Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) --> Johannesburg (with daytrip to Pretoria) --> Manzini (Swaziland)
After two whole days in Zimbabwe - fear not, I shall return - I was on a bus to Johannesburg. The ride was good but the landscape lacked a little variety. Approaching 5pm we crossed the Limpopo River separating Zimabwe from South Africa although the border crossing was prolonged due to a mechanical hitch with the bus.
What a difference a border makes! Road signs ... directions to cities AND the distances are listed ... traffic lights in abundance ... all night petrol stations ... motorways - without potholes! ... being able to pay for things by card (I can't even remember the last time I made a purchase by card before arriving in South Africa. Israel, maybe.) ... traffic rules which drivers obey ...
However whatever scenery was shrouded by inky black night and so it remained as we zipped past Pretoria and, a mere 50km later, Johannesburg. We arrived at the convenient time of 3am at a bus station which resembled a parking lot, such was the absence of facilities. As we arrived the various passengers fired up their mobile phones and made calls to friends and family and over the course of several hours the bus gradually emptied as people were collected. Not long before 6am it became light enough to leave without getting mugged and, not knowing at all where I was in Johannesburg I did the obvious thing: I went to the police station that I had been told was just around the corner and asked them for directions. Well, first I asked if they knew where I could buy a phone card so I could call my backpackers and arrange a pickup. During the wait for the shops to open I managed to get reception on my Zambia sim card and call anyway. "Where was I?" asked the Voice of the Backpacker's Reception. Johannesburg Central Police Station. "I don't know where that is, you need to go to Park Station. The police will help you." replied the Voice.
Back to the main desk to ask directions; much to my pleasant surprise the police did indeed help me, roping in a couple of trainees to drive me in the back of what appeared to be a paddy wagon down the road to Park Station. They escorted me to the pick-up point too. I ended up having to wait a few hours to be collected - it was free after all - and was only asked for money five times and, again suprising me, a random chap breakfasting with a lady at Wimpy's hamburger restaurant (my pick-up point) offered to buy me breakfast (I declined because I didn't know when I would be collected).
And so I was eventually whisked to the northern suburb of Crystal Gardens, home of Gemini Backpackers and the lawn on which i would camp. My aim was simply to shop, get an updated and more detailed guidebook, try and sort out my computer (still with its cracked screen from Kenya), stuff like that.
I started with a bit of orientation, walking to Wanderers cricket ground just 30 mins away, and then north to Sandton City shopping centre. There was a surprising number of Mercs, BMWs, 4WD and the occasional Porsche - was I in a wealthy area? It turns out, I later discovered, that sandton City is indeed a wealthy area but that you don't have to go far to find the opposite extreme. Soweto (South Western Township) is, as the name suggests, not in north Jo'burg; however the suburb of Alexandra, just 20 minutes walk north of where I was staying was a bona fide slum area (and, I was told, a 'hot spot' - one of those places where you need to be careful).
In addition to shuttling around the different northern suburbs - some of which have come direct from Surrey: Kew, Kempton Park, Kensington - I also took the time to spend a day in the city centre (with an ulterior motive: I wanted to find the bus to Swaziland). Arriving close to Park Station I started walking and, within a minute, bumped into a big group of police one of whom called me over. "It's not safe here," he informs me, which is not untrue as the nearby Joubert Park and suburb of Highbrow both blacklisted by Lonely Planet. So he roped in a couple of plain clothes policemen to accompany me to Park Station and to find the bus to Swaziland. Their job done and with me heading to the relative safe haven of Newtown, they parted and I spent the rest of the day wandering around south central Jo'burg and, quite by pleasant accident, managed to take in a brewery tour.
With shopping finished I decided to bide my time until 1 June before heading to Swaziland - accommodation was cheaper in Johannesburg until that time - and so spent one day in Pretoria.
Pretoria is the Afrikaaner heartland. Johannesburg is huge: the commercial and finacial capital of South Africa and Pretoria is relatively tiny and yet contains all the monuments and vestiges of Afrikaanerdom and apartheid. The central town square, Church Square is very beautiful, surrounded as it is by some grand buildings and, in one corner, a small group of Dutch / Flemish style buildings. Smack in the middle is a statue to Paul Kruger, the South African Republic president, whose refusal to recognise voting rights to white (non-Boer) migrant gold rush workers in the Johannesburg area precipitated the Boer War. On the outskirts of Pretoria is the Voortrekker Monument, which commemorates the Boer migration from the Cape inland to escape British rule and also the Battle of Blood River when the Boers gave a whole lot of Zulus a good hiding. Outside of these few specific areas / monuments there really isn't much to Pretoria: it has the same shops and style as Jo'burg.
Shopping complete and mini-tours done I didn't do any more sightseeing: the reason? Paul, after a six month hiatus which has seen him battle kidney stones and a broken leg, will be rejoining me soon. I need to leave something for us to do later.
lundi 14 juin 2010
Mosi-oa-Tunya
Livingstone (Zambia) --> Victoria Falls --> (via Bulawayo to) Johannesburg (South Africa)
You may have heard of Mosi-oa-Tunya: it's a brand of Zambian beer. It's also local speak for 'smoke that thunders', the name of a big ol' waterfall scribbled onto European maps by some Scottish guy who wandered past here. Victoria Falls is the name of the town too. It's small, tiny even, yet has a quaint relaxed style. It's ideally located a few hundred metres from the waterfall.
The first thing that happens when you get to Victoria Falls is a local kid will approach you and ask if you want to buy some Zimbabwe Dollars. Not to exchange, rather to buy as souvenirs. Before the Zim Dollar tanked the government of the day had gone as far as to print 100 trillion dollar bank notes - that's a 1 with 14 zeroes afterwards. After getting some terrible offers I arranged to meet a banknote seller later if he could rustle up some of these 100 trillion dollar notes ("Oooh, very rare, hard to find," is the common response from the sellers as they try and bump the price up). Except I meet Thomas, tourist policeman. Selling Zim Dollars is illegal according to Thomas as he leads me to his home across the road where he has a shoebox full of Zim Dollar banknotes that he wants to sell. I spend a while picking through them, ranging from 1 Zim Dollar all the way up to 10 trillion, as I pick out what I want to add to my burgening money collection. I grab a huge range in the end for a decent price - Thomas isn't fussy. He also helps me get some 100 trillion notes too: his friend has a purse full of them.
And so, what to do? Yes, there is only one thing to do and on the morrow I walk back to the border, formed by the Zambezi River and, skipping past the raincoats for hire (I brought mine with me), head straight for the ticket booth. $30 for Victoria Falls? I can handle that.
I won't bother rambling about the falls themselves - just look at the pictures, much better. The one point worth making is that the falls are at the highest they've been for a couple of decades thanks to record rainfall in the parts of the Congo which feed the Zambezi River. That's great, in that the constant roar and the mind-boggling volume of water pouring across the falls. The downside, as alluded to, is the spray generated by the falls means that often you are getting water dumped on you. Sometimes it's like drizzle then the wind will change and a heavy shower gets dumped on you. And, if you're as stupid as I was, and walk along the exposed path to the uninvitingly named 'Danger Point', then it's like being in a monsoon. Bottom line, you can spend a long time waiting for the wind to change in order to get that much needed snap. But, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth: during dry season (circa September to November) it's possible to walk across large parts of dry Zambezi riverbed from the Zambia side, on the top of the falls. I can't imagine that Victoria Falls would be quite so breath-taking.
With Victoria Falls dutifully seen and recorded on camera I left with haste to Johannesburg in order to do some shopping. All I had to do was jump on a bus to Bulawayo at 3am and then connect to Johannesburg.
You may have heard of Mosi-oa-Tunya: it's a brand of Zambian beer. It's also local speak for 'smoke that thunders', the name of a big ol' waterfall scribbled onto European maps by some Scottish guy who wandered past here. Victoria Falls is the name of the town too. It's small, tiny even, yet has a quaint relaxed style. It's ideally located a few hundred metres from the waterfall.
The first thing that happens when you get to Victoria Falls is a local kid will approach you and ask if you want to buy some Zimbabwe Dollars. Not to exchange, rather to buy as souvenirs. Before the Zim Dollar tanked the government of the day had gone as far as to print 100 trillion dollar bank notes - that's a 1 with 14 zeroes afterwards. After getting some terrible offers I arranged to meet a banknote seller later if he could rustle up some of these 100 trillion dollar notes ("Oooh, very rare, hard to find," is the common response from the sellers as they try and bump the price up). Except I meet Thomas, tourist policeman. Selling Zim Dollars is illegal according to Thomas as he leads me to his home across the road where he has a shoebox full of Zim Dollar banknotes that he wants to sell. I spend a while picking through them, ranging from 1 Zim Dollar all the way up to 10 trillion, as I pick out what I want to add to my burgening money collection. I grab a huge range in the end for a decent price - Thomas isn't fussy. He also helps me get some 100 trillion notes too: his friend has a purse full of them.
And so, what to do? Yes, there is only one thing to do and on the morrow I walk back to the border, formed by the Zambezi River and, skipping past the raincoats for hire (I brought mine with me), head straight for the ticket booth. $30 for Victoria Falls? I can handle that.
I won't bother rambling about the falls themselves - just look at the pictures, much better. The one point worth making is that the falls are at the highest they've been for a couple of decades thanks to record rainfall in the parts of the Congo which feed the Zambezi River. That's great, in that the constant roar and the mind-boggling volume of water pouring across the falls. The downside, as alluded to, is the spray generated by the falls means that often you are getting water dumped on you. Sometimes it's like drizzle then the wind will change and a heavy shower gets dumped on you. And, if you're as stupid as I was, and walk along the exposed path to the uninvitingly named 'Danger Point', then it's like being in a monsoon. Bottom line, you can spend a long time waiting for the wind to change in order to get that much needed snap. But, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth: during dry season (circa September to November) it's possible to walk across large parts of dry Zambezi riverbed from the Zambia side, on the top of the falls. I can't imagine that Victoria Falls would be quite so breath-taking.
With Victoria Falls dutifully seen and recorded on camera I left with haste to Johannesburg in order to do some shopping. All I had to do was jump on a bus to Bulawayo at 3am and then connect to Johannesburg.
Zambia, because I can't think of anything witty for the title
Mchinji (Malawi) --> Chipata --> Mfuwe (and South Luangwa National Park) --> Chipata again --> Lusaka --> Mpulungu --> Kasama --> Mpika --> Mutinondo Wilderness --> (straight through Lusaka to) Livingstone --> Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe)
The first thing, heck the only thing to note about Zambia is there is actually no real reason to go there. Really, there's not. In fact, on reflection, if Zambia disappeared overnight practically no-one except for the Zambians themselves would really notice. Am I being cruel? Kind of. It is telling that Lonely Planet's Top 5 things to see / do for the entire country includes hunting for out-of-the-way waterfalls in north Zambia and hanging out in resorts beside an artifical lake. Ironically I ended spending nearly a month there. The other downside for the independent traveler is that it is very difficult to reach many of these sights / waterfalls without spending a lot of time and/or money trying to find transport. For example, Lonely Planet notes that Sioma and Ngonye Falls (also on the Zambezi River) in western Zambia is "almost as majestic as Victoria Falls" before noting "it would be a major attraction if it weren't so difficult to reach." Which in some ways is a good thing.
My first stop was in the town of Chipata not to see the town itself but to use it as a base to get to Mfuwe and the South Luangwa National Park. This park is considered by people who know these things to be one of the better parks in southern Africa. It's reasonably priced too at US$25 for entry (cheap as chips compared with the famous parks in Kenya and Tanzania). I stayed in Chipata at Dean's Hilltop Campsite - run by Dean, an ex-pat Pom. After trying a few things such as chicken farming without success he finally built a backpackers with a very pleasing ambience. He also was able to help me get a cheap ride to the wee town of Mfuwe just outside of the SLNP entrance, so well done to him.
