When a dream comes true

Since more than 34 years I had the dream of visiting Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. As teenager I read some books, which were about some girls and their adventures in those countries including the wildlife in the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti. I loved the photo books and the TV programs of professor Grzimek and tried to get an idea of what it was about. Now I was able to see it with my own eyes :).

The Ngorongoro Crater welcomed us with fog and we had nearly no view into the crater. We drove along the edge in about 2300 m height and stopped shortly at the memorial of the Grzimeks. We ensured that the gate down into the crater opens at 6 am and put up our tent at the only public campsite in the area, all others are special tented camps and much more expensive. The alarm clock rang at 5am and at a quarter past 6 we were the first vehicle driving down into the crater. It only took a few minutes and we met a lion lying lazy in the grass. We kept on, met a rhino, some buffalos and a herd of wildebeest. After a short breakfast break we arrived at the place where a lion “ate” his breakfast with pleasure – a complete zebra. All the female lions were lying around, more than six jackals and two hyenas were waiting for their chance to grab a bit. The sun was rising over the crater edge and kept the mist up there, what an impressive and gripping experience.
We kept on driving along the bottom of the crater when all of a sudden a hyena approached us with its prey. We stopped the engine and watched. She crossed the road in front of us, greeted another hyena and passed her prey on to her. Then their ways separated again.
Near the lake Magadi in the center of the crater we saw another rhino beside zebras, millions of pink flamingos, kudus, wildebeest and an extremely huge bird. We saw an elephant grazing just before we reached a place where ten lions bathed in the sun. We drove another loop in the crater, stopped at the hippo pool where we had some lunch beside more than 20 other cars of some tour operators. It was still low season, so we didn’t want to know how it looks like in the crater during high season.
For us it was time to say goodbye, so we crawled slowly out of the crater, from 1700m up to 2300 m, drove along the edge and continued our journey to the park border where we entered the next park and fulfilled the second dream, entering the Serengeti.

 

The Landy in good company

In Moshi it was hard to find a campsite as Key´s Hotels campsite was closed because of low season and Honey Badger does not supply campsites any moe. But the school beside this Lodge offers a safe place in the schoolyard. Beside this the headmaster tried to sell handcrafts. The weather was still cloudy, no chance to see a tiny piece of the Kilimanjaro. The trekking up to the top would have cost more than 2000 $ for the two of us so it was easy to decide to skip it. (We haven’t really trained our bodies either). Furthermore a couple from South Africa told us that they are here for the fifth time and only could see the Kili once and that the best chances are in August, so we have to come back in the future. We went on towards Arusha, stayed a night at Lake Duluti that reminded us of our lakes in Sweden. But when we wanted to do a short walk around the lake next morning, we were told that we have to pay 12 $ each for walking on that little path as it belongs to a nature reserve. No thanks, we will walk in Sweden instead.

In Arusha we asked at a Land Rover garage whether Alexander could use the backyard to maintain our Landy. No chance, the Asian guy didn’t even look at him, just communicated via his secretary. In opposite to Fortes, which had a customer workshop in earlier days besides renting out travel vehicles immediately jumped into our car to show us the way to “their” garage. We wouldn’t have found Kahindi Auto Repair in the Sakina Area, where we had to pass some really poor people which are sitting on the ground with their hammers, producing gravel out of piles of stones, day by day. We stayed three nights at the Masai Camp so Alexander had enough time to fix the steering. Finally he put in a steering damper. This cured the wobble for now and hopefully until home. They even tried to fix the broken bonnet lock, but the African solution was not really satisfying. The manager’s brother, who was working at the sewing machine, made us new canvas covers for our small folding chairs.

In Arusha we found a nice place to eat – Ciao Gelati – Swiss owned, good coffee, delicious dishes as spinach risotto, avocado soup or chicken wrap. We met again Veron & Tom from the Netherlands who managed to drive the whole African west coast down to South Africa. It’s always fascinating that against all odds nothing is impossible in Africa. If you are interested how they managed it, have a look at their blog: www.ourlongwaydown.com. Just before we left Arusha we had the chance to see the top of Mount Meru, Tanzanias second highest mountain with 4566 m height.
After we had stocked up with food and diesel we went to Karatu to fix our permit to enter the Ngorongoro Crater. We passed Maasai with their cattle and goatherds within an amazing landscape, the Maasai-Plains, saw many Land Rovers along the street and tour operators passing by. On a Saturday the banks even had open until 12, so we settled some money into the bank account of Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, collected a permission card at their office and passed through the gate late in the afternoon as the permit was valid for 24 hours.

