Back
I crossed into Tanzania at the Namanga border crossing from Kenya on board the Akamba bus from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam. The bus had left Nairobi at 07.00 and we arrived at the border at just past 09.00. The journey from Nairobi passed through the small town of Kajiado and across the endless plains to the south of Nairobi. The further south we went the greener the plains became, the dry, brown, grassy plains to the south of Nairobi gradually became greener and covered in acacia trees. Maasai tribesmen herded cattle along the side of the road, looking very distinctive wearing their red and blue blankets. As we passed through the many Maasai villages along the way, the villagers would just stand and stare at the side of the road as the bus went past. The Maasai looked like an ancient people and their way of life looked like it hadn't changed for hundreds of years, I felt as those I was travelling through another country in another time. The Maasai have managed to escape the mainstream development in Kenya and preserve their traditional way of life. This hasn't been easy with many upheavals over the years, including famine, disease and the creation of reserves, which are off limits to the Maasai. This has caused intense pressure on the land resources and the forgoing of some traditions and the reluctant acceptance of government settlement programs.
The bus dropped us off at the Kenyan immigration post, once completing immigration formalities we had to walk the short distance across no-mans land and into Tanzania where the bus was waiting for us outside the Tanzanian immigration and customs office. The whole procedure took nearly an hour to complete before continuing south to Arusha now passing mountains in the distance rising up from the plains. It was a hot day, the heat and the drone of the engine sent me to sleep for many parts of the journey to Dar es Salaam. On route we stopped at Arusha, which would be my first destination to travel to after Gerald arrived in Dar es Salaam from London. We planned to trek up Mt Meru but as we passed by, it was shrouded by low cloud and I could only guess at where exactly the mountain was. It was the same when we passed through Moshi, Mt Kilimanjaro was out there somewhere, but hidden in the low cloud.
The bus continued relentlessly towards Dar es Salaam, passing the Pare and Usambara mountains to the north. Alongside the road were huge plantations of sisal, a plant I had never seen before that looked very alien especially when they flowered. The locals told me that they harvest the leaves and use the fibre to make rope as well as for weaving into baskets. The sun had set before we reached our destination; it was 19.30 when we eventually arrived in Dar es Salaam at the new Ubungo bus station, miles out from the city centre along the Morogoro Road. I had heard rumours that the bus station had moved; the old bus station was only a couple of blocks from the hotel I intended to stay at. Now I had to negotiate a taxi ride for a trip for which I did not know the distance; I worked on the principle of trying to half the opening price in my negotiations with a taxi driver; we started at TSH10,000 and finally settled on TSH4,500. I checked into the Safari Inn, just off Libya Street, which was recommended as a good budget hotel in my guidebook. It was probably one of the more expensive places I had stayed in so far on this trip through East Africa at TSH7,200 for a rather poky en-suite single room. The staff at the reception always seemed to be on another planet, everything was too much bother for them. Standing at the reception desk was not enough to attract their attention, I found jumping up and down and waving my arms about a bit more useful.
Gerald was due to fly in the next day, Saturday, on an Emirates flight via Dubai arriving at 14.40. I ate out at a local restaurant, Chefs Pride on Chagga Street that evening and went for a beer at the New Protein Bar just around the corner on Jamhuri Street where I met George, the kind of contact you find in most cities who can fix anything for you. I went to sleep that night excited with the prospect of a friend from home arriving bearing some news and gossip.
On Saturday morning I busied myself locally around town, killing time while I waited until 13.30 to take a taxi out to the airport. The area around the Safari Inn was definitely the motor spares part of town; every other shop was selling motor spares and alongside the roads cars were being welded and engines repaired, leaving a slick of oil along the gutter. It was a lot hotter and far more humid than the previous places I had visited on this trip. I didn't explore much of the city and after lunch I met up with George who sorted out a taxi for me to and from the airport for TSH7,000. George's friend Samuel drove the taxi and George jumped into the death seat (the front passenger seat); George was at a loose end and didn't have anything else to do so decided to come out to the airport to meet Gerald as well. We hung around the airport for a while and watched the Emirates flight land exactly on time.
I waited anxiously at the arrivals gate and when I caught sight of Gerald collecting his backpack from the luggage carousel I jumped up and down waving. Gerald emerged into the heat of Africa looking a little dazed and confused. I introduced him to George and said it was a long story and we walked off to find Samuel, who had parked up his taxi in the nearby car park. We drove the 15km back into town and back to the Safari Inn where I had upgraded that morning to a twin room. This was Gerald's first trip to Africa and his first time leaving Europe. I knew he would be tired after such a long journey, I remember how I felt when I arrived in Kampala six weeks ago after doing an almost identical trip. I left him to rest while I went out to find a reliable bus company to take us to Arusha the next day. We decided that rather than spending a day recovering and relaxing in Dar es Salaam it would probably be better to get to Arusha, which was 1,500m above sea level, so that Gerald could start acclimatising for our trek up Mt Meru.
Someone at the reception desk at the hotel recommended the Royal Coach Company to me as a reliable operator. Most of the bus companies still have their offices around the old bus station, which is now just an empty, dusty lot used for parking trucks. Later that evening we booked our tickets to Arusha for TSH12,500 and then went to Chefs Pride restaurant for dinner, followed by beer at the New Protein Bar where we sat out on the street watching life go by and catching up on news from home.
The bus stopped at the office by the old bus station in the morning at 07.00 on it's way to Ubungo; we caught the bus here, which saved a taxi fare out to Ubungo. The only downside was that we had to wait for an hour and a half at Ubungo until the scheduled departure time. The Royal Coach was a very bad introduction to African travelling for Gerald; I don't think I have even travelled on a smarter bus back home and Gerald even agreed that it was a better bus than the one he took to Heathrow airport on Friday afternoon. It was fully air-conditioned with seats that were almost as comfortable as my armchair at home, their was an onboard toilet, hostess service with free drinks and biscuits and even a digital display at the front of the bus telling us what the current temperature was and when the toilet was occupied. I told Gerald that transport would only get worse after this journey.
It took nine hours to reach Arusha, retracing the route I had taken on Friday. Arusha is the safari capital of Tanzania and is the hub of the countries tourist industry. It is the gateway to both the Arusha and Serengeti national parks and also makes an ideal base for exploring the Crater Highlands and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. There are over one hundred tour companies registered in the town, each with a team of touts cruising the streets trying to drum up some business. The sun was almost setting when we arrived at the bus station in the centre of town on Makongoro Road. Many people had warned me about the touts at the bus station and their various ploys, including the 'free taxi service'; we were prepared for a bit of a rugby scrum in trying to escape from the bus. We got past the worst of the touts and were only followed by two, intent on selling us a safari, all the way to the Mashele Guesthouse, just off Colonel Middleton Road in the north of the town where we took a twin room for TSH4,000 a night.
The main aim of Gerald's three-week visit to Tanzania was to trek up to the summit of Mt Meru, at an altitude of 4,566m. This would also be the most difficult part of the trip to organise, as we wanted to arrange the trip independently, rather than paying to go on a tour. I relish a challenge but I could see many hurdles ahead to overcome; I would be surprised if everything went smoothly, this was Africa after all and nothing tends to go quite as you plan it. I had two plans for climbing the mountain, conveniently called, plan A and plan B. Plan A, was the preferred plan and involved Joseph, the manager of the Mt Kenya hostel who I had stayed with a couple of weeks ago, coming down to Arusha to help with the arrangements and to do the cooking on the mountain. Plan B, was if Joseph didn't turn up we would have to do everything ourselves; I prayed that plan A would work.
When I had last seen Joseph at the Mt Kenya hostel we had provisionally agreed to meet tomorrow, Monday, at the Mashele Guesthouse; he had given me his mobile phone number anyway just in case. I decided to phone Joseph first thing on Monday morning to see where he was and if he still wanted to come down to Arusha. That wasn't quiet as straightforward as I thought as no one in Arusha seemed to have a telephone that worked. Finally, I ended up at the Tanzania Telecom Building were an operator managed to put me through to Joseph's mobile. He was still at home in Naro Moru but said that he would pack his bag and leave as soon as possible and see us at the guesthouse later tonight; I broke the good news to Gerald. Just in case plan A didn't work out we spent the afternoon looking around the shops in town at suitable food supplies and also looked for gas cartridges for the stove Gerald had brought with him. We couldn't find any gas cartridges anywhere so instead looked about on the market for kerosene and paraffin stoves. What ever happened later that day, Tuesday would be our day organising the trek ready to start the climb on Wednesday morning.
Apart from the safari touts who followed us endlessly around town wherever we went, Arusha was a very nice place. The town is divided in two halves by the Naura and Goliondoi Rivers, to the east is the commercial centre, the market and bus station, to the west the up market hotels, most of the safari company offices, airline offices and tourist souvenir shops. The corridor formed by the rivers was like a small patch of jungle running through the centre of the town. Trees grew everywhere and from a distance the town looked more like a forest rather than the countries fastest growing and most developed town. The huge cone of Mt Meru dominated the view to the northeast of town, the mountain seemed to loom over the town. From the back of the Mashele Guesthouse we had a great view of the mountain; as we stood staring up at it we agreed that one way or another we would reach that summit.
We spent the evening drinking beer with Mama at the guesthouse. There was a small veranda at the front of the guesthouse where we could sit and watch the street life. It was a back street and most of the traffic was pedestrian or bicycle but whenever a car approached we looked on expectantly hoping that it would be Joseph arriving. Finally at 22.30 I finished my last beer and went for a shower before going to bed, thinking about how we would swing plan B into operation as Joseph hadn't turned up. I was lying in bed listening to the news on the radio when Gerald came into the room at 23.15 and said there was someone at reception asking for me. It was Joseph, he had made it and stood at the reception desk dressed smartly in a suit with his backpack; it was great to see him again. I went to sleep that night happy, we had jumped our first hurdle on the way to the mountain.
Over breakfast the next morning we discussed our plans and what we needed to do to organise the trek. There were three things we had to sort out and just one day to do it in, it was going to be a busy day. Joseph enlisted the help of a local boy who was hanging around the guesthouse, he would be our runner and source of local information for the day. We needed to buy food, for four people over four days, buy a stove as Joseph had left his at home and we couldn't get gas for Gerald's, and arrange transport to take us to the park gates and to pick us up again. It was obligatory to hire a guide on the mountain and from the information we gathered locally we also found out that we had to supply food for the guide as well. Our first stop was at the local, colourful market, where we bought most of the food supplies we would need. That took most of the morning and after we carried it all back to the guesthouse we stopped for lunch. That afternoon we searched for a paraffin, pressure stove; we searched for a couple of hours and finally, just when we were giving up hope, found one in a hardware store on Sokoine Road for TSH13,500; we bought it. The last job of the day was arranging transport to the park gate, a distance of about 35km from Arusha. Hiring a vehicle always seems to get very expensive in East Africa, this was no exception; we settled on a fare of US$100 for the return trip, about what I feared we would have to pay. They would pick us up on Wednesday morning outside our guesthouse.
