kivu. The tar road from Kigali is good and the trip only takes 21/2 hours. Once again we could not find camping sites and ended up staying at a very comfortable lodge/hotel called Moriah Hill Resort which stands on a finger of land jutting out into the lake for the princely sum of USD$100. The room and hot showers were great though! The view west across the lake towards the Democratic Republic of the Congo was stunning.
Next day we took a rough gravel track north from Kibuye towards Gisenyi (100Kms took 4 hours). However it was stunning scenery- passing rolling hils with tea plantations covering the hills and dairy cattle herds reminiscent of Europe!
Gisenyi is a much larger place on Lake Kivu’s shores and it took us a while to find a camping option (in the carpark once again) of a place called Paridis Malahide Resort. Pretty comfortable with hot showers – and we were treated to a Rwandan dance group performance that night put on for the other guests!

After Gisenyi we headed to Musanze and the nearby village up the mountain called Kinigi , which is the National Park HQ for gorilla tracking in the rainforest on the slopes of Sabyinyo volcanoe. We decided not to spend the USD$700 each for the privilege of 1 hour with the gorillas! Instead we opted for tracking Golden Monkeys for the saner price of $100 each! We stayed at a lodge called Kinigi Asoferwa Lodge GPS S 01*25”954’ E29*35”904’ right next to the NP HQ- where we could have camped in the carpark for $5 but opted for one of their rooms at $65 as the weather was cold (12*C) at night at the 2600m altitude we were at. Next morning an enjoyable 4 hours was spent tracking Golden Monkeys with 3 guides and about 6 “Muzungas”. Quiet and pretty things, but damn hard to photograph – as they flit amongst the trees and bamboo. They are very rare and only about 200 left in Rwanda.
After the monkeys, we drove the 35kms to the Rwanda/Uganda border at Cyanika. This is a very quiet, seldom used border post and was basically a delight without the usual trucks and buses and crowds. We passed through in about 1 hour with no real hassle, but did meet a Canadian coming the other way who had not known to get his Rwandan visa approval number before arriving and was having a lot of trouble. (He eventually got in 3 hours and some phone calls later).
The charming thing about the Rwanda border at Cyanika is that only the driver of the vehicle is allowed to drive across. Everyone else has to walk across the border (including the President of Rwanda if he turns up we were told). So Marianne had to walk across! Apparently its to do with a car bomb which went off on the border a few years ago, but how kicking out the passengers reduced the risk of bomb attack remains a mystery?
Rwanda was a brief sojourne of less than a week (it is a very small country), but we enjoyed it more than many other countries. Very well organised, obviously progressing well in the 15 year’s recovery after the genocide and with huge amounts of International aid poured in as a “conscience” gesture. The Rwandan people are friendly and honest, but the kids are very curious and one has 10 around 5 minutes after stopping at the roadside! The scenery is stunning and green after the dry Tanzanian savannah.
Lets hope Uganda has as much to offer? ….

More pictures of Rwanda in the gallery at: https://picasaweb.google.com/110392977689469430264/Rwanda”>