From Robinson Crusoe to humans in the mist

We put up our camp at Peponis Beach Resort right next to the beach and enjoyed some really nice relaxing days with nice company (Marjon & Maarten from The Netherlands and Jimmy & Brioni from UK). We sailed to the reef in a typical wooden dhow, did some snorkeling between the corals, had lunch on a sandy island and enjoyed the white beaches and warm water. Alexander did some maintenance on the Land Rover (oil change and bushes at the rear) and could use the camps own pit. Together with Maarten and Jimmy they tried to solve some solar panel problems or we all went to the neighbor to enjoy a pizza. Together with Jimmy we went on a fishing trip. Well, if Alexander would be a fisherman, we couldn’t survive 🙂 Jimmy caught all 8 fishes for the dinner. Thanks for that 🙂

One day we went to Tanga to a Land Rover workshop where they helped us to replace the bushes in the front springs. By chance I had a look into the old Land Rover standing in the backyard and found some sweet little creatures.

We decided to hire a boat to visit Zanzibar over the weekend and had a 5 hours boat trip on the rough ocean. Zanzibars northern tip welcomed us with really white sand beaches. From Nungwi we took a minibus to the islands capital, called Stone Town. We had to find a place to stay and were soon followed by bumpers who wanted to find the perfect spot for us. We ended up at the Jambo Guesthouse what seemed to be clean and friendly. Just a bit expensive, as all other places, they charged 40 $ per night. At Peponi we paid 6.50 $ per night and could be sure not to get any bed bugs and had a great view too. We walked through the narrow streets, had a look at all these fantastic wooden doors and tried to find out what made Stone Town to a World Heritage Site. Many houses would need a restoration or at least some plaster. The main season had not started yet, so everybody tried to sell something to us. We couldn’t walk some hundred meters without defending or explaining why we didn’t want to buy all these souvenirs or come into everybody’s shop. It was very hard to make them understand that it is not a matter of the price but our budget. We are not common package tourists and can’t afford to buy presents. At the same time we didn’t want to carry presents for the remaining 4 month. We enjoyed our stay anyhow. Visiting some culturally interesting places, having discussions with locals, watching the fishermen smacking the octopuses to make the meat soft, wandering around the former Sultans palace or trying the food at the popular food market at night time are just some of the highlights. We took a minibus back to Nungwi where we found Anita’s Bed & Breakfast.

(http://anitasbnb.com) Anita is from Skåne in Sweden and had just opened her guesthouse together with Meck. We cuddled their puppies and met the most amazing cat we’ve ever seen. Simba played with the dogs as if he was one of them. We talked a mix of Swedish and English and heard some interesting stories. We finished the long weekend with a dinner at the beach. On the way back to the boat next morning a heavy rain shower surprised us. Luckily we could wait until it stopped raining under a parasol of one of the hotels along the beach. The trip back to Pangani took one hour less than the journey there and as the thunderstorm just had passed, we didn’t get wet at all.