We went back to the guesthouse to make our preparations for tomorrow. Joseph fiddled around with the stove until he finally got it working while we emptied out what we didn't need in our packs and loaded them up with the food supplies for four days. We went out for nyama choma and beer at a local bar just down the road to celebrate our successful days work. Personally I wouldn't be happy until we had taken that first step up the mountain on the other side of the park gates. Joseph commented on his observations on Arusha and the Tanzanians. Arusha was a lot cleaner than Nairobi, this shocked Gerald, who thought Arusha was the messiest place he had ever seen; he could not imagine how a city could be worse than Arusha. Joseph didn't like the Tanzanians that much, he thought they were unfriendly and quiet often rude; and no one dressed smartly or wore a suit. Joseph sat in this local bar, the only one smartly dressed, wearing his jacket and suit. It was interesting to listen to his observations, as he noticed a lot of little things that we would of never picked up on.
Our transport arrived at 09.00 to pick us up outside the guesthouse. We had a few last minute things to buy on the market, the perishables like meat and cheese and a big knife for Joseph to use in the kitchen. We took Joseph's little helper with us and stopped at the market and sent him off with a shopping list. He ran off into the crowds and presently reappeared with a bag of purchases. We were now all set and headed off out of town along the Arusha - Dar es Salaam highway to the turn off for the Arusha national park, about 11km along the road. On route we stopped to buy a couple of litres of fuel for the stove at the small village of Usa River. A dirt road led off the main highway to the park, a distance of 24km; the road got increasingly rough as we slowly drove past fields, farms and villages. The farms eventually gave way to bush as we crossed the boundary of the national park; we passed by a clearing where a large herd of buffalo grazed and giraffes wandered about alongside the road. The bush soon turned into dense tropical forest before returning back to bush and grassland as we approached the Momella gate.
We had reached our final hurdle, paying the park fees and hiring a guide. Of course, as expected, things were just going too well and we very soon hit a major problem. The park rangers would not let Joseph enter the park at resident rates (a fraction of the cost we had to pay) and insisted that as he was Kenyan he had to pay the non-resident rates; our long arguments that he was an East African and should only pay resident rates fell on deaf and very uncompromising ears. In Kenya and Uganda other East African nationals could enter a national park at local rates, how else could they afford to visit these places. We reckoned that all this hassle was just a ploy to get us to hire a local Tanzanian to cook for us rather than Joseph, a Kenyan, who was being treated here like a second-class citizen. The park ranger didn't count on the fact that we were good friends and after all the way Joseph had travelled and all his help organising this trek the previous day, the last thing we were going to do was leave him at the bottom of the mountain.
When our increasingly animated discussions were getting us nowhere and the ranger wouldn't accept a gift or donation I decided to call a conference under a shady tree between the three of us. I told Gerald that I knew that a problem like this would be thrown at us; it's all part of the challenge of travelling independently. I had a plan. We originally intended to spend four days trekking up and down the mountain, even though it was possible to do it in three. My plan was to do the trek in three days, the money we saved in park, guide and hut fees from day four would almost pay for Joseph to climb the mountain as a non-resident. It would mean a long day on day three, as well as climbing to the summit, descending all 3,066m back down to the park gate; it seemed the most logical solution to our problem. On the positive side it gave us, especially Gerald, an extra day to do something else instead; after all he was only in Tanzania for three weeks. We all agreed to this plan so I broke the news to the ranger and soon we were on our way with Mr Nasser our appointed, obligatory guide/ranger for the mountain. I also was not happy about being 'given' a guide; I would have preferred to choose one out of the crowd that was gathered around the park gate. He was armed with the most useless gun I had seen for a long time; it was more like your great grandfathers rifle from WW1 rather than an effective hunting rifle to protect us from Buffalo and other nasties whose home was Mt Meru; at least he had five bullets with him.
We had wasted a lot of time at the park gate and it had now gone midday, so we had to take the shorter route up to the Miriakamba Hut along a ridge, which lead almost directly to the hut rather than taking the more scenic route along the valley floor through the forest. We crossed a flat grassy plain from the park gate, where herds of buffalo and giraffe grazed, and reached the foot of the mountain. The mountain started abruptly at the edge of the plain suddenly rising from the ground at an almost 45 degree angle. We began to climb the trail leading mostly through grass and bush along the ridge with the forest below us, the trail would occasionally dip into a valley, which was thick with forest. The vegetation on the mountain is zoned according to altitude. The lower slopes are the Montane forest characterised mainly by trees like the East African yellowwood and the African pencil cedar. Mt Meru is drier than the other large mountains in East Africa and the canopy of the Montane forest is not quiet as thick and dense.
Along the way we passed by more giraffes, which were very close to the trail; they stopped munching leafs and just looked down on us as we hiked past. We dropped into a small valley to cross a river; the valley was thick with vegetation and trees. There was little respite from the continuous climb up the mountain; the whole world seemed to be sitting at a 45-degree angle. About half way to the hut the cloud began to blow in across the slope, the peaks ahead of us disappearing in a shroud of cloud. It wasn't long until the first drops of rain began to fall and the thunder started to rumble around the mountain. The rain didn't let up and steadily became harder and harder; we stopped to put on our waterproof gear. A few minutes later the floodgates opened and we were caught in the middle of a torrential, tropical downpour. The raindrops were huge, more like bullets falling from the sky; one raindrop could absolutely drench you. Within seconds water was pouring off my hat and the trail had turned into a river. We plodded on regardless up the steep trail suddenly with an extra incentive to reach the hut. Just when we thought it could not rain any harder, it did. Our guide was not looking very happy; it turned out that he hated the rain, which we thought was strange for someone who is a mountain guide.
The trail lead through a patch of open woodland and then steeply up another hill. We reached the top and through the grey mist of cloud and rain we saw Miriakamba hut, the huts set out around a grassy clearing surrounded by trees. We ran for the nearest hut, which had a veranda and stood there exhausted, dripping wet and deafened by the heavy rain drumming on the metal, corrugated roof. This was the kitchen hut; the bunkhouse was next door only a few metres away. After walking all this way in the rain and at last finding shelter, we found it impossible to step out into the rain again to make the short dash to the bunkhouse. We stood under the veranda and waited for the rain to stop. Eventually, after an hour or so, it did and we went and dropped our gear in the nearest of the two bunkhouses and dried ourselves off. The cloud slowly began to lift and we saw the first tantalising glimpses of our new surroundings.
Mt Meru, at 4,566m is the second highest mountain in Tanzania and is often over shadowed by it's near neighbour, Mt Kilimanjaro only 40km to the east. Meru is a classic volcanic cone formed during the creation of the Great Rift Valley, with its circular base measuring approximately 20km across at 2,000m. The eastern wall of the giant crater collapsed during subsequent eruptions at about 2,500m, leaving today a horseshoe shaped crater with the highest peaks along the western rim. The cliffs below the summit drop a staggering 1,500m to the crater floor inside the volcano, making them among the highest cliffs in Africa. The volcano has still been active over the past one hundred years and is not thought to be extinct yet. These more recent eruptions have formed a new ash cone, which rises from the crater floor.
The Miriakamba hut is at an altitude of 2,514m and sits on the collapsed eastern rim of the crater near to where the northern rim rises almost vertically from the crater floor. The views into the crater were stunning with the ash cone rising up at the back of the crater looking like a mountain in its own right. The sheer cliffs of the rim rose up all around us, water still cascading down the rocks after the torrential rainstorm. The hut was surrounded by forest, which stretched out across the floor of the crater and clung to the sides of the rim. It truly looked like a scene out of Jurassic Park. Just before the sun set the cloud lifted from the summit and we could see once again the challenge we had set ourselves. A light covering of snow and ice from the recent storm clung to the rocks inside the rim around the summit peaks. Looking out to the east we could at last see the snow capped dome of Kilimanjaro rising above the sea of cloud that covered the plains below us.
While we admired the views, Joseph was busy cooking dinner in the kitchen hut. We had hit our first snag, we had lost the valve from the pressure stove; I felt rather gutted after all the trouble we had gone to searching for this stove in Arusha, it now stood before us useless. All was not lost and we managed to borrow a kerosene stove from the caretaker, the only problem was that a kerosene stove takes a lot longer to cook on. Joseph did a grand job though and served up a delicious three-course meal, a far better meal than either Gerald or myself could of cooked up under similar circumstances.
We woke up on day two of the trek as the sun was rising on the horizon, the skies above us were clear, but cloud still covered the plains below. Kilimanjaro was silhouetted black by the sun rising behind it; the inner walls of Meru's crater glowed orange in the first rays of sun. Today would be a hard days hiking. Before we began hiking we left some excess food supplies at the hut, as we would now be only spending one night at the Saddle Hut, rather than the originally planned two after yesterdays problems at the park gate. This made our packs a lot lighter and easier to carry. The trail leads off to the north from Miriakamba Hut for a few hundred metres along a pleasantly flat path through the forest. It didn't last long and soon we were once again plodding slowly up a 45-degree slope.
The trail continued up through the forest, the trees draped in Usnea, old man's beard, with also mosses and small ferns clinging to the trunks and branches of the trees. We reached Topela Mbogo, Buffalo Swamp, after about three quarters of an hour and continued up the relentlessly steep path passing through pleasant glades in the forest to Mgongo Wa Tembo, Elephant Ridge. We stopped here for a break on a small patch of grass, right on the edge of the crater rim, the cliffs dropping away to the crater floor far below us. The cloud had begun to roll in over the rim of the crater above us; most of the crater floor was now obscured by low cloud, although we did catch glimpses through the occasional break in the cloud. It had only been two weeks since I climbed Mt Kenya, and that whole trek was still fresh in my mind. This was a far tougher mountain to climb than Mt Kenya. It may not be as high as Pt Lenana on Mt Kenya, at 4,985m, but it had a greater vertical climb in a shorter distance. There was no let up from the continual steep gradient on Meru whereas on Kenya the mountain rose in stages, with stretches of relative flat ground in the valleys in between the steep sections. Joseph agreed with me as he sat on a rock in the shade, sweat dripping down his face, looking absolutely exhausted.
The forest began to peter out at around 2,800m and the montane forest trees were replaced by giant St John's Wort and Hagenia, which were quite widely spread apart. The trail wound its way continuously upward, crossing over several small streams and grassy clearings. Unlike on Mt Kenya there was no bamboo zone on this mountain and the trees finally gave way to moorland at around 3,000m. The moorland was covered with giant heathers with the odd bright red Mackinder's lily growing by the side of the trail. There were no giant groundsels or lobelia growing on the moor, which are so characteristic of other moorland on the high mountains of East Africa. Joseph was beginning to suffer by now from the exertion of the climb, he brought up the rear of our group and all we could hear was a constant stream of expletives as he swore with every step up the mountain. Finally we emerged from the giant heathers at the Saddle Hut, 3,570m the end of today's climb, well almost. We had only hiked 4km today but climbed 1,050m; it had taken us just over five hours.
