Luwawa Forest, Vyphia Plateau

After our time in Mzuzu Mike returned to Chitimba and I continued on South, alone once more. I don't have a guide book for Malawi and like Tanzania it's never overly clear how to go about getting to places so things can be a bit tricky. Buses here just go when they're full though, so you never need to worry about being somewhere to get one at a certain time which is handy as I'm always late anyway.

My plan was to get to Vyphia Plateau where I'd heard, but wasn't fully sure, that you could do some rock climbing. Mike left me at the bus station waiting on a bus which apparently was headed where I hoped to end up. Whilst I waited for it to fill up a lady sat her baby down next to me, motioned for me to guard it and then disappeared off the bus for ages. I wouldn't have minded except I was not feeling well at all. I'd been persuaded that the water in Mzuzu would be fine for me to drink but I was now pretty sure that actually it wasn't, and all I wanted to do was sleep. Instead I had to keep half an eye open to check the baby didn't fall off the seat, whilst it kept tapping me with the corn on the cob it was chewing at.

I did eventually reach were I was going and the bus driver kindly dropped me off outside where I hoped to stay which was completely in the middle of nowhere. It was all very strange as the guy there looked surprised to see me and all he seemed to want was for me to leave and not explore the area before doing so. He did give me a room though and finally I was able to make full use of the toilet and then sleep for the rest of the day and the following one too. I managed to establish that to get to where I could rock climb I had to catch a bus further across the plateau and so when I was feeling up to it, that's what I did. I later also found out why the guy had been acting so strangely. Apparently his guesthouse had been closed down by the Malawian Tourism Board for being unfit for tourists to stay in. It had seemed fine to me though, apart from a bees nest in the bathroom that is.

I had to flag down a bus for it to stop as there wasn't a bus stop. The first one that past didn't stop but the second one did. I was given a ticket which read ' Punctual. Reliable. Friendly. Luxurious. Comfortable'. This made me chuckle. Punctual was out of the question as I'd waited for ages for the bus to come along and there wasn't a set time for it anyway. Reliable wasn't necessarily true either seeing as one of the buses hadn't stopped to pick me up and it looked the sort of bus that might brake down at any time. Friendly was most definitely true though. People in Malawi are very friendly and greet you so warmly and this was the case with everyone on the bus. Luxurious was also out of the question as the bus was falling apart and was packed with people so no room to sit or even really stand anywhere. To get on I'd literally had to ram my way into the people and let the door push me in as it shut on/behind me. So this also counts out Comfortable too.

I was dropped at a track which I was told I would need to walk down to get to where I needed to stay to rock climb. Still unsure whether the rock climbing thing was actually something that could happen, whether I would be able to stay wherever I ended up, and also still very much lacking in energy from my unpleasant water drinking consequences, I set off carrying all my stuff on a 10km walk. What a long walk it was too and oh how happy I was when I reached the lodge I was to stay at! The lodge was in a place called Luwawa Forest and met all the descriptions that the bus was supposed to.

It was cold up on the plateau but the was a lovely log fire at the lodge. The food was brilliant too. The lodge was run by an English guy who bought the ingredients needed for English food and so after so long without, I ate pie and mash - one of the few things I'd really been craving from home. I also had fruit crumble and custard one evening! There were two dogs living there who were friendly and wanted to be stroked which is rare for animals in this part of the world. And the lodge was in the middle of a forest next to a very pretty reservoir with a watch tower that swayed in the wind which you could climb up to watch the sun setting over the trees.

It was also possible to go rock climbing and so I had a day relearning how to climb outdoors. After so long using an indoor wall it took me almost until I was too tired to climb any more to begin to master climbing rocks and not using handily or not so handily placed feet and hand holds. It was a lot of fun though and from the top of the climbs were amazing views over the forest below.

Mzuzu

Eventually I felt I ought to continue my journey South through Malawi and so set off to the town of Mzuzu. Mike and I decided to travel together for a bit and on the morning we left his mum made us the hugest and tastiest farewell breakfast of sweet potatoes, rice and a tomato and onion sauce, and fruits. For most meals with Mike's family we'd eaten nsima and I'd mastered the art of eating it with my fingers. Now though I was presented with the challenge of eating rice with my fingers. By the end of the meal I considered myself to actually be pretty good at it but that certainly wasn't the case at the start which caused a lot of laughter from everyone watching.

In Mzuzu we stayed with Mike's Aunt and her family in a little suburb. Here I further developed the skills needed to be a good African lady. It's very much the case that if you're a lady here then you have to do pretty much all the hard work, in fact pretty much all the work around the house. You have to cook, clean, look after any children, collect water and firewood, and do anything else that might need doing. Meanwhile your husband's main job is to keep you safe and leave you to your chores, which for them often seems to involve sitting around playing boa game in the bars. Unless that is you have a job which some people are lucky enough to have.

