2nd – 4th
April 2011
…into Tanzania…
The border was a furious swarm of men all looking for
opportunity to help smooth our way through the endless paperwork involved in
getting our bodies and our cars out of Zambia and away from those crappy
roads. They were all trying to make it
seem impossibly difficult unless we engaged one of them to smooth our way. It
took all our effort to resist their offers and in the end we got through it all
without their help! Carnet stamped, visas checked, passports, council tax, environment
tax, insurance and all at a cost of about US$220pp! After 4 hours of this we
drove to the nearby city – Mbeya, got our internet options sorted out (again…grrr…a
recurring frustration in each new country…), found a safe, respectable hotel at
7pm and just crashed!! Phew, that was a day of work!! ..and there was yet
another to come…as M&M needed to get back to RSA, we were then up early for
a 13 hour drive to Dar es Salaam….the highlight was passing through Mukumi
national park, which the TanzAm highway passes right through!! It took us all this time in Africa to see our
first elephants…amazing really…and there they were, just wandering around on
either side of this major highway with big trucks and buses scooting along all
day every day. The going got really
tough as darkness came with yet 2 hours to go…very tough with no
street-lighting and increasing numbers of people wandering across the road as
we entered the outskirts of Dar! Jim and Mark were exhausted and shaky when we
finally pulled in to the posh Movenpick Hotel near the Dar waterfront,
wondering just how we’d avoided collecting…or being collected by…flesh or metal
along the way. Champers was in order…and
room service!! Our first real splurge since…well…Shiwa...just a few days
back…oops!! M&M departed for the
airport late and we then immersed ourselves in a few days of wallowing in
luxury, notwithstanding a couple of episodes of re-arranging the contents of
both bakkies prior to dropping them off with our new friend, Aggrey, who is now
looking after them until the next leg of their adventure in a few months.
If Australia is all about places, Africa is all about pathways –
over the past couple of months we’ve crossed the old paths of animals and birds migrating, lesser tribes
fleeing more dominant tribes into the dry interior, slavers chaining and
beating their catch to the coast and the slave market of Zanzibar, European
explorers – agents of imperialistic governments, missionaries – every bit as
much the same agents, Greek cattle drovers who drove their herds from the rich
grazing of South Africa to Cairo, and the newest routes, the roads good and bad
along which flow much more than vehicle traffic – an endless bustle of people
flowing along the shoulders…carrying, selling, talking, playing, and diseases
of all types - particularly HIV-AIDS!
Car free, we headed for Zanzibar on the ferry.