15/6/12
Mwanza Tanzania
Total KMS travelled so far: 18,417

TANZANIA

Crossing the Malawi/Tanzanian border at Songwe was relatively painless, but once again we had trouble with acceptance of our European AXA 3rd party insurance cover. After some argument (and Marianne spitting her dummy) we were forced to take out East Africa Comesa yellow card cover for USD$120 – which should at least cover us for the remainder of East African countries? The European brokers advised us the AXA policy “might not be accepted in some countries, but is valid in all.” How about “not accepted in any so far”!?
Border crossing always takes it out of one and after about 50kms into Tanzania and 3pm, we were ready to look for a place to stop. Bongo Camp at Tukuyu run by the local community turned out a good option. Showers are cold, but they boiled up a big bucket of hot water for us! Tukuyu is some 1600m altitude, Tanzania’s wettest town and the surrounding hills are covered with tea plantations. The area is reportedly Tanzania’s most beautiful – and certainly the drive through winding hills is nice. Next morning we were into 4WDriving again – t through ploughed fields and tracks for 5 kms around a massive truck crash on the tar road holding traffic up for hours! Luckily we had someone to follow in a beat up old Isuzu through the paddocks. Later experience would show us that these mighty truck and bus crashes are a common occurrence on Tanzanian roads. Drivers are basically suicidal and the buses travel fast.
Apparently more people die each year on the roads than from malaria – which is no small thing! Although roads are all bitumen (and a change from the thousands of kilometres of gravel and worse roads we have traveled in Namibia, Botswana & Zimbabwe), we found that driving the road to Dar es Salaam and later north to Arusha as being probably the most taxing so far? Despite traveling faster, every minute you are on the lookout for some crazy driver about to do something stupid in your path, trucks traveling very slowly are common and plenty of overtaking required together with speed limits constantly down to 50km/h in every village – with cops with radar guns everywhere! 250kms per day and you’ve had enough. We seldom exceed 90km/h and survival is the key!
The large town of Mbeya as the next stop after the Malawi border is nothing to write home about but at least the ATMs worked! First thing we found in Tanzania is no supermarkets- even in a big place like Mbeya. Marianne was devastated! We ended up buying fruit and vegetables at a market as well as meat, which looked as though it had been out with the flies all day? We may yet become vegetarian? The highlight at the market was we asked for 6 passion fruit and didn’t watch what went into the bag. Seemed a bit heavy – when we got home there were 60 passion fruit! Now we eat them all day!
There are few camping spots on the road to Dar es Salaam. 100kms from Mbeya we found a community run campsite called Mfumbe GPS which is fairly basic (no water, no nothing but a hut by a river) but a nice spot. We had to take the local chairman (Batameo) from the village the 5 kms down to the camp with Marianne sitting on the glove box between the seats! He was our “askari” (guard) for the night. We ended up feeding him also.

An oasis on the road to Dar is Kisolanza (The Old Farm House). GPS This is a “must stop” place being managed by a young white couple Belinda & Jason who have only last week taken over after spending a year on the Isle of Man in the UK. Kisolanza has fresh farm produce vegetables and meat for sale as well as excellent meals for only $10 at its cozy restaurant. Without doubt the best value place we struck in Tanzania. Camping only $15. We spent two days there and went on a long 10 km walk to some tobacco kilns and packing sheds and villages in the nearby hills.
Dar es Salaam, a city of 4million inhabitants with apparently 70% still without electricity or running water, is one long traffic jam to drive into. Good fun! Arriving late in the afternoon, we spent the first night at a place on the north shore called Silver Sands Hotel mentioned in the guidebooks as a popular campsite. This 50-year-old hotel, now run by University of Tanzania, might have been OK years ago, but it is thoroughly NOT recommended today? The beach setting is not too bad, but the showers are cold (and only one works), the security is scary – we were told we should not walk more than a few hundred metres along the beach because of muggings etc and the whole place is run down and falling apart. We didn’t feel comfortable about leaving Tin Can there for a few days whilst we went to Zanzibar either. One night was enough!

Next day we crossed the ferry to south Dar and a place called Kipepeo Camp – which is 1000% better! Lovely site and friendly people and popular with other overlanders (who are always a good information source). We happily left Tin Can there for 4 days and caught the ferry for the 2-hour trip to Zanzibar. Crazily, although Zanzibar is still part of Tanzania, you still have to go through Immigration at the Port and have your passport stamped. (Yet another stamp in our rapidly filling passports). At least it doesn’t cost anything – as the rest of Zanzibar is expensive and adept at getting money out of “Wazungus”.

