But compared to the time we spent on the Tanzanian side of the border this was just a preparation. The next 4 hours we had discussions, phone calls to UK and a lot of “slime-talking” to the police officers who didn’t want us to cross the border in a car we just borrowed and didn’t own. So I had to call Nikki in England so she sent a letter via email which indicated that it is her car and she lend it to me. Annoying!!!! Of course we payed a bit of money for the car and the visas and also for an insurance to be allowed to keep on driving. The insurance business was a bit of a nightmare, the so called insurance agent couldn’t speak any English and was also not really listening to us after we found ourselves a translater. He just filled in an insurance batch for the car and was about to pin it to our car when we had to nearly scram at him “no! we first want to know what is included and how much it costs!” He got really upset about that, so was Andrea and it all ended in a big discussion between three really annoyed muzungu girls and four Tanzanian guys – one wanted to sell his insurance, the next was translating, the next wanted to change some money for us and the next our phone numbers. In the end we just took the insurance and jumped in the car to leave this horrible place! Not the very best first impression of Tanzania I have to say. But soon after the border we were stunned by the landscape. More trees and as much banana farms as you can imagine. It also seemed to be harvest time, we passed hundreds of trucks loaded with bananas. These are the bananas you will eat in a few weeks in Germany or England so think of me haha! We were driving over highland again, overlooking the lush valleys of Tanzanias south, beautiful! We only made it to Mbeya just before nightfall, but had a bit trouble to find the hostel again! In the end a local jumped in the car with us and showed us the way, that was for sure the better solution because Tanzanians are not much better in giving directions then Malawians. It was already pitch dark, also because we had a power cut again, well we´re getting used to it, when we arrived in a cute little room which reminded me a bit of a skiing hut in Austria. We were lucky to still get some food and also to meet a very friendly Tanzanian man, Masoya, 60 years old, who was even able to speak German. He studied engeneering in Dresden about 30 years ago and married a German woman. But he said he is an ideologist so he had to come back to Tanzania and work here while his son and his wife stood in Germany. He´s married again now with a Tanzanian women and has another two kids. Anyway it was really interesting to talk to him and also nice to chat in German, his German was really good! He told us a bit about Tanzanian culture and polygamy, that it is not allowed but quite normal for husband and wife to cheat on each other. He called it “eating the apple” I think that’s a great expression! We didn´t really have the same opinion about this topic but it was interesting.
Next day we made it to the city Iringa, further north, only one day late. We decided to find an accommodation early, get the car checked and stock up some food for the next day, our first SAFARI!!!!!! We had a little wonder around the cute little town with its coulerful painted busses, busy markets and very basic neighborhoods where the kids were desperate to have a picture taken of them. Trying to find the impressive mosque which Germans built in the early 20th century when Tanzania was still known as German East Africa, I couldn’t really find much what still reminded of Germany (after WW2 the British colonized TZ and were probably still so angry with the Germans that they took every German thing away). The only German thing in Iringa is the street to the town which was built and sponsored by Germans, that’s what the owner of the restaurant told us where we had some traditional Ugali (same as Nsima). He tried to find a husband for Andrea and asked every taller looking guy to stand next to her after which Andrea always smiled and refused. The Tanzanian way is still something we have to get used to. They´re much more proud and self confident then the Malawians I think. We went to bed early, again with power cut, to start our tour to Ruaha NP first thing next morning.
On sunrise we were already half way down the dirt road (we decided to take the so called village road instead of never ending road, guess why!) and greeted the day in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nature, awesome! At 9 a.m. we reached the gate of Ruaha and as soon as we were in it didn’t take long until we saw our first animals. Two giant giraffes munching away right next to the street. So beautiful and so impressive! The day went by in seconds, Ruaha´s landscape is spectacular, mountains rise high next to several rivers, nearly all of them dried out, also wide grass areas and bush land spotted with huge baobab trees. All covered with new fresh grass. We saw elephants, giraffes, antilopes, hippos, jackals, many birds and even found one young lion who was chilling out under a bush. We were stunned by this beautiful country! Shortly before dark we luckily found a quite cheap “camp site” where we were the only guests. It was more like bush camping because all we found was a house with shower and toilet and another empty hut. The rest just bushland, no fence, no nothing. We decided to sleep in the empty hut instead of building up the tent and the guy who was looking after the “campsite” was helping us with a mosquito net and some lamps. Very nice! He even took us to the next village where a young girl cooked a delicious traditional dinner for us. We were the only muzungus, again, and after a while nearly every young man who wasn’t married yet was sqeezing into the small little house to see us and ask us hundreds of questions. We made another two letter friends, told a few stories about europe and had a fabulous time! Berthus our friend from the camp told us that he was also a guide for the park so we decided to take him with us next morning.