The claim to fame for Mfuwe and the various camps and lodges nearby at the park entrance is the need to not walk around outside them. This is because of they are all very close to the Luangwa River, a place where elephants and hippos hang out and using foot power can lead to the very real risk of getting trampled by a large animal. I stayed at the bizarrely named Flatdogs camp and they kindly picked me up.
At Flatdogs - run by ex-pat Poms - I decided to camp not on the ground but on one of the wooden platforms built into the trees by Flatdogs. There was no compelling reason for this aside from the fact that elephants and hippos also happen to wander through the camp from time to time. I choose me platform and tie my tent down, all is good. That night the nightwatchman, armed with a powerful torch, beckons me away from a bottle of Mosi-oa-Tunya beer and shines his light into the bushes. "Hippos," he says. Sure enough there are a couple of hippos eating the grass just out the back of the bar area and otherwise minding their own business. As it turns out they are just harmless one tonne creatures; the nightwatchman says that if he stumbles across one walking around after dark he just chases it away.
I retire for the evening and, after a good night's sleep arise to find my tent surrounded by ants. As in the bottom 50cms all along the front entrance is covered by the silhouettes of ants. As in if I sat there quietly I could hear the distinct hiss caused by the patter of many, many tiny ant legs hitting tent. After a brief recce (sticking my head out the flap) I determined that the entire plarform had been commandeered by the ants and they weren't going to leave me. It turned out, on closer inspection that they had decided to store a whole pile of their eggs under my tent which, considering how smelly my boots were (are), shows definitively that ants don't have a sense of smell. Despite well organised attacks on my lower limbs I untied my tent and moved it to another platform after first kicking off a giant centipede / milipede (seriously, it was about 20cm long) from the branch right next to where I would camp.
I booked my first safari, for the evening game drive and, returning to the tent had a chat to some other guests (a Kiwi and a Pom) who were going to get married in the park the following week. Our conversation ended with them exclaiming that a group of five elephants were recently just standing over there, probably heading to the swamp area behind the camp ground, as they gestured towards my tent. Sure enough there's an elephant standing under a tree close to the one my tent is perched on fanning itself with its ears and keeping cool. "Oh," noted one of the gardeners, "you should stay away until it moves." Little did he know how my tummy was rumbling; thankfully Dumbo soon moved on and I was able to prepare some lunch.
As a wee aside, apparently in late summer when the park's at it driest and the fruit on the trees at its most plentiful there are up to 50 elephants at a time wandering through the camp. Isn't that kind of dangerous? "Not really," says gardener, "as long as you don't surprise them they'll keep to themselves." Basically don't go bursting out of your tent and in return the elephants will pick their way around without trampling you as you camp.
There was, I should note, a self catering facility at Flatdogs. It's a shed with a fridge and camping hotplates and it comes with monkey-proof doors and wire mesh. I was at home and, armed with shopping, cooked my own meals. Even with my food within arm's reach of me on the picnic table I still received advice: don't keep that out, the monkeys will get it. Monkeys? They're no-where to be seen and keep away from people. What could they do?
And so, the following day I did an evening game drive followed by a second the following morning (this is all included in a single park entry which covers 24 hours of access). The night drive was excellent, in large part due to the guides who are selected by rigorous examination to ensure that they know their greater blue breasted starlings from their helmeted guinea fowls. In fact, one of the guides, a young English chap called Ed who had picked up work at Flatdogs (it's all about who you know) was in the midst of taking his guiding exams during my time there. The theory exam is five hours of written work - explaining how do identify and differentiate near identical animals - and if successful followed by a practical exam in which a group of proven guides pile into the safari wagon with the debutant and ask all sorts of tricky questions over a period of about 90 minutes.
We saw the usual, lots of antelope (impala and puku) and zebra and just as I was completely not paying attention as I was fiddling with my camera the old Australian chap beside me spotted a leopard. It took a while to sight it because its sleek frame rises to just above the height of the grass. It appears that we had interrupted a potential hunting opportunity and the leopard sullenly slinked away as only cats can. Looking through binoculars the leopard crawled halfway up a distant tree before casting an accusing look back in our direction ... and then he / she / it was gone.
Of course you always think of safaris and game drives as a group of tourists driving past prides of lions, vast herds of wildebeest and so on. The reality is that often you see nothing by trees and grass punctuated by finding herds of animals all hanging out together. For example baboons and impala are often mingling because their different warning systems complement each other (impala braying when they smell danger, baboons whooping from the treetops when they see something). Zebra are just antisocial and don't bother mixing with other animals and can't even be arsed migrating; they have tough stomachs and eat whatever grass they find no matter how crunchy it gets. Lions are obviously trying hard not to be seen, during hunting time at least (sunrise and sunset),and unfortunately for me there hadn't been any lions seen in the game drive area for several days before I arrived. The other thing that you see a lot of (at least in this park) which is not in the travel brochures are birds. Lots of them. In fact we saw more birds than anything else: storks, geese, little things scuttling around on the ground. The African fish eagle (Zambia's national bird and one which I had a good hard look at through binoculars, what a beast!).
About half way through the evening game drive night falls with a thump and the guide whips out a massive, high powered torch. And then the wait begins. Obviously you can't see a thing except what the torch highlights so it comes down to a sloooow drive with sweeps of the light. This was punctuated with stops to listen for animal action: warning cries, shrieks, stuff like that which can lead the guide to some more animal action. One of the main things with a using a torch is that you see a lot of animals' eyes (crocodiles' eyes' reflections are red for some reason) and the torch man has to be careful not to hold the torch on the animals' eyes for too long. Otherwise whilst they're still re-adjusting to the dark they may get eaten. We did see more animals: a genet, which is kind of like a mongoose, some night-hunting birds and a trail of ants heading off to do in some termites (they all gate-crash a termite mound, grab a termite each and then take it back to their nest to have a feast).
Waking to an ant-free morning I started the day with a pre-morning-game-drive breakfast and we got into the safari action again. The ride was pretty much like the evening drive but entire in the light (we started after sunrise) and again birds accounted for most of the animals seen, along with a sizeable herd of Cape buffalo. We - or rather our eagle eyed guide - did find evidence of both lions and hyenas as they carelessly left their footprints on the dirt track overnight.
And so, with my safari experience in Zambia over I settled down to a day of relaxation. One lunchtime, as I prepared my food in the monkey-proof self-catering area I was watching the hotplates when I heard a plastic cup fall over. A bit of wind, so what. A few minutes later, looking at my plate on which I had placed some buttered slices of bread I noticed that I was short one slice. I had foolishly left the door to the sinks and washing up area undone and a monkey had pilfered one of my slices from literally behind my back. Surprise! Just outside there were a troop of vervet monkeys sitting in the nearby trees looking innocent (the guilty party presumably eloped to eat in quiet). I left that evening in the overnight minivan back to Chipata arriving back at Dean's Hilltop Campsite as dawn broke.
Lusaka next. Why? Because it's there and because to get to anywhere else in Zambia I would have to pass through it. Lusaka is an amazingly dull town. Think Lilongwe but with fewer trees. And fewer shopping centres. I have indeed given Lusaka the crown of dullest city that I've ever encountered, a title which Dar Es Salaam gladly handed over after a short period in the spotlight. I stay at Chachacha's, run by Wade an ex-pat Pom.
Zambia's capital is not dull when it comes to politics and I heard several stories about the indefatigable Rupiah Banda, president of Zambia. The first, heard in Malawi from a traveler who had been through Zambia, is that Zambia bought its president a presidential jet (at the behest of Rupiah himself? I don't know.) and in doing so used up so much of its dollar reserves that there were fuel shortages for several months afterwards as Zambia couldn't afford to pay for its petrol imports. Is it true? Still dunno but it sure is believeable because it's just such an Africa thing to do. The other story I heard first hand from some Swedish economics students who were in Zambia doing a survey of government perceptions of government corruption (if that makes sense) as part of their university degree. They were trying to measure corruption but because no-one but a fool would admit to corruption they instead asked different government departments to complete a questionnaire which rated other government departments for levels of corruption. They'd had mixed success: some departments willingly participated, others stonewalled. Where they were stonewalled they had to seek the permission of a senior manager to go back to the departmental staff to complete the questionnaire. Except the senior managers weren't always able to meet them at the agreed time, sometimes delayed by hours. Why? Because every time Rupiah held a press conference the entire middle and upper ranking civil service would stop and watch the press conference broadcast to see if they would still be employed after the press conference. A few weeks earlier Rupiah had fired the entire military top brass at a press conference without prior warning so backs were up.
All the sights in Zambia are in fact concentrated in the south east of the country close to the borders with Malawi and Zimbabwe. As I didn't want to just zip through Zambia in a week, and to do my visit there justice, I next went north to the lakeside town of Mpulungu on Lake Tangynika. it's a very small town but the location does it justice. After a night in the local hotel I met Hannah and Ben (who had also come from Lusaka); they introduced me to Nkupi Lodge with its reasonably priced camping. I also met an English chap here called Graham who's been traveling for five years (he got a redundancy package then sold his apartment in London and is living off the interest).
Graham, Hannah and Ben were all waiting for the MV Liemba, an ex-German warship cum ferry, which runs up and down Lake Tanganyika from Zambia via Tanzania to Burundi. Except it didn't come on Friday as it should have done. Apparently it had taken the week off. Next week it was going to help in the repatriation of Congolese refugees and so was not going to resume normal service for another two weeks. Graham wasn't in a hurry but Hannah and Ben were so tracked down a truck heading direct to Tanzania; only a two hour journey they were told, it leaves at 8am tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and they board their truck (open air, so it would be tough under that sun) and find that actually the ride will be 8 hours. The truck sits there a while then eventually starts rolling - goodbyes are waved and off they go ... about 50m further and to the other side of the road where the truck stops to pick up more people. After a couple of false starts, including moving backwards, they finally get going and, as the truck disappears into the distance, Graham asks: "is that oil on the road?" Tragically, at the first road hump, the truck developed an oil leak which trailed the truck down the road and around the first corner where it had come to a stop. Last we saw Hannah and Ben they were heading to a mechanic on the back of the truck to get it serviced ... on Labour Day.
Nkupi Lodge was also interesting in no small part due to its owner, Danesh, an Indian from Zimbabwe and with a decent English schools accent (a clue: perhaps he's really a Pom). He's been running the lodge there for a good few decades and had the pleasure of meeting Michael Palin as he did his Pole To Pole journey in the early '90s. They met because Palin and his crew and assorted groupies stayed at Danesh's lodge. Palin himself was a wit, notes Danesh, getting asked lots of cheeky questions and always having a witty comeback ready. He also had a film crew, a case of wine, a case of cooking ingredients (mainly spices and sauces) and was accompanied by Kenya's top safari operator who was repatriated to Kenya on a chartered flight paid for by the Pole To Pole production company. Palin could afford to be so reckless because he was in turn met by Zambia's top safari operator (from Flatdogs, no less) who accompanied him and his enterage to South Africa. Danesh even had the Pole To Pole book to hand and Palin's except on Mpulungu focuses heavily on a bout of diarrhoea which afflicted him, keeping him up all night, and a traditional medicine ceremony that he saw whilst zooming around in a 4x4 with his safari operator.
I did consider going to Kalambo Falls, the second highest single-drop waterfall in Africa (and about the 12th highest in the world),about 40km away towards Tanzania, right on the border. However, there was no way to get there on public transport by road. I could have gone by lake and stayed at a lakeside lodge but then the costs of visiting the waterfall racked up: I'd need to hire a boat and guide to take me to the next bay and then up the path for several hours (apparently this guide is essential as the path is hard to find). The killer though, is the $15 entrance fee, which was increased from $3, overnight, just a few weeks before I arrived. I spoke to a local lodge operater - an ex-pat Pom - who stopped at Nkupi for a meeting and after she complained to the director of tourism about the sudden increase (she was taking in pre-booked, pre-paid guests who had already paid $3 over a year ago when she was first hit with this price rise) he apparently suggested that if people could pay 20 euros to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, they could surely pay $15 to see this waterfall. A good try on his part, if thoroughly disingenuous, except this fee applies to all waterfalls in Zambia (except Vic Falls: that went from $10 to $20) and the next day some American volunteers arrived on their way to a lakeside lodge. Yes, they had had to pay $15 each to go and jump off a 3m high waterfall somewhere in the boondocks near to where they do their volunteer work. Stupidly, they actually paid so perhaps the director of tourism is actually onto a winning idea.