Our guide was rejoicing that we had made it to the hut before the rain; his only aim seemed to be to get to the hut as quickly as possible to avoid the afternoon rains. After lunch Gerald and myself went to climb the nearby peak of Little Meru, 3,820m to the north, which formed the saddle with the main peak of Meru to the south. Our guide refused to come with us because, yes you've guessed it, it looked like it would rain; so he just pointed out the trail to us and we went off by ourselves. The cloud was rolling in from the north, but we reckoned we would make it before the weather turned. It took us only thirty-five minutes to reach the peak, where there was a convenient, weathered wooden sign announcing that you had made it to the summit of Little Meru. We stopped to take some summit photos just as the first clap of thunder crashed around us and the cloud drifted over the saddle below us. It made me jump but rather than hearing the thunder crash above us it was all around and below us; we were standing in the middle of a thunder cloud on the top of a mountain. It was time to make a quick exit and we almost ran back down the mountain to the Saddle Hut, which only took us fifteen minutes, just beating the approaching storm.
Again Joseph managed to borrow a stove from the caretaker and cooked us another three-course dinner. The bunkhouse we were staying in was very new and looked like it had only been built a few months ago. Out of all the bunkhouses I had stayed in so far on this trip, this one was the nicest. It was more like an alpine ski lodge than an African bunkhouse; it was entirely built with timber, which had been completed with a coat of varnish. Even the benches in the dining area had soft cushions. I didn't feel any ill effects from the altitude while staying at the hut, I felt quiet well acclimatised after my trek on Mt Kenya two weeks ago. The only time I felt short of breath was while we were eating that evening; it's difficult to eat and gulp enough air to satisfy your body's oxygen demands at the same time. We went to bed early, at 20.00, as we had a 02.00 start in the morning to climb to the summit in time for the sunrise. Apart from a mouse scurrying about the room as soon as we put out the kerosene lamp, it was a fairly good nights sleep, until 02.00.
There were only two other trekkers staying at the hut that night, a couple from Germany; only one of them was climbing to the summit. I woke just before 02.00 when I heard people's boots clumping along the wooden floor of the corridor. I groaned when I woke up, here I was again getting up in the middle of the night to climb a mountain; it was not the easiest thing to do to force myself out of my warm sleeping bag and out into the night. Joseph was already up and had made us a pot of tea. The cloud that was still hanging around the mountain when we went to bed last evening had lifted and the sky was perfectly clear. We could see the distant lights of villages on the plains far below us, the crescent moon was just rising over the horizon to the east and the southern cross hung in the sky over the summit of the mountain showing us the way.
At 02.15 we began our final ascent to the summit; Joseph decided not to come, climbing up to the Saddle Hut yesterday had worn him out, so the three of us began to trudge through the night up to Rhino Point. The trail led west from the Saddle Hut along some fairly flat ground past bushes of giant heather before turning south and climbing up steeply to Rhino Point. It took about an hour to reach Rhino Point, which is marked by a cairn and a pile of very large bones, supposedly Rhino but no-one knows what a Rhino would be doing this high up on a mountain. Rhino Point was devoid of vegetation and was covered by rock and soft volcanic ash; we had reached the high altitude desert zone of the mountain known as the nival, where nothing grows. The trail dropped down from Rhino Point before climbing steeply again around the edge of the rim, there were sections of rock that had to be negotiated around by scrambling, with many 'hands out of pockets' sections. In between these scrambling sections the path lead steeply along the volcanic ash, most of the time on the western slope of the volcanic cone of the mountain.
At times the path lead right along the knife edge of the rim, the trail only being a couple of metres wide with sheer cliffs on one side and the steep slope of the mountain on the other; it felt very exposed especially in the dark. The moon had risen high enough by now to help illuminate the way and on the less exposed sections, trudging up along the volcanic ash; we turned our torches off and just relied on the moon to light the way. I wasn't feeling any effects from the altitude and continued hopping up the rocks without getting too much out of breath. Once we passed about 4,200m Gerald began to slow down and brought up the rear of our group; in the dark all I could hear behind me was Gerald's heavy breathing and his boots crunching on the rocks. It seemed to take forever to reach the summit, ahead of us we could see the black silhouette of a peak but once we had climbed passed it there was always another in the distance.
The weather conditions were still perfect, the wind wasn't too strong, although while hiking right on top of the rim we were blasted by a cold wind blowing up the cliff face, which helped to give us that rather exposed 'on the edge' feeling. It wasn't as cold as climbing up Mt Kenya but I still found myself wearing all my warm clothes, including my gloves and woolly hat. The horizon to the east was beginning to brighten and the ground under foot was now frozen and covered in frost, patches of frozen snow lay in the more sheltered places between the rocks; we must be nearing the summit by now. Gerald still puffed his way up the mountain behind us at his own pace; I had an unfair advantage after spending two nights trying to sleep at just over 4,200m while climbing Mt Kenya. Finally we saw a peak rising up in front of us, our guide told us that this was the summit, we were almost there. The peak looked huge and I felt rather demoralised at the thought of climbing up yet more rock; it seemed like we had been hiking around this crater rim for hours now.
The final push to the summit took us up steeply, scrambling over the rocks until we were at last on the summit at 4,566m, marked by a metal Tanzanian flag. It was 06.45, it had taken us four and a half hours of hard work to reach this point, Gerald and myself shook hands and congratulated ourselves on our achievement as the sun rose up over the horizon. We had come a long way since that lunch break one day last July in the George public house back home when I first suggested trekking up this mountain. It had taken a lot of work and organising but we had at last conquered the mountain; don't you just love it when a plan works! The view from the summit stunned us into silence it was almost magical. All of Africa and her beauty lay below us; to the east the giant snow-capped dome of Kilimanjaro dominated the landscape; to the west the Crater Highlands, punctuated by the domes of many volcanoes including Oldoinyo Lengai, 2,878m and Oldeani, 3,185m and beyond these volcanoes the Serengeti Plains. As the sun rose the mountain cast a huge shadow across the plains to the west, shaped in a perfect triangle with us standing at the tip.
It was tough to tear ourselves away from the summit, but after fifteen minutes of gazing at the breathtaking views and taking photos we reluctantly began our long hike back down the mountain. Now in daylight we could see the route we had climbed up during the night, and suddenly understood why this section of trekking is described as one of the most exhilarating sections of trekking in East Africa. We stopped many times on the way back down to the Saddle Hut, to take photos and to admire the dramatic view. The crater walls dropped well over 1,000m as a sheer cliff from the rim to the crater floor where the ash cone now just looked like a tiny hill, whereas from the Miriakamba Hut at 2,500m it had looked like a mountain. It only took two and a quarter hours to return to the Saddle Hut, we even ran down some of the trail through the soft volcanic ash, it was almost like running down a sand dune.
At 09.15 we triumphantly reached the Saddle Hut where Joseph was waiting for us, anxious for news of whether we had successfully made it to the summit. We broke the good news and sat down to rest while Joseph served us a well deserved breakfast. It had taken us seven hours to complete the round trip to the summit, a good days hiking for anyone, but we had done it all before breakfast and still had just over 2,000m to descend that day. We only stopped for about an hour and a half before we continued our trek down, we didn't want to rest too long so that our muscles would not seize up on us. Today would be the most demanding days hiking I have ever done; I have never before hiked over 3,000m down a mountain in the space of eight hours, I had no idea how my legs would cope with such strenuous demands. I strapped my knees up just in case. The path back down to the Miriakamba Hut was so steep I found it hard to believe we had climbed it in a day. At times it was so steep we could only walk down one boot length at a time, occasionally slipping on the damp clay.
After two hours we were back at the Miriakamba Hut in time for lunch at 12.30. We planned to take the longer, more scenic route through the forest on the valley floor rather than the direct trail down the ridge back to the park gate, which we had taken on our way up. Our guide had different plans though. He refused to take the longer route and told us that we had to take the direct route. That is when I lost patience with this useless, idiot of a guide and our disagreements developed into a very heated and animated argument. I knew we had time to take the longer route, I knew the distances and how fast we could walk, I had after all been researching this trek for months. The only reason I could work out why the guide insisted we take the shorter route was that he wanted to get home as soon as possible and of course, it would probably rain at some point later in the afternoon and we had a mountain guide who hated the rain. We reached a stalemate, the guide (Mr Nasser, if you are ever planning to climb this mountain - avoid him) sat hunched over his rather useless rifle while Joseph and the caretaker of the hut tried to talk some sense into the situation. We made it very clear that if he persisted with these plans not to expect to receive a single shilling as a tip. He persisted so we reluctantly took the direct route down from the mountain; we were left with no alternative, as we were not allowed to walk unaccompanied through the park.
Having a fairly good hunch that Mr Nasser only wanted to get home early we employed some delaying tactics along the rest of the trip down the mountain. I have never walked so slowly down a mountain before, stopping very frequently and at every opportunity to take photos, gaze at the view, watch the wildlife or just have a rest and drink some water. We did not speak to Mr Nasser again for the rest of the trip and ignored his presence. In a bid to try and speed up our progress down the mountain he swapped from leading us down (he always found himself on his own, way out in front of us) to herding us down and walking behind us. In response we just walked slower. Meanwhile Joseph led the way down the mountain, he knew exactly what we were doing and laughed to himself. Mr Nasser had unfortunately ran out of water and looked very hot and thirsty as he sat watching us drink during one of our many rests. Rather than ask us for a drink he waited until we caught up with Joseph and asked him instead for some water. They had a conversation in Swahili that Joseph told us about later that evening. Mr Nasser asked Joseph if we were really annoyed with him; Joseph was fighting our corner and in no uncertain terms told him that what he had done was disgraceful and had ruined our trip up the mountain; good one Joseph.
At last we reached the park gate, disturbing a giraffe in the bush just as we crossed the river sending it crashing through the undergrowth; I don't know who looked more startled, Joseph or the giraffe. It had taken us two and half hours to get back to the gate, about the same time it takes to hike down along the valley floor through the forest at a steady pace. Our transport was waiting for us but before we left we continued our arguments with the head ranger and Mr Nasser; the arguments were getting us nowhere but it felt good to release our frustration. At the end of the day I felt most sorry for Gerald, this had been his first trek somewhere tropical and it would have been an ideal opportunity to spend a couple of hours hiking through a rain forest, which is something Gerald has never done before. We departed, Joseph and the head ranger still arguing in Swahili as we drove out from the park gate.
We returned to Arusha from our successful trek to the summit of Mt Meru feeling absolutely exhausted. We had really pushed the limits, hiking for fourteen hours today, climbing 1,000m to the summit at 4,566m before descending all 3,066m of the mountain back to the park gate. The minibus dropped us outside the Mashele Guesthouse where Mama was sitting on the veranda drinking a beer. As I stepped out of the minibus and tried to walk up the three steps to the guesthouse I suddenly felt sharp pains shooting out from both my calf muscles, they almost screamed at me as I tried to walk up the steps; Mama looked on in amusement. All three of us hobbled to our rooms feeling relived that we did not have to hike anywhere tomorrow; the last thing I wanted to do was climb another mountain. Later in the evening we shuffled back to the local bar just down the road, the three of us looking like cripples as we carefully walked along the road trying not to over stretch our worn out leg muscles. We celebrated our achievement with a round of cold Tusker beer, even Joseph had a beer, and he doesn't normally drink. The bar was packed as usual, the place a mass of people drinking and eating, hawkers squeezing through the crowds selling everything from socks and footballs to watches and kitchen knives. You may laugh but on the night before our hike we had tried to negotiate a price on the kitchen knives; Joseph needed one to do the cooking with on the mountain. Since being back in town Joseph had talked to a few local people, including our little helper, about our experience with the guides on the mountain. Apparently what happened to us is not unusual, the guides have a bad reputation. I was right though during our argument on the mountain, the only reason for taking the direct route down from the Miriakamba Hut was so that our guide could get home early.