So I set about learning to do the things that most woman here need to do... I was lent a pretty orange and black cloth to use as a sarong type thing so I would be dressed a little bit more like the local ladies. I learnt how to cook different foods. I got some more experience with cooking nsima, which is such a tiring thing to cook. When it's almost ready it's incredibly hard to stir. It's kind of like an exceptionally thick porridge which when cooked you can turn the pot of it upside down and it wont fall out. The ladies here can stir it using one arm but it's a challenge for me to stir it using both! I made rice porridge which was delicious and I was told it would keep me full for four hours. Nothing keeps me full for four hours so I openly refused to believe it, but to my amazement I was wrong and sure enough four hours after eating it I was still full. I also experienced cooking the very tasty meal of sweet potatoes and ground nuts.



My next challenge was to master the art of carrying water on my head. The ladies here are so skilled at this and lots of them can do so without even holding onto the bucket or bowl they're carrying. To be able to do this is my aim but I think it's highly unlikely that I will succeed. I was able to carry first a smallish bowl of water and then progress onto a huge bowl of water whilst keeping both my hands firmly holding it on my head. I needed help to both lift the bowl up onto my head and get it back down again but was very pleased and also quite surprised that very little of my water spilt as I negotiated my way over the rough and uneven ground and across ditches from the local tap to Mike's Aunt's home. Again I provided a lot of amusement and caused much laughter for all the surrounding children and anyone else who happened to be passing.



One of the jobs men here do to make a living is ride bicycle taxis. They are the most pimped up bikes I've ever seen, all brightly coloured with numerous horns and bells and mirrors. They make Candice (my bike at home) look very deprived. I shall have to do something about this when I get home.

I've put up a picture of one of the wire toys that children here make and play with. They are so imaginative and cleaver with what they can make out of wire, or old shoes or bits of someone else's rubbish. They could teach a lot to children back at home!

I really enjoyed my time in Mzuzu. It's a way of life that is very appealing, so simple, relaxed and happy. I think it would mostly suit me very well, if women and men were commonly thought of as equal that is, and perhaps if I could have a western style bathroom as although I don't mind going to the toilet in a pit and having bucket washes, it would be nice to have a powerful shower and be able to sit down when it was time to go every now and then.

Livingstonia

At the top of one of the mountains behind Chitimba is a village built by Scottish Missionaries called Livingstonia. It took a very steep and hot four hour walk up a long winding road to get there but was most definitely worth it. The air there was so clear and smelt of the pine and eucalyptus trees that grew everywhere. It reminded me of Australia, in fact since then a lot of Malawi has reminded me of Australia but that may be because there are blue gum eucalyptus trees almost anywhere you go. On the day I set off for Livingstonia I saw my first wild snake (other than one in England when I was at boarding school). It was slithering into a cafe where I was eating breakfast. I thought it was very cool to see and it was only a little one but the cafe owners went mad, screaming and trying to hit it with a stick. I guess they don't like snakes.

Anyway, on the way up to Livingstonia were views back down over Chitimba (a photo of one of the views is on my Chitimba post), and when I was there the were views all around over the mountains one way and down to the lake another.

Most of the houses were built by the missionaries and were huge with lovely verandas and gardens. It seems people in Malawi like to have nice gardens even when everywhere outside of the gardens is often really dry and dusty. I stayed in what is known as Stone House which was surrounded by flowering trees and amazing views. I chose the cheapest room which was a dorm but only two out of the eight beds had mattresses. The others were just metal bed frames. The room was right down in the cellar and at night time turned very cold. There were three other girls staying there who were sharing a room upstairs and when they found out what my room was like they very kindly let me share with them instead (at night time everyone except for a watch man left and so the big old house was completely empty apart from us).

Mike showed me the way up to Livingstonia and when we arrived we went and got the key for the local church off the care taker and let ourselves in to look around. We climbed up the bell tower and out of a hole in the roof to stand on the top, where we could see back down over the village. On the way back down I sneakily rang the bell except it wasn't so sneaky as it was noisy and the care taker knew it was Mike and I in the church. Still, he didn't say anything when we returned the key and there wasn't a mad rush of people coming to the church thinking it saw time to worship.

After a rest and lunch we went off to check out some waterfalls. Now I do like waterfalls but I've found that more often than not they're a bit of a disappointment and not as wonderful as who ever tells you about them makes out. This time though they were a million times more wonderful than I ever imagined. They dropped over cliffs far down into the valley below which was surrounded by forested mountains. We stood at the top of one of the falls looking across to a second waterfall and down over they edge where the water fell. Standing pretty much in the water as it flowed over the top it was hard to see how such a small looking amount of water on the flat river bed could turn into such a large looking amount of water falling for meters and meters and meters below.

