It turned out to be
an “off the beaten track” experience. At the beginning we were
considering going to Serengeti, Ngorongoro crater and touristy
places in the north. But parks in Tanzania are sooooooo expensive…
that we decided we should do only special things. Entrance fees to
Serengeti would have cost us US$ 310 for 24 hours (US$ 150 alone for
having a foreign registered vehicle), and having seen loads animals
in Masai Mara (Kenya), we concluded it was not worth it.
Instead, we decided
to see the big backwaters of Tanzania. So after a couple of days in
Musoma and Speke’s
Bay at Lake Victoria, where I wrote our South Kenya report, we
headed off to Lake Tanganyika, the second deepest in the world. In
contrary to Lake Victoria, Tanganyika’s waters are crystal clear and
among the least polluted worldwide. On our way there, we drove on
the edge of two game reserves. As it was getting late we went into
the headquarters of one of them and asked if we could sleep in our
car there. The warden refused but it was interesting to talk to one
of the rangers in the meantime. Tanzania has many game reserves.
These are not national parks where animals are protected. Here, on
the contrary, animals are hunted. Any animal can be shot in
Tanzania’s game reserves provided that the hunter has paid for the
right license in Dar es Salaam. Apparently, hunters come from all
over the world and pay a lot of money to shoot a lion, for example.
Coming from Kenya where there is a total ban on hunting, this came
as a surprise to us. But in any case it is difficult to have a
definite opinion on the subject without knowing all the facts and
figures. Wildlife conservation is certainly a very hot topic. After
all, in Europe bears are still killed in the Alps because they might
pose a risk to some sheep…
Along that road to
Kigoma, something else aroused our curiosity: the refugee camps.
With the political situation
deteriorating
in Burundi (the border is not far from this road, sometimes as close
as 10 km), it does not seem these will be decreasing in the short
term. Some camps have been there for decades (mainly refugees from
Congo), some are more recent. We heard the Tanzanian government is
trying to repatriate most refugees but it is proving to be a hard
task. These camps were all supported either by the Red Cross or by
the UNHCR. Later we met a Red Cross employee and we expressed our
interest to visit one of the camps, but as they are controlled by
the Tanzanian government, it was not that simple. Dealing with
authorities in Tanzania takes time. It seems nobody but the highest
person in any organization is allowed to decide on such things.
Coming to the
Tanzanian people… it is hard for me to make a judgment. On one hand
they are friendly (although they smile seldom) and discrete, still
many seem very unmotivated and uninterested, even when business
opportunities were involved. And again coming from Kenya, where
generally the people have an entrepreneurial mindset, this attitude
surprised us both. In Kigoma for example, a city on the shore of
Lake Tanganyika, it was difficult to find food in restaurants one
night. They would say they only got rice or French fries and that
was it, without making any effort to try to find anything else in
the market (it took them very long times to cook any meal in any
case…). Fish was impossible to get without ordering it in advance.
So most of the time we cooked ourselves and we learned to buy food
as soon as we saw it, either from passing-by salespersons or at road
stalls. We had an excellent time in Kigoma, mainly because we camped
at a nice place at the beach. It belonged to a Norwegian missionary
and it was beautifully done. We grilled fish and swam in the
pristine waters of the lake.
Visiting our closest relatives
Besides, we took a day to visit a special park. We went
Chimpanzee tracking at Gombe Stream National Park. Gombe is home to
the longest research project on chimpanzees in the world, started by
primatologist Jane
Goodall
in 1960. Goodall’s observations, such us tool-making, inter-troop
wars or even cannibalism, confronted well established scientific
wisdom at it’s time but have since been widely accepted. Before we
went to the park, we visited the Jane Goodall Research Centre in
Kigoma and were lucky to speak with a senior baboon researcher
(research on baboons is done since 1967 in the park). It was
interesting to know that tourism has an ambiguous effect on chimps.
On the one hand they live in a national park that is possible to
maintain due to the fees paid by tourists. If the area was not a
park, it would probably be totally deforested as most of the
surrounding ground, with the consequence that chimps could not live
there. On the other hand, tourists do not help at all on the
researchers tasks; furthermore, they can cause trouble to the
chimp’s health. The leading cause of death among chimpanzees is
pneumonia, brought from abroad (to what they are not immune). In
1987, 30% of Gombe’s community died because of this within two
weeks! It was also interesting to learn how chimps and baboons
interact during their lives. Baby baboons are at risk to be eaten by
chimps, but youngsters of both species would play together. And once
they reach adulthood they compete for food. Baboons have it easier
then as their stomachs are a lot stronger than the chimp’s, which
enables them to eat seeds and fruits at a rawer stage. What is
definitely the case is that both species spread seeds very
effectively; the forest in Gombe is increasing.