When we first planned this trip Gerald had only booked his ticket for two weeks, a few months later he saw sense and changed it to three weeks. This gave us the opportunity to do a bit more than we had originally planned; my suggestion was to do a budget safari to see the wildlife that Africa is famous for. Joseph was not in Arusha just for a short holiday and to help us out, he had also taken the opportunity to see a business partner in town. Back in Kenya Joseph runs a tour company, KG Expeditions, which I booked my trek up Mt Kenya with. When he has clients that want to do a tour of the parks in Kenya as well as those across the border in Tanzania, he then hands them over to his partners tour company, Safari Dreamers in Arusha. The arrangement works the other way round too. While we sat in the bar I discussed my safari plan with Joseph and asked him if he could recommend anyone in town who was a good, reliable operator. Of course he could and said we should talk to Lawrence, his friend at Safari Dreamers.
As if on cue, ten minutes later Lawrence walked into the bar, I don't know how he managed to spot us in such a crowded place, I guess Gerald's and my white skin acted as a beacon as potential clients. Lawrence stopped for a quick beer and Joseph told him about all our adventures on Mt Meru. He sympathised with us after hearing about our useless guide; even taking organised tours up the mountain Lawrence has had the same problem as he still can not choose which guide goes with his tour group, he can not even take his own porters up the mountain. We agreed to meet at his office the next day to discuss our safari plans in more detail.
Waking up the following morning, Saturday, the two appendages formerly known as my legs refused to obey any instructions from my brain; my muscles had completely seized up overnight, I wasn't surprised. I hobbled painfully around the guesthouse trying to get them to work again. After a late breakfast we walked slowly to the Safari Dreamers office on Boma Road, the theory was that a bit of light walking would help limber up the leg muscles. The climb up the six flights of stairs to their office on the third floor was no joke either, aren't there any elevators in Africa? My plan, which I figured would work out the cheapest but still give us a good opportunity to see all the wildlife we wanted to see, was to do a two-day trip to Ngorongoro Crater. Day one we would travel to the crater, buy a twenty-four hour permit and do an evening game drive and camp overnight on the rim of the crater. Day two we would start early on a morning game drive and leave just before our permits expired. The first quote for this trip was US$240 each, far in excess of our budget. We continued negotiating and agreed on turning this safari into a group tour of four people, which would now cost us US$170 each, just over our budget but acceptable. This included, park fees, transport, a guide, a cook, meals and a few laughs. Lawrence said that he would find the two other people to join our group, but if he failed we would still just pay US$170. We left a deposit and got a lift back to the guesthouse, the walking idea had worn off and didn't seem to be working.
Joseph stayed on at the office to discuss business and agreed to meet us back at the guesthouse that afternoon before he went to catch a bus back to Nairobi at 15.00. We took the rest of the day off and did nothing accept cross the street to Pizzarusha for lunch and to satisfy my craving for cheese. During the afternoon it was a struggle to stay awake, we both succumbed to sleep, even though I struggled in vain to stay awake so that we didn't miss Joseph when he came to say goodbye. When I woke it had gone four, we had missed him. I was kicking myself as I really wanted to thank him for all his help and say goodbye as it would probably be a long time, if ever we saw each other again. We sat on the veranda during the evening drinking beer with Tom, who was also from England and suffering from that terrible dilemma of whether to go home or stay in Africa.
After a few beers we became hungry and the three of us wandered back to the local bar for some nyama choma; I had earlier in the day seen a fresh beef carcass hanging out the back ready to be barbecued. The place was busier than usual, it was Saturday night, and we squeezed through the crowds looking for some spare chairs and a table. I glanced at a familiar face in the crowd sitting by himself on a stool at the bar drinking a bottle of soda, it was Joseph, he hadn't returned home after all. Business had taken longer than planned that afternoon and he had missed the last transport to the Kenyan border at Namanga. He had found a cheaper guesthouse just down the road and had left a message with a watchman at our guesthouse, who never passed it on to us. We found a table and were soon joined by Joseph's little helper, it was a good evening and a fine way to say goodbye to a good friend.
At 09.00 on Sunday morning a Landrover pulled up outside the guesthouse, it was time to go on safari. We first went back to the office on Boma Road to finish off the paperwork and pay the balance due; there was an almighty huge backpack in the back of the Landrover, Lawrence had managed to find one other person to join us on our safari. We met Trevor, the owner of the backpack complete with a weather system circling around the top, at the office. He was a South African who had moved to the United States a few years ago and had taken two and a half months off work to do a quick trip around the world, Britain, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Africa and Australia. Once the final dollars had exchanged hands we were introduced to our guide, Dick and our cook, Dell and then drove out of Arusha for the 160km journey to Ngorongoro Crater.
The road crossed the plains towards the dramatic western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley. The Great Rift Valley is one of the world's largest geological features, stretching 6,500km from Turkey to Mozambique. It was formed by the outward movement of two tectonic plates, the earths crust split along two parallel fault lines and the centre section dropped down forming these steep sided escarpments. As the land dropped it compressed the magma below the crust causing volcanoes to erupt through other miner fault lines, some many kilometres from the Rift Valley. This is how the giant volcanoes of Kilimanjaro, Mt Meru, Mt Kenya and Mt Elgon were formed as well as the Crater Highlands and the caldera of Ngorongoro Crater.
We were once again in Maasai territory and on route we passed many traditional Maasai villages and their herds of cattle. Lake Manyara lies at the foot of the escarpment, which is also a national park, rich in bird life as well as hippos and tree-climbing lions. The lake is alkaline and at certain times of the year is home to thousands of flamingos; we stopped at the top of the escarpment to gaze at the dramatic views across the lake. We continued past fertile farmland towards the Crater Highlands climbing up steeply to Ngorongoro Crater, the dirt road winding up the outer slope of the crater flanked by thick forest, troops of baboons running across the road in front of us. We stopped again at a viewpoint looking down into the crater, we saw our first tantalising glimpses of the wildlife that the crater is famous for. With Gerald's binoculars we could see lone elephants strolling across the crater floor below us as well as huge herds of buffalo. The Crater Highlands rise up from the side of the Great Rift Valley and overlook the Serengeti plains to the west. The highlands stretch roughly from Lake Eyasi, in the south, to Lake Natron in the north; they consist of a range of volcanoes, including Oldeani, 3,185m, the still active Oldoinyo Lengai, 2,878m as well as calderas, older volcanoes that have eroded and collapsed, the most famous one being Ngorongoro. Ngorongoro is one of the largest calderas in the world, at almost 20km wide; it is Tanzania's most visited wildlife reserve and probably one of the best-known wildlife reserves in Africa.
We drove clockwise around the crater rim to the Simba campground, there was no one else there when we arrived. The campground was just a large field with a row of latrines and washrooms along one side and one huge lone shady tree in the middle of the field, the views looked out across the crater and the more expensive lodges perched on the crater rim. While Dick and Dell set up camp they left us under the shady tree armed with a lunch box each. Some of the food looked slightly dodgy, Trevor couldn't work out why his piece of chicken was hairy. We kept joking with Dell, the cook, about the hairy chickens; later he told us that he hadn't made the lunchboxes but had bought them from a shop, I think he was getting worried that we wouldn't tip him because of a hairy chicken. There was a slice of very strange cake in the box too, at first glance it looked like an ordinary slice of sponge cake with this rather strange pink stripe down one side. I honestly think that there must have been some secret ingredient in the cake, while eating we began laughing for no reason at all, then Trevor began to tell some of his jokes. We sat under the tree in stitches for ten minutes or more, finally my head hurt so much I couldn't laugh anymore. The strange thing is I don't know what was so funny. We climbed into the Landrover to go on our evening game drive congratulating Dell on the superb cake with the magic ingredient.
We were still laughing sporadically as we drove from the Simba camp to the entry road down to the crater floor on the western side of the crater rim. The narrow track descends the 600m to the crater floor, it was like descending into another world the views were stunning. In front of us was Lake Magadi, a large, shallow soda lake where thousands of pink flamingos waded. The roof of the Landrover had three hatches, which flipped open, allowing us to stand and have an uninterrupted view across the bright green grass and at the huge herds of herbivores grazing across the base of the crater. These included; Thomson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, buffalo, wildebeest and zebra; this was also the first time I saw ostriches strutting through the grass. There are thirteen rhinos living in the crater and on our evening drive we saw eight of them. The rim of the crater is about 2,200m above sea level, cloud spilled over the northern rim and thunder rumbled around the crater, from the centre of the crater the 360 degree views were dramatic, the lucid green grass contrasting with the grey, rain swept walls of the crater and the heavy skies above. I was disappointed at the lions we saw that evening, mostly we only saw a couple of ears twitching in the grass or the occasional sweep of a tail. On the way to the exit road on the southern side of the rim we passed by elephants, walking majestically across the crater floor before we climbed up the forested slope and back to the Simba camp for dinner.
By the time we returned the campsite was packed, we looked more like a bunch of refugees than tourists, sitting in the field eating our dinner. We had a couple of bottles of South African red wine with us that made the perfect accompaniment to Dells cooking. At 2,200m it was cold at night and after sitting around a campfire for a couple of hours and finally exhausting Trevor's supply of jokes, we retired to our tents, which we hoped were hyena proof. The only wildlife I heard during the night was a bush pig snorting as it shuffled past my tent, no hyenas though. Dick and Dell woke us for breakfast at 06.00. It was still dark, misty and raining, everyone headed to the relative dry of the shelters next to the latrines to eat their breakfast. The roof of the shelter did leak but it was better than the rather inhospitable, cold and wet weather outside. At 06.30, as the distant horizon began to brighten, we drove back to the crater, leaving Dell the unenviable job of packing up camp.
We drove through the semi dark along the now slippery red clay road around the rim, the rain lashing against the windscreen and water pouring along the gutters of the road. I began to have my doubts whether we would be able to see any wildlife this morning, stuck inside a steamed up Landrover unable to open the hatches in the roof. We were the second vehicle to descend into the crater that morning and once again were greeted by the huge herds of herbivores spread across the base of the crater. At this hour of the day it is possible to see leopard; they are a nocturnal creature hunting by night. The best chance of seeing one would be in the trees to the south; they climb trees to eat their prey and to protect their meal from scavengers. As we drove along the tracks through the trees, the rain finally eased off and we were able to once again open the roof hatches and take our positions standing. Unfortunately we did not find any leopard, the only disappointment of the trip. We made up for yesterdays rather sketchy lion sightings when we came across a pride of lions, feeding on a kill with their cubs playing in the grass. We saw lots of lions during the morning, one walking right past the Landrover, almost brushing up against the paintwork. We found another three male lions just lying next to the road; they were oblivious to our presence as we peered down at them from the Landrover.