It truly was amazing! I then walked around to the second waterfall where we could see back to the first and you could stand in a cave just underneath where the water stared to fall. Apparently slaves used to hide in the cave years ago.

The walk to and from the falls was lovely and we past people going about their daily lives, farming, carrying things to wherever they were going, and sitting around chatting with friends and playing Boa Game. Everywhere both here and in Tanzania are mud bricks piled up ready to burn before they are used for building. The photo above is from a particularly impressive pile on the way to the falls. I'm not sure who the little boy is but here people are very, very keen to be in your photographs where as in Tanzania they're mostly very, very keen not to be.

Mike returned to Chitimba the same day which meant the following day I made the journey back alone. On the way up we'd taken short cuts which went straight up the banks of the mountains, cutting off some of the bends in the road. Mike had warned me not to take them on the way back as some of them wouldn't lead where I wanted to go and I could get lost. I however decided that it would be boring just to stick to the road and so took my chances with the short cuts. The only problem was that I couldn't remember at which which ones we'd taken on the way up.

Almost straight away I was lost in a tiny village where lots of children happily shouted Mzungu (meaning white person) at me but one poor small child was absolutely terrified by me and screamed and screamed and screamed. I was pointed in the right direction and found my way back to the road. Undeterred I continued to take the short cuts as they appeared. All but one turned out to be good ones so I was very pleased with myself and made it down the mountain in the record time of three hours. The one short cut I did get wrong was a bit unfortunate as I'd followed it steeply down through the forest for ages only to reach a sign saying 'private, no entry beyond this point'. The sign was just randomly on the little path in the middle of the forest so rather than going straight on I just turned right, away from the sign, towards where I thought the road should be. There now was no path and I had to battle my way through all the shrubs and trees, jumping over ditches and hoping for once that snakes weren't too close. I really didn't want to have to go all the way back up to where I'd just come from to get back to the road but in the end with the fear of getting lost on the mountain forever I was forced to retrace my steps. It was fortunate I did as the road wasn't where I thought it would be at all and had I carried on I would never have got back to it. Despite the two mishaps it was a journey I very much enjoyed.

Into Malawi and the lovely village of Chitimba

Arriving overland into Malawi was pretty straight forward, the only slightly complicated part was getting my visa. Being from England we don't have to pay for the visa, but the immigration lady wanted to know how long I was planning to stay. I really didn't know at the time and so guessed at four to six weeks. This wasn't good enough though and the lady who seemed not to be in the best of moods wanted me to be more specific. Although I asked how long I could get a visa for, she wouldn't tell me until I told how exactly how long I would be staying. I decided to go with six weeks to which she replied I could only get a 30 day visa which I could later extend. If only she'd told me that in the first place, a lot of time could have been saved!


I had to spend a night in a little town called Karonga where there didn't seem to be much going on, then the following day I continued my journey south to Chitimba - a small village on the northern shores of Lake Malawi. I ended up spending quite a few days here as it was a place I very much enjoyed.

Although I stayed at a campsite where overland trucks stopped, the truck people, when they were there, kept to themselves and there weren't any other tourists so I had a dorm all to myself. There was a lovely long beach, which again was backed by the mountains, and very friendly people all around.


Leading out of the campsite were lots of stalls selling wood carvings. I made friends with one of the wood carvers whose family then adopted me. I spent my time in Chitimba learning and then playing Boa Game (a game that I've not yet found anyone who doesn't play in all of Malawi, where you capture each others beads as you count your way around holes in a board), learning some of the local and national languages, eating the lovely food which Mike's (my new friend) mum cooked for me, experiencing the local bars which are open and blaring happy music all day and all night, learning to cook nsima and also getting a little practise in of carrying things on my head.

One day Mike and I borrowed a bike and took turns cycling and sitting on the rack at the back of the bike to get to a near by town with a name that in English means Water Sun. There was a lovely beach there, a little market and some good food to eat. I tried my first Malawian sweet potato which was so delicious. It was very sweet indeed with a bit of a parsnip taste to it. I could have eaten millions of them I think but it was given to me by Mike's uncle and I didn't like to ask for more, so I had just the one. I've never been able to find one quite as good since.

Metema Beach

My journey down to Lake Malawi was another successful adventure into the unknown. Leaving Tukuyu I had no idea what time my bus would be as no one had been able to tell me. I set off from my guest house early in the morning and handily enough a mini bus to where I was heading pulled in as I reached the bus station. We traveled through beautiful countryside surrounded by mountains, and at first tea plantations for as far as you could see, which then gradually turned into banana plantations.