Stone Town Zanzibar is like a spaghetti bowl of twisted alleyways and ancient residences and reminiscent of the medinas of Morocco. The history of slaving and warfare between the Sultan and the British in the 19th century is quite fascinating also. We took a ($5) tour with a Morgan Freeman lookalike of the old slave dungeons and the Anglican cathedral, which was built by the British (who forced the end of slavery) on the site of the old slave market and whipping post. (Apparently the Arabs used to whip fresh slaves with a barbed stingray tail whip to see how tough they were? The ones who didn’t cry out fetched a higher price. We stayed at the Clove Hotel ($65) www.zanzibarhotel.nl and found it pretty good. The Clove is run by a couple of Dutch ladies and has a good roof top terrace and hearty breakfast.
After a day in Stone Town, we headed to Kendwa Beach on the north coast of Zanzibar island for a couple of days at Sunset Bungalows www.sunsetkendwa.com lazing on the magnificent beaches and the 27*C sea temperature. Stan did some scuba diving with a local operation (Scuba Do) who were quite professional. Plenty of coral reef and schooling fish, but the diving not quite as good as Papua New Guinea. Too many local fishermen to hammer the reefs. In previous years, dynamite fishing was apparently prevalent. Sunset Bungalows ($65) is good value, right on the beach and the room was good. All in all, Zanzibar was a pleasant sojourn.
After Zanzibar and return to Dar and Kipepeo Camp, we were quite relieved to find Tin Can still there as good as gold! We also met a Dutch couple Annalies & Wim http://www.igecko.webklik.nl who had arrived at Kipepeo after traveling southward through Africa since October 2011 from the Netherlands in a big Iveco 4X4. They were a wealth of knowledge and information to us as they have done almost exactly the same route as we plan through East Africa and Ethiopia, Sudan & Egypt. It seems that there is now a ferry going from Port Said in Egypt to Turkey and also that the route through Libya and Tunisia to Italy is opening up again – so that perhaps gives us a few more options than going through Israel? They scared us a bit though with the talk of the cost of the Serengeti NP and national parks in Kenya ahead of us ($50pp + $150 for the vehicle+ $30 pp camping fee per day = $310!) They also went to see the mountain gorillas in Rwanda at $500pp! Maybe we will pass?
We hit the road again next day heading northward from Dar towards Kilimanjaro and Arusha, spending the first night camping in the rear of Segera Hotel GPS S05*19’486″ E38*33’158″ which was but average but the second two nights at Kibo Hotel GPS S03*17’171″ E37*31’028“in Marangu at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro. The Kibo is a rambling old hotel built at the turn of the last century by the Germans as a summer holiday retreat and in recent times is a base in the climbing season (July – Jan) for mountaineering groups going up Kilimanjaro. The hotel is now looked after by a great old guy called Isak who keeps the gardens absolutely magnificently and was most concerned about our comfort and welfare. We liked chilling out as the only guests in the huge old hotel! Interestingly, President Jimmy Carter and his wife stayed at the Kibo Hotel in 1988 when doing a climb of Mt Kilimanjaro. (See photos of his signature in the visitor’s book and the room they stayed in). At least we can now say we stayed in the same place as a US President! But it’s nothing flash – and probably looked it’s best in 1907? We did a “cultural” walk ($20) with a guide around Marangu to some waterfalls the next day which was very nice through dense rainforest with the mountain streams of glacier melt from Mt Kilimanjaro creating great waterfalls.
Mt Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa at 5892m and rising over 5 km from the surrounding plains to snow capped peak. It is an ice capped dormant volcano sitting almost on the Equator! The local Chagga people have a wonderful story about the origin of the mountain: The two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi were sisters. Kibo was the wiser of the two. She was very careful to store food when times were hard. However, her sister Mawenzi had no such care for the future and fell into the habit of asking Kibo for help whenever times were bad. Eventually Kibo became very angry with her sister’s begging and hit her on the head with a spoon, leading to Mawenzi’s rough, ragged and broken appearance!

Scaling Mt Kilimanjaro takes 5 to 8 days, but it is not for us! (Maybe 20 years ago?!) After all, the mountain apparently claims about a dozen lives a year – mostly from altitude sickness. The Camino de Santiago was hard enough! They say that with global warming by 2020 to 2040 there will be no more ice or glaciers on Kili for the first time since prior the last ice age 11,000 years ago. We better be thankful of the view we have now, when you can see it. Disappointingly for us we saw nothing much of Mt Kilimanjaro despite being on its slopes as for all the days we were there, there was heavy cloud and mist all over the mountain.