However, a possibility that I hadn't considered was suggested: a visit to the Mutinondo Wilderness. I hadn't really considered a stop because the entry in Lonely Planet had left me with the impression that it was too pricey. A good chance to see more of northern Zambia is not to be missed. The catch: the camp is 25km off the main road about 60km south of the nearest town, Mpika. I thought about it and hatched an elaborate plan. First a stop in Kasama, which has decent shops, to stock up on food to take to the campsite. Then to Mpika where I would leave most of my stuff and, traveling light, hitch to the turn-off and walk to the camp. Best laid plans and all that. First I got into a truck going the wrong way - I didn't know - but the driver was far too focussed on getting some pocket money and happily 'yes, yes' took me towards Tanzania despite me asking 'yes, yes' if he was going the other way. Eventually I find out the problem and a local to confirm this and turn back (no pocket money for the driver either). The ride back was in the back of a pick-up with locals. I had the misfortune to be there when the pickup ran over a rodent that had chanced its arm crossing the road, timing its run to coincide with the only vehicle for miles around. The rodent was flattened and a young man shouted out to the driver: the car stops. The same young man runs back 30m and collects the rodent and shows it to the lady next to me who decides to keep it. She drops it in the pick-up's tray beside her, later putting it into her shopping bag when the pick-up fills up.
Now back at Mpika, I stay overnight again and early the next morning at about 4am get my first episode of diarrhoea for a while and spend all morning and early afternoon running to the toilet. Things calm down that afternoon and after a day of rest I'm ready again to find this wilderness and know which direction to go in.
The journey starts well, I get a ride within 30 minutes and the driver is easygoing and friendly. I get dropped at the turnoff and start my 25km trek. The diarrhoea episode must have taken more out of me than expected (an unintended, terrible pun) and after 7 hours of hard slog I hobble into the camp - run by ex-pat Poms ... why are all these camps in Zambia run by ex-pat Poms? - with a monster blister on my left heel. It was worth the effort though: the scenery was superb, the camp pleasingly isolated. As an added bonus I got to cook my baked beans and rice with fire on the outdoor BBQ. The only thing to do at Mutinondo Wilderness is to enjoy the wilderness with walks through the countryside. I basically had the place to myself as the few other guests all had 4X4s and seemed to prefer relaxation after the hard drive in. The place was fantastic and well worth the visit. All I had to do was walk another 25km back to the main road (with a sore blister on my heel) and was quite pleased when a bus to Mpika came past a few minutes after I hobbled to the layby.
I was able to catch the overnight bus back to Lusaka and then a morning bus direct to Livingstone, named after that Scottish guy who died of the unpleasant sounding black water fever in northern Zambia. Locals cut out his heart and buried it under a tree (since died / killed) and his body repatriated to, I believe, Westminster Abbey. As my left ankle had now swelled to the size of a small orange (although it would deflate to nothing overnight only to swell up again during the day) I used my time in Livingstone for R&R. You won't find any photos of Livingstone in my albums: it's really not that special.
And so, after a few days and with my ankle back to normal I went to see Victoria Falls, but from a different country as the view's supposed to be better there.
The first thing, heck the only thing to note about Zambia is there is actually no real reason to go there. Really, there's not. In fact, on reflection, if Zambia disappeared overnight practically no-one except for the Zambians themselves would really notice. Am I being cruel? Kind of. It is telling that Lonely Planet's Top 5 things to see / do for the entire country includes hunting for out-of-the-way waterfalls in north Zambia and hanging out in resorts beside an artifical lake. Ironically I ended spending nearly a month there. The other downside for the independent traveler is that it is very difficult to reach many of these sights / waterfalls without spending a lot of time and/or money trying to find transport. For example, Lonely Planet notes that Sioma and Ngonye Falls (also on the Zambezi River) in western Zambia is "almost as majestic as Victoria Falls" before noting "it would be a major attraction if it weren't so difficult to reach." Which in some ways is a good thing.
My first stop was in the town of Chipata not to see the town itself but to use it as a base to get to Mfuwe and the South Luangwa National Park. This park is considered by people who know these things to be one of the better parks in southern Africa. It's reasonably priced too at US$25 for entry (cheap as chips compared with the famous parks in Kenya and Tanzania). I stayed in Chipata at Dean's Hilltop Campsite - run by Dean, an ex-pat Pom. After trying a few things such as chicken farming without success he finally built a backpackers with a very pleasing ambience. He also was able to help me get a cheap ride to the wee town of Mfuwe just outside of the SLNP entrance, so well done to him.
The claim to fame for Mfuwe and the various camps and lodges nearby at the park entrance is the need to not walk around outside them. This is because of they are all very close to the Luangwa River, a place where elephants and hippos hang out and using foot power can lead to the very real risk of getting trampled by a large animal. I stayed at the bizarrely named Flatdogs camp and they kindly picked me up.
At Flatdogs - run by ex-pat Poms - I decided to camp not on the ground but on one of the wooden platforms built into the trees by Flatdogs. There was no compelling reason for this aside from the fact that elephants and hippos also happen to wander through the camp from time to time. I choose me platform and tie my tent down, all is good. That night the nightwatchman, armed with a powerful torch, beckons me away from a bottle of Mosi-oa-Tunya beer and shines his light into the bushes. "Hippos," he says. Sure enough there are a couple of hippos eating the grass just out the back of the bar area and otherwise minding their own business. As it turns out they are just harmless one tonne creatures; the nightwatchman says that if he stumbles across one walking around after dark he just chases it away.
I retire for the evening and, after a good night's sleep arise to find my tent surrounded by ants. As in the bottom 50cms all along the front entrance is covered by the silhouettes of ants. As in if I sat there quietly I could hear the distinct hiss caused by the patter of many, many tiny ant legs hitting tent. After a brief recce (sticking my head out the flap) I determined that the entire plarform had been commandeered by the ants and they weren't going to leave me. It turned out, on closer inspection that they had decided to store a whole pile of their eggs under my tent which, considering how smelly my boots were (are), shows definitively that ants don't have a sense of smell. Despite well organised attacks on my lower limbs I untied my tent and moved it to another platform after first kicking off a giant centipede / milipede (seriously, it was about 20cm long) from the branch right next to where I would camp.
I booked my first safari, for the evening game drive and, returning to the tent had a chat to some other guests (a Kiwi and a Pom) who were going to get married in the park the following week. Our conversation ended with them exclaiming that a group of five elephants were recently just standing over there, probably heading to the swamp area behind the camp ground, as they gestured towards my tent. Sure enough there's an elephant standing under a tree close to the one my tent is perched on fanning itself with its ears and keeping cool. "Oh," noted one of the gardeners, "you should stay away until it moves." Little did he know how my tummy was rumbling; thankfully Dumbo soon moved on and I was able to prepare some lunch.
As a wee aside, apparently in late summer when the park's at it driest and the fruit on the trees at its most plentiful there are up to 50 elephants at a time wandering through the camp. Isn't that kind of dangerous? "Not really," says gardener, "as long as you don't surprise them they'll keep to themselves." Basically don't go bursting out of your tent and in return the elephants will pick their way around without trampling you as you camp.
There was, I should note, a self catering facility at Flatdogs. It's a shed with a fridge and camping hotplates and it comes with monkey-proof doors and wire mesh. I was at home and, armed with shopping, cooked my own meals. Even with my food within arm's reach of me on the picnic table I still received advice: don't keep that out, the monkeys will get it. Monkeys? They're no-where to be seen and keep away from people. What could they do?
And so, the following day I did an evening game drive followed by a second the following morning (this is all included in a single park entry which covers 24 hours of access). The night drive was excellent, in large part due to the guides who are selected by rigorous examination to ensure that they know their greater blue breasted starlings from their helmeted guinea fowls. In fact, one of the guides, a young English chap called Ed who had picked up work at Flatdogs (it's all about who you know) was in the midst of taking his guiding exams during my time there. The theory exam is five hours of written work - explaining how do identify and differentiate near identical animals - and if successful followed by a practical exam in which a group of proven guides pile into the safari wagon with the debutant and ask all sorts of tricky questions over a period of about 90 minutes.
We saw the usual, lots of antelope (impala and puku) and zebra and just as I was completely not paying attention as I was fiddling with my camera the old Australian chap beside me spotted a leopard. It took a while to sight it because its sleek frame rises to just above the height of the grass. It appears that we had interrupted a potential hunting opportunity and the leopard sullenly slinked away as only cats can. Looking through binoculars the leopard crawled halfway up a distant tree before casting an accusing look back in our direction ... and then he / she / it was gone.
Of course you always think of safaris and game drives as a group of tourists driving past prides of lions, vast herds of wildebeest and so on. The reality is that often you see nothing by trees and grass punctuated by finding herds of animals all hanging out together. For example baboons and impala are often mingling because their different warning systems complement each other (impala braying when they smell danger, baboons whooping from the treetops when they see something). Zebra are just antisocial and don't bother mixing with other animals and can't even be arsed migrating; they have tough stomachs and eat whatever grass they find no matter how crunchy it gets. Lions are obviously trying hard not to be seen, during hunting time at least (sunrise and sunset),and unfortunately for me there hadn't been any lions seen in the game drive area for several days before I arrived. The other thing that you see a lot of (at least in this park) which is not in the travel brochures are birds. Lots of them. In fact we saw more birds than anything else: storks, geese, little things scuttling around on the ground. The African fish eagle (Zambia's national bird and one which I had a good hard look at through binoculars, what a beast!).
About half way through the evening game drive night falls with a thump and the guide whips out a massive, high powered torch. And then the wait begins. Obviously you can't see a thing except what the torch highlights so it comes down to a sloooow drive with sweeps of the light. This was punctuated with stops to listen for animal action: warning cries, shrieks, stuff like that which can lead the guide to some more animal action. One of the main things with a using a torch is that you see a lot of animals' eyes (crocodiles' eyes' reflections are red for some reason) and the torch man has to be careful not to hold the torch on the animals' eyes for too long. Otherwise whilst they're still re-adjusting to the dark they may get eaten. We did see more animals: a genet, which is kind of like a mongoose, some night-hunting birds and a trail of ants heading off to do in some termites (they all gate-crash a termite mound, grab a termite each and then take it back to their nest to have a feast).
Waking to an ant-free morning I started the day with a pre-morning-game-drive breakfast and we got into the safari action again. The ride was pretty much like the evening drive but entire in the light (we started after sunrise) and again birds accounted for most of the animals seen, along with a sizeable herd of Cape buffalo. We - or rather our eagle eyed guide - did find evidence of both lions and hyenas as they carelessly left their footprints on the dirt track overnight.
And so, with my safari experience in Zambia over I settled down to a day of relaxation. One lunchtime, as I prepared my food in the monkey-proof self-catering area I was watching the hotplates when I heard a plastic cup fall over. A bit of wind, so what. A few minutes later, looking at my plate on which I had placed some buttered slices of bread I noticed that I was short one slice. I had foolishly left the door to the sinks and washing up area undone and a monkey had pilfered one of my slices from literally behind my back. Surprise! Just outside there were a troop of vervet monkeys sitting in the nearby trees looking innocent (the guilty party presumably eloped to eat in quiet). I left that evening in the overnight minivan back to Chipata arriving back at Dean's Hilltop Campsite as dawn broke.
Lusaka next. Why? Because it's there and because to get to anywhere else in Zambia I would have to pass through it. Lusaka is an amazingly dull town. Think Lilongwe but with fewer trees. And fewer shopping centres. I have indeed given Lusaka the crown of dullest city that I've ever encountered, a title which Dar Es Salaam gladly handed over after a short period in the spotlight. I stay at Chachacha's, run by Wade an ex-pat Pom.