I had to change buses in a little town called Kyela and as soon as I got off the first bus someone came and showed me to another mini bus which was apparently going to my planned destination - Metema Beach. It really was the tiniest of mini buses, not much bigger than a large car but still we managed to get 23 of us into it. When I got to the bus it was already quite full but there was a space right at the back. To reach it I had to get into all sorts of unnatural positions whilst squeezing through the people, over the chairs and between them and the very low roof. The very low roof meant that whilst moving along the bumpy dirt road I had to keep my chin to my chest so as not to hit my head repeatedly. Next to me was a rather large lady which although made what space I had even smaller, did mean I had a little padding when going over the pumps. And padding was what was needed in a bus with no suspension.

I was happy to find that the cost of my journey was much cheaper than I'd expected but the happiness decreased slightly when after not going all that far I was told I had to get off the bus as it was the last stop and would be returning to Kyela. With no idea where I was and surrounded by non English speaking people, I managed to gather that I should perhaps go and sit by a little shop and wait for another mode of transport. Children came and surrounded me and an elderly man chatted to me in Swahili. After a while a pick up truck stopped near by and a kind lady motioned that I should get on. The driver insisted that I should sit in the front with him, which I felt quite uncomfortable doing as a lady with a newly born baby and an elderly lady were both squeezed in with me and I would have been quite happy to go in the back giving them a bit more space. However, eventually we all got to Metema Beach.

On the shores of Lake Malawi, with mountains all around, Metema beach is certainly set in a lovey location. Sadly though the beach wasn't all that clean and everywhere I went both children and adults asked me over and over again for money. My experience could have perhaps been different if I had stayed in a tourist hotel, but it was cheaper and nearer the village and cheap food if you stayed in a local guesthouse, so that's what I did. I think I was the only guest there but the owners were very friendly, I had a pink mosquito net fit for a princess, and it provided me with stories to tell - one night I was woken up by a loud knocking on my door and found the nice lady who worked there trying to tell me something I couldn't understand. I gathered that she was going out to party and so I should have the key and lock up after she left. She was drunk and burst out laughing spitting her mouthful of beer out as she did. After she left I locked up and returned to bed a bit confused. Then there was knocking on my window and she'd returned as had forgotten something. I was leaving very early the next morning and so just left the keys in the inside of the unlocked door. I hope that was what I was supposed to do.

Whilst in Metema Beach I spent a day hiking up to a waterfall. My guide (apparently you had to have a guide and the man guiding me thought that this was because without a guide tourists might poison the water and kill off everyone in the village) and I passed through the village where lots of people were growing cassava and drying out the smelly routes in the sunshine, which they had previously been soaking. They would then be ground and used for nsima, the typical staple food here. We followed the river crossing over it and back again several times before finally reaching the falls, which fell down hardly leaving the rocks surface, and a big pool at the bottom. My guide told me that no one had ever been to the top of the falls. He wanted to go but was scared of snakes so hadn't yet managed to. I'm not really sure whether I believe that no one has ever been to the top. Although I couldn't obviously see a path up there, it wasn't that high up and didn't look impossible to reach. I wanted to go but wasn't allowed in case something bad happened to me.

In the evening the guide and I climbed up to the top of some of the mountains and watched the sun setting whilst looking out across the lake toward Malawi, which was very pretty indeed. In my opinion it would have probably been more likely that I fell off the very narrow path whilst climbing the mountains, than it would have been that I died whilst trying to reach the top of the waterfall!

Tukuyu

Tukuyo is set amongst the most beautiful green mountains and plantations of bananas and tea. I decided it had been long enough since I climbed a mountain and so set off to climb another one - Mount Rungwe. At half the height of Kili it took only one day of fast hiking to get to the top, but I think I was possibly more tired than when I'd climbed Kili. Or may be I'd just forgotten how tired I was at Kili's summit. The guy I climbed with walked really fast and I foolishly thought that was ok when we first started, but it meant that there were many occasions near the top where I really thought I'd either have to give up and go back down, or lye down and have a nap before going on. My advice to anyone climbing mountains is don't start walking at a very fast pace! It was such a steep climb which sometimes meant scrambling up on all fours. The bottom of the mountain was covered in rainforest. This changed into bamboo forest, then bushes and shrubs and finally just rocks and grasses at the top. Sadly there was no view from the top. The very misty photo is from the summit. Still, on the way down there were some better views (once we were below the clouds). We also saw some black and white colabus monkeys jumping through the trees above us. I never knew they had such long hair but they do and it flaps behind them as they leap, looking quite funny.