Going to Gombe was
an experience in itself as already reaching the park is an
adventure. The only way to arrive there is by boat. So we went to
the fishermen’s village of Kibirizi, just north of Kigoma, and
negotiated for
chartering a boat for the whole day. The trip took two hours per way
and cost us almost 100 USD (about 70% of this goes for petrol, which
is expensive in Tanzania). Park fees are 100 USD per person. Once in
the park, there were no rangers available to accompany us chimp
tracking so the lady at the reception told their boatman to come
with us. After two hours walking on the hilly riverine forest and
having joined an Austrian group, we saw them: the “F” family, which
consists on Fanny and her three children Fuji, Fundi and baby
Familia. They were walking on the ground, eventually climbing a tree
to eat some seeds. After a while, they moved on, crossed the stream
and spent the next half hour pampering themselves and looking for
flees and lice in each other’s hair. It was a wonderful experience
to be able to be just five meters from them. We made lots of
pictures but this is really not easy, as when chimps are on the
ground, the vegetation is quite dense so light is a big problem.
During the afternoon we went again and discovered another two
chimps. As these ones where not being tracked by researchers we do
not know their names. They were eating seeds from trees, so after a
while they disappeared into the foliage. Baboons were also there,
quite relaxed about us. At one point we saw a fight. One was running
after another one for a long time. To us it looked like school
children playing.
On the tracks of the explorers
Ujiji lies just a few kilometers south of Kigoma and it would not be
of great interest if it were not for a historical meeting that took
place there more than 100 years ago. It was the time of the great
explorers. It was mainly
British
adventurers, who embarked in the difficult task of finding the
source of the Nile. Burton, Speke and Grant, Sam and Florence Baker,
and the famous Dr. David Livingstone had all crossed Africa in the
most strenuous conditions, to open a long term debate at the Royal
Geographical Society regarding the source of the Nile. There was a
big hype about it in those days. Speke and Grant were in Ujiji in
1854 when they partially explored Lake Tanganyika. Afterwards Speke
rightly sustained that the Nile’s source was Lake Victoria, but
could not present conclusive evidence about it. In April 1866
Livingstone left from Sansibar to explore this area as well. But
during the next three years nothing concrete was heard about his
whereabouts and most speculated he was dead. It was then that Henry
Morton Stanle
y,
an American journalist working for the New York Herald, was assigned
to find Livingstone and report on it. It took Stanley almost two
years as he had to sort out obstacles such as tribal wars in his way
to the interior. His caravan was the first one to reach Ujiji in a
long time, but he finally found Livingstone in this town on November
10th, 1871. The first words of that meeting would become a
celebrated phrase of the times: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” the
answer was a simple “yes”. Reto and I had both read books about the
explorers and their survival fights in Africa, so it was given for
us to visit Ujiji, being so close. What we found were a couple of
commemorative monuments and a strange kind of museum with the most
funny and dedicated caretaker we’ve met so far. We really enjoyed
it.
We decided to go
South on a track that runs about 50 km from Lake Tanganyika. It was
a very remote area.
During
many kilometers we did not see any people and we could easily bush
camp. What we realized was that the locals burned the forest time
and again and as they did not grow anything there, we still wonder
about their reasons for doing this. A nice highlight on the way was
the Katavi National Park. As the road traverses the park, transit
vehicles do not need to pay park fees. We were lucky to see quite
some animals in just one hour: a herd of Eland, some gazelles, a
giraffe, buffalos and two young male lions. It was obvious that
these animals were not very used to see cars… even the lions ran
away after a short while. The bad side of the park were the Tse-tse
flies. They are not meant to transmit any diseases but their bites
could be quite unpleasant. We managed to close our windows and keep
them out. The next morning we arrived to Sumbawanga and at the
Catholic mission we were able to upload our website and sleep in the
parking.
Mbeya was our next
stop, previously seeing a meteorite on the way. It was just a rock
lying there but Reto and several school classes found it quite interesting. It’s meant to be
the 8th biggest meteorite in the world and weights 12 tons (it consists of an alloy of iron and nickel). They still do not know
when it impacted on the Earth.