Again we got up before sunrise to make most of the day, we had 24hour ticket for the park and because we just started at 8:30 the day before we had another 2 ½ hours for this day. Unfortunatelly we had to wait at the gate again for some paperwork to be filled in by Berthus and only had 1 ½ hours left when we finally drove through the gate. Berthus told us a lot about animal behavior, trees and birds. But time went by so fast and we had to hurry to get out in time. Bye bye Ruaha! What a beautiful place!
On the way back to Iringa we took Berthus with us for a while to drop him at the village again. On the way there we saw a lot of Massai in traditional clothes, very impressive! Berthus said he knows a Massai village we could have a look at, of course we didn’t want to miss that! Unfortunatelly we weren’t allowed to take pictures but it was impressive anyway. A little village, simple but clean and organized was found in the bushland. A Massai came to greet us, he was dressed in a knee long red material wraped around the hip and shoulder, fixed at the waiste with a leather belt. He had a bush knife on it. The spire was missing but his earlobes had huge holes in it and his face was proud with deep dark eyes. He had such a pride, wisdom, an aura of centrednes, its hard to describe. We talked for a few minutes with Berthus translating but then we left, it didn’t seem appropriate to nose around them. It was a great experience, I think the inner instinct of being a hunter gatherer wakes up when you come across such an impressive native tribe.
We talked a lot about this experience on our way back to Iringa. We just filled up our valets and food reserves and went back on the road to the little trucker town Mikumi, on the border to Mikumi NP. We survived the trip down the serpentines in the night because what we thought would only take 1 ½ hours for 100km took 3 in the end because of road blocks and bad street condition. We found a little motel and after an almost sleepless night because it was way to hot, noisy and uncomfortable we got up again at 5 a.m. to reach the NP right when the gate´s open. The highway goes right through the park so already on the way there we saw antilopes and elephants in the dawn. Mikumi NP is much more crowded with giraffes and elephants then Ruaha. This time we took a guide right from the beginning hoping that she would know where the lions or leopards are but Mary, our guide, said its all about luck. We spent the whole day driving around. This NP is also called little Serengeti and is only flat bushland with a dried out river running through it. It is surrounded by mountains which you can see on the horizon. A typical African landscapes, yellow grass and some bushes, a few baobab trees and everywhere khudus, zebras, buffalos, giraffes, elephants and gnus. Luckily we found a lion which was sleeping under a tree and to see it we had to go off road again, Mary was really afraid that she would loose her job when we get cought. She said Mufasa was already 15 years old, impressive! Later on we came down the same road again and he was still there chilling under the tree, a zebra family was crossing quite close and the first one got a real shock when she saw the lion. It was an interesting scenery. The zebra seemed not so sure if the lion is hungry or not, it went closer, ran away, turned around again just to run away again. Funny! In the end the lion got up and went away, he was obviously not really interested. I am sure he has a few lionesses who are hunting for him, or he just had a big meal. We saw a few skeletons of animals anyway..
I am so in love with Africa! The nature, the people, the animals! And it is so perfect to share all this with my friends, we really have a great time, a lot of laughing and now the new year can come! Although I am not so sure about Tanzania. It is a beautiful country that’s for sure! The landscape is breathtaking, lush and absolutely beautiful but I am not so sure yet about the people. Not many can talk English and seem to be also a bit disappointed when they realize that we don’t speak suaheli, but what shocks me the most is that the speed of work and motivation is even slower and lower than in Malawi. After leaving the park we wanted to take our bags, we left at the reception to have some more space for Mary, and leave but the key for the luggage room was with someone who seemed to already have went home. Why? I don’t know, so we went to have a coke at the little bar. There was no one but us and the lady who was serving us was more asleep then awake. We ordered three cokes and Clara asked if she could have a coffee or hot water to use her coffee powder. She said there was no hot water and over this two min conversation she forgot that we had also ordered the coke and started to rearrange the fridge in slow motion and with no motivation what so ever. After about 15min we said that we ordered three cokes a while ago, just with a sigh she went to the fridge and brought us one coke. “Thanks but we need another two” we said so she came back with another one. Asking her again for the last coke the order was complete after only 30min. It was hilarious and a little bit strange. During this time of waiting for our cokes the guy arrived with the key and we could finally take off to our New Years Eve destination Morogoro because there was no chance that we could make it to Daressalam.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVRYONE!!!!!
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