Zambia's capital is not dull when it comes to politics and I heard several stories about the indefatigable Rupiah Banda, president of Zambia. The first, heard in Malawi from a traveler who had been through Zambia, is that Zambia bought its president a presidential jet (at the behest of Rupiah himself? I don't know.) and in doing so used up so much of its dollar reserves that there were fuel shortages for several months afterwards as Zambia couldn't afford to pay for its petrol imports. Is it true? Still dunno but it sure is believeable because it's just such an Africa thing to do. The other story I heard first hand from some Swedish economics students who were in Zambia doing a survey of government perceptions of government corruption (if that makes sense) as part of their university degree. They were trying to measure corruption but because no-one but a fool would admit to corruption they instead asked different government departments to complete a questionnaire which rated other government departments for levels of corruption. They'd had mixed success: some departments willingly participated, others stonewalled. Where they were stonewalled they had to seek the permission of a senior manager to go back to the departmental staff to complete the questionnaire. Except the senior managers weren't always able to meet them at the agreed time, sometimes delayed by hours. Why? Because every time Rupiah held a press conference the entire middle and upper ranking civil service would stop and watch the press conference broadcast to see if they would still be employed after the press conference. A few weeks earlier Rupiah had fired the entire military top brass at a press conference without prior warning so backs were up.
All the sights in Zambia are in fact concentrated in the south east of the country close to the borders with Malawi and Zimbabwe. As I didn't want to just zip through Zambia in a week, and to do my visit there justice, I next went north to the lakeside town of Mpulungu on Lake Tangynika. it's a very small town but the location does it justice. After a night in the local hotel I met Hannah and Ben (who had also come from Lusaka); they introduced me to Nkupi Lodge with its reasonably priced camping. I also met an English chap here called Graham who's been traveling for five years (he got a redundancy package then sold his apartment in London and is living off the interest).
Graham, Hannah and Ben were all waiting for the MV Liemba, an ex-German warship cum ferry, which runs up and down Lake Tanganyika from Zambia via Tanzania to Burundi. Except it didn't come on Friday as it should have done. Apparently it had taken the week off. Next week it was going to help in the repatriation of Congolese refugees and so was not going to resume normal service for another two weeks. Graham wasn't in a hurry but Hannah and Ben were so tracked down a truck heading direct to Tanzania; only a two hour journey they were told, it leaves at 8am tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and they board their truck (open air, so it would be tough under that sun) and find that actually the ride will be 8 hours. The truck sits there a while then eventually starts rolling - goodbyes are waved and off they go ... about 50m further and to the other side of the road where the truck stops to pick up more people. After a couple of false starts, including moving backwards, they finally get going and, as the truck disappears into the distance, Graham asks: "is that oil on the road?" Tragically, at the first road hump, the truck developed an oil leak which trailed the truck down the road and around the first corner where it had come to a stop. Last we saw Hannah and Ben they were heading to a mechanic on the back of the truck to get it serviced ... on Labour Day.
Nkupi Lodge was also interesting in no small part due to its owner, Danesh, an Indian from Zimbabwe and with a decent English schools accent (a clue: perhaps he's really a Pom). He's been running the lodge there for a good few decades and had the pleasure of meeting Michael Palin as he did his Pole To Pole journey in the early '90s. They met because Palin and his crew and assorted groupies stayed at Danesh's lodge. Palin himself was a wit, notes Danesh, getting asked lots of cheeky questions and always having a witty comeback ready. He also had a film crew, a case of wine, a case of cooking ingredients (mainly spices and sauces) and was accompanied by Kenya's top safari operator who was repatriated to Kenya on a chartered flight paid for by the Pole To Pole production company. Palin could afford to be so reckless because he was in turn met by Zambia's top safari operator (from Flatdogs, no less) who accompanied him and his enterage to South Africa. Danesh even had the Pole To Pole book to hand and Palin's except on Mpulungu focuses heavily on a bout of diarrhoea which afflicted him, keeping him up all night, and a traditional medicine ceremony that he saw whilst zooming around in a 4x4 with his safari operator.
I did consider going to Kalambo Falls, the second highest single-drop waterfall in Africa (and about the 12th highest in the world),about 40km away towards Tanzania, right on the border. However, there was no way to get there on public transport by road. I could have gone by lake and stayed at a lakeside lodge but then the costs of visiting the waterfall racked up: I'd need to hire a boat and guide to take me to the next bay and then up the path for several hours (apparently this guide is essential as the path is hard to find). The killer though, is the $15 entrance fee, which was increased from $3, overnight, just a few weeks before I arrived. I spoke to a local lodge operater - an ex-pat Pom - who stopped at Nkupi for a meeting and after she complained to the director of tourism about the sudden increase (she was taking in pre-booked, pre-paid guests who had already paid $3 over a year ago when she was first hit with this price rise) he apparently suggested that if people could pay 20 euros to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, they could surely pay $15 to see this waterfall. A good try on his part, if thoroughly disingenuous, except this fee applies to all waterfalls in Zambia (except Vic Falls: that went from $10 to $20) and the next day some American volunteers arrived on their way to a lakeside lodge. Yes, they had had to pay $15 each to go and jump off a 3m high waterfall somewhere in the boondocks near to where they do their volunteer work. Stupidly, they actually paid so perhaps the director of tourism is actually onto a winning idea.
However, a possibility that I hadn't considered was suggested: a visit to the Mutinondo Wilderness. I hadn't really considered a stop because the entry in Lonely Planet had left me with the impression that it was too pricey. A good chance to see more of northern Zambia is not to be missed. The catch: the camp is 25km off the main road about 60km south of the nearest town, Mpika. I thought about it and hatched an elaborate plan. First a stop in Kasama, which has decent shops, to stock up on food to take to the campsite. Then to Mpika where I would leave most of my stuff and, traveling light, hitch to the turn-off and walk to the camp. Best laid plans and all that. First I got into a truck going the wrong way - I didn't know - but the driver was far too focussed on getting some pocket money and happily 'yes, yes' took me towards Tanzania despite me asking 'yes, yes' if he was going the other way. Eventually I find out the problem and a local to confirm this and turn back (no pocket money for the driver either). The ride back was in the back of a pick-up with locals. I had the misfortune to be there when the pickup ran over a rodent that had chanced its arm crossing the road, timing its run to coincide with the only vehicle for miles around. The rodent was flattened and a young man shouted out to the driver: the car stops. The same young man runs back 30m and collects the rodent and shows it to the lady next to me who decides to keep it. She drops it in the pick-up's tray beside her, later putting it into her shopping bag when the pick-up fills up.
Now back at Mpika, I stay overnight again and early the next morning at about 4am get my first episode of diarrhoea for a while and spend all morning and early afternoon running to the toilet. Things calm down that afternoon and after a day of rest I'm ready again to find this wilderness and know which direction to go in.
The journey starts well, I get a ride within 30 minutes and the driver is easygoing and friendly. I get dropped at the turnoff and start my 25km trek. The diarrhoea episode must have taken more out of me than expected (an unintended, terrible pun) and after 7 hours of hard slog I hobble into the camp - run by ex-pat Poms ... why are all these camps in Zambia run by ex-pat Poms? - with a monster blister on my left heel. It was worth the effort though: the scenery was superb, the camp pleasingly isolated. As an added bonus I got to cook my baked beans and rice with fire on the outdoor BBQ. The only thing to do at Mutinondo Wilderness is to enjoy the wilderness with walks through the countryside. I basically had the place to myself as the few other guests all had 4X4s and seemed to prefer relaxation after the hard drive in. The place was fantastic and well worth the visit. All I had to do was walk another 25km back to the main road (with a sore blister on my heel) and was quite pleased when a bus to Mpika came past a few minutes after I hobbled to the layby.
I was able to catch the overnight bus back to Lusaka and then a morning bus direct to Livingstone, named after that Scottish guy who died of the unpleasant sounding black water fever in northern Zambia. Locals cut out his heart and buried it under a tree (since died / killed) and his body repatriated to, I believe, Westminster Abbey. As my left ankle had now swelled to the size of a small orange (although it would deflate to nothing overnight only to swell up again during the day) I used my time in Livingstone for R&R. You won't find any photos of Livingstone in my albums: it's really not that special.
And so, after a few days and with my ankle back to normal I went to see Victoria Falls, but from a different country as the view's supposed to be better there.
The Warm Heart Of Africa
Mbeya (Tanzania) --> Karonga --> Chitimba (with daytrip to Livingstonia) --> Nkhata Bay --> Chizumulu Island --> Likoma Island --> Nkhata Bay --> Lilongwe --> Blantyre --> Zomba --> Zomba Plateau --> (skipping through Lilongwe to the border town of) Mchinji --> Chipata (Zambia)
My stay in Malawi started in one of those towns that exists for no apparent reason. I later found out that it does exist for a reason: it's near to a mine (and mining company), apparently in an area where uranium is dug up. People go there to go to the mine (and the mining company), not to see the town. Still, not much to do there, right? Surprisingly wrong.
After first finding a suitably budget hotel I was relaxing in a local cafe waiting for their internet connection to start working when, lo, a foreign man walks in. I've seen him before - just a glimpe on the roadside - in Mbeya, Tanzania. He was Karim, and Egypto-Swede from Malmo and quite a friendly chap. We got talking; he was looking for a budget hotel. I knew of one (where I'd just checked in). We then had all day to find something to do.
As it turns out, Karonga has a museum. Quite a small one yet one containing a malawisaurus, a local mini version of a brontosaurus-type creature. Apparently, says the wee labels, northern Malawi is a great place to find fossils (something to do with lots of Rift Valley sediment washing over the area) and malawisaurus is proof of this. Like a lot of Malawi, Karonga is also close to Lake Malawi (aka Lake Nyasa, found in Nyasaland, for those still in colonial mode). It's a beautiful lake and very warm, ideal for swimming. So Karim and I had enough to fill our plates and keep us going for the rest of the day.
We planned to head south the next day to another town on the lake, Chitimba, and spend some time there. We got off to a very good start when we walked straight out of our guesthouse, opposite the bus station, and straight onto a bus which was leaving the bus station via our destination. The one minor shock about traveling in Malawi - loudly hailed as a backpackers' paradise - is the cost of transport. This has a lot to do with the cost of petrol, which hovers at somewhere around US$1.70 per litre. This is expensive, even for Africa. Petrol isn't cheap as you might expect (often $1 to $1.25 per litre in east Africa) but Malawi's petrol prices are eye-brow raising. Apparently the current price was arrived at following an 18% overnight hike in prices too which must have shocked the locals a bit when they got on the bus the next day. This also means that all foods which aren't locally produced (ie nearly anything in a tin or bottle, which inevitably comes from South Africa) is also steeply priced. Baked beans anyone? A can of Heinz will set you back at least $2 (although cheaper local brands exist). Anyhow, I degress. Off we go to Chitimba.
The most striking thing about Chitimba is that we nearly missed it by blinking. Having passed a few little villages and hamlets down the lake shore we stopped at a small collection of huts and shops. Karim, having chatted to some locals, turns and informs me that this is indeed where we had planned to get off (and do we still want to get off here, it's soooo small). I'm surprised - Chitimba got a dot and a place name on a number of maps and reaching a snap decision before the bus leaves we jump off. There's a local hotel - just the one - and a couple of camp sites. The camp site, which clearly caters to the sort of people who cycle the Tour d'Afrique and who were steadily filling the place up as the rolled into town, was more expensive than the local hotel, just to camp there. Karim then negotiated a 30% discount at the hotel anyway (it's the Egyptian in him, surely) and we had a place to stay. And, as it turns out, it was a very pleasant place to stay and we ended up there for about four days. The main attraction was the lake - conveniently located 100m away - and the sloth-paced lifestyle.
A routine quickly developed: wake up at whatever time suits, head over the road for some banana pancakes for breakfast, find something to do (swimming, walking) until late afternoon and then tucking into a dinner washed down with reasonably priced local brew. That was a winning routine and one which we happily kept up.
