Day 25 Ruaha public campsite

Full day to explore the Ruaha park so we set off at about 8.30 with the aim of doing a leisurely drive and finding a nice brunch spot.  Best laid plans!  Having fleetingly seen a leopard quite soon after we started we then saw nothing for hours – the only living creatures were tetse flies which were everywhere and seemed even more vicious than in Tarangire.  We did see a coach load of school children playing on a rope bridge – they were having loads of fun and it great to see the local kids getting the opportunity to visit the park. Eventually made our way back to the Ruaha river that runs through the park where there were a few impala, lesser and greater kudu, the odd dik dik and a herd of zebras and giraffes.  We concluded that the wildlife must have all migrated to somewhere more lush but the news headlines that we had read before we left about the disappearance of 40,000 elephants was never far from our thoughts.

Returned to our camping spot from yesterday at about 2pm having discovered that both the other public campsites marked on the map were in the process of being reconstructed – for once we had a map that was so new that it was ahead of the game!  Much discussion about what to have for tea as I was vetoing corn beef and Ian wouldn’t eat tinned tuna.  In the end Ian’s strange but tasty concoction of fried rice with onions, ginger, garlic, chopped baked potato (cooked a couple of nights ago), egg, raisins and dried apricots.

Day 24 Ruaha Public Campsite

Cooked bacon for breakfast and actually made sandwiches for en-route – it would make a change from biscuits for lunch.  The drive was due to take 3 hours but once again it took quite a bit longer – the tar road coming to an abrupt end and transforming into a corrugated sandy track causing “Thompson” to side slip and skid in trying to get back on track. 

On arrival in Ruaha we paid our park fees and Ian decided to buy a recommended book on Ruaha birds – the official looked a bit perplexed but we persevered and paid for the book and a map.  Unfortunately we didn’t get the look at it before buying and it is clearly meant for birding experts not for complete novices – no pictures – the park map may prove more useful!!  I have challenged Ian to decipher the descriptions to identify at least one bird that we haven’t seen before out of the 571 described in the book (he has just told me he has identified the Cardinal Woodpecker - who knows though!). Stopped for lunch watching the hippos and crocodiles.

Camping tonight on the Ruaha Public Campsite no. 1.  We have great views over the Great Ruaha River with dozens of elephants coming down for some water.  Slightly nervous though about the oranges – we have packed them in a plastic bag inside the defunct fridge in the hope that the elephants can’t smell them (elephants have a thing about fruit) but in hindsight we should have got rid of them before we arrived.  Darkness falls very quickly once the sun sets and we quickly found ourselves in semi darkness with 2 elephants just below us, so had to pack all our gear away in rapid time – no time for doing the washing up so we ended up going to bed wondering whether elephants would be attracted to the small of curry emanating from the back of the truck.

Day 23 Iringa Rivervalley Campsite

Spent the morning at Tan Swiss Campsite, not intentionally but by the time we had done the car checks, worked out routes to the next few campsites and changed a tyre the morning had gone.  The tyre changing was yet another saga in itself – the bottle jack is really too big so causes huge problems when we need to jack the vehicle up and changing a flat only to find that the spare is also flat doesn’t go down too well!  With knock on that we now also had to find a garage in Iringa to get the punctures fixed. 

The journey to Iringa was expected to take 3 hours but the traffic was terrible again so it took more like 4.5 hours.  The scenery was stunning though, rolling mountains for mile after mile.  Interestingly on the TV news last night (after Richard Hammond) that there had been photos of bush fires and we now found ourselves travelling through swaths of burnt out bush with fires still raging in places.  Got stopped again for speeding but this time Ian managed to charm his way out of a fine – actually I think he bamboozled the cop by showing him the speed on the GPS. 

In Iringa, (with planning and foresight or just blind luck!!) we managed to find a supermarket next to the bank ATM having driven the wrong way down a one way street and parked up.  Luckily the parking attendant (yes they have parking wardens hear as well) warned us about the one way road before we caused any more havoc and then asked us for TSh 1500 for parking. We managed to find a Garage that did puncture repairs – 5000 TSh for each repair plus 70,000 TSh for two inner tubes (from a shop on the other side of the road). The whole thing was fascinating: 1^st tyre garage–shop–garage; 2^nd tyre garage–shop–garage; in the UK we would just have got two new tyres.

Drove back up the road to Iringa Rivervalley campsite – a lovely spot by the river.  The bulk of their business appears to come from people having Swahali lessons but the atmosphere was more like a hippie commune.  We had a lovely evening and were able to cook a decent meal as we actually had fresh meat and vegetables – the only day for a while that we would have such a luxury as the fridge is still broken.

Day 22 Mikumi Campsite

Lovely breakfast watching the waves – the wind had eased so the ocean was much calmer and there were lots of dhou dotted on the horizon.  Left The Tides at 8ish having picked up the damp laundry, and headed back to Pangani to catch the ferry.  Long, long drive along the Tanga to Dar-es-Salaam road – loads of lorries but it is the bus drivers that are really scary overtaking “any time, any place, anywhere!!”.  Decided to buy some fruit from the road side and found the entire cab was filled with packs of oranges and cashew nuts – managed to escape having just bought one big bag of oranges.  Further down the road we tried again but this time to get charcoal – not sure we should be buying charcoal from an environmental perspective but not sure the wood alternative is a lot better.