After more than one week at Peponis, we kept on towards the Usambara mountains together with Brioni & Jimmy. We stocked up in Tangas SD supermarket, filled the tank and waved on the road Marjon & Maarten who just came back down from the mountains. We staid one night in Lushoto from were we walked to the Irente Farm. At the veranda we enjoyed a good coffee and apple pie but the fog and the extra price some locals wanted to charge (just to have a look from the view point down into the valley) let us turn back to the Landys. We drove through rainforest likely areas from Lushoto up to the Mullers Mountain Lodge where we got a grassy spot. What a contrast after the warm weather at the beach with sand and crabs. It got bloody cold up in 1700 m and we were glad that Jimmy tried his new charcoal stove. He even succeeded in making some tasty bred. Next day we drove through a fantastic landscape, passed small villages and growing areas where locals worked hard, before we reached the top at about 1900m and when the fog was densest. So we stopped at the Mambo Cliff Inn, parked our cars on the scarp edge and got disappointed of the bad facilities. The Lodge must have got its good reputations for the rooms and not for the not existing shower or “hole in the floor” toilets for the campers. Too late to move to the Mambo Viewpoint Lodge which is located close by. Alexander and I walked up to the viewpoint and got a guided tour to admire the Lodge. We returned to Mambo Cliff and asked for a key to a room. So we got at least a warm shower next morning. The sun came out for breakfast but just for half an hour, so no chance to see a tiny peace of the Kilimanjaro in the distance. We decided to leave the foggy place and drove downhill on the backside of the mountains. In the beginning we couldn’t see a lot, but the lower we came the more disappeared the fog. Some locals who repaired the track asked for toll or a kind of support for them in form of money for their lunch. We willingly paid the 5000 TS (=ca. 2.50€) and took the “off-road” track back down. After three hours driving we reached the lowlands and continued on the tarred road, after we leveled the tyre pressure. Just before we reached the village Same the wobbling at the front wheels was back. As soon as we hit a depression on the road the whole car started shaking. Only a sharp break could stop the vibration. Very bad feeling so we pulled off and staid on the car parking of the Elephant Motel. Next morning we said farewell to Jimmy and Brioni and drove slowly towards Moshi and Arusha to find a suitable Land Rover workshop again.

Annoying Dar es Salaam

From the campsite Kipepeo Beach, which is located south of the city centre of Dar es Salaam, we decided to take a minibus, instead of using our own car, to visit the Swedish embassy. Unfortunately the employees at the Embassy couldn’t help with an Ethiopian visa and to get a second passport would have taken two weeks. So we just had a Swedish chat with Lars Johansson from Vårgårda who is working for the embassy. On the way to the Vodacom shop where we got a new SIM card we passed a KSB agency. Of course I had to say hello to a “colleague”, who just started working in January. It didn’t work out very well with the SIM card, after two and a half hours in the Vodacom shop I still was not able to use the Internet. They closed the shop and told us that tomorrow it will work. I just had to wait a couple of hours to get the settings send to my device. In the meantime it had started raining heavily and didn’t look like it will stop. So we walked back to the ferry and got thoroughly wet. From the ferry terminal we decided to take a Tuk-Tuk back to the campsite. While listening to extremely high volume music – constantly the same song – the guy drove us through the tight traffic, tipped us nearly into a ditch, stalled the engine and finally drove us through many puddles back to the camp. The next days, the rain season – for this year quite late – let us get stuck in Dar. We checked the weather forecast but it didn’t seem to be better anywhere else. Of course the SIM card didn’t work as promised so after two very lazy days we had to go back to the shop. We took again a Tuk-Tuk together with Marianne and found the city center flooded. Some “business men” tried to earn some money by providing a ladder for pedestrians to cross some water sections. The “real” business men with their shiny shoes were glad and paid. The Vodacom manager finally found out that my contract was not related to my new telephone number, so after another hour the problem was solved. We did some expensive shopping and went back to the camp. Next day the sun came out for a couple of hours so we took the opportunity to dry and wash everything and walked along the beach. The wooden fisher boats fascinated us anew. After we had spent more than one week at the rainy beach we decided to move on, said farewell to Marianne & Albrecht and had a last swim in the surprisingly warm Indian Ocean. Of course we didn’t leave the town before buying some Land Rover spare parts. The traffic was chaotic again and it took some hours to reach the dealer. At least we got some new parts and while waiting in the car I watched a guy who plied with gas bottles. When I asked him if he could fill our gas bottle it was no problem at all. We never would have found that filling station – an insignificant door towards the street. Late in the afternoon we tried to find our way out of town. We had a big discussion with the police again who didn’t want us to turn right – towards the north. They forced us to turn left and that was another hour standing in the traffic jam until we reached the next junction. Same here – the police lady put herself in front of the Land Rover and didn’t let us turn. We were so upset that we didn’t accept that and Alexander kept on going. It ended that she took Alexander’s driving license and said we can either pay a fine or we will meet in front of the court. We didn’t accept this either so after one hour discussion we got the drivers license back without paying and even stood in the right direction, finally. But it was nearly dark and it took another hour to leave this huge traffic chaos behind us. We found a campsite somewhere at the beach. Next morning we discussed about the price, as 5$ per person for a campsite that doesn’t really exist any more was not justified. The roof of the ablution blocks had disappeared so the toilets and showers were flooded, the beach was more than dirty and the whole place shabby. The university runs the site and it is a shame that no one is investing. We kept on towards Bagamoyo, which was the capital of German East Africa up to 1891. We explored some old colonial buildings, walked along the beach where we met busy fishermen and had a look at the Holy Ghost Catholic Mission. We spent the night at the Travellers lodge, before we drove up along the east coast and stranded south of Tanga at Peponis Beach Lodge (www.peponiresort.com).