One significant departure from this routine - in exertion, not in activity - was a walk we did to Livingstonia. As the name suggests a Scotsman passed through this area at one time (and is apparently still revered). Livingstonia is a mere 16km from Chitimba but on a plateau up a massive hill. After a banana pancake start to the day we did just this walk and hard work it was. Ironically the hardest part was the start because even at 8am the heat was sapping although further up the hill there was plenty of shade over the steeper parts. It was hard work but ultimately very rewarding. And Livingstonia? It's even smaller than Chitimba but made up of a small, hodge podge collection of turn-of-the-century red brick colonial buildings. It had a small town beauty, a technical college, hospital and a museum. And beside the museum a restaurant we we tucked into a decent meal before the descent. The descent inevitably followed the same route although this time we stopped off to see a waterfall - all 115m of it. Great stuff but I'm not keen on standing on top of a 115m waterfall with no barrier between me and the edge (yes, I'm a coward when it comes to heights).
Nkhata Bay, next on the list, is one of the premier backpacking spots in Malawi. One of the main features of Nkhata Bay is that it is the embarking point for the ferry ride to the islands of Chizumulu and Likoma in Lake Malawi. Although these islands are well to the west of the lake - well inside the dotted line marking the Mozambique border running down the middle of the lake, they are still Malawi's. Consequently, a lot of people heading to these islands congregate at Nkhata Bay which coincidentally has loads of campsites next to crystal clear waters. Upon arriving it turned out that the waters were not quite crystal clear - the lakeside waters were muddy for the first 100m out due to heavy rainfall washing into the lake - and I was informed that there was "crocodile activity" in the area. A crocodile had been observed swimming into the reeds juuuuust across from the campsite three weeks ago to the day of our arrival. Another had been seen more recently splashing around on the other side of the harbour. "Don't worry," said the owner, "they don't attack people unless you step on them." Which, considering the muddy water, did a lot to dissuade me from swimming. I did splash around in waist deep water a couple of times but it just wasn't the same.
A few days later the MV Ilala, a 50-year-old ex-Scottish ex-steamer which used to take people on the Firth of Forth, arrived at Nkhata Bay. Armed with tickets we boarded in the late afternoon and headed for the foredecks, home of the economy class. Economy class is also where the cargo is stored (there isn't a hold) although the gangways also double for the storage of considerable amounts of luggage including piles of sugarcane stalks stashed on the floor. Karim and I found that the cargo was incredibly comfortable and made for a good recliner. The trip was fine although a little slow - 50-year-old ships don't go fast, even with diesel engines - although the main discomfort comes from the anti-social timetable. The Ilala leaves Nkhata Bay at around 6pm and arrives at its first stop to the south, Chizumulu Island, at about 3am. Chizumulu Island has a few hundred inhabitants and consequently no-one's bothered with things like, say, a wharf for the Ilala to stop at. Instead they lower one of the lifeboats and fill it up with passengers, their luggage and cargo and drive it (with outboard motor power) to the beach. The passengers then take their possessions and carry out a mini beach landing. Everyone who wants to get off gets off and then they start loading the passengers from the beach. The whole routine can take some time and it isn't helped by the pitch black illuminated by minimal torch light.
However, quite by good judgement I expect, the campsite on Chizumulu is about a 1 minute walk from the landing site and easy to find. Karim and I, along with a few others we met at Nkhata Bay, were joined by about 20 German volunteers which delighted the camp owner (Nick, from England) no end: combined we were the second largest group of tourists to arrive during his camp's existence. The Germans, and prettymuch everyone else for that matter, by stint of numbers not stereotype, drank Nick's bar dry over a few days which isn't as hard as it sounds as it's near impossible for Nick to get replacement drinks. It also helped a lot that Nick encouraged people to stay up 'til dawn and have a few nightcaps rather than retire to bed and actually have to pay for a night's accommodation. The German volunteers were in some ways quite lucky. Apparently now in modern Germany instead of doing a national (ie military service) service it is now possible to select to do social service instead - same deal, giving your time etc but for social causes rather than for defense against the red peril - which includes the possibility of doing such a service overseas. Why aren't I German?
Indeed Nick's place, Wakwenda Retreat, was a delightful place but had the catch of having to pay tourist prices for food. Was there an alternative? Oh yes, the was. There was a run-down ramshackle shed at the end of the beach, just past Nick's property which happened to be a restaurant. For a very reasonable price - similar to the mainland - they would serve a monstrous portion of vege and rice. They started catering for two - Karim and me - and by the third night were catering for a large group of Germans, a handful of Israelis and a smattering of others. But what about breakfast? Well, the locals have little else to to but fish, which they do at night by torchlight creating the photogenic but difficult-to-photograph spectacle of strings of torches stretching across the lake. This also means that fish are for sale and for $0.70 per fish I was able to pick up a freshly caught and gutted, cleaned fish to barbeque in the mornings for breakfast.
After spending three days on Chizumulu we headed by local boat to the second island of Likoma, very close and clearly within sight of Chizumulu. The dhow picked up a most of the tourists from Nick's place and a few locals and, under motor power, headed to Likoma. Except the engine died halfway across. After tinkering with the engine to no avail the sail was raised. A cunning Plan B except that the wind was not blowing. Well, just, and thankfully in the right direction although the heat was intense and the sky clear. The good news is that the boat dropped everyone off directly at Mango Drift (conveniently built around a huge mango tree, otherwise they'd have to rename it). Camping on the beach for anyone? Fantastic weather thrown in with some decent and reasonably priced meals? Of course. The other pleasing thing about Likoma Island is that it has something resembling a town, coming complete with a market and shops, something to pass the time. Also, and quite extraordinarily, it comes with a English-style cathedral built of rock and (in the only departure from European cathedral architecture) a corrugated iron roof. The remaining two days were passed relaxing on Likoma Island mixing in beach (sadly lacking the rocks and associated brightly coloured fishes of Chizumulu) and walks to town. We also happened to be in town for the official opening of a new water source (well or pump, something like that) complete with MP, NGO rep and lots of local dancers and musicians.
It was also at Mango Drift that I learned from the dive master cum manager that Lake Malawi is 700m deep ("!!" I thought); the sort of number that can only be achieved with a Rift Valley for help. Apparently, although it hardly ever rains, the lake weather is very changeable and can go from dead calm to blowing a gale within an hour. How do you know when things are getting out of hand? Watch the local fishermen. With handbuilt dugouts between them and 700m of Davey Jone's locker below them they're understandably the first to pack in and go home when things are looking out of hand.
Time to head back to the mainland which means another ride on the MV Ilala. Once again we board in the evening, this time getting on after dark and, after a stop at Chizumulu, we head to the mainland. However for reasons unknown, upon arrival there is no unloading and the Ilala just sits in Nkhata Bay for the best part of four hours waiting until sunrise. And then it heads to the bay just south and unloads there, using the tried and tested lifeboat rather than the solid looking wharf in Nkhata Bay.
After a day of relaxation (I didn't sleep all night on the boat) accompanied by Super 14 action on South African satellite TV and a good night's sleep we got together a group to head to the capital Lilongwe by catching a ride with a delightful old chap who runs a backpackers in Cape McLear. It turns out that he's been in Southern Africa for a good few decades, and in Malawi for a good chunk of that time. What's changed since he first arrived? "It's got worse since colonialism," he says, "the roads aren't as good." (And other things besides but I can't remember. Bottom line: the infrastructure's just worse and not much is better).
And Lilongwe? Don't bother. Pleasing as it may seem, and yes, there's nothing wrong with it, it's a new capital and has the same pleasing features of any large city suburb. It's green. There are shopping centres and some markets. There's nothing else. Dodoma, Tanzania's village-like capital, starts to look like a metropolis in comparison. That's it. A day after arriving we left and headed to Blantyre an ex-capital of Malawi and thankfully one with a bit of verve.
And yet Blantyre for all it's relative buzz and bustle wasn't a town with tourist attraction. It eclipsed Lilongwe by having a bona fide town centre with buildings more than a storey tall but these buildings were still banks and supermarkets. I had a good look around the market - not bad - but it was like most other markets I'd seen in Africa. Again, after a couple of nights it was time to move on.
The last stop, Zomba, proved to be a revalation in comparison. The town itself was not the attraction which stands just to the west: the Zomba Plateau. This large slab of rock does exactly what it says on the tin; it's a huge plateau rising several hundred metres above Zomba itself. Karim and I stayed in Zomba town then, next day, leaving most of our things in storage, walked to the top of the plateau, a walk which took most of the day. We had a brief search for accommodation: brief because there were few options: a campsite which was just a field but with a campsite price tag and a reasonably priced double room at the local trout farm, sadly empty of trout, which we took. We had use of a wood-burning stove and invested in a bowl of potatoes (price: $0.70) from a local to form the mains for dinner. Dinner was fantastic, the potatoes delicious, and we retired for the night with big plans for the following day.
Except that in the small hours Karim wakes me with urgency: there are ants, he says. I'm doing alright, what's he on about? We find the light and sure enough there's a massive ant trail leading right across his pillow, right where his head should be resting. There are ants along the skirting boards too. Not good. We check the spare room: ants. We check outside and there are several ant holes emerging into the garden within metres of the building. I should point out that these ants are about 1cm long and are most certainly not the wee, near-microscopic things found in more temperate zones. Karim finds the management people who turn up for a brief inspection then come back a few minutes later with some DIY chemicals to fumigate to rooms. It works well and the ants pack up and head elsewhere within minutes and a good night's sleep is restored. And a good thing too: Zomba Plateau is a big place (bigger than expected) and a great place to walk around. Most of the tracks pass through managed forest and fields however on the eastern edge of the plateau there are a series of lookouts that look out over Zomba town towards Lake Malawi and Mozambique. It would be an understatement to say that the views were amazing with the low, fast-moving cloud giving a real 'top of the world' feeling. It was a sensational sight and basically we sat down, had breakfast and then sun-bathed for a couple of hours, enjoying the moment. After a walk back past other viewpoints - the King's lookout where Emporer Haileselase spent a few days meditating and the Queen's lookout where the Queen Mum stopped by - we bunked back in our ant-free room and then returned to Zomba the next day.
Malawi comes to an end: the following morning Karim and I part after three weeks together, his destination Mozambique and Zimbabwe and me heading west to Zambia.
My stay in Malawi started in one of those towns that exists for no apparent reason. I later found out that it does exist for a reason: it's near to a mine (and mining company), apparently in an area where uranium is dug up. People go there to go to the mine (and the mining company), not to see the town. Still, not much to do there, right? Surprisingly wrong.
After first finding a suitably budget hotel I was relaxing in a local cafe waiting for their internet connection to start working when, lo, a foreign man walks in. I've seen him before - just a glimpe on the roadside - in Mbeya, Tanzania. He was Karim, and Egypto-Swede from Malmo and quite a friendly chap. We got talking; he was looking for a budget hotel. I knew of one (where I'd just checked in). We then had all day to find something to do.
As it turns out, Karonga has a museum. Quite a small one yet one containing a malawisaurus, a local mini version of a brontosaurus-type creature. Apparently, says the wee labels, northern Malawi is a great place to find fossils (something to do with lots of Rift Valley sediment washing over the area) and malawisaurus is proof of this. Like a lot of Malawi, Karonga is also close to Lake Malawi (aka Lake Nyasa, found in Nyasaland, for those still in colonial mode). It's a beautiful lake and very warm, ideal for swimming. So Karim and I had enough to fill our plates and keep us going for the rest of the day.
We planned to head south the next day to another town on the lake, Chitimba, and spend some time there. We got off to a very good start when we walked straight out of our guesthouse, opposite the bus station, and straight onto a bus which was leaving the bus station via our destination. The one minor shock about traveling in Malawi - loudly hailed as a backpackers' paradise - is the cost of transport. This has a lot to do with the cost of petrol, which hovers at somewhere around US$1.70 per litre. This is expensive, even for Africa. Petrol isn't cheap as you might expect (often $1 to $1.25 per litre in east Africa) but Malawi's petrol prices are eye-brow raising. Apparently the current price was arrived at following an 18% overnight hike in prices too which must have shocked the locals a bit when they got on the bus the next day. This also means that all foods which aren't locally produced (ie nearly anything in a tin or bottle, which inevitably comes from South Africa) is also steeply priced. Baked beans anyone? A can of Heinz will set you back at least $2 (although cheaper local brands exist). Anyhow, I degress. Off we go to Chitimba.