In Mbeya we bought
some groceries, but could not find many dairy products. Tanzania was
the first country where we did not easily find butter or yogurt. We
did however find a very good photo studio where they even had a
negative scanner to save pictures in a CD. It was an Indian owned
shop. In the country side towards Lake Nyassa we saw quite some
farms. And it actually looked that they were producing to bring to
markets in contrast to the subsistence agriculture we had seen
further north.
On our way to
Matema beach at the northern tip of Lake Nyassa, also called Lake
Malawi in the homonymous
country,
and known for it’s hundreds of species of fish, we had a surprise.
Ahead of us a vehicle was producing dust-clouds on the piste. In a
glimpse, we recognized Ed and Sue’s Land Rover. We know them since
the very beginning of our trip, from the boat crossing the
Mediterranean. We were also together during the unpleasant Lake
Nasser crossing from Egypt into Sudan and met again in Ethiopia. So
it was nice to see them and have dinner and beers together that
night. Sue and I also went to the market at Lyulilo the next day,
famous for its Kisi pottery.
After a couple of
days at the beach we started our long journey towards the Indian
Ocean, a more than a thousand km drive. We cruised all the way to
Songea on a nice tarmac road, for a change, among tee and timber
plantations. In Songea we treated ourselves staying at the best
hotel in town, which was good value for money. The next day
consisted more or less on traveling across the Makonde plateau on
different condition
pistes.
The road-side is very populated so we ended up sleeping in the
police station’s compound.
Mtwara, the last
big town we would visit in Tanzania, on the coast of the Indian
Ocean, has splendid views and some nice beaches nearby.
Unfortunately, we did not have time to really enjoy it as we wanted
to move on into Mozambique, where a magnificent coastline was
tempting us…
The beach tracks in Northern Mozam
bique
The Rovuma river serves as the border between Tanzania and
Mozambique. Crossing it by ferry was meant to be an adventure in
itself, having to call the captain in order for him to show up to
operate the ferry… but as the numbers we had did not work we headed
for the border early knowing we had a few hours before hide tide
(when the ferry can cross) to make the arrangements. It turned out
to be easy. The customs officer called the captain and everything
was settled within minutes. On the ferry we met a group of Spanish
traveling on a tour with four other Land-Cruisers. This turned out
to be very fortunate as in our first kilometers in Mozambique we go
badly stuck in “black cotton” soil and the locals were demanding
lots of money to push us out… Knowing the four Land-Cruisers were
behind, we refused. They pulled us and then we had to pull the last
one, which also got stuck.
Our first
impressions on Mozambique were that it is an empty land, very much
undeveloped, where electricity and running water are lot more the
exception than the norm. We arrived to Mocimboa da Praia, the first
big town, at
sunset and it was difficult to find food without having
ordered it. We went to camp to Chez Natalie, owned by a French lady,
that was full as the Spanish were also there. As we sleep in the
car, it was not a problem for us. The next day we moved on to one of
the nicest places we’ve been so far: Pangane Beach. It is actually
just a beautiful beach with palm trees and nice clear water, in the
middle of nowhere. There is a village close enough, were we could
get fresh baked bread (in contrast to Tanzania and even Kenya where
bread is not more than toast), fish, calamari and lobster. We stayed
there four days in a campsite mainly known by Italians and Spanish.
This was good as we learned how to clean and cook calamari from
them. It was wonderful to live a few days so “back in time” just
grilling fish on the beach and watching the magnificent sunsets.
Following Vasco da Gama
We left Pangane to go to Ibo island in the Quirimbas archipelago.