Maybe the weather doesn’t help the mood, but the days traveling through Arusha and to Lake Manyara, Ngorogoro Crater and on to Serengeti NP have not been quite as good as the travel brochures make out or the expectation from reading other accounts in our view. The city of Arusha is a horrible place. Takes one 11/2 hours through traffic more gridlocked than Dar to find one of the only two supermarkets (Shoprite) to stock up supplies. Masai Camp where we camped was OK- until, being Saturday night, the heavy metal musik started up and went on to 4.00am.
Then, although we knew costs of parks etc before we started, Tanzanian National Parks (TANAPA) seem twice as good as even Botswana in charging foreigners exhorbitant fees and giving one little in return. Lake Manyara was a beautiful, forested park where we saw plenty of giraffe and elephant and the odd flamingo – and we loved the camp at Esambara public campsite with giraffes wandering through (as we were luckily the only campers). Of course, no real facilities exist at the campsite and only a cold shower, but a nice spot all the same. Still park entry fees of $250 and camping $60 cost us USD$310 for the day’s privilege (as we later found out they overcharged us $150 instead of $40 for vehicle entry fee arguing Tin Can was over 3,000kg. (everywhere else she is regarded as a normal car @ $40). Grumbling that South African SANPARKS gives one a Wildcard park entry card for a whole year for $260 or all SA parks of course meant nothing. The Lake Manyara NP was also a constant stream of “safari” vehicles from the various tour companies despite this being the “low” season. Also buses filled with locals regularly cruise right through the park at speed. Apparently the nearby town of Mto Wa Mbu’s population has expanded from 3,000 to 15,000 in the last 10 years and is threatening Lake Manyara’s ecosystem.

Next disappointment was Ngorogoro Crater 70kms on where despite checking in Arusha that we could pay entrance fees by MasterCard or Visa at the gate, the surly bitch behind the glass counter told us “they were changing to a new TanCard system”, credit cards could not be used nor, as foreigners, could we pay in Tanzanian Shillings. USD$200 cash only OK thank you, another $200 if you want to go down the crater. Fortunately we had the cash, but decided not to go down the crater. There was another somewhat pissed off Wazungu behind us who despite arriving in a safari tour vehicle, couldn’t pay and was told to head back to Arusha (250km). You would think his tour guide should have known? No map of Ngorogoro or anything for your $200 (or even available to purchase). Just as well we had one given to us by someone else. Nor any real advice on where to go or what to expect, just plenty of “hangers on” lounging around the entrance gate and the odd tout trying to flog some trinket or curio.
When we headed up to the crater rim (2,500m), once again the clouds enveloped us and you couldn’t see 20m let alone into the crater or a single animal. Temperature about 15*C and a cold wind blowing. Not the hot dry and dusty with herds of game that we expected of Ngorogoro at all. Not that it’s anyone fault, but more like Alpine conditions! We didn’t pay $200 to go down into the crater as others had told us its unnecessary if you’ve already seen plenty of game, and we camped in the big Simba A public campsite which has nothing to offer except rather grotty ablutions and local Masai to come and hassle you to buy curios. (At least the showers had hot water)! We can’t talk about down in the Ngorogoro crater (which we believe from others is a wealth of wildlife) , but another surprise was to find that despite the rim area being the so called “Ngorogoro Conservation Area”, it includes vast herds of Masai cattle vying with the zebra and antelope for grazing and sports some village “shanty towns” supporting quite a large population. The spreading tide of humanity advancing like locusts upon the earth! Watch out wildlife! – and thank the likes of Unesco for forcing African governments in the 1980’s to do something about the horrific poaching going on at that time (its bad enough now) and at least trying to preserve some unique wildlife habitats. Thank the humble Tsetse Fly most of all- because both humans and cattle are susceptible to the deadly “African sleeping sickness” carried by the Tsetese fly, but native wildlife is not– which kept humans and their cattle and goats out of heavily Tsetse fly infested areas. These areas later became the national parks as there was no agricultural use for them. (By the way Tsetse fly bites feel like a red hot poker going in and hurt like hell – we have experienced dozens. Puts the Aussie march fly to shame)!
Well, having got all the s**t off the liver as one has to do occasionally in Africa, we have to say that the Serengeti NP with it’s vast array of wildlife was exceptional. The congregating herds of Wildebeest and Zebra beginning to start their annual migration was awe inspiring! One could sit in one spot for an hour or so and see over 100,000 Wildebeest cross in front of one’s eyes. This was a sight such as one only sees once on one’s life. Comparable to the likes of Victoria Falls as an exceptional sight which we will never forget in our lives. Outweighed by far the fact that the roads are life threatening and the campsites (we stayed in the Seronera area at Ngiri GPS S02825”133’ E34*51”485’ ) have nothing other than a pit toilet and cold shower for your $60. Still, when we compare some of the brilliant national parks with quite good facilities we have been in other countries, the excellent job SANPARKS does at a reasonable cost in South Africa and the cheerful desire to at least try in poor countries like Zimbabwe, if the Tanzanian government wants to charge foreign guests upwards of $250 per day to stay in their national parks, they need to provide a bit more in the shape of facilities and friendly, literate staff with a more “user friendly” system? The whole system is not really geared towards the independent traveller or camper at all, it is all focused on the high paying “fly in fly out” tourist (who is paying upwards of USD$450 to $1250 per day to stay at the many fancy lodges). They need to try and do something to limit the excessive number of safari vehicles plying the roads, many with only one or two tourists in them?
They say that the high fees generating tens of millions of $ per year go entirely towards park and wildlife maintenance, but somehow I doubt that? I think there would be a lot of “slippage” along the way? Certainly the big profits the all private safari tour companies and the high end lodges must be making goes into shareholders pockets and not to supporting Mrs Leo’s family of cubs. TANAPA needs to go to South Africa and take some tips off SANPARKS on how to treat foreign tourists and run a system that actually works.
We travelled westwards through Serengeti NP seeing much game towards the town of Mwanza on Lake Victoria where we stocked up with supplies and stayed at The Mwanza Yacht Club GPS S02*31”743’ E 32*53”673’ – a quite pleasant spot overlooking the lake. Tin Can needs a rest from the rough roads. Vibrations have killed yet another electronic thing again – our second 12/240v inverter has died a smoking death. Now charging computers etc becomes a hassle until maybe Nairobi where we can get it repaired or buy another one?