The most striking thing about Chitimba is that we nearly missed it by blinking. Having passed a few little villages and hamlets down the lake shore we stopped at a small collection of huts and shops. Karim, having chatted to some locals, turns and informs me that this is indeed where we had planned to get off (and do we still want to get off here, it's soooo small). I'm surprised - Chitimba got a dot and a place name on a number of maps and reaching a snap decision before the bus leaves we jump off. There's a local hotel - just the one - and a couple of camp sites. The camp site, which clearly caters to the sort of people who cycle the Tour d'Afrique and who were steadily filling the place up as the rolled into town, was more expensive than the local hotel, just to camp there. Karim then negotiated a 30% discount at the hotel anyway (it's the Egyptian in him, surely) and we had a place to stay. And, as it turns out, it was a very pleasant place to stay and we ended up there for about four days. The main attraction was the lake - conveniently located 100m away - and the sloth-paced lifestyle.
A routine quickly developed: wake up at whatever time suits, head over the road for some banana pancakes for breakfast, find something to do (swimming, walking) until late afternoon and then tucking into a dinner washed down with reasonably priced local brew. That was a winning routine and one which we happily kept up.
One significant departure from this routine - in exertion, not in activity - was a walk we did to Livingstonia. As the name suggests a Scotsman passed through this area at one time (and is apparently still revered). Livingstonia is a mere 16km from Chitimba but on a plateau up a massive hill. After a banana pancake start to the day we did just this walk and hard work it was. Ironically the hardest part was the start because even at 8am the heat was sapping although further up the hill there was plenty of shade over the steeper parts. It was hard work but ultimately very rewarding. And Livingstonia? It's even smaller than Chitimba but made up of a small, hodge podge collection of turn-of-the-century red brick colonial buildings. It had a small town beauty, a technical college, hospital and a museum. And beside the museum a restaurant we we tucked into a decent meal before the descent. The descent inevitably followed the same route although this time we stopped off to see a waterfall - all 115m of it. Great stuff but I'm not keen on standing on top of a 115m waterfall with no barrier between me and the edge (yes, I'm a coward when it comes to heights).
Nkhata Bay, next on the list, is one of the premier backpacking spots in Malawi. One of the main features of Nkhata Bay is that it is the embarking point for the ferry ride to the islands of Chizumulu and Likoma in Lake Malawi. Although these islands are well to the west of the lake - well inside the dotted line marking the Mozambique border running down the middle of the lake, they are still Malawi's. Consequently, a lot of people heading to these islands congregate at Nkhata Bay which coincidentally has loads of campsites next to crystal clear waters. Upon arriving it turned out that the waters were not quite crystal clear - the lakeside waters were muddy for the first 100m out due to heavy rainfall washing into the lake - and I was informed that there was "crocodile activity" in the area. A crocodile had been observed swimming into the reeds juuuuust across from the campsite three weeks ago to the day of our arrival. Another had been seen more recently splashing around on the other side of the harbour. "Don't worry," said the owner, "they don't attack people unless you step on them." Which, considering the muddy water, did a lot to dissuade me from swimming. I did splash around in waist deep water a couple of times but it just wasn't the same.
A few days later the MV Ilala, a 50-year-old ex-Scottish ex-steamer which used to take people on the Firth of Forth, arrived at Nkhata Bay. Armed with tickets we boarded in the late afternoon and headed for the foredecks, home of the economy class. Economy class is also where the cargo is stored (there isn't a hold) although the gangways also double for the storage of considerable amounts of luggage including piles of sugarcane stalks stashed on the floor. Karim and I found that the cargo was incredibly comfortable and made for a good recliner. The trip was fine although a little slow - 50-year-old ships don't go fast, even with diesel engines - although the main discomfort comes from the anti-social timetable. The Ilala leaves Nkhata Bay at around 6pm and arrives at its first stop to the south, Chizumulu Island, at about 3am. Chizumulu Island has a few hundred inhabitants and consequently no-one's bothered with things like, say, a wharf for the Ilala to stop at. Instead they lower one of the lifeboats and fill it up with passengers, their luggage and cargo and drive it (with outboard motor power) to the beach. The passengers then take their possessions and carry out a mini beach landing. Everyone who wants to get off gets off and then they start loading the passengers from the beach. The whole routine can take some time and it isn't helped by the pitch black illuminated by minimal torch light.
However, quite by good judgement I expect, the campsite on Chizumulu is about a 1 minute walk from the landing site and easy to find. Karim and I, along with a few others we met at Nkhata Bay, were joined by about 20 German volunteers which delighted the camp owner (Nick, from England) no end: combined we were the second largest group of tourists to arrive during his camp's existence. The Germans, and prettymuch everyone else for that matter, by stint of numbers not stereotype, drank Nick's bar dry over a few days which isn't as hard as it sounds as it's near impossible for Nick to get replacement drinks. It also helped a lot that Nick encouraged people to stay up 'til dawn and have a few nightcaps rather than retire to bed and actually have to pay for a night's accommodation. The German volunteers were in some ways quite lucky. Apparently now in modern Germany instead of doing a national (ie military service) service it is now possible to select to do social service instead - same deal, giving your time etc but for social causes rather than for defense against the red peril - which includes the possibility of doing such a service overseas. Why aren't I German?
Indeed Nick's place, Wakwenda Retreat, was a delightful place but had the catch of having to pay tourist prices for food. Was there an alternative? Oh yes, the was. There was a run-down ramshackle shed at the end of the beach, just past Nick's property which happened to be a restaurant. For a very reasonable price - similar to the mainland - they would serve a monstrous portion of vege and rice. They started catering for two - Karim and me - and by the third night were catering for a large group of Germans, a handful of Israelis and a smattering of others. But what about breakfast? Well, the locals have little else to to but fish, which they do at night by torchlight creating the photogenic but difficult-to-photograph spectacle of strings of torches stretching across the lake. This also means that fish are for sale and for $0.70 per fish I was able to pick up a freshly caught and gutted, cleaned fish to barbeque in the mornings for breakfast.
After spending three days on Chizumulu we headed by local boat to the second island of Likoma, very close and clearly within sight of Chizumulu. The dhow picked up a most of the tourists from Nick's place and a few locals and, under motor power, headed to Likoma. Except the engine died halfway across. After tinkering with the engine to no avail the sail was raised. A cunning Plan B except that the wind was not blowing. Well, just, and thankfully in the right direction although the heat was intense and the sky clear. The good news is that the boat dropped everyone off directly at Mango Drift (conveniently built around a huge mango tree, otherwise they'd have to rename it). Camping on the beach for anyone? Fantastic weather thrown in with some decent and reasonably priced meals? Of course. The other pleasing thing about Likoma Island is that it has something resembling a town, coming complete with a market and shops, something to pass the time. Also, and quite extraordinarily, it comes with a English-style cathedral built of rock and (in the only departure from European cathedral architecture) a corrugated iron roof. The remaining two days were passed relaxing on Likoma Island mixing in beach (sadly lacking the rocks and associated brightly coloured fishes of Chizumulu) and walks to town. We also happened to be in town for the official opening of a new water source (well or pump, something like that) complete with MP, NGO rep and lots of local dancers and musicians.
It was also at Mango Drift that I learned from the dive master cum manager that Lake Malawi is 700m deep ("!!" I thought); the sort of number that can only be achieved with a Rift Valley for help. Apparently, although it hardly ever rains, the lake weather is very changeable and can go from dead calm to blowing a gale within an hour. How do you know when things are getting out of hand? Watch the local fishermen. With handbuilt dugouts between them and 700m of Davey Jone's locker below them they're understandably the first to pack in and go home when things are looking out of hand.
Time to head back to the mainland which means another ride on the MV Ilala. Once again we board in the evening, this time getting on after dark and, after a stop at Chizumulu, we head to the mainland. However for reasons unknown, upon arrival there is no unloading and the Ilala just sits in Nkhata Bay for the best part of four hours waiting until sunrise. And then it heads to the bay just south and unloads there, using the tried and tested lifeboat rather than the solid looking wharf in Nkhata Bay.
After a day of relaxation (I didn't sleep all night on the boat) accompanied by Super 14 action on South African satellite TV and a good night's sleep we got together a group to head to the capital Lilongwe by catching a ride with a delightful old chap who runs a backpackers in Cape McLear. It turns out that he's been in Southern Africa for a good few decades, and in Malawi for a good chunk of that time. What's changed since he first arrived? "It's got worse since colonialism," he says, "the roads aren't as good." (And other things besides but I can't remember. Bottom line: the infrastructure's just worse and not much is better).
And Lilongwe? Don't bother. Pleasing as it may seem, and yes, there's nothing wrong with it, it's a new capital and has the same pleasing features of any large city suburb. It's green. There are shopping centres and some markets. There's nothing else. Dodoma, Tanzania's village-like capital, starts to look like a metropolis in comparison. That's it. A day after arriving we left and headed to Blantyre an ex-capital of Malawi and thankfully one with a bit of verve.
And yet Blantyre for all it's relative buzz and bustle wasn't a town with tourist attraction. It eclipsed Lilongwe by having a bona fide town centre with buildings more than a storey tall but these buildings were still banks and supermarkets. I had a good look around the market - not bad - but it was like most other markets I'd seen in Africa. Again, after a couple of nights it was time to move on.
The last stop, Zomba, proved to be a revalation in comparison. The town itself was not the attraction which stands just to the west: the Zomba Plateau. This large slab of rock does exactly what it says on the tin; it's a huge plateau rising several hundred metres above Zomba itself. Karim and I stayed in Zomba town then, next day, leaving most of our things in storage, walked to the top of the plateau, a walk which took most of the day. We had a brief search for accommodation: brief because there were few options: a campsite which was just a field but with a campsite price tag and a reasonably priced double room at the local trout farm, sadly empty of trout, which we took. We had use of a wood-burning stove and invested in a bowl of potatoes (price: $0.70) from a local to form the mains for dinner. Dinner was fantastic, the potatoes delicious, and we retired for the night with big plans for the following day.
Except that in the small hours Karim wakes me with urgency: there are ants, he says. I'm doing alright, what's he on about? We find the light and sure enough there's a massive ant trail leading right across his pillow, right where his head should be resting. There are ants along the skirting boards too. Not good. We check the spare room: ants. We check outside and there are several ant holes emerging into the garden within metres of the building. I should point out that these ants are about 1cm long and are most certainly not the wee, near-microscopic things found in more temperate zones. Karim finds the management people who turn up for a brief inspection then come back a few minutes later with some DIY chemicals to fumigate to rooms. It works well and the ants pack up and head elsewhere within minutes and a good night's sleep is restored. And a good thing too: Zomba Plateau is a big place (bigger than expected) and a great place to walk around. Most of the tracks pass through managed forest and fields however on the eastern edge of the plateau there are a series of lookouts that look out over Zomba town towards Lake Malawi and Mozambique. It would be an understatement to say that the views were amazing with the low, fast-moving cloud giving a real 'top of the world' feeling. It was a sensational sight and basically we sat down, had breakfast and then sun-bathed for a couple of hours, enjoying the moment. After a walk back past other viewpoints - the King's lookout where Emporer Haileselase spent a few days meditating and the Queen's lookout where the Queen Mum stopped by - we bunked back in our ant-free room and then returned to Zomba the next day.
