On to Manyara, Ngorogoro, and Serengeti – and then on to Kigali, Rwanda:
After a night with 4 other paying customers in a very luxurious lodge (which cost $450 minimum per person in high season – starts in 2 weeks!) which is always fully booked – in high season – with 100 rooms, a very nice dinner and breakfast next morning, we were off with Abbasas our driver and guide in a 5 year old Toyota Land Cruiser with a roof that pops up so you can stand and see lions and such from inside the vehicle. Abbasas is an man of about 45 years who speaks English with an accent which makes him hard to understand sometimes; his first language is Swahili. He was not a fount of information about Maasai culture, local flora and fauna, history of the area, geology of the Crater, or other things that we had questions about, with the exception of anything about animals; he knows all about animals, including where to find them on the plains of Serengeti or in the Ngorongoro Crater. The problem was that we had to ask him specific questions about animals that occurred to us and then he would give a very brief answer without elaboration. But, we did see everything. The big 5 (Lions, Cheetahs, Leopards, Elephants, and Rhinoceroses) plus flamingos, hyenas, gnus, wart hogs, jackals, baboons, blue monkeys, dick dicks, hippopotamuses, wildebeests, zebras, hartebeests, elan, Thompson’s Impala, Carter’s Impala, and another small cat whose name I can’t remember (Oryx maybe) – looked kinda like a smaller slightly duller coated version of leopard. There are also many spectacular birds. 1,000s of vultures, many storks, many cranes, some big birds that only eat grains and insects, and my favorite, the Secretary Bird – they are big and strikingly attractive and the kill and eat snakes. We saw them doing just that.
Each night (of 3) we spent in a different very fancy lodge: Manyara (on the Rift Escarpment), Seronera (in the Serengeti), Ngorongoro Wildlife (on the rim of the Crater). All were spectacular, but the second was especially interesting; architecturally integrated into huge rocks and with its own small lake of hippos that might have kept some guest awake at night with their low chatter and splashing about. All in all, the Safari expedition was great.
The only downsides for the trip were the lack of education for us from our very nice guide and the used car salesman approach of the Bobby Tours owner at the outset. Bobby Tours is perhaps the cheapest of the many safari tours, but there is a reason – oldest and cheapest Land Cruisers, cheap box lunches, a guide who, though well meaning, doesn’t teach you much, and a $100 add on when the owner/manager comes in after that salesman has finished making a deal with you. I wouldn’t recommend them. We didn’t shop around (there seems to be dozens of Safari operators), but I would recommend some comparison shopping.
So, now we are on our way to Lake Victoria at Mwanza to take a ferry across to Bukoba and then on to Kigali, Rwanda. We took a shortcut from Arusha to Singida (still in Tanzania). It was 340 km about half on tarmac and the rest on dirt/construction/tarmac. The Chinese are building a nice tarmac road to Singida and it is presently a mess the whole way. The first 74 km wasall dirt and rather busy with trucksThen construction with some bad dirt then some very nice dirt, eventually we got to where they had laid down tarmac and we kept riding on it until it ran out then back to dirt (with trucks and buses and donkeys and goats and cows) and then back onto nice compacted level dirt (road base) again. The workers just smiled and waved us along as we came upon them working on the road.
There was one place about 10 km into the route where it was only dirt and a big truck had broken down on a curve going uphill blocking the entire road. People had made their own dirt road around it. The “new” dirt road was 6 inches of fine dust with God knows what under it. I chickened out and stopped. Facing the prospect of this sort of thing for the next 170 km, I was prepared to let Pat and Chris go on to Rwanda and Uganda without me while I made my own way – on tarmac- to Nairobi, Kenya. Pat came back and chided me into trying a bit more. He moved my bike around the truck and I did the rest of the route without incident or much timidity from there on. I’m getting better at “off road”, but it still scares me!
We stayed at the Singida Catholic Archdiocese Guest House located on the campus of some kind of Catholic social services training center. Lots of trainees there learning stuff. Nice place. Great shower! We all ordered something unknown for dinner: “Incet Meet with Spaghetti or Macaroni” 3,500 shillings. It was a very pleasant surprise. It was spaghetti with probably little pieces of carrot cooked into it and what would be the sauce was ground beef cooked tender and seasoned to perfection. We all thought it was the best meal we’d had since leaving South Africa.
We saw a lot of rural people as we drove along on the “new” road thru the bush which will change their lives significantly (some even for the better!) when it is done. But we are again back on tarmac. The night before I hope to be able to post this, we are staying in the small city of Shinyanga, Tanzania at a little hotel which bears the city’s name- very nice people who are bending over backward to make sure we have a good stay here – I recommend this modest hotel whenever you are in Shinyanga.
We got here around 1 o’clock and decided to make it a short day. We checked in and I stripped off all my riding gear and gave it to the laundry ladies in room 200. Then we all went for a walk into the heart of the town’s (maybe 30,000 people) market area. This is not your typical touristical city. Very ordinary shops for taking care of the business of living here and lots of people selling stuff up and down and on the streets. Lots of customers shopping for everything imaginable. Pineapple is in season and it is really good when it is allowed to ripen fully before cut and taken to market and you buy it the next day. There is a bicycle tire salesman somewhere who is very good at his job; thousands of bicycles in Shinyanga and at least half of them have his distinctive yellow tires.
I believe we are the only three White people in this city –maybe ever! Since the Chinese road isn’t finished, this place is way off the tourist track – but, probably not for long. We walked all over the market and shopped and talked to people, but didn’t buy anything – no place to carry it on a bike. We then sat at a little outdoor café (sodas and water only) for an hour watching people watch us. We are an oddity here for sure.
We should get to the ferry at Mwanza tomorrow about noon and if the boat goes tomorrow night as we think it does (leaves at 10 pm, 3 times a week) we should be on it – less than200km of (reportedly) good tarmac between here and there. The boat takes about 6hours and arrives in Bukoba early in the morning.
From Bukoba we aren’t sure of the road directly to Kigali, Rwanda. But if it’s bad, we’ll take the nice road to Kampala and then turn left and backtrack a bit to Kigali, then come back on the same road to Kampala, Uganda and on to Nairobi, Kenya a few days later.
We have a couchsurfer lined up in Kigali and Kampala and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (north of Nairobi). In Kenya we will probably stay at the Jungle Junction (biker place run by a German -I think- expat). We need to put on new tires and change oil again, clean the air filters, and fix a few other little problems before heading for Ethiopia – on 400km or bad road. We also hope to have a Sudan transit visa when we leave Nairobi.
Not much English (or French) spoken in these parts of Tanzania – Swahili only for most people; especially in the rural areas. But, we are a popular attraction whenever we stop for a little break along the way – we always stop where there are people. Lots of people gather around to look at the White folks and listen to our chatter and check out the bikes. Some times someone in the group will venture a few words of in English. Everyone seems to enjoy it, including us. I like Tanzania.
The call to prayer, evening version, just started. Bye for now.
It seems that the highways in much of Africa are mostly for people with bicycles to push heavy loads (or ride) along side of, or for people to walk or carry heavy loads next too, or for cows, goats, sheep, donkeys, baboons to cross, as well as an occasional truck or bus - or motorbike - to ride on. But, infrastructure for a more mechanized economy is being built - mostly by Chinese engineers.
We have arrived in Kigali and are planning to head toward Kampala and Nairobi maybe tomorrow.