There were the hugest banana plants ever! They're wild and the fruits are only good for monkeys to eat. The leaves were good to hide behind though.

I spent a day hiking up to the rim of a dormant volcano - Ngozi Crater. Apparently there was only one path up through the forest to the top, which meant that no one else was anywhere we could see - quite an amazing thought seeing how far we could see at the time. The view was so beautiful. Inside the crater was a huge lake. I really wanted to climb down and explore but I was told it was too dangerous and to be honest it did look like if you slipped and fell on the way down that you would fall to the bottom and die.

After a few days of climbing and hiking and washing my clothes (I hate hand washing) and eating and sleeping I continued South. My plan to spend a few days relaxing on the Tanzanian shores of Lake Malawi.

Heading South

I don't really have much to say about the next bit of my journey but thought I'd add some photos. As you can see from the sign there's a lot of talk of f#*ing in Tanzania. What's worse is that Karibu means welcome and so this sign seems to be welcoming you for well, I don't really need to say.




After returning to Kigoma from Gombe, I decided to head south towards Malawi. It was a four day journey which meant stoping off over night along the way. Barbara, the American lady from Gombe was traveling my way too and so we traveled together until nearer the boarder where she went on into Malawi and I explored a little of Southern Tanzania.

The sceanery was very different to how it had been when traveling west. We drove along more dirt roads and across high ridges overlooking forested drops to either side. The trees were amazing shades of reds, yellows, oranges and greens and it reminded me of an English autumn. Except that it was boiling hot and very very dusty.




Again we had incredibly old buses to travel on and again they broke down. We shared the journey with lots of live chicks. All with their feet tied together and looking very thirsty. I feel so sorry for what a lot of animals here have to go through. It would make me really sad at home and it does a bit here but I think as it's just how things are here and there's not really anything you can do (I have been very tempted to buy all the chickens I come across but then I'd not know what to do with them) you kind of have to not let it effect you so much. It's a bit of a wierd feeling.



After four days of solid bus journeying I was very pleased to reach my destination - Tukuyu.

Gombe Stream National Park

To reach the home of the Tanzanian chimpanzees I knew I had to go to one of two national parks, either to the north or the south of Kigoma. It was incredibly hard to find out what I had to do to get there though as no one I asked seemed to know or was able to speak much English and although I've been trying my hardest to learn Swahili, unless someone wants to talk about their name or where they're from, the price of things or whether they have a big tummy, we can't really have a conversation.

The guide book told me there was an office for one of the national parks - Gombe Stream - at the end of a beach in the next village up the lake from Kigoma. I successfully found the village, and the beach, but not the office. In the lovely way things here have been happening so far, I did later happen to stumble upon a sign for the national park office well out of town as I was exploring another area. Amazingly it turned out that it was a real office and there were people there who not only could speak English but could also tell me about my options for going to find the chimps. And so I set off for Gombe!

Unless you wanted to pay hundreds of dollars you needed to get the lake taxi. This entailed climbing up onto the side of the boat and sitting on the edge along with as many other people would fit, whilst all the luggage was put in the middle. We sat like this in the hot sun for nearly three hours holding on and hoping we wouldn't capsize. The weight inside the boat wasn't evenly placed and so we were always on a bit of a slant.

All the way across Tanzania the land had been so dry and brown but looking back to the shore from the boat it was completely different. Stunning green forested mountains came right down to the lakes edge where they met the beach and then the water. Monkeys and baboons sat on the beach and jumped through the trees, and little villages along the way shone silver with the sardines they were drying on roofs sparkling in the sunshine.


When I arrived at Gombe I was greeted by a guy from the guest house and shown to my room. Due to the lack of information I wasn't sure if you could get food there and so had bought a supply of my own. I sat on the beach and had a picnic looking out across the lake as the sun set. It was so beautiful and I felt incredibly lucky to be there. Little did I know just how lucky I was.... no one had mentioned that baboons are not very nice, or that they want your food, or that they'll attack for it. At the time I ate my dinner, all the baboons had gone to bed but in the morning this was not the case. I took my breakfast out to eat at a table over looking the lake. Almost straight away a baboon pretty much the same size as me came boldly up to the table and sat on the chair next to me. I have to say I was rather terrified. He then looked at me, reached forward, and stole one of my bags which fortunately only had a carton of juice in it. I watched him chew open the carton but didn't hang around to see if he drank it. I went straight back inside and ate my breakfast in the safety of my room with my door locked.