We had a close encounter with an elephant that was grazing in a marsh by the side of the road, he crossed the road right behind us, it was a magnificent sight to see such a large animal walk so gracefully past us. In our circuit we came across nearly every animal you could think of including, spotted hyena, jackal, baboons, hippos wallowing in a muddy pool and the biggest herds of wildebeest, buffalo, zebra and gazelle that you could imagine. The last highlight of the trip was spotting a family of cheetah lying in the grass. They were a fair way from the road and with the naked eye all you could really see were ears twitching in the grass again; although with Gerald's binoculars we could see fairly clearly the cheetahs just lazing about in the now warm sunshine. We drove out of the crater very happy at all the wildlife we had seen. At times it didn't seem real, that these were truly wild animals and that we were not at some theme park; it was a fantastic experience and one that I shall not forget for a long time. Back at the Simba camp, Dell had been busy packing up camp and cooking us lunch, which was just ready to be served up when we returned. After lunch we drove back to Arusha but had to race to the park gate to leave before our twenty-four hour permits expired. We checked back in to the Mashele Guesthouse for the very last time, the place really felt like our home now. It would be sad to leave tomorrow but we had our next adventure to embark on, trekking in the Usambara Mountains.
Dave, who worked at the Mashele Guesthouse organised a bus to take us to Lushoto, the main town in the Usambara Mountains, the bus company had free pickups from around town and a taxi shortly arrived outside the guesthouse. The Usambara Mountains are about halfway between Arusha and Dar es Salaam; it was becoming a familiar journey now travelling along this road. The weather was not good today, the skies above Arusha were heavy with cloud and soon along the road to Moshi it began to rain heavily, water pouring off the surrounding fields in torrents. After about five or six hours we arrived in Mombo, a small village at the junction with the road to Lushoto, the weather had cleared up and it was once again warm and sunny. As promised by the bus company a dalla dalla was waiting for us, all included in the price of the bus ticket. We squeezed into the last two seats and before we even had a chance to catch our breath, we were travelling again with Bob Marley blaring out from the stereo.
The Eastern Arc Mountains, which the Usambaras form a part of, stretch from Morogoro and the Southern Highlands in a crescent shape to the Taita Hills to the north in Kenya, encompassing the Pare Mountains to the north-west of the Usambaras as well. The Usambaras are divided into two ranges, the eastern and western ranges separated by a 4km wide valley; Lushoto is in the western Usambara. The range is not volcanic in origin like many of the other mountains found in East Africa but were formed by uplift some 100 million years ago leaving sheer escarpments at the edge of the mountains dropping away to the plains below. The rocks that form the mountains are thought to be almost 600 million years old. Due to the stable and climatic isolation of the mountains, many plant species have been able to develop since the mountains were created, leading to an exceptional degree of biological diversity. They contain about a third of Tanzania's flora and fauna species and of the approximately two thousand plant species found in the mountains, about a quarter are endemic. The most famous plant from the Usambara Mountains is the African violet; this is the only place in the world where the flower grows wild.
It is 32km from Mombo to Lushoto, the overloaded dalla dalla slowly chugged its way up into the mountains following the gorge of the Bangala River. It was one of those typical mountain roads, hugging the side of the steep valley with hairpin bends that had you praying that no traffic was coming in the opposite direction. The scenery was stunning, I suddenly felt a very long way from my home in Dorset. In contrast to the plains we had travelled across to reach the mountains, which were fairly dry and hot, the mountains were green and fertile from the rainfall brought by the moist winds off the Indian Ocean. The slopes were covered in terraced fields growing maize, bananas and other vegetables and dotted between the fields were isolated houses, small mud huts with thatched roofs. The steeper slopes and tops of the surrounding mountains were covered in a thick, lush forest. About half way to Lushoto we reached the small town of Soni. This is where the Mkuzu River becomes the Bangala River as the water cascades down Soni Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the mountains. We were stopped at a police roadblock in Soni, just at the bend where the road crosses the Mkuzu River. The hold up was worth it just so that we could gaze at the view looking over the falls and back down the valley towards the plains.
By 16.00 we arrived at the small but noisy bus park in Lushoto. Lushoto is at an altitude of 1,200m and the climate is always pleasantly cool compared to the surrounding plains. It is also the main town in the western Usambara with a very busy and colourful market full of produce grown on the surrounding, fertile hills. Thanks to some errors with our guidebook's map of the town, we ended up walking in the wrong direction to find our hotel. It gave us a good chance to look around the small town before we checked into the Green Valley annexe. We planned to do a four-day trek through the mountains to the town of Mtae, but before we could head off we needed to find a guide. We gave ourselves the following day to make all the necessary arrangements, it should be simple compared to our previous trek up Mt Meru. Our trekking guidebook said that a lot of the mountain guides hang out at the Green Valley Bar and Restaurant, just back along the road towards the bus park. We went along and sat down for a beer and waited for people to approach us offering their services. As is normal in these situations, when you are looking for a guide or a tout, you can never find one, a bit like taxis, they are always parked on the street corner until the moment you need one.
We failed in our efforts that night in finding a guide by just hanging about so decided to go to the tourist information office in the morning and ask after a couple of guides recommended in our trekking guide. For a small town nestled in a valley between forested slopes it was very noisy; the neighbours next door to the Green Valley Annexe spent the whole evening singing and dancing. It was almost like living in student accommodation where everyone is playing his or her music just that bit louder than everyone else. I had hoped to escape to a quiet mountain town, but this place was livelier than Arusha. The neighbours finally stopped singing at 22.30 and I at last managed to fall asleep.
Cultural tourism has been pioneered in the Usambara Mountains. Following a survey of the tourism potential of the mountains in August 1995 the Netherlands Development Agency (SNV), provided funding and training for a group of young people who had just finished Shambalai Secondary School in Lushoto to train as tour guides. The youths organised walking tours in the area, which proved to be very successful and certainly showed that there was potential for tourism in the area and for the people of Lushoto district to benefit from cultural tourism. In May 1996 a workshop on tourism was held to discuss how the area could be developed into a major tourist destination. During this meeting the idea of forming the Friends of Usambara Society was first proposed; this society would oversee and guide cultural tourism development in the district. A year later in 1997 the Friends of Usambara Society was registered and members, with the technical help from SNV, started carrying out activities. The overall goals of the society are to develop and promote tourism in the Usambaras and to contribute to the conservation of the area's cultural and natural resources.
When arranging a walking tour of the area, tourists pay for the services of a guide and also a small development fee to the Society. The Society uses this money to support activities that help to conserve the area's cultural and natural resources. So far the money raised has been used to improve irrigation systems, build terraces to help prevent soil erosion and several school projects. The society has set up the village development fund to support community-based projects. The communities that have so far benefited from the fund have been located along the tour routes. These communities were deliberately selected as a way of involving them in the work of the society and in helping to build the tourism industry in the area. This scheme has allowed communities to see real tangible benefits from tourism and is aimed at involving the communities so that the programme can be successful. The fund has so far gone to community-based projects, building new primary schools, repairing dilapidated school buildings and also building new health clinics.
In the morning we walked to the tourist information office, which is funded by SNV and is the public face of the cultural tourism programme. We asked for one of the two guides mentioned in our guidebook, Yassin Madiwa and Jeromy Mwamboneke. They were both founding members of the society and took part in the tourism trial back in 1995. It was our lucky day today; as we were asking about Yassin and how we could find him he walked into the office. We arranged with him to trek to Mtae for four days, leaving early tomorrow morning. The total cost of the trip was TSH178,000 each, which included a fee to the village development fund of TSH16,000 as well as guide fees, accommodation, forest fees and transport by bus back to Lushoto. Once all the arrangements had been made we took the rest of the day off and just relaxed in Lushoto.
Before leaving the Green Valley annexe the next morning, the owners made a feeble attempt at double charging us for our rooms, claiming that we had not paid the previous night, which of course we had; after a brief but loud argument we left and met up with Yassin outside the tourist information office at 08.00. We stopped at the market to buy some fruit and bread for lunch, left our excess luggage in the office and by 09.00 began our trek through the mountains. The trekking here was very different to both the previous treks I had done on this trip, to Mt Kenya and Mt Meru. The trekking here has been described as very similar to that in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco or the Himalayas in Nepal. We walked along roads and paths that linked together the villages, passing through small villages, across farm land, through forest and along paths that clung to the sides of valleys, the slopes terraced around us with fields of maize. Each night we stopped in a village and stayed at a local guesthouse and ate at nearby eating-houses. At least on this trek we did not have to carry our own supplies of food, so I could manage to carry a few creature comforts in my pack, which must have weighed in at about 15kg.
The path lead uphill out of Lushoto to the ancient village of Kwembago, which is situated on a mountain ridge with views over the Lushoto valley. Along the way Yassin explained to us the problems created by deforestation in the mountains and what is being done to combat it. Part of the problem has been created by the huge increase in population over the years and the need for new grazing ground for cattle. The indigenous cattle had a very poor milk yield and families herds used to number sometimes up to a hundred head of cattle. A Portuguese cow was introduced and crossbred with the local species, this created a hybrid cow with twenty times the milk yield of the local cow. This greatly reduced the number of cattle and now most people just keep one or two cows, which provide enough milk for their family and some spare to sell at market. There has been such an increase in milk yields that there has been a surplus supply; to make use of this milk surplus dairies were built, with the help of SNV, and now cheese making is a new and fast growing industry in the mountains. There are plans to start producing yoghurt as well. This change in cattle has had one drawback though with traditional life. When a man gets married it is traditional to give the family of the bride ten cows but today no one keeps large herds of cows, so a cash payment is made instead.
To also help stop soil erosion, one of the most dramatic effects of deforestation, tree planting and terracing has been introduced. Farmers are encouraged to terrace their fields on the slopes of the valleys and use elephant grass, a very tall, thick grass with a large root system, to divide the terraces. This elephant grass has a dual role and also provides fodder for the cattle. Tree nurseries have been set up, partly funded through the cultural tourism project and seedlings are distributed free to villages to replant slopes and between fields to help prevent soil erosion. When commercial forests are felled the land is given free to the local villages to grow crops on; there is one condition though, that they must buy and plant tree seedlings on this land. This gives the villagers a few years harvest from the land before the trees become too big and prevent crops growing.
From Kwembago we crossed over a valley to the Magamba rain forest. A line of eucalyptus trees marks the boundary between the public forest and the protected rain forest. We entered another world as we hiked up through the forest and over a ridge and into the next valley. The undergrowth was thick and green, tree ferns grew everywhere together with wild banana palms, which must have the largest leafs of any plant. Growing amidst the undergrowth were huge bushes of busy Lizzies, their bright red flowers adding some exotic colour to the green jungle. Amongst the tall trees we could hear the occasional monkey, although seeing them was a lot more difficult. The forest was very humid and sweat poured off me as we slowly made our way to the top of the ridge. Along the way we stopped at a small stream to collect some much needed water to drink. We came out of the forest into a valley, which we followed until we reached a dirt road that lead the rest of the way to Lukozi, our first stop for the night. The village is at a junction where there was a small market. It was about 16.00 when we checked into the guesthouse, it felt like we had walked a very long way; I was exhausted and collapsed onto my bed and immediately fell asleep.