The island is meant to be very relaxed. It was
one of the first
Portuguese enclaves, still with old houses from colonial times. So
we drove to the village of Tandanhangue, on the coast, were we could
park the car safely and take a boat to Ibo. Someone advised us not
to take a dhow, an old sailing boat, because if the wind calms down
it could take very long. Once there, and together with five
Portuguese ladies on holidays, we started looking for a suitable
boat, but there were not too many options… The one motor boat would
not leave in at least one hour. So we took a dhow and then regretted
it… The crew was very casual about it, even lazy. At the beginning
the wind was good, from behind, and too late they realized that we
were drifting away with the current and the wind was turning against
us… At a point one of them was rowing with the only row they had,
always with the sail up despite the wind being against, which was
actually pulling us back. We were getting farther and farther from
the island… When I asked why didn’t we actually use the sail
correctly, they answered it’s “muito travalho” (too much work). I
could not believe it… that gave us maybe a false impression of the
people in Mozambique. But later on we also encountered this passive
attitude, as if they would not give a damn about anything. At the
end they did pull down the sail, and we were thankful that the whole
area is full of sand banks, because they pushed us onto the island
with sticks, like the ones on the gondolas in
Venice. The trip took
about five hours, three of them in the dark… The next part of our
Ibo odyssey came with the fact that the island was full and it was
difficult to find accommodation… I was missing our car… Luckily we
found a bungalow. Food was also not so easy that night and the next
day for breakfast. We went to the only restaurant in town, mainly
used by locals and as there was not much there, Reto ended up going
to the market and using their cutlery… We concluded the place had a
lot of potential… The island is a mixture of a couple of nice places
and many run down houses, forts and churches that will certainly be
restored in the mid-term. The nicest was that on the way back (this
time with a motor boat) we paid more and went to a sand bank close
to Matema island, which was magnificent. In the middle of
turquoise-blue colored waters it looked like in a brochure. Nature
is fantastic in Mozambique. On our trip back I saw big sea-turtles
and dolphins.
Pemba would be
different as it was our first real city. Although it had a nice
beach, for us it meant the first place
with electricity and hot
water in the country… so we spent our time shopping for groceries
(finally yogurt!) and in the internet. There we also found out that
we both needed visas for Malawi (unlike EU, US, Commonwealth
Coutries citizens and many others) and that the nearest consulate
was in Maputo, the capital, about 2.500 km away… We spent almost a
whole day trying to figure out how to avoid driving so far. At the
end, we could find the Malawi visa forms in the internet (one of the
slowest we’ve had so far), filled them and worked out with DHL how
to send the passports to Maputo, let them be picked up the next day
and deliver them to DHL in Nampula (on the way to the Malawi border)
where we would pick them up. Most people would not have risked it.
But luckily, it worked.
In the meantime we
headed South to Nacala and then to a beautiful empty beach near
Chocas were we met two German expats working for an infrastructure
company installing optic fiber cables. It’s hard to believe,
considering most places do not have electricity yet. Still it was
interesting learning from them how life is in Mozambique. Funnily
enough, Martin, one of them, is a transafrica overlander who has a
nice Unimog, and whose web-site (www.mogtours.de) was one of the first ones consulted
by Reto when we decided to do this trip…
Ilha de Mozambique
was the first capital, during the Portuguese times. It’s a small
island, barely 3 km long and 500 meters wide, and from there the
colonialists once controlled the whole country… Today a World
Heritage Site by Unesco, the island is mixture of a lively
fishermen’s village and colonial town where the old houses are being
restored. It has a very nice museum, the old governor’s house, with
all the antique furniture, that really gives an idea of the colonial
life and also the links between the Portuguese colonies (many pieces
were made in Goa, India). Ilha also hosts what is meant to be the
oldest European building in the Southern Hemisphere, the Chapel of
Nossa Senhora de Baluarte, built in 1522.We enjoyed visiting the
sites, strolling or driving on the streets (there is a bridge that
connects the island to the mainland built by the Portuguese) and
eating the famous Mozambican shrimps.
In Nampula we
visited Martin, the expat we met a couple of days before, and his
girlfriend Sonia, and picked up
our passports at the airport with a DHL employee. We were actually lucky as it was a holiday in Nampula
and nobody was working. Fortunately, we reached a DHL manager the
evening before and he organized someone to help us getting our
passports that were coming in the morning flight. This fact and that
Nampula gives a very clean and organized impression changed a bit
our idea of Mozambique, where most people did not seem to care much
about anything. After shopping a few things we headed to the border.
It was 500 km through nice landscapes with inselbergs, rock
formations that give a strange atmosphere. Exiting the country was
really easy and so it was entering Malawi, which is famous for its
friendly people. We could even extend our 2 day transit visa to 7,
just by chatting with the immigration officer and explaining him how
much we wanted to visit the country. That was yesterday. Today we
are again at a lakeshore (in this case the southern tip of Lake
Malawi) enjoying a sundowner and working again! So far, we’ve had a
great time, just reading at the beach and even getting a fish for
tonight’s dinner… what else do we need?
Hope this finds you
all well wherever you are,
Ndapita! (Good bye
in Chichewa)
Victoria & Reto
Link to Travel Report
9 Malawi, Zambia & Botswana
On
the back tracks of Tanzania