I was so excited that I might get to meet some chimps but knowing that there was a chance I wouldn't, I tried not to let the excitement build. We set off - me, a lady from America and our guide, between the edge of the forest and the lake. After only 15 minutes we came across our first chimps. There was one male, three females and a little baby holding onto it's mums tummy. We were only supposed to stay with the same chimps for an hour and were supposed to keep a distance of ten metres between us and them but these rules didn't seem to apply on this day and I wasn't going to argue. We ended up hanging out with the chimps for the whole morning, being joined by one more female a little later on.

They were quite happy for us to be with them. We followed them as they strolled up through the forest paths and up and down the steepest mountainous banks, which they moved over with the greatest ease whilst we had to cling on desperately to whatever we could find that might hold our weight so as not to fall and slide back down. We sat with them as they played with sticks and groomed each other, watched as the little baby tried to explore up into the trees and was often taken down to the safety of his mothers tummy when she felt he'd gone too high or was hanging upside down too dangerously. We followed them when they decided to climb up and play in the tops of the trees and then they came down and chose to sit right next to us.

I found that the ladies all seemed in a bit of a bad mood but the guy was very happy and relaxed and I like to think we became friends. At times we sat only a metre or two apart, him playing with sticks, and me watching him in absolute awe. He sometimes would get up and come towards me and I'd move back and then we'd sit down together again. I would have loved to have just stayed where I was, and he really did seem very friendly, but I'd been told if he came near us we had to move away and so I thought I'd obey this rule to be on the safe side. It really was the most amazing day. I may not be a big fan of baboons, but I certainly love chimpanzees!

Kigoma

I stayed in Block B (or Block House B - Dad) whilst in Kigoma. It was cheap and clean and the people there were very friendly, and I met the first white person I'd seen for days there! Each night I went to sleep to the sound of bull frogs and each morning I woke up to the sound of children at the local school singing the national anthem.



There was a beautiful and deserted beach near by which I spent a few days relaxing at. You could get a dalla dalla there but often there weren't any so normally I just walked. It was quite a hike which I didn't mind so much but when you neared the beach you had to pass through a little village where everyone, adults and children, asked you for money. This I did not like. Although it's very easy to talk to Tanzanian people, in fact it's incredibly hard not to even if you don't want to, I've found it almost impossible to make real friendships with anyone. Everyone wants something from you and so (even if some people may be different) I'm always aware that people are probably only talking to me so I can give them money or a way of getting to England and I wish it wasn't like that.

In the village near the beach the younger children were so sweet. They too would ask for money or presents but weren't bothered when you said no and by the time you'd past through the village there would always be about six or seven of them hanging off each of your arms.


Lake Tanganyika is the worlds longest fresh water lake and holds 18% of the worlds fresh water! Sitting on the beach looking out across it, it's just like the sea. You can't see the other side and waves roll onto the beach. It's beautifully clear and lovely to swim in. The only thing is that there are monkeys on the beach and so I was ever conscious that they might be wanting to steal my clothes. I did manage to escape any monkey thefts though.

Second Journey Westward

After a couple of days in Tabora - a dusty little town full of people everywhere you went - I decided to try and go the rest of the way to the Western edge of Tanzania on the train. I bought my ticket the day before and was informed that the train should leave at 8pm the following day, but they couldn't be sure as it was machinery and machinery goes wrong. So at 8pm I had boarded the over full train and took my seat amongst the many other passengers ready for my overnight journey. At 9pm a loud horn sounded and everyone left on the platform started running around and getting on to the train and people in the train began to get excited. At 10pm the same thing happened, and then at 10.30pm we finally started slowly moving. I was sat next to the window and was asked to shut it as robbers often tried to jump into the train through the windows and steal passenger's bags. Sure enough along the way two of the windows in my carriage were pushed open from the outside and hands reached in. I wasn't close enough to see if anything had been stolen and probably being the only non Tanzanian person on the train and with very limited Swahili I never found out what had taken place. Each time though there were screams and the all the previously sleepy people in the carriage would jump up and crowd over to see what was happening.

When it got light it was apparently safe to open the windows and we opened ours to find beautiful views across rivers and little villages and plantations of various crops. We often made short stops where hundreds of people would appear and run to the train with different foods and and always lots of sugar cane to sell to the passengers. Children appeared too, sometimes selling things and sometimes just shouting 'chuba' - they wanted any empty plastic bottles. Everyone looked very poor and wore old and often ripped clothes. The children looked unhappy. In other places I've been to, whether the children look rich or poor, they've mostly been happy, shouting and playing and laughing. But here they didn't do any of those things. It was really sad. I wished I could speak their language more and get off the train and find out about how they lived and what made them happy and sad. It must be a hard life there but I don't know what made it different to other similar places.

At the end of the journey and without any breakdowns we arrived in the tiny town of Kigoma, on the edge of Lake Tanganyika.