The second day was much easier and it only took us about four hours to reach the next village of Emao. Everyone we met on this trek was extremely friendly, we didn't get a single negative reaction from anyone along the way. All the paths we used were also the main paths used by the villagers, along the way we passed women going off to the local market, carrying baskets of fruit and vegetables on their heads or men herding goats or cattle to new pastures. We were definitely a novelty though to the locals, especially the children. The locals always carry everything on their heads, the only thing the women ever carry on their backs are babies, so of course we got a lot of strange looks carrying backpacks on our backs. The children don't see white people that often and when we entered a village the cry of 'Mzungu', Swahili for white-person, began to echo in our ears. It was a constant chorus coming from all around us, from the huts in the centre of the village to the smallest isolated hut high up on a valley side. The children would all come out of the huts screaming, 'Mzungu' and wave, their Mamas coming out too to see what all the noise was about. One little boy saw us coming down the road, took one look at us and ran screaming all the way home and into Mamas arms, we were probably the first white people he had ever seen. Yassin told us that he only brings tourists along this route maybe a couple of times a month; I could see why our presence was causing such a commotion.
At Emao we had a choice of two places to stay, the local guesthouse in the village or the guesthouse at the catholic mission at Rangwi. Yassin told us that the sisters at the mission cook the best food and when we found out that they also serve cold beer there was really no competition with the village guesthouse. The mission guesthouse was a bit like staying at grannies flat, it was all very tidy, prim and proper. The sisters were very busy when we arrived with some dignitaries visiting and were rushing about everywhere. In their haste they showed us to our room where we left our luggage and then sat down outside to look at the view; in the meantime the sisters locked our room and left with the key leaving us locked out. It took over two hours to finally find the sister with the key, they all looked the same dressed in white. Dinner and breakfast were served in an empty dining room, we were the only people dining there, it was deathly quiet and every clink of cutlery echoed about the room; the only other sound was a dripping tap in the corner. The food was excellent and the beer cold and after the hassles of being locked out of our room earlier we finally forgave the sisters.
Day three took us to Mtae, another fairly short hike of about four hours. It was Saturday today, the weekend and one of Yassin's friends from Emao joined us for the rest of the trek over the weekend. His name was also Yassin, we called him junior so as not to get confused, and he was just finishing secondary school. He also wanted to become a tour guide and Yassin spent the day showing him the ropes and also teaching him about the history and culture of the Usambaras. Mtae is literally at the end of the road and sits perched on the escarpment in the far northwest of the mountains, the escarpment drops almost vertically 1,000m to the plains below. From the viewpoint we could see across to the Tsavo Plains in Kenya to the north, the Pare Mountains across a plain to the west and the Maasai Steppe to the southwest. On a clear day it is also possible to see the distant snow-capped dome of Kilimanjaro, although today the visibility was not so good. We stayed at a very nice guesthouse in town, although it didn't have any electricity or running water, but that just added some rustic character to the place; at night the rooms and corridor were lit by kerosene lamps. The owner heated up a large pot of water on an open fire outside that we used to have a bucket shower with. The views, from the small shower room window, looked out north across the Tsavo plains, it was definitely the best view I've seen from a bathroom window. Only one building in town had electricity, powered by solar panels, the rest of the town was dark, candles and oil-lamps illuminating the small windows in the basic buildings along the main dirt road.
On day four we did a circular hike to the Shagayu forest and up to the second highest point in the western Usambara Mountains, Shagayu Peak at 2,200m. Just outside Mtae on the side of the road, where a small stream splashed down some rocks, we saw our first African violets growing in the wild, it is the one flower I really wanted to see growing in these mountains and I was delighted to at last see one. On the way we passed through a village and the house of a local medicine man before climbing up into the Shagayu forest. It was wonderfully peaceful up in the forest, at times it felt like walking in the woods at home, bracken and ferns grew everywhere, except unlike at home, the bracken grew taller than me. Unfortunately a large section of the forest was destroyed a few years ago by a terrible fire that got out of control, it is only thanks to the firebreak that we were walking along that the fire was controlled and finally extinguished by a heavy rainstorm. Today the forest is regenerating and the bare hills are now thick with undergrowth, although the blackened trucks of the dead trees will stand for many years to come, a sad reminder of what used to be. I must admit that I found the summit of Shagayu Peak rather disappointing, it is more like just another hilltop in the range rather than the second highest peak in the Western Usambaras. In Europe, at this altitude, you would be nearing the tree line, but here the whole mountain, including the summit, was covered in a commercial forest plantation. The trees were still quite young so we could still see the views looking down over Mtae. It was hot and we rested for an hour or so at the summit; I snoozed under a shady tree, one of my favourite African pastimes while Yassin continued Yassin juniors tour guide training.
Day five we returned to Lushoto by public bus. There are only two buses a day that leave Mtae, one goes to Arusha and the other to Tanga, but they both leave at around 04.00 in the morning. I woke at 03.30 when I heard the bus sounding its horn and revving its engine, it was time to get up. We quickly packed our bags and stumbled out of the guesthouse and down the dark main street, where in the distance the bus waited, its lights the only illumination in the town. I didn't expect many people to be on the bus at this hour of the night, but it was almost packed, we were lucky to get some of the last seats. At 04.00 we left nosily, sounding the horn as we wound along the dirt road through Mtae waking everyone up in the process. The headlights of the bus peered into the dark as we crawled along the mountain road, which was badly rutted in places, lighting up groups of cold looking people waiting in the dark. More and more people got on the bus until eventually nobody could move, I had a seat but found I couldn't even move my head from side to side. It was then that a young boy standing in the aisle began to vomit; there was nothing either of us could do, he couldn't move and nor could I, so he vomited over my trousers; I made a mental note to do some laundry tomorrow.
By daybreak we had reached Lukozi, where we had stopped for our first night and finally after a very rough and uncomfortable journey were back in Lushoto at about 07.30. We booked a bus ticket for Dar es Salaam that departed at 09.30 and went back to the tourist information office to collect our left luggage and thank Yassin for the excellent job he had done at guiding us through the mountains; I would definitely recommend him to anyone who is planning to trek through the Western Usambara Mountains.
Today's plan was to get to Stone Town on Zanzibar Island. It would be a long day, starting at 03.30 in Mtae in the Western Usambara Mountains, but we hoped we could be back in Dar es Salaam before 16.00, in time to catch one of the last, fast ferries to the island. After trekking up two high mountains and trekking through the Western Usambaras, I think I deserved a couple of days relaxing under palm trees on a tropical beach. We were also nearing the end of Gerald's three week holiday to Tanzania and Zanzibar would be the perfect place to unwind and relax and think about what we had achieved over the last sixteen days or so. It had also been just over eight weeks since I last saw and smelt the ocean; when I picked up Gerald at the airport in Dar Es Salaam a couple of weeks ago, I didn't have time to walk down to the port and gaze out at the ocean. Back home in Dorset I live next to the sea and I always miss the sea when I'm travelling inland for any length of time; I feel connected to home when I'm standing next to the ocean, it doesn't matter where in the world I am.
The local bus from Lushoto was fairly slow; I dozed off to sleep as we were still slowly winding our way out of the mountains and back to the main road at the village of Mombo. As we crossed the endless coastal plains towards Dar es Salaam it was becoming apparent that we would not make the last ferry to Zanzibar, especially as we had to stop at a bank en route to withdraw some more cash from an ATM. At 16.30 we arrived back at the Ubungo bus station, miles out from downtown Dar es Salaam. We decided to spend the night in the city and catch the first ferry tomorrow morning; we negotiated a fare of TSH3,000 for a taxi to take us back to the Safari Inn on Libya Street. We spent the night at our now usual haunts, Chef's Pride for dinner and The New Protein Bar for beer. While we were eating at Chef's Pride, we met a couple from Norway who were staying at the Holiday Hotel on Jamhuri Street. They highly recommended this hotel, which isn't mentioned in any guidebooks, and we planned to stay there when we returned from Zanzibar as the double rooms were almost half the price of those at the Safari at only TSH7,200.
Early the next morning we took a taxi down to the port and arrived just in time to catch the first ferry of the day, operated by Azam Marine that departed at 07.30; the fare was US$35. I was expecting a more basic ferry and was surprised to be boarding a fairly modern catamaran that only took an hour and forty-five minutes to reach Stone Town. Despite still being in Tanzania we had to go through immigration formalities again at the port and ended up with a stamp in our passports that read, Zanzibar Sea Port Tanzania. There were two other westerners on the boat, a guy from New Zealand who was running sailing safaris at Lamu in Kenya and his friend who had just flown in from London. They were going to visit the New Zealanders brother, who was a diving instructor at Nungwi in the far north of the island. We were also heading for the same town and shared a taxi between the four of us. We needed to obtain a permit to drive north across the island, which cost TSH2000. The drive took just over an hour to reach Nungwi, the road lined by palm trees most of the way until the paved road turned into a dirt track and the palm trees were replaced by low shrub.
Nungwi is a large village and dhow-building centre; it also has some of the best beaches on the island and has become a magnet for tourists. The beaches here are not affected by the large tidal fluctuations that are found elsewhere on the island, especially on the east coast, where it is only possible to swim at high tide. That was the main reason why we decided to go to Nungwi; we only had two days to spend on the beach and wanted to do a lot of swimming. It seems to be a problem the world over, that wherever there is a beautiful beach it is soon spoilt by mass tourism and insensitive tourist development. The beaches at Nungwi are no exception, they are packed full with hundreds of bungalows and restaurants lining the waterfront, in stark contrast to the main village hidden in the palm trees a little further north along the coast. The beaches though were beautiful, with pristine white sand and the clearest water I had seen for a long time. I went swimming early in the morning before breakfast and again late in the afternoon, when the sun was not so fierce. During the middle of the day the sun was far too strong to be out in it for too long, I found refuge under the shady ledges formed by the volcanic rock along the edge of the beach. Everything on Zanzibar is a lot more expensive when compared to the mainland, we paid US$25 a night for a double bungalow at the Amaan Bungalows. The price of a bottle of beer jumped from TSH600 on the mainland to up to TSH1,200 on the island, a clear case of profiteering.
Zanzibar has a long history and has been influenced by many different cultures over the centuries. Traders from Persia reached this region by the 12th century, bringing with them Islam and creating a powerful city-state with trade links with Asia and India. They also brought Arabic architecture with them, which still characterises the narrow alleyways of Stone Town today. Zanzibar reached its peak by the 16th century by which time the first European explorers arrived on the island. The first to arrive were the Portuguese, followed soon after by the British; both these European powers lost out to the Omani Arabs who first attacked the Portuguese strongholds in the mid 16th century. By the early 19th century the island was firmly under control of the Omani Arabs and trade was once again booming. Most of this commercial activity centred on the trade in slaves and ivory but also during this time clove plantations were established on the island and Zanzibar soon became the world's largest producer of cloves, and hence became known as the Spice Islands.