 

Land of discussions – Tanzania welcomes us

We couldn’t believe how quick the scenery changed as soon as we had entered Tanzania. Not even a kilometer away from the border the villages were full of small restaurants with chairs in front of. Motorbikes, cars and tuk-tuks everywhere and the hills were large areas of plantations. The people were not waving any more but rather shouting “Money, money” or “No picture!” We kept on driving all the way to Mbeya and parked at the campsite (or better called parking area) in front of the mission-run place Karibuni Centre. Described as “recommended place” in the lonely planet we were more than chocked about the bad facilities. In these moments we really miss our bathroom at home. But it was too late and dark to change the location. We gave the restaurant a try, where we were the only guests and could only choose between “chicken with fries” and “egg with fries”. We chose the chicken as we didn´t want to get sick of eggs, which could have been too old. Beside that the chicken was more than well done fried, it was ok until the point we just finished eating when I saw a huge rat running along the wall towards the kitchen. Yuk! We took a big sip of Wodka and went to bed.
Next morning we tried to find a supermarket without any success, as it didn´t really exist one in Mbeya. A petrol station had a few more products than the tiny little shops, but it was expensive and not very satisfying. We went to a garage outside town that is owned of the mission as well, but run by a guy from Switzerland. We tried to explain our problem with the wobbling and showed the pictures of the bad condition of our vacuum pump. It turned out that they had an old Land Rover engine standing around and it only took a few hours to get that used vacuum pump mounted into our Land Rover. The bad thing was that the owner discussed the price afterwards and said barefaced smiling: “You are in a bad position to bargain, aren´t you? You need the part and you will not get another one right now and you want to continue your journey. So that is my price.” Not a nice way to treat customers. Maybe we should have prayed in the garages own chapel first… We paid more than a 100 € and decided to stay another night around, as it already was late in the afternoon. We tried the Utengule Coffee Farm outside of town. The price was far too high for the “camp” next to the tennis court, but the view was at least better than at Karibuni. Next day, Friday the 1^st of May, we had to try different bank machines as only one of 5 was working properly. Finally we had a bundle of money (the biggest Tanzanian Shilling notes are the 10.000 TS notes, only worth 5 € each) and changed our route. Instead of going along the Tanganyika Lake we headed towards Dar es Salaam at the east coast, to visit the Swedish embassy to sort out if its possible to get a visa for Ethiopia or a second passport.
We couldn´t drive the 930 km to Dar in one go and found a spot on the map called “Kimani Falls” and to put up our camp in the nature. We passed a village and surprisingly after the village the hilly landscape was full of abandoned huts. We didn´t drive all the way to the falls but found a nice quiet spot along the Kimani River.
Next morning, while having breakfast, a Land Rover arrived. Four guys jumped out and explained that we are in a Nature Reserve where it is not allowed to camp, so we have to pay a fine. We discussed and one of the guys gave up and said we should follow them to their headquarter: The ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism – only 60 km away from here – to explain to his manager. I asked him to give us the address, we will come as soon as we have packed, but he said: “No problem, we will wait until you are finished, even if this will take 2 hours.” They were sweating beside their car for about an hour until we were ready to follow. They wanted us to drive first – as if we could drive away. Luckily the headquarter was in the right direction towards Dar es Salaam. On the way we got stopped of the police. We have already passed quite many police checkpoints since crossing the Tanzanian border and all tried to get money out of us Mzungus (foreigners). This time the polis lady criticized not having a LHD (left hand drive) sticker on the car. Alexander asked her to show him this demand in her catalogue. While she sat down on a wooden bench and searched the catalogue, Alexander kneeled in front of her. Suddenly she shouted “Stand up! Stand up! You are a man! Stand up!” She showed him the fine regulations which didn´t clearly say what we should have done or not. So Alexander questioned this number in her catalogue. She called her office and got told that another number in the regulations is applicable. Still not obvious for us, we denied paying. Finally one of the police officers indicated her to let us go. And so we did, towards the next penalty discussion. We arrived at the head quarter of Tourism and were friendly welcomed of the manager. Then he started explaining that he can treat us as poachers, which means court or jail or we could pay a fine for wild camping in a National Park. When it was our tour to explain, Alexander asked for a peace of paper and drew a map where we parked the car, where the borderline to the park is (concerning to our map on Tracks4Africa), what we saw when we arrived late in the evening. The manager changed his mind to ask for the park entrance fee instead. We didn´t want to pay that either, didn´t gave up arguing and at the end the manager asked us how he should know whether we are “Bad” or “Good” guys. We nearly started laughing and when Alexander answered: ”I can show you the pictures of my daughters!” he relented. Alexander couldn’t resist of giving him the advice to put up new signs for the National Park 🙂 He followed us out to the Land Rover and asked if he could take a picture of her.
Back on the road it took only 15 minutes when the next police stopped us and asked for the driving license. Notable that the police guy welcomed first Alexander, the driver, with a handshake and then me with: “Hi Sister”. No problems this time, next police control wanted to see the fire extinguisher. No problem either. Anyway we were happy to reach the lovely campsite “Old farmhouse Kisolanza” (www.kisolanza.com) where we stayed an extra night to be able to enjoy their good food from the farm, served in the old Mud Ruins Restaurant. We had a look at all these fantastic natural buildings and their own beauty farm. We looked into some huts to find out what they look like from the inside when we all of a sudden saw in one hut laying a guy in the bed. Ups J The farm is located on 1750m so it got cold in the evenings and having the long way to Dar still in front of us, we wanted to go on. As the Isimila historical Stone Age Site appeared along the road, we took a break to walk in a canyon caused by water erosion, characterized by strangely formed sandy pillars. These amazing formations reminded us of Cappadocia in Turkey.
The tarred road to the east side is full of fast driving trucks, mopeds, tuk-tuks and cyclists.