First journey Westward

One of the things I most wanted to do whilst in Tanzania was meet some of the Chimpanzees who live right on the Western edge of the country. Traveling here is harder than in other places I've been as more often than not there's no information about where to go, how to get there, or what to do, and although people are always happy to help (and always happy if not expectant for payment in return for their help) generally very few people know anything about what you want to know. So unsure of whether I would get to where the chimpanzees lived and if I could, then whether I would be able to afford to go and find them, I decided to just head West!

My initial plan was to get the train which travels from Dar Es Salaam right to the other side of Tanzania. However, it turned out that first and second class no longer existed and third class meant sitting on a crammed train bench for the entire journey, which would at the least take 24 hours but breakdowns of longer than that time were very common along the way. So I chose to get a bus three quarters of the way. This journey turned out to be possibly worse than the train may have been.

I had to set off from my hotel at 5 in the morning. Making my way through the dark streets to where the dalla dallas would hopefully be working to take me to the bus station was interesting. Everyone greeted me along the way including men mid pee. I wasn't really sure how to respond to this and so just muttered a greeting and kept my eyes focused on the road ahead. Fortunately the dalla dallas had started working and by the time we got to the bus station I was buried under a mountain of luggage and people. There were hundreds of buses everywhere but after asking a few people along the way I managed to find the one I had a ticket for.

The bus was very, very, very old and had the hugest step to get up onto it. One guy had told me I needed to take my big rucksack onto the bus with me, but after heaving it up and not know where I could put it I was then instructed by another guy to take it off and put it in the luggage compartment underneath.

The buses here are the same size as English buses but they've managed to cram rows of five seats into the space we have four. As with ever journey I've been on where you prepay for your ticket, before we set off there was a big fuss about who was supposed to be sitting where and who was in a seat they shouldn't be in. It was still dark at this time but was boiling hot and the bus was full of mosquitoes. I sat next to an elderly lady who needed help putting her massive bag up on the overhead racks. It was too big to fit and so we spent a long time trying to put it up, then taking it down and taking things out and trying again.

The first part of the journey was on sealed but bumpy roads. As we bumped along the bus made really unhealthy sounding noises and I very much doubted whether we would actually reach where we were supposed to be going. Amazingly though, despite two temporary break downs we did eventually make it. After six hours into the 12 hour journey (which ended up taking nearly 16) the sealed roads came to an end and the rest of the way we traveled along incredibly bumpy and dusty roads. It was hot and so people kept the windows open and the bus, and your eyes and mouth and nose and clothes, were constantly full of red dust. The guy sat behind me was really tall and kept ramming his knees into the back of my chair. Now my chair was comfy enough normally but when someone's knees were in the back of it, it felt like the back was just one thin piece of material. What made this even more annoying than just the discomfort and pain was that knee guy was a Rastafarian and for the entire journey went on and on to the lady next to him about how he was a rasta and what rastas did and didn't do. Everyone else on the bus was African but I guess knee guy and his neighbour must have come from different countries as knee guy spoke loudly in English and so I could hear and understand every word.

Another terrible thing was that the same video was played over and over again with a theme tune which became as annoying as knee guy. I'd hoped the journey would end before it got dark but it just went on into the night. I was so very happy when we arrived at our destination - Tabora.

I suppose though I should be pleased that we did arrive. And also that a little baby sat right near me only cried once and very briefly on the whole journey!

My return to Dar Es Salaam

Thinking I would have a lonely journey back to Dar was a mistake, as someone I started talking to on the ferry turned out to be a friend of my cousins when she was working in Dubai! It's funny the people you meet when you think you don't know anyone anywhere close by.

Once off the ferry I found a taxi to take me to somewhere to stay. Half way through the journey my driver changed the hat he was waring. He explained that when he was at the ferry port he wore a hat typically worn by Muslims. This he said was because if he didn't then none of the Muslim population coming from Zanzibar would get in his taxi. Really though he was a Christian and this apparently was reflected by the next hat he put on.





In my limited experience, Dar Es Salaam is always busy and the hotels always full. I thought by arriving early in the day I wouldn't have a problem finding somewhere to stay but again I was wrong and we spend ages trying one hotel after another. I almost gave up my search to stay in an 'executive suite' but decided against it because of the price and fortunately found somewhere else much cheaper at the next hotel we tried.





I spent a couple of days exploring Dar so as to avoid traveling with my unhappy tummy and I began to quite like it. I mastered the dalla dallas, met a lot of friendly people and a lot of proposing men, got to know my way around most parts of the city and even found the botanical gardens. As you may be able to see from the picture, the gardens weren't at all impressive. In fact I walked right past them not realising what they were until I double checked on the map. There were far more beautiful plants outside of the gardens than in them.