The most notorious trade was that in slaves, which Zanzibar became infamous for. Slaves were shipped to Arabia and Persia and to the French islands of Reunion and Mauritius to work on the plantations. By the 19th century Zanzibar was the major trading depot for slaves in East Africa and up to 50,000 slaves a year passed through its markets. Slavery was made illegal in Britain in 1772 and in 1798 Britain signed a commercial treaty with Oman and British interests in Zanzibar began to grow. In 1845 the slave trade was just limited to that between the island and the mainland and was finally abolished with a treaty with Britain in 1873. In 1862 Zanzibar became independent of Oman and the Omani sultans ruled under a British protectorate until 1963 when independence was granted. In 1964 the sultans were overthrown in a revolution and the new president, Abeid Karume signed a declaration of unity with mainland Tanganyika and the United Republic of Tanzania was created.
After two days lazing on a tropical beach in the north of the island we returned to spend a couple of days exploring historic Stone Town. We checked into the Florida Guest House on Vuga Road towards the south of the old city. It is a fascinating place just to wander around and explore the many narrow alleyways and basically get lost in, which we did in style. After travelling through many Middle Eastern countries I was anxious to explore this most unique of African towns with its hybrid mix of Arabic, Asian, European and African architecture. I was not disappointed and was treated to a wonderful array of different architectural styles and at times I felt as though I was walking through a medina in the Middle East. The Arabic architecture is characterised by square two or three storey buildings with verandas built around an internal courtyard under a flat roof; the Indian buildings are similar and generally have a shop on the ground floor with living quarters above with ornate facades and balconies. The Old Dispensary near the port, built at the turn of the 19th century, must be the best example of Indian architecture in the town. All over the town are many religious buildings including the Malindi Minaret Mosque, the Ijumaa Mosque and the Christian St Joseph's Cathedral and the Anglican Cathedral, built on the site of the Zanzibar slave market. Five times a day the whole town echoes to the sound of the call to pray from the many mosques dotted throughout the town; you could easily mistake yourself for being in Damascus.
Unfortunately the Arabic style of building is not suited to the far wetter climate of the island. The flat roofs tended to collect water rather than draining it away, causing major damp problems and in some cases collapse. Many of the buildings have deteriorated over the years and have become dilapidated, although the majority of the flat roofs have now been replaced by pitched roofs, sometimes with the loss of some of the original architectural details. In 1982 the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements developed a plan to conserve Stone Towns unique architectural heritage and created the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority; the authority was given the responsibility of restoring the towns historic architecture. In the two decades since it was formed over 600 buildings have been restored and many more are planned. An application has also been made to UNESCO to have the town listed as a world heritage site, which will also help aid the restoration of the town.
Another interesting feature of Zanzibar architecture are the intricate carved wooden doors found all over Stone Town. Many of the doors are older than the houses they stand in and served as symbol of the wealth and status of the owner. The oldest doors are Arabic in origin and are square framed with a geometric design featuring passages from the Quran. The slightly newer doors were carved towards the end of the 19th century and are influenced by the Indian subcontinent, often having semicircular tops and elaborately carved floral designs. Other designs include images to bring good fortune to the household, a fish expresses the hope for many children, chains represent the owners desire for security while the date tree symbolises prosperity. A few doors still have large brass spikes, a custom that came from India where it was a common way of protecting doors from being rammed by elephants. The cuisine in Stone Town is the best I had found on this trip so far, and probably the best I had found over the last few years travelling. Seafood featured heavily on every menu and we dined out on some splendid seafood curries. If it swam in the sea I think at some point we ate it, the Indian influence featuring heavily on many restaurant menus. Each evening at the Forodhani Gardens on the waterfront, food stalls would be set up selling all kinds of fresh seafood cooked over charcoal fires. We stopped for a glass of freshly squeezed sugar cane juice as we strolled along the waterfront in the evening.
On Friday afternoon we took the Sea Express ferry back to Dar es Salaam, again it was a fast catamaran doing the approximately 50km crossing in under two hours. We had reached the end of Gerald's three-week visit to Tanzania and he was due to fly back to London on Sunday afternoon. At the port, back at Dar es Salaam, we made our way through the rugby scrum of taxi drivers and walked back up to Jamhuri Street and checked into the Holiday Hotel that had been recommended to us a few days earlier. It was certainly a very nice hotel for the price and we had a large double room on the second floor with a balcony looking over Jamhuri Street where we could sit and watch the street life below us. We made contact with George, who I had met when I first arrived in the city and who came out to the airport with me to meet Gerald three weeks ago; I knew he would be a good contact for finding a live African band playing that night in the city. He didn't let us down and later that evening, after dinner again at Chef's Pride, we met at our local drinking establishment, the New Protein Bar. George had also met a Norwegian girl who had just arrived in the city and the four of us went out to a club a few kilometres out in the northern suburbs. A very popular local band were playing and the outdoor club was packed with a huge crowd of people; it goes without saying that we had a great night out, a good way to end Gerald's trip, sending him home with the sounds of African rhythms still echoing in his ears.
On Saturday, the last thing we did was to go to the wood carving market at Mwenge about 11km north of the city centre, just off the New Bagamoyo road. This is the biggest wood carving market in the country, the majority of the carvings for sale are also carved at the market, but there are also some stalls selling carvings from different tribes around the country. All over the market are men and boys busy carving, mostly using African Blackwood, an ebony type of wood where the heartwood of the tree is black, but not as black as ebony, hence the copious amounts of Kiwi black shoe polish being used. We spent a couple of hours at the market during the afternoon, eventually one carving jumped out at me, an old carved stool from the Kigoma region, and it was duly packaged up ready for Gerald to take home tomorrow.
On Sunday we arranged a taxi with Peterson's brother to do the return trip to the airport. George was nowhere to be seen, we hadn't seen him since Saturday morning so we left messages on the street that we were going to the airport at lunchtime. As if in cue George arrived at the hotel about ten minutes before we were due to leave for the airport. George, Peterson and myself jumped into Peterson's brothers' taxi with Gerald to see him off at the airport. When we arrived back at the airport it seemed like a lot longer than three weeks when I had last made this journey; we had managed to do a lot in a short space of time and we agreed that the trip had been a complete success. I returned with George, Peterson and his brother to the city and went back to my hotel room and for the first time in just over three weeks found myself sitting in a hotel room by myself.
After Gerald flew back to London on Sunday I decided to take a week off and relax in the city and have a break from the road; it had been a busy nine weeks since I had arrived in Kampala back in January. I stayed on at the Holiday Hotel and kept the double room as it had a balcony, an ideal vantage point to watch the street life below. The following week slipped by, I spent a lot of my time catching up with this travelogue, eating at Chef's Pride and hanging out with the locals at street level. I went off to the Zambian embassy to arrange a visa for the next leg of my journey; the woman at the reception was very friendly and wouldn't stop chatting. The best line she came out with was when her stapler broke; 'everything here is buggered, it's all Chinese rubbish, none of it ever works.' I thought that was a good advertisement for Zambia. The British Council library was just a block away and let me in to read the newspapers for a couple of hours; an opportunity that is becoming rare as the British Council is increasingly restricting entry to the library to members only.
I planned to take a more unusual and less travelled route to Zambia, via Lake Tanganyika; from my research I found that there is a boat sailing the length of the lake from Bujumbura in Burundi to Mpulungu in Zambia, the countries only port, once a week. The ship, the MV Liemba docked in Kigoma, Tanzania's major port on the lake, on a Wednesday, on her way south to Mpulungu. I also thought that arriving in a landlocked country by ship would be quite ingenious. The Central Line train departs from Dar es Salaam four times a week; the Sunday departure would get me into Kigoma forty hours later on Tuesday morning; I would then have to spend a night in Kigoma before catching the ship on Wednesday evening. I booked a first class ticket to Kigoma for TSH45,200 and to avoid the problem of getting stuck in Kigoma for a week, if the ship was fully booked by the time I arrived on Tuesday, I searched around Dar es Salaam for an office for the shipping company so that I could at least make a reservation.
It was when I was sitting by the side of the road with some local lads, which I did for a few hours each day, that one of them told me that the rail company that owns the Central Line, also owned and operated the MV Liemba and that I could make a reservation at the train station in town. I walked back down to the train station and into the customer enquiries office, where they promptly phoned the shipping office in Kigoma (after many attempts we finally got through) and I made a reservation for a first class cabin. Everything was sorted for the next section of my journey and I had to just wait now until 16.00 hours on Sunday when I was due to report at the station.
I was sad to leave Dar es Salaam, I would miss the new friends I had made but looked forward to the prospect of once again travelling; my weeks break seemed to have worked. I arrived at the Central Line station on Sokoine Drive at 16.15, the train was due to depart at 17.00 and the platform was already a sea of people searching for their seats, laden down with luggage, while hawkers mingled with the crowd selling the essentials like bread, fruit, water, watches and sunglasses. This afternoon was the final of the Tusker Cup, between two of Tanzania's leading football teams, Simba and Yanga. A lot of the men were listening to the match intently on their radios and whenever Simba (the local team) scored a huge cheer would go up and everyone would rush to the nearest radio to find out who had scored. Simba won the match four, one, much to the delight of the Dar es Salaam crowd.
The train was eighteen coaches long and the first class section was about fourteen coaches up the platform, a long walk. The first class berths were excellent, especially for this continent, each compartment had two comfortable sleeping berths and a small basin with a tap that worked; this would be home for the next couple of days. About ten minutes late at 17.10, the train gently pulled out of the station to begin the 1,251km journey to Kigoma, slowly passing by the suburbs of Dar es Salaam. All along the railway line kids had cleared patches of wasteland to create makeshift football pitches with goalposts consisting of a couple of wooden poles, a few with a crossbar attached with some rope. As the train passed by, kids would come running out of their huts waving and screaming; football too took an impromptu break and everyone else walking along the side of the tracks just stopped and stared as the train rattled past. In the compartment next door were two girls from Brighton in Sussex, close to where I used to live before moving west along the coast to Dorset. Once the sun had set and we were steadily rolling through the dark African bush I went next door to join them for a few beers, which took a long time in coming, and to see what their plans were and where they were heading.
They too were travelling all the way to Kigoma to visit Gombe Stream National Park, which has a troop of chimpanzees that have been habituated to human contact. Rosie had been doing volunteer work on the island of Pemba for a conservation organisation and her friend, Esther, had just flown into the country two days earlier for a three-week holiday. A steward soon came round taking orders for dinner; on the menu there was a choice of beef, chicken or fish with rice. Before leaving Dar es Salaam I had taken a detour in a taxi to the Subway restaurant on Ohio Street and purchased a foot long tuna sub to takeaway. This was my first splurge in a western fast food restaurant on this trip and also the first fast food chain I had found; it made an excellent dinner on the train, I was sure there would be plenty of opportunities to dine on fish and rice once I reached Lake Tanganyika.
The first nights sleep on the train was fairly comfortable, the track was smooth and the train didn't lurch about much, although having the top bunk it did get hot during the night with the door locked and the window jammed shut (to stop people climbing in during the night while we slept); also the fan didn't work. I was awake early, just as the sun was rising, I had been sweating through the night and left the compartment to go and hang out of a window in the corridor and watch the world turn from black and grey to blue and green. Since leaving the previous evening we had travelled 412km by daybreak and soon arrived in Dodoma. Dodoma has been the capital of Tanzania since 1973 and is the headquarters of the ruling political party, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi. It will never replace Dar es Salaam as the economic centre and from the station looked more like a large village than a capital city.