Malawi comes to an end: the following morning Karim and I part after three weeks together, his destination Mozambique and Zimbabwe and me heading west to Zambia.
vendredi 26 mars 2010
Looking for the Zani in Tanzania
Mutakula (Uganda) --> Bukoba --> Mwanza --> Dar Es Salaam --> Stone Town (Zanzibar) with daytrips to Prison Island and Paje (Zanzibar) --> Dar Es Salaam --> Moshi --> Marangu --> Moshi --> Lushoto --> Dar Es Salaam--> Iringa --> Mbeya --> Songwe (Malawi)
Tanzania! Famous for the premier tourist destinations of east Africa, certainly for some of the top safaris. Serengeti? Check. Ngorongoro crater? Check. Mount Kilimanjaro? Check. Zanzibar? Check. Others that you probably haven't heard of (and which I certainly hadn't until reading the guide book): the massive Selous Game Reserve and the not so massive Ruaha National Park. What would I be taking in? Pretty much none of the above except for Zanzibar and for a very simple reason: $.
Yes, a safari in Serengeti or Ngorongoro will probably set you back around $150 / day and climbing Mt Kilimanjaro costs over $1000 - easily the cheapest price - for a five-day climb and descent. Let's compare and contrast: Maasai Mara NP in Kenya (which is contiguous with Serengeti NP) can be done for as little as $90 / day for a three day trip from Nairobi. A seven day trek including assaults on various snow-capped peaks in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda costs $570. Climbing Mt Kenya and seeing its snow costs can be done for less than $100 /day, minimum of three days. Basically, to put it bluntly, Tanzania is a big country with some of the best known (and commensurately priced) African tourist hotspots and not too much else although it should be noted that park fees charged by the government are the biggest culprit: at least $600 of what you pay to climb Kilimanjaro is the park fee.
If you fancy doing something similar for a lot less then Kenya and Uganda are waiting for you and they are just as good. You'll have far, far fewer touts and salesmen following you around in Kenya and Uganda trying to sell you overpriced safaris (or underpriced safaris where you get nothing for your money). There are some exceptions: Selous game reserve and Ruaha NP are practically unknown by people without Tanzania guidebooks and are seemingly reasonably priced.
The exception to this is Zanzibar because it's not in a game reserve and there are no entrance fees. Thankfully, I also coincided my visit to Zanzibar with the Zanzibar low season: hotels were reasonably priced (I got an budget room with ensuite for $12) with food and drink no more expensive than the mainland. And so it was that, after stopping at Bukabo and Mwanza on the way to Dar Es Salaam from Uganda I headed straight to Zanzibar.
It's time for some parentheses here so here goes: (Bukabo wasn't a bad place at all, although quite small and Mwanza was big enough that a good walk around was justified. Aside from both these towns being conveniently located on the shores of Lake Victoria there really wasn't much there to hold back a traveler. One of the better ways of traveling in Tanzania is to go by train. That's fair enough: the country's huge and a lot of the stuff to see is to the north - Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Kili - or in the case of Zanzibar accessible from Dar Es Salaam. I headed by Mwanza's petit train station and asked around: nope, there aren't any trains at the moment. When do they start again? About September, a mere six months away. Apparently in January - of 2010 - there was some flood damage near Dodoma, Tanzania's village-sized legislative capital, which washed away a rail bridge. Hence all the trains coming from the north - from Mwanza - and from the west - Lake Tanganyika - were cancelled. No partial service, no trains to Dodoma and then re-connect with the train service after passing the bridge, no. Uh uh. So bus is the only option.
Unlike Uganda and Kenya, Tanzania's main towns have their bus stations outside of town, as in waaaaay out of town. At Mwanza the bus station is conveniently located with 6km of fields and rolling hills around Lake Vic between it and the town itself. The most excitement I had in Mwanza was first asking the hotel if they could help me find a taxi - I quickly gave up with them after the taxi driver started negotiations at $15 (20,000 shillings) for the 6km trip. I decided to look a little harder. The obvious place to find a taxi is at the bus station: I went there and was targeted by pick-pockets within seconds of arriving. However, as I am highly trained and like a coiled spring, I realised what was going on and rumbled them before any hands went into pockets. Good luck ensues! I find a taxi who'll take me for 5,000 shillings - just under $4. Still I can do better and end up arranging a bodaboda motorcycle taxi piloted by one Dionysus - Dio to his friends - to collect me at 5am the next day to take me to the bus station. He'll do this for 3,000 shillings. To my great pleasure he was there on time, does such a sterling job that I gave him a decent tip. The bus ride was thoroughly boring - if you look at a map of western Tanzania you'll see that it's flat as a pancake with no features of interest - and late, so that I arrived in the Dar bus station, conveniently located 10km out of town at 11pm. Not the best time to be wandering around outer Dar suburbs looking for public transport so I took a taxi: thankfully a kind local who was also on the bus negotiated the price for me so I only paid 13,000 shillings.)
The next morning I arose bright and early and went for a look around, specifically to find cheap accommodation. I had booked ahead for my hotel in Dar - the cheapest I could find was $15, hardly budget accommodation when you're used to paying less than $5 - so set my sights on the YWCA hostel. I found the hostel but they couldn't guarantee me a room for that night; not yet anyway, come back later. Not long later I found myself wandering past the port area, quite unintentionally. Before you can say 'are you are salesman?', pow, some guys are beside me: 'are you going to Zanzibar?' Sure, I guess, I want to go; what's the deal? It turns out that the deal ain't bad: $25 for the ferry ride, check in starts at 11, departure at noon. I dash off and book a night in Stone Town over the net (to save me trawling around in the evening, looking for accommodation) and dash back to the port. All is go and I'm heading to Zanzibar.
Zanzibar is all in all a pleasing place although truth be told I would hate with a passion to be there during the high season. It is quite similar to Lamu (Kenya) in history, architecture and style although if I were running a Tropical Island Smackdown I'd expect Lamu to finish off Zanzibar - perhaps TKO in a late round: Lamu is quieter, more pleasant, has fewer touts, easier access to beaches and the getting there is more interesting.
I'll let my photos of Zanzibar do the talking: suffice to say, my experience was overall very positive. I met Jens, from Stockholm, at the first hotel I stayed at (the one I booked before the ferry ride, before I hunted down a budget place) and it turned out he had loads of Swedish friends who were interested in a trip to Prison Island. As the name suggests there was actually no prison there, just a quarantine area and apparently it wasn't used. So now it's a hotel resort and tortoise sanctuary all rolled into one. We went planning to do some snorkeling too however the sea was too rough (I splashed around for all of one minute before getting back in the boat) - reports were that the sea around the coral was so cloudy as to make snorkeling pointless (and dangerous). The tortoises were interesting: feeding was allowed using the supplied spinach although signs stressed that sitting on the tortoises was most certainly not expected of us. And yes, minutes before my little plastic compact camera breathed its last I took this film of a tortoise with me trying hard to affect an Attenborough accent.
Although climbing Kilimanjaro requires a trust fund, going to Moshi and looking at it is pretty darn cheap. This is what I did and upon arrival noticed that Mt Kilimanjaro was covered in impenetrable cloud. Bugger. The next thing I noticed was the number of people trying to sell me safaris and Kilimanjaro climbing. If someone's already trying to sell me a safari that's not a reason for someone else to approach and do the same. I kept my cool, my wallet stayed in my pocket and the next morning, bright and early, I was out of bed with my camera to see an early morning Mt Kilimanjaro. I saw it, thankfully enough, and just 30 minutes after clapping eyes on it it was shrouded in cloud again. Rainy season is upon us.
An alternative to staying in Moshi is to go to the wee town of Marangu. I took the tent - camping is cheap there - and headed off for an overnighter in a small village. As soon as I'm out of the minivan, yep, I'm invited to climb Mt K or perhaps just do a tour of local villages and waterfalls and ... I eventually escape. The visit is definitely worthwhile, despite the pestering (justified on the basis that I was the only white man in the village so there was no-one else to sell to), there was enough sunlight on Kili to have a good walk, and town included a good pub.
Heading back to Dar from Moshi I didn't race there: no, the town of Lushoto, recommended by Lonely Planet as a decent place and one worth seeing was in between and so I made a point of stopping there. Sadly the rainy season came with me and, for my whole day there I spent a good part of the morning getting rained on. This shouldn't hide the fact that I had a jolly good walk through some decent scenery and had only one person try to sell to me (and even then it was all very relaxed). Sadly, the day I was tootling downhill out to the main road to head to Dar was also the day that the sun came out and bathed Lushoto and the surrounding hills in light. Bugger.
And back again to Dar, back for a stopover until I head to Iringa. Dar, not my favourite place in the world. Sadly it makes Nairobi seem like Vegas and it seriously lacks anything of interest. The presumption amongst taxi drivers is that you are here in order to find transport to leave (are you going to Zanzibar? is oft heard). The city centre is practically void of anything resembling a cafe, restaurant or bar and I've spent a long time here walking around, searching for beer. It just doesn't happen in Dar.
The next part of the trip was to head south to Malawi and there are two ways to get there on public transport: the train south to Zambia which stops at Mbeya before continuing over the border or to take the bus and stop and the delightful (says Lonely Planet) town of Iringa.
The only catch - and a mild one at that - was that the short rainy season from March to May came into play again. Yes, the mountains and hills in the south of Tanzania act as cloud magnets and the clouds oblige by crowding around any peak, laying low and biding their time. And so it was that on an apparantly fine day, one with a bit of sun, I left the relatively banal but not unpleasant town of Iringa to walk in the nearby hills. I found a path into a nearby farming area and reached maximum distance from shelter before a huge black cloud wafted over and dumped a load of heavy rain on me. I found a partly completed house - sadly one with no roof - in which to shelter before continuing again. The mountains and scenery should have been great, can't fault that at all, although frequently running for shelter from downpours wasn't such fun. In the end I was drenched from waist down (I didn't bring my waterproof leggings that day), couldn't get any wetter and decided that, heck, just to enjoy the moment and ended up with a decent walk after all.
Mbeya was for me just a stop, a place to rest, before going to Malawi. There's nothing of note there for a tourist, just shops and the convenient location. Like Iringa it's in hills - shrouded, of course, in low-flying deeply filthy black looking clouds.
Coming into Mbeya on the bus I noticed a mzungu (white man), clad in lycra, cycling towards Mbeya. Then another. Then lots of them, in fact. Something's happening, a tour of Tanzania? I decided not to chance my arm with a walk again and had an evening of quiet. Stocking up on snacks for the bus ride to Malawi (not that it should be arduous) I was asked: 'are you one of the cyclists?' for the shop-keeper had also seen huge numbers of mzungu puffing into town.
Heading to Malawi the next day, the bus again passes large numbers of cyclists this time struggling up the hills on the road to Malawi. One salient point is noted: they have no luggage, just people on bikes. The truth became apparent when a Tour d'Afrique support truck came into view by the side of the road laying out breakfast on a tressle table. These mzungu (actually 'azungu' for the plural) were cycling from 'Cairo to Cape Town: 12,000km in 120 days' according to the slogan on the truck. If you fancy doing something similar follow the link although this isn't an endorsement - why should you need a support truck, eh?
At least the had a decent route, for this part of the world at least, for the road followed a ridge line along the hills south - thankfully not obscured by cloud - giving some spectacular views, including that of a distant silver strip of Lake Malawi. To top of the good weather and great views I got a fantastic deal from the money changers who gave me Malawi kwacha at less than the interbank rate. Did I get fake banknotes? No idea, but I didn't have any problems spending them.
lundi 22 mars 2010
Kisangani nostalgia
Surprise! I was recently contacted by a Belgian chap called Serge who lived in Kisangani - then Stanleyville - when he was a nipper during the late 1950s. He's working on something of a family album and Stanleyville history combined. Should you wish to practice your French and learn about Kisangani's history, see Serge's site here:
http://www.stanleyville.be/
Or if you'd prefer to see his family photos, including the photo of poor Bruno at hospital for a cutaneous eruption, then here's the link for you.
http://picasaweb.google.com/j.f.nonoye/STANLEYVILLEKISANGANI#
Enjoy!
http://www.stanleyville.be/
Or if you'd prefer to see his family photos, including the photo of poor Bruno at hospital for a cutaneous eruption, then here's the link for you.
http://picasaweb.google.com/j.f.nonoye/STANLEYVILLEKISANGANI#
Enjoy!
vendredi 19 mars 2010
The Wild West of Uganda
Kigali (Rwanda) --> Kabale --> Kampala --> Mubende --> Fort Portal (with daytrip to Amabere Falls) --> Rwaihamba --> Kasese (with daytrip to Kilembe) --> Kihihi --> all the way via Butogota then Buhoma and on to Mbarara in a single day --> Kabale --> Itambira Island (Lake Bunyoni) --> Kabale --> Mutukula --> Bukoba (Tanzania)
And so all good things must come to an end - I'm referring to Uganda of course. Entry from Rwanda was easy (no silly rules about in which passport to put the visa) and on a bright sunny day I headed to Kabale, the nearest town at 20km from the border. The aim was to see the only part of the country which I hadn't yet trample on: the west and southwest. A particular aim was to see a bit of the Rwenzori Mountains (without paying to go in) and the nearby crater lakes.