The next day we caught the ferry which crosses Lake Victoria from Mwanza to meet the road which heads towards Rwanda.

A 3 hour exercise which together with the very corrugated stretches of the road (fortunately most of the 250kms to Resumo Rwanda is tar) which finally caused the rear brake protectors to fall off Tin Can after metal fatigue from vibration, caused us to be late in the day again with no campsite in sight and still far from the border.
We ended up stopping at a village to ask if we could camp. The headman (once we found him) was very obliging and for $5 let us camp in the grounds of the village school. GPS S 02*37″975 E 30* 55″919′ The whole village had to come and watch us set up camp.Ended up the Headmaster eventually found us and had to show us all round his school also– and half the kids had to watch us camp, help chop firewood and lounge in our chairs,fiddle with everything etc. The school has very little in the way of resources to cope with 700 kids with only 7 teachers. The were all very kind – and we said when we get back to Australia we will see if we can send them something to help via my local Rotary Club? We had quite a good quiet night at the school.
Next country Rwanda…… We hit the Resumo border quite early the next morning and thankfully as we already had our Rwanda visa application numbers handy (you have to apply online at least 5 days before you arrive) passed through without hassle in an hour.

More pictures in the gallery https://picasaweb.google.com/110392977689469430264/Tanzania

17/5/12
Total KMS travelled so far: 14,225
ZAMBIA
A taste of “big smoke” civilization! Lusaka is nothing much to write home about (and the traffic in Cairo Road is horrendous), but Manda Hill shopping mall with the chance to have some Illy coffee and scones and hit a large supermarket made a welcome change after nearly two months “outback” Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe since the last sight of a store with more than 2 choices!