It was surprising how the day slipped by as we continued to roll across the endless plains in the centre of the country. The scenery became monotonous after a while, just continuous grass, scrub and trees; nearer a village, small fields with maize and millet grew and bananas surrounded the huts. Kids would run out of the huts screaming and waving and run down to the railway line to watch us pass. Every now and then we would pass a field of sunflowers, their huge yellow flowers drooping and gently swaying in the warm breeze. By 20.00 we arrived in Tabora the main junction town along the Central Line where the line branches in two; one branch going north to Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria and the other line continuing west to Kigoma. The sidings were full of old broken rolling stock and the rusting hulks of many old steam engines. All confusion broke out once we arrived in Tabora, train crews changed trains, coaches from one train were shunted to another and hundreds of passengers wandered under the glare of the floodlights around the sidings trying to find their correct train. It seemed amid this chaos that three trains had arrived, one from Mwanza, another from Kigoma and our train from Dar es Salaam. It took two hours to sort this commotion out and for everyone to finally find their correct coaches; we did not have to change trains but during the course of the two hours were shunted around the sidings.
After a cooler and far better nights sleep on the second night I awoke to the sight of the sun rising through the mist on the plains. We were almost in Kigoma, the end of the line. Soon I saw my first glimpse of Lake Tanganyika in the distance, the second deepest lake in the world. We finally arrived at 09.30, only half an hour late, which I thought, considering the distance we had travelled, fairly impressive. Kigoma, as well as being Tanzania's major port on the lake, is also the regional capital, but it did not gain this prominence until the completion of the railway line during the early 20th century. Before this Ujiji, a few kilometres to the south, was the areas main settlement with one of the oldest markets in Africa. It is also the place where the famous words were spoken by Henry Morton Stanley in 1871, 'Dr Livingstone I presume', when the journalist found Dr Livingstone, after various reports that he was missing or dead on his latest expedition to find the source of the Nile.
I took a taxi up to the Zanzibar Lodge, a couple of kilometres up the main street, Lumumba Street and quickly checked in for a night and dropped off my luggage before rushing down to the port. At the small ticket office at the port I explained that I had phoned the previous week to reserve a cabin. To my surprise, after a bit of shuffling around with some papers on his desk, he found a scrap with my name and details written down. The non-resident fare for a first class cabin was US$55, only fifteen dollars more than the third class fare. I paid, collected my ticket and walked back into town happy that the next stage of my journey was successfully arranged and that I wouldn't be stuck in Kigoma for a week.
Kigoma has also been a centre for refugees for the last decade or more from the wars in the neighbouring countries of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. The town is full of offices of the worlds major aid organisations and nearly half the traffic driving up the main street were aid vehicles, lots of new four wheel drives and heavy trucks for the UNHCR carrying supplies out to the surrounding refugee camps. Apparently I was told that due to the huge influx of refugees to the area that the town is classed as a war zone, I hoped my insurance company hadn't heard about this. I met up with Rosie and Esther at Ally's restaurant for lunch to see how their plans were going arranging a visit to Gombe Stream National Park. Things were not going well, the only way to reach the park is by boat and the public ferry only goes once a day. It would mean that they would have to spend two days at the park until they could take the public ferry back to Kigoma. They would therefore unnecessarily have to pay two days parks fees, which are US$100 a day. The alternative of chartering a boat was not much better and came out at US$150 for the return trip. In the end they decided to abandon their plans of visiting this national park and instead visit a chimpanzee sanctuary just outside town by the village of Katonga. That plan failed at its first attempt; we took a taxi out to Katonga but no one knew of any chimpanzee sanctuary, which is run by the Jane Goodall Institute. The institute is also involved in doing research work at Gombe Stream national park and other conservation work in the area.
On Wednesday, after a very stormy night we once again set off for Katonga, this time with fresh directions from the staff at the Zanzibar Lodge. Again we failed and returned back to town and on the way saw a Jane Goodall Institute vehicle, they stopped and gave us a lift back to their office. They explained to us that the chimp sanctuary had been closed because the three male chimps that lived there had become very aggressive and out of control. They had frequently attacked both keepers and visitors and were now waiting to be shipped to a sanctuary in South Africa. They were originally caught by poachers in the Congo and were confiscated when they were discovered being smuggled across the lake. They were given to the Institute to look after because they have been doing research work on chimps at the Gombe Stream National Park for many years now.
While we were at the office we were introduced to the project manager, Mr Emanual Mtiti who sat down with us and explained to us the objectives of the Institute. Dr Jane Goodall, who began studying the chimpanzees at Gombe in 1960, founded the Institute. The original objective of the Institute was to provide ongoing support for the field research at Gombe but soon other problems became apparent in the area. These problems included population growth, forest exploitation, soil erosion, and the influx of refugees, poaching, bush fires and the lack of good agricultural knowledge. In response to these problems the Institute broadened it's objectives to include wildlife research, education and conservation. The Institute now strives to increase the power of individuals to take informed and compassionate action to improve the environment for all living things.
One of the major problems in the area is the felling, burning and general destruction of the forests. The most important tree locally is the Mninga, which is a hardwood that grows very straight. It is used for everything from boat building to construction and furniture making; demand for the timber is always high but the trees are now being depleted at an alarming rate and no-one has thought about what to do when the timber runs out. The Institute is pioneering a tree-planting programme, although the Mninga has proved a very difficult tree to cultivate from seed in a nursery. They are also planting the African Blackwood, which is used heavily across East Africa for carving and is commonly passed off as ebony, once it has been polished up with black Kiwi boot polish, on the local craft markets. After our meeting we were taken by Mr Aristides Kashula, the forestry manager, on a tour of the local forests they are planting and conserving.
After our tour we were dropped back at the Zanzibar Lodge where I quickly picked up my luggage and made my way to the port stopping in town along the way for lunch and to buy supplies for the upcoming journey down the lake. I had been told to report at the dock at 16.00 for what I presumed was a 17.00 departure, although no one had told me exactly when the ship was due to sail. While I was waiting with a large crowd of expectant passengers at the port I met two other travellers, Daniel from Munich in Germany and Paul who was from Bournemouth in Dorset, which in global terms almost made us next-door neighbours; we concluded that it is certainly a small world. We boarded at 17.00 and made our way to the first class cabins at the front of the main deck. Each cabin had two berths and had a wardrobe, table and chair, a small basin (although mine had no water) two windows that opened and a door opening directly out onto the main deck. On the main deck to the aft were the galley, restaurant and bar; the lower deck housed the second-class cabins and third class saloons, which were also on the bottom deck with the engine room. Forward of the bridge was the cargo hold and in the bows were two decks of third class saloons. After seeing the third class saloon, which was only US$15 cheaper than a first class cabin, I decided that it was probably the best fifteen dollars I had spent so far on this trip. Finally at 18.30 we slowly slipped away from Kigoma and began our voyage down the lake as the sun set over the Congo and flashes of lightening lighted up the distant horizons.
The MV Liemba (MV stands for motor vessel) has a long and intriguing history. It was in 1910, while Tanganyika was a German colony known as German East Africa, that the East African Railways company who were building the Central Line began to consider further extensions of their lines of communications. It was then that the idea of having a steamer on the lake was first suggested. The Government Surveyor requested the railways commissioner at Tabora to ascertain the dimensions of the British steamer on Lake Victoria,, which would be the model for the ship to sail on Lake Tanganyika. It was recommended that a ship of 1,000 tonnes be built with a draught of four metres so as to enable it to anchor about 400m off the shore. Construction began at the Messrs. Hos L Meyer shipyard at Papenburg, near Hamburg in Germany in 1913; she would be named the Graf Von Gotzen after the Governor of German East Africa between 1900-1906. While the ship was being built it became necessary to quickly complete the railway line between Tabora and Kigoma and construct a quay in Kigoma in preparation of the ships arrival. In 1914 the Graf Von Gotzen was shipped in parts to Dar es Salaam from where she was transported by rail to Kigoma; it took most of the year and twenty skilled shipbuilders to reconstruct the ship during which time the first world war broke out.
The war also spread to the colonies and the Gotzen was first launched in January 1915 and was handed over to the Naval Expeditionary Corps in May of that year. She underwent her first 'sea' trials in June, a month late due to a twist in the propeller shaft; using fresh unbarked wood she attained an average speed of seven knots, this increased to eight and a quarter knots with dry barked wood. The ships function was changed from being a cargo ship to a military expedition ship and she was fitted with one 8.8cm gun and two 3.7cm guns as well as armoured shields. She went into battle against the Belgian forces in the Congo and the British forces in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. In July 1916 the German forces decided to hide the ship so that the British would not capture it. They removed the engines and equipment and hid them in the hills surrounding Kigoma; the shell of the superstructure was towed to a nearby mouth of a river estuary, where the water visibility was very poor due to all the silt flowing into the lake from the river, and she was deliberately sunk. The German forces surrendered to the British at Abercorn, now Mbala in northern Zambia on the 25th November 1918.
Tanganyika, the former German colony of East Africa became a British protectorate in 1921. The Gotzen was found and the British authorities proposed a budget of £7,500 from colonial revenues to salvage her. The salvage exercise proved to be a much longer and expensive operation than originally envisaged and the total cost trebled, but in 1924 she was successfully refloated and refitted. The colonial government renamed the Graf Von Gotzen the SS Liemba (SS standing for Steam Ship}. When David Livingstone first came to Lake Tanganyika, Liemba was the name given to the people he found living on the shores of the lake. A regular service commenced in July 1927 and a new quay and customs station was built at Mpulungu in Zambia. It is said that the original steam engines lasted until 1979 when they were replaced by two diesel engines and she became the MV Liemba. In 1993 she had a complete refit carried out by a Danish ship company, although today you would never have guessed.
The MV Liemba has a carrying capacity of 500 passengers and also transports cargo up and down the lake. We stopped fifteen times on the way to Mpulungu the ship dropping anchor about half a kilometre from shore and the villagers sailing out in a collection of wooden boats from dug out canoes to large motorised vessels capable of carrying around fifty passengers plus cargo. When we first stopped it was dark and suddenly all these boats appeared out of the night, at first I thought they were refugees from Congo. They fought and jostled for position to tie up along side the ship and passengers clambered between our ship and the wooden boats; this scene was repeated every time we dropped anchor. The hours drifted by between breakfast, lunch and dinner, which we took at the restaurant. The lunch and dinner menu was the same each day, beef, chicken, fish with rice, ugali or matoke. I opted for the fish, which was delicious and always fresh as the cooks would buy fish from the local fishermen when we dropped anchor.
In the afternoon we would drink a couple of beers and would have the tough decision, which side of the ship should we stand on, the Tanzania side or the Congo side. At night the lake appeared like a sea of bright stars as fisherman from all along the shores of Congo set off in their boats to night fish. They shone their lanterns on the surface of the lake to attract the fish into their nets. In the early hours of Friday morning we anchored at Kasanga, the last port in Tanzania where the majority of the passengers disembarked and most of the cargo unloaded. At 06.00 we sailed the last leg to Mpulungu as the sun was rising and finally arrived at 08.00, thirty seven and a half hours after leaving Kigoma.
Back