I stopped first at the town of Mubende - I mistake I later realised, as there really isn't much to do there. The Bradt guide book which was lying around Kampala Backpackers detailed a nice little walk that could be done. Could I find that right roads? Could I? The hell I could. Locals were surprisingly useless mainly because so few of them spoke English (an aberration, surely). 'Where's New Kampala Road?' was often met with pointing towards Kampala itself. I made up my own walk and it was fairly rubbish but not outrageously bad.
Fort Portal, however, is a decent wee town. It's named after an English chap called Portal, some governor or another, and there really was a fort there. The good thing is not the town itself - fairly average - but the Rwenzori Mountain backdrop. I found that my camping area at YES Guesthouse looked over fields and onto the mountains themselves. Not a bad choice there. I was the only guest that day and Carol, the American owner was hosting a leaving party for a German couple who'd been NGOs in Uganda. Would I like to join them? It was so hard to refuse and the food was fantastic. At the party also happened to be a couple of Peace Corps workers and a sex therapist from California who was in Uganda doing a couple of months volunteer sex education. Considering evangelicals and some MPs in Uganda want to introduce the death penalty for homosexuals I was surprised that such a person was even allowed into the country, however it seems that the average Ugandan has no hang-ups about this sort of educational experience.
One Bradt-recommended daytrip from Fort Portal was to go to Amabere Falls and caves. A pleasant walk - 'far, far but not too far', to quote a local who gave me directions - was made through farmland to a camping site next to the falls. They had a bloody entrance fee! The caves were really just an overhang and the waterfall not much taller than me, however the whole ensemble of the walk, the weather and something to see at the end of it passed muster.
It was also at YES Guesthouse that I met Grant and Sebastian, from South Africa, traveling from John O'Groats to Cape Town by bicycle for charity. They were great fun and have a website here: www.cyclenorthsouth.co.za
My first aim after leaving Fort Portal was to see the crater lakes in the nearby town of Rwaihamba, about 20km south of FP. We're still in the Rift Valley here folks and there's pleny of evidence of this. I went to Rwaihamba with Tony, an Englishman on holiday and stayed at the local community camp and spent several days walking around the lakes. They really made for some great scenery with the Rwenzori Mountains in the background although Rwaihamba market, billed as the second biggest village market in Uganda, was somewhat more low key than I was expecting (I guess it depends on how they define a village). There was occasional bad weather - not enough to drive me out of the tent and into more permanent shelter - however there were enough clear skies to make the trip a winner. The icing on the cake was not just the vervet and colobus monkeys that frequented the camp site but also a small family of mongooses who turned up at the entrance one morning.
Heading further south along the Rwenzoris I stopped at Kasese: quite a lifeless town, yet one that is in an ideal location for some walking, in this case up to the small town of Kilembe where the now-defunct Kilembe copper mine is located. Considering my map showed I was walking into mountains the road was surprisingly flat and the walk very easy. Kilembe was clearly a town on decline or perhaps one which had already declined and given up: I ate lunch in a dingy 'restaurant' which had co-opted an old warehouse, converting part of it into a kitchen area, meandered through the very low-key market (one which made the Rwaihamba market look positively heaving) and then spent a while pottering around and photographing the rusting, crumbling mining machinery sitting very much unloved on the other side of the river from town.
Although I had absolutely no plans to go gorilla trekking - sorry Bobo and family, I have better ways to spend $500+ on this trip - I decided to do the next best thing: go to the gates of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (where the gorillas live) and look in. To get there, specifically the little sleepy hamlet of Buhoma I first had to get to Butogota. To get to Butogota I first had to get to Kihihi. The ride was pleasant and certainly off the beaten track - sometime as we were passing the Queen Elizabeth II National Park the van driver turned off onto a muddy dirt track and kept going and going. Kihihi is indeed far removed from the fast-paced world although they did have a UNHCR-sponsored signpost in town pointing the direction to Butogota, other towns and the Congo border. I suppose refugees don't have maps.
A quick overnight and early the next morning I found a pickup heading to Butogota - away I go! At Butogota - even smaller than Kihihi - I recharged with a staple Ugandan breakfast of tea and chapatti before heading to Buhoma and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. It's only 16km away, so why not walk? I certainly had the offer of transport - bodaboda drivers were offering a ride all the way there for 10,000 shillings ($5) but no, the best way to see somewhere is to see it slowly.
And so all good things must come to an end - I'm referring to Uganda of course. Entry from Rwanda was easy (no silly rules about in which passport to put the visa) and on a bright sunny day I headed to Kabale, the nearest town at 20km from the border. The aim was to see the only part of the country which I hadn't yet trample on: the west and southwest. A particular aim was to see a bit of the Rwenzori Mountains (without paying to go in) and the nearby crater lakes.
I stopped first at the town of Mubende - I mistake I later realised, as there really isn't much to do there. The Bradt guide book which was lying around Kampala Backpackers detailed a nice little walk that could be done. Could I find that right roads? Could I? The hell I could. Locals were surprisingly useless mainly because so few of them spoke English (an aberration, surely). 'Where's New Kampala Road?' was often met with pointing towards Kampala itself. I made up my own walk and it was fairly rubbish but not outrageously bad.
Fort Portal, however, is a decent wee town. It's named after an English chap called Portal, some governor or another, and there really was a fort there. The good thing is not the town itself - fairly average - but the Rwenzori Mountain backdrop. I found that my camping area at YES Guesthouse looked over fields and onto the mountains themselves. Not a bad choice there. I was the only guest that day and Carol, the American owner was hosting a leaving party for a German couple who'd been NGOs in Uganda. Would I like to join them? It was so hard to refuse and the food was fantastic. At the party also happened to be a couple of Peace Corps workers and a sex therapist from California who was in Uganda doing a couple of months volunteer sex education. Considering evangelicals and some MPs in Uganda want to introduce the death penalty for homosexuals I was surprised that such a person was even allowed into the country, however it seems that the average Ugandan has no hang-ups about this sort of educational experience.
One Bradt-recommended daytrip from Fort Portal was to go to Amabere Falls and caves. A pleasant walk - 'far, far but not too far', to quote a local who gave me directions - was made through farmland to a camping site next to the falls. They had a bloody entrance fee! The caves were really just an overhang and the waterfall not much taller than me, however the whole ensemble of the walk, the weather and something to see at the end of it passed muster.
It was also at YES Guesthouse that I met Grant and Sebastian, from South Africa, traveling from John O'Groats to Cape Town by bicycle for charity. They were great fun and have a website here: www.cyclenorthsouth.co.za
My first aim after leaving Fort Portal was to see the crater lakes in the nearby town of Rwaihamba, about 20km south of FP. We're still in the Rift Valley here folks and there's pleny of evidence of this. I went to Rwaihamba with Tony, an Englishman on holiday and stayed at the local community camp and spent several days walking around the lakes. They really made for some great scenery with the Rwenzori Mountains in the background although Rwaihamba market, billed as the second biggest village market in Uganda, was somewhat more low key than I was expecting (I guess it depends on how they define a village). There was occasional bad weather - not enough to drive me out of the tent and into more permanent shelter - however there were enough clear skies to make the trip a winner. The icing on the cake was not just the vervet and colobus monkeys that frequented the camp site but also a small family of mongooses who turned up at the entrance one morning.
Heading further south along the Rwenzoris I stopped at Kasese: quite a lifeless town, yet one that is in an ideal location for some walking, in this case up to the small town of Kilembe where the now-defunct Kilembe copper mine is located. Considering my map showed I was walking into mountains the road was surprisingly flat and the walk very easy. Kilembe was clearly a town on decline or perhaps one which had already declined and given up: I ate lunch in a dingy 'restaurant' which had co-opted an old warehouse, converting part of it into a kitchen area, meandered through the very low-key market (one which made the Rwaihamba market look positively heaving) and then spent a while pottering around and photographing the rusting, crumbling mining machinery sitting very much unloved on the other side of the river from town.
Although I had absolutely no plans to go gorilla trekking - sorry Bobo and family, I have better ways to spend $500+ on this trip - I decided to do the next best thing: go to the gates of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (where the gorillas live) and look in. To get there, specifically the little sleepy hamlet of Buhoma I first had to get to Butogota. To get to Butogota I first had to get to Kihihi. The ride was pleasant and certainly off the beaten track - sometime as we were passing the Queen Elizabeth II National Park the van driver turned off onto a muddy dirt track and kept going and going. Kihihi is indeed far removed from the fast-paced world although they did have a UNHCR-sponsored signpost in town pointing the direction to Butogota, other towns and the Congo border. I suppose refugees don't have maps.
A quick overnight and early the next morning I found a pickup heading to Butogota - away I go! At Butogota - even smaller than Kihihi - I recharged with a staple Ugandan breakfast of tea and chapatti before heading to Buhoma and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. It's only 16km away, so why not walk? I certainly had the offer of transport - bodaboda drivers were offering a ride all the way there for 10,000 shillings ($5) but no, the best way to see somewhere is to see it slowly.
I should now pause to mention that in Kasese the high quality shoes that I bought in Nairobi for about $20 fell apart, no more than four-and-a-half to five months after I bought them. Sadly they were rubbish, the soles made from such soft rubber that a hole developed under the balls of my feet. I looked at the local Bata shop - the only shoe shop in town - and the only shoes going (aside from school shoes) that would fit my feet were some 'Bata Industrials', basically boots for worksites. They are made from hide thicker than my own, have steel caps and are surprisingly comfy. However, when wearing them for the first time I strongly recommend that you do not plan to walk a 32km round trip. As it happens I probably walked about 20km in total - thanks to picking up various lifts on the way there and back - but not before large sections of skin separated from the soles of my feet. Now that my feet have toughened up the boots are great!
I would need, therefore, to relax and soothe my poor feet. How convenient then that I had planned to spend a couple of days at Lake Bunyoni (allegedly one of the deepest lakes in Africa, after Lake Tanganyika). Bunyoni is close to Kasese, where I waited a few days for the weather to clear as rainy season was upon us, before taking a bodaboda motorcycle taxi to the lake shore. I could take a motorboat for $7.50 or for a fraction of the cost go in a canoe. Thankfully the canoe comes with a chap who helps the hapless tourist paddle but even so after about 45 minutes I appreciated just how much more body-building work I could do if I really wanted to.
(I would mention Mbarara although I spent less than 12 hours there, most of that time sleeping, and it looked like a pretty boring town anyway).
Bunyoni was as pleasing as the brochure made it out to be, the weather was fantastic and I met some more travelers including one from England who is heading to South Africa on pretty much the same route as me - we're Facebook buddies now. The island was small - you could walk around it in 30 minutes max - although thankfully I came armed with a book and they had a library on the island! Wow, not bad. I ended up going through two books in two days.
And so, sadly, Uganda came to an end for me. If you ever have the chance to go there, do. You'll find that there's quite a lot packed into a small country, you can't spend your money (unless you go wild and do lots of safaris) and chances are you'll meet some interesting and fun people. My parting moment from Uganda was staying in the tiny border town of Mutakula - in a guest house in no-man's land (where most of the village was located) - before crossing to Tanzania and a well oiled tourist machine's promises of a great time.
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