Iconic Africa - TANZANIA

After our extended layover in Arusha, it was good to get out on the road again. The car was serviced and the drive shaft renewed. The fridge had the small leak sorted and was now freezing properly in the freezer and keeping the other compartment cool. We had also invested in a new set of “chunky” good quality off road tyres so we trusted all was good. The afternoon before we left we had the great pleasure of picking up Sarah from Arusha airport and sorting out space for travel onwards.

Our first stop would be the world famous Ngorongoro Crater so after a short drive for us of around 3 hours we found a camp outside the park gates. This in a way was to be our second most expensive day on this trip in terms of fees and costs. We paid around $70 each for entry into the park. We paid $40 for taking a foreign registered car into the park. (these are per day). The cost to stay in the park overnight would be $30 plus an extra day fees in the park so we opted to stay outside at around $8 per person per night. Then the large cost for anyone wanting to take a vehicle into the crater is $300 per vehicle. A lot of money but we felt it was worth it. We started from our camp outside into the park at 6.00am and it was still dark. Our camp was at around 1800 metres above sea level and we climbed in the dark and foggy drizzle up to the crater rim at about 2500 hardly able to see a thing. We eventual found the steep and rocky descent road into the crater and as we dropped the visibility became better and after a short while we could see the crater bottom. It is a huge area and very soon we could see the animals. One of the first was an elusive cheetah and although we entered as early as the gates opened we were soon joined by many other safari vehicles. Most belong to Safari companies and probably we only saw perhaps 2 or 3 other private cars among the hundred of safari vehicles. Most do not like private cars but the odd one was helpful. The sides of the crater hold the animals in although wildebeest and others do migrate out while elephants do climb the high and steep sides. Even some of the predators go out and over the sides into the Serengeti.

The big drawback for us is that whenever you saw a cat or rhino then there were 10s or more of other vehicles around. We watched some lions trying to catch a wildebeest and the two lionesses had to walk between lines of vehicles. Saying all this it was an amazing sight with us finding cheetah, lions, rhino plus many others. We spent the whole day in the crater only having to take the ascent road back to the crater rim at around 4.30 as everyone has to be out of the park by 6.00pm unless you are staying.

A truly magical place with just too many wanting to see it including us.

Animals in the fog on the rim of the crater

Light shining through the cloud higher up

A Hyena wading in a lake on the bottom

OK dinner is watching us

Herds on the base of the crater

Smile

Crowned Cranes

Hyena

Our first Cheetah

Lion in the grass

View of the crater

Our 1st view of the bottom as we are going down

Jan and Sarah in the bottom of the Crater. It was cold

The Crater from the rim

After Ngorongoro we took another short drive to Tarangire National Park but this time we stayed in the park for a couple of nights on a great campsite on a hill overlooking a lower valley. We had giraffe and waterbuck around the camp all the time and when out driving we saw plenty of lion and elephant walking in the dried up river valley plus a great leopard that was in a tree and had killed the night before. It had hauled the impala up the tree and was guarding its kill.

Sleeping in the tent with the African sounds all around knowing there is no fence. The Lions roar carries a long way especially at night and it something we could never tire of hearing.

A Leopard yawns

Majestic Elephant

A Watching lion

The leopard in the tree

We now felt we could leave game parks for a while especially as Tanzania is so expensive so after Tarangire we drove to Dodoma, the Capital of Tanzania in name only. As far as everyone is concerned the actual capital is Dar es Salam and this is where all the business and finance is including most of the government. Dodoma is a funny place with some quite big buildings, mainly religious or Governmental but as our guide book says “It is as though Dodoma is wearing clothes many sizes too big” Here we stayed in a hotel for the night which was a pleasant change from our tents.

Dodoma down to the border of Malawi was not the best of journies as the road is being renewed and the police are rather too vigilant. This road took us 2 days to drive at an average of less than 50 kilometres per hour and driving for about 9 or so hours a day. Beside that it cost is 4 lots of Tsch30,000 (about £9.50 each time) in fines. 3 were for speeding where they had a “great” way of catching you. The 50 KPH limit used to start before the town of village and carry on after so the police would sit behind a tree as you left the town and you could not see them. As you sped up if you were going faster than 50 at the sign they photographed you unseen and then sent the photo on about 5-6 kilometres to a policeman who would then stop you and nick you with the evidence. The other fine was for not stopping at a railway crossing. This one was very unfair as we were in a queue of traffic with a bus in front of us. He went straight over so did we and the police pulled us for a fine. While there I tried to get the police to explain how the law worked but they only bothered with the foreign cars or ones that looked like they could pay. Most cars and busses just drove straight over without stopping or being stopped. All the police would say in answer to why that happened was “I don’t speak English”. Oh well, it is just taxes we pay but disappointing as we had not seen that anywhere else in Tanzania (or other countries so far on this trip)

We are now across the border and by Lake Malawi once again. We were on the lake here last Christmas. At the moment we are at the northern end so not near where we have been and it is beautiful. The height here is only 550 metres above sea level so the weather is much hotter, around 35 in the shade today and much hotter in the sun. The lake is beautiful and cooling and good to swim in (as long as you accept you will need Bilharzia medicine in a few weeks. We survived at Christmas and it is just a nice now. The next few days will see us travel down the lake stopping at several points along it.

Until next time

Mike and Jan