Even managed to buy an extension cable and electrical connectors for our solar panel, which I had been wanting for two months. The only reminder we are still in Africa was when the power cut twice when we were in the supermarket and the whole place went into darkness you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face for 5 minutes until emergency generators cut in. Seems like a regular occurrence as the other shoppers didn’t seem fazed?
We stayed one night at Eureka Camp 5kms south of Lusaka and one night at Pioneer Camp 18kms north on the road to Chipata and South Luangwa. Both are OK and only USD$15 per night. Eureka is livelier and popular with the overland truck crowd. We spent a day shopping and relaxing in Lusaka – which was probably needed after the stresses of getting out of Zimbabwe and into Zambia at the Chirundu border post and paying the Zambian cops a nice little speeding fine shortly after. (See previous post).
The next day we hit the road again for the 575kms to Chipata and South Luangwa NP.
We broke the drive mid way with a stop at Luangwa Bridge Camp GPS which is quite pleasant and run by a Dutch fellow (Wim) and his English partner. Bridge Camp has a nice pool and bar overlooking the Luangwa River. Next night we rolled into Chipata and Mama Rula’s camp 5kms on the Sth Luangwa NP road Mama Rula’s is also quite popular with the overland trucks but OK. The main road from Lusaka to Chipata is pretty good bitumen and high speed, but pretty boring in general. As the say in Africa- MMBA “miles and miles of bugger all”. Couldn’t say the same though of the 100kms road from Chipata to South Luangwa NP the next morning though. The 100kms starts off as reasonable bitumen but deteriorates to very bad gravel with corrugations and washouts. Takes 31/2 hours to do the 100kms! They are working on the road though and it will be tar all the way sometime soon. Some interesting shops are passed on the way however…

We spent 3 nights outside the Park at South Luangwa it was so good. Two nights at Croc Valley camp at the Park entrance as it was recommended to us by an overland truck driver in Mama Rula’s and one night in The Wildlife Camp GPS S13*06”558’ E31*45”221’ 8kms down the road. Croc Valley is OK, closer to the National Park entrance and has a great view of the Luangwa river (also popular with the overland trucks) but The Wildlife Camp, although 8kms from the Park entrance, is great!

It is run by the local community under the auspices of a Swiss lady with a background in hotel management who came to Zambia as a volunteer helping the locals with tourism 8 years ago and never went back to Switzerland. It is definitely our preferred option and recommendation despite being a little way off the road. The Wildlife Camp again had elephants and hippos roaming through the camp at night. In fact after we spent a bit too long drinking at the bar (about 750 metres from the campsite) with a Spanish couple from the Canary Islands driving a Land Rover Discovery around southern Africa and it got too dark, they wouldn’t let us walk back and insisted on driving us back to camp rather than lose a camper! We are becoming a bit blasé’ about animals in our campsites – which can be dangerous.
The actual South Luangwa NP would have to be rated one of the top National Parks we have visited and the equal of the ones in the Okavango Delta of Botswana if not quite as exciting as Mana Pools NP in Zimbabwe. Plenty of game of all sorts and pleasant drives through riverine bush with huge Natal Mahogany and fig trees along the river and drier Mopani forest inland.
We also took a night drive from Croc Valley (USD$40 pp) and saw lions, hyenas and a leopard on the drive. Things you don’t see in the daytime. It costs USD$30 pp/day and $10 for the vehicle to enter the park, so a bit expensive but worth it. Highly recommended!
Then it was back 3/1/2 hours along the horrendous road to Chipata and an afternoon stocking up on supplies at the local Spar and Shoprite. (Interesting observing the police or army guy in camouflage and with AK47 at the ready patrolling inside the supermarket to keep the locals in order! Wondered what would happen to the stacked eggs and bottles if he had to open fire? Or whether we would fit in the deep freeze in a hurry if he did)? We also had Tin Can washed at Fuzzy’s Car Wash and changed some money into Malawi Kwacha with the money changers hanging around outside the supermarket. (Don’t ever do this- I got ripped off blind found out later and know better of course. Stupidly trusted the guy and it was convenient. You get a better rate at the banks. At least know your rates properly beforehand. I was not quite sure and it cost me)!
One more night at Mama Rula’s again and early the next morning to the Zambia/Malawi border post 20kms from Chipata. This time the border procedures went fairly painlessly apart for a slight hassle with the Malawi cops down the road. (Read the next post “Malawi”).
Having spent only 8-10 days in Zambia and seen only the north west corner, we have hardly done it proper justice? But suffice it to say the people are as friendly as any we have encountered, think the Zimbabweans are thieves (and vice versa), the main roads are quite good and South Luangwa NP at least is a fantastic wildlife area and without doubt equal to some of then best Parks in Africa. We thoroughly enjoyed our brief visit, but time to head north a bit more conscientiously and Lake Malawi and some blue water and tropical greenery beckons….

More pictures in the gallery at: https://picasaweb.google.com/110392977689469430264/Zambia