I feel I should also perhaps mention a type of food I've been eating here, which can be found in most places and bought for a very little amount of money - chip omelets. They may sound a bit odd but are actually very tasty and although perhaps not the healthiest option I've figured they give me protein and so should be eaten and enjoyed. The chips are all already cooked and look pretty unappetising in glass cabinets by the side of the roads. When you order they're fried a little again and then eggs are mixed in. If it's a good stall you get salad too. Actually, considering the food I've found here, they probably are one of the most exciting foods you can get.

From Arusha we got the bus down to Dar Es Salaam on the coast. We'd heard you could get cheap boats to Zanzibar from a little town north of Dar Es Salaam called Bagamoyo. So we had our first and slightly confusing journey using Dalla Dallas (the little mini buses everyone uses here) to get there. We didn't really know where we were going or where any of the many many mini buses were going. but it all worked out well in the end. On the way we past a bus which had crashed onto it's side at the edge of the road. It was completely burnt out and still on fire but lots of people were trying to push it back up the right way. As we past they succeeded, nearly crushing the people stood on the other side of it. I'm not really sure what the purpose was as there was no way they'd be able to get back on, but it showed their strength I suppose and was interesting to watch.

In Bagamoyo we found a very cheap place to stay, which after a night there, we think perhaps may have been a brothel. Our light bulb was red and even with it switched off, outside our room were lots of noisy men and we had quite a few knocks on the door. Naomi wisely pushed the one chair in the room against the door and we went to sleep in our bed feeling glad one of us wasn't there alone.



Apart from that though it was quite a nice little town. In the afternoon we walked up the beach in search of a boat, passed lots of fishermen with their catches of fish and ladies scraping off the fish's scales onto the beach. We discovered that we could probably get a dhow over to Zanzibar but they left in the middle of the night and it wasn't an advisable way to get there if you wanted to live. So we returned to Dar Es Salaam and after quite a bit of hassle from the ferry men we managed to get a ferry to Zanzibar the same day.



We spent just over a week on Zanzibar, which is such a lovely Island. For a few days we stayed in Stone Town where there's hundreds of tiny alleys running off each other with little shops and peoples homes on either side and lots of amazing doors. All the alleys look very similar, especially at first, and you can just spend hours walking around being endlessly lost just turning down any alley that looks like a nice one. In the evenings there's a street food market where they sell delicious pizzas. They're not quite like the pizzas we have though - they use a kind of pancake base, then put a filling on top, fold over the edges, add a raw egg, then cook on a hot plate type thing. As the sun sets loads of the local people do very impressive jumps off the harbour wall which was funny to watch.



From Stone Town we went on a spice tour and learnt how all sorts of different spices and fruits grow and we got to taste lots of them too. I found out that pepper corns grow on vines which climb up other trees, cinnamon tree leaves smell like cloves, their bark smells like cinnamon and is what cinnamon sticks are made from, and their roots small like vicks and is used when people have colds. I learnt that you should never put a whole fresh clove in your mouth and chew it, and that some Tanzanian ladies eat nutmeg porridge to enlarge their pupils and make them more attractive to men.

We spent a few days in the North of the Island and stayed on one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. The sand was so white and the sea perfectly turquoise. It couldn't have been nicer. I spent a day diving where there were some lovely hard and soft corals but sadly not a huge amount of fish, as I think over fishing has been a problem there. We did see a huge turtle sitting on the bottom though and when we were back on the boat we found we were of interest to a group of about 20 dolphins. We could have got in and swam with them but the sea was rough and I was scared I'd never get back to the boat if I left, so I stayed where I was and watched from the safety of the boat.

The place where we stayed put on beach parties each Saturday and so we were able to join in with one of those. It was a very fun evening although that was at least partly because the party was so bad. We'd bought our own drinks with us from Stone Town and so started the evening off with them and a few games of cards outside our bungalow, before going down to the beach in good spirits. It seems that a lot of Tanzanian men very much like white girls and so we spent our time dancing for a couple of minutes and then having to run away from groping hands to dance somewhere else for a very short time before having to swiftly move on again. We succeeded in getting away from everyone even though some of the people we had to escape from on more than one occasion!



Unfortunately at the end of our time in the North, it turned out that if you eat at a restaurant rather than street stalls (as we'd previously been doing) then it might not necessarily be good for your insides. And so I returned to Stone Town in not the best of states. Naomi looked after me very well indeed though and it caused a lot of amusement for us both. Sadly though the return to Stone town was an ending. It not only meant I needed to leave Zanzibar, but also that my wonderful traveling buddy Noami would leave me all alone and return to England.