Reached Morogoro at about 4pm and really needed to find a supermarket but failed miserably and wasted a good hour in the process going round in circles. If we had wanted motorcycle parts, petrol, sofas or bricks we would have been fine but no-one seems to eat.  By now we were concerned that we still had miles to go and had no clue where the campsite was.  With the road going straight through the middle of Mikumi National Park, 40 mph speed restrictions were in place all the way through the park section and for once everyone was sticking rigidly to them. We think it was the fear of the penalties that could be imposed for running over a wild animal – $450 for a baboon but $15,000 for an elephant.  As a result we were still driving through the park in the dark (scary when the lorry coming the other has no lights on!!). Driving at night is a very big no no and we missed the signs for the campsite.  Rather than turn back, we chose to keep going on with the hope that we would find somewhere to stay once we got outside the park.  Luckily the strategy worked and we ended up spending the night at a campsite a joining the Tan Swiss lodge (with Bar – don’t you just love it when a plan comes together!!).  It had taken us over ten and a half hours driving to get from Tides to here so the last thing we felt like doing was cooking. We spent a surreal evening having dinner (peppered steak and Tanzania equivalent of Biryani) in the bar surrounding by pictures of Switzerland with Richard Hammond on the TV – weird.

Day 21 – The Tides

A quick swim in the Indian Ocean before breakfast and then lazing by the Ocean for the rest of the day – finally a chance to relax and not get in the Landrover at all.  Our beachside cottage is literally 20 paces from the Ocean and we can listen to the waves lapping from our room.  It is a beautiful, idyllic spot with a palm tree lined white sandy beach – truly fantastic!  

In the afternoon we went for a kayak – not good at this lying around even if it only for a day.  The kayak was fun but hard work as the wind had got up.  It all went really well until we had to get into shore – I am sure the bar staff were highly amused when I turned upside down and landed in a pile of seaweed with the kayak on top of me.  Ian assures me he was coming to my rescue but by the time I surfaced I could only see him laughing! 

Excellent evening meal to finish the day.  Up early again tomorrow as we are back on the road. Hopefully our laundry will be ready - it was not cheap at $2 an item but they will have had to work hard to get it clean with the amount of dust and grim covering it all and at least it means we don't have to do any washing for a few days now.

Day 20 – Indian Ocean, The Tides

Supposed to leave by 7 am but the delay getting the Landrover back yesterday from the garage meant that it was just gone 8 am but the time we eventually set off having repacked everything and tried to clean some of the dust out of “Thompson”.  We knew we had a long 7–8 hour journey ahead of us and we had to reach Pangani on the coast in time to catch the ferry across the river - so we were against the clock.  The first part of the journey was painfully slow due to : incessant police checks (including our first out and out request for a bribe “do you have a present for me…” – politely answered as “No !!”) ;  speed bumps and 50 kph signs (we still ignored the cow crossing signs!).  Just as we thought we might make some time up they then decided to remake the road so we ended up stuck on a slow going temporary gravel road for km after km weaving around a traffic jam of lorry’s.  On the bright side the scenery was spectacular – we did managed to get a glimpse of Kilimanjaro for a moment when the clouds lifted.  Ian was quick to point out that we might not have climbed to the top of it but we have managed to get to the bottom of a fair number of Kilimanjaro beers instead! 

We are no longer in the Maasai lands so it was interesting to see the difference in culture – the houses were more brick built but we certainly got a lot fewer waves from the people we passed.  The agriculture also changed from livestock rearing to agriculture and huge sisel plantations.

Eventually made it to Pangani ferry for 4.30 – it was extremely busy but unbelievably efficient and within minutes we had tickets and were boarded.  

We arrived at The Tides Lodge about half an hour later and a well earned cocktail - in total it had taken 9 hours of pretty much non stop driving to get here.

Day 19 - Rivertrees, Arusha

Long journey back to Arusha – we left at 7 am to get back as early as possible so that we could to get the Landrover checked over.  A long 7 hour journey followed and pretty uneventful journey except getting stopped at lots of police check points and advised by a very nice policeman at one checkpoint to get our now very dirty landrover cleaned and then nicked for speeding at another one.  Apparently you are supposed to slow down to 50 kph at warning signs for cows and we were doing 64 kph (40 mph) – as there are cows everywhere we thought this was a little unlikely but paid up anyway.  The guys at Safari Drive said it was a new one on them but anything seems to go at the moment in the run up to the election.
Arrive in Arusha to a flurry of activity - landrover off to the garage to get the diff lock checked out, fridge fixed and temporary radiator hose replaced whilst tent also sent off to also have a few repairs done to it.
After landrover returned and a mad dash by Safari Drive as tent rods still missing - it is now 10pm and hopefully everything now working for the trip south tomorrow as it will be another early start and long drive!