Luckily the trucks went on a strike that day, so we had the road nearly on our own and could safely and slowly drive down the serpentines to reach the Tan-Swiss Camp in the evening. Back in the lowlands with the warmth the rain arrived and the mosquitos as well, so we had to cover our skin and had to sweat. Next morning we crossed the Mikumi Nationalpark and were surprised that this is possible: a tarred road, where trucks drive like idiots, divides a national park into two parts while the monkeys were sitting on the road, giraffes and zebras starred at us grazing nearby the road and every km there was a sign that told us how much the fine is for hitting an animal. Most expensive was probably the giraffe. 80 km before Dar es Salaam the traffic started growing so we decided to take a tiny little road around the city. The scenery was fantastic, the people off the main track friendly and the road conditions challenging for the Landy and the driver and we avoided the trucks. The only disadvantage was that it took more than 3 hours to reach the city and the situation there on the road was still the same if not worth as it already was dark. With bad view we managed to reach the ferry to come to the southern part of Dar where the recommended campsite Kipepeo Beach is situated. It took another 3 hours to get on the ferry, to cross the water and to find the camp. What a nice surprise to meet Marianne & Albrecht Oberhauser again! We had a late night beer together, exchanged our stories with the authorities (they had to pay a fine as Albrecht was wearing the wrong pair of shoes according to the police), put up the roof tent and went to bed with the sound of the ocean in our ears.