Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, had been our on-again, off-again base for nearly 2 weeks by the time we finally picked up Aaron and Katherine (Surfers 16 and 17) and headed away.
We have met many people who consider Africa to be “the bush,” with cities and population centres an inconvenient necessity. The genuine Africa is found in small homesteads and rural villages, with cities an imposed European influence. There is a large tourist industry geared up to this ideal, offering village and cultural tours, drumming lessons, traditional artefacts for sale and the like.
These people buy or hire rugged 4x4s, set out on safari and find the worse roads possible to get stuck on for days at a time or, in our case, set agendas through the most rural sections of a country possible.
Which is great, and good fun, and with the vehicles we have it would be irresponsible to avoid the fun times. But I disagree with the driving belief. To taste and see a country, it is essential to first taste and see the large cities.
We were discussing these dilemmas with Mike, who had just returned from the bush, and he asked if I would send visitors to Scotland to the Highlands or central Glasgow. An interesting question. Is it possible to “see” Scotland without visiting Princess Street, or seeing the ship-building on the Clyde? Can you understand Northern Ireland without seeing the peace lines in Belfast and Derry?
Cities are the nerve centres of a country. Politicians live and work there, newspapers and books are printed and sold, culture is developed. It there that people are well informed and have vocal opinions. It is there that contact with people is not just easy, but required.
Maintenance of the trucks has meant whole days at a time in run-down areas of large cities, hunting shop to shop, or spending hours sitting chatting as a job is done. It was in Lilongwe, with Ben up on blocks, that we met John, running after every minibus that arrived on the street, looking for work. It was Kampala where we met Shanwe, a young girl in the motor shop who sat quietly until she finally said to Louise, “can we be friends?” It was Khartoum and Damascus where we realised the propaganda in our home media has avoided the fact completely that countries cities are open, functioning societies that welcome visitors (though their governments are less tolerant). It was Damascus where the hotelier lent us $100 from his pocket to allow us to eat out after arriving late.
Cities are also where crimes happen – it was in Dar es Salaam that someone reached in through the window to lift a wallet and ipod (he got neither), and Harare where someone slashed our tyre and followed us. To pretend they are always lovely places would be a lie, and having Ben and Finn adds to the logistics. But they are the heart and soul of a country, and to miss or skip through them would leave a very one-sided view of a country.
Sorry for the lack of posts recently, we’ve been in the sticks for a while. The next few days should correct the situation!
Hi everyone, Its Adrian (Andy’s brother) here. The one who keeps helping him out with technical issues. Anyway enough about me, here is another hand crafted video of the crew surfingtrekking to the roof of Africa. Andy assures me that they did not kill a man for a giro while making this video.
[note - most images on this blog have more "back-story," or at least annotations, if you hover the mouse over them. Most also have a much larger version available if you click on them.]
At the point we left Tanzania at the end of April, we’d spent a month and two days there – exactly one third of our trip. Needless to say we took our time over it – we loved it!
We stayed in a nice little campsite on our way to the border, Baobab Valley campsite. Interesting place, Henry’s guide book raves about it begin the new up and coming place for overlanders, with walking trails already cut through extensive (700 sq km) baobab-studded dry woodland, boat trips on the Ruaha river and more to come. That was 13 years ago – when we got there, nothing had been improved for 13 years. The owner seems strangely absent and disinterested – a tragic waste, leaving the swimming pool with a stagnant green puddle in the bottom, no trails, and a leaking boat with no engine. It did, however, still have showers. Good ones. We reckon the best on the trip so far.
The next couple of days we spent in Iringa, in Riverside Campsite; long an established stopover with a well deserved reputation. We visited David Moyer, an old friend from Andy’s days living in Dodoma. The directions made it clear he didn’t want timewasters: “Ask at the campsite, it’s easier to walk than drive.” The campsite staff told us “Walk up the river, through the coffee plantation, for about 2 km, to the next village. Ask there, they’ll tell you.” There, a gardener with exceptional English told us “Walk across there, over that grass, then through the bush at the back. You’ll see a zipline over the river, just cross there and walk up the hill.” It was well worth it – he kindly showed us around his garden, an extensive affair he’s using to attempt to become self-sufficient.
Two sentences stick out as characterising our evening with him: “The hyraxes were nesting under the bathtub where I keep earthworms,” and “Let’s go and see my eagle-owl.”
After his kind hospitality, we sped down good roads across the border to Malawi in a day. Once again, we had been warned repeatedly through Tanzania that the border to Malawi might not be like our relatively painless experiences at other locations. It went like this:
2pm: Arrive at the Tanzanian side
2:30 pm: Leave the border into Malawi.
Not so hard, eh?
Udzungwa Mountains National Park is particularly famous for walking tours sighting any of the 10 primate species in the park, particularly the endemic Sanje Crested Mangabey Monkeys, named after the local Sanje River, which boasts a three stage, 140m waterfall.
On day one of our visit, we took a 6km “loop” around the imposing waterfalls. Our compulsory guide, accompanied by young, attractive, dressed-for-a-date “trainee guide” (aka girlfriend) came up with various excuses as to why we could not complete our loop but must return the same route we had come. Firstly, insufficient time (3 hours to complete a 1.5 hour loop); secondly the bridge was unsafe (Henry enthusiastically proved its safety); thirdly there were dangerous animals over there and he was not able to protect us (but what, they’re scared of the water?). We argued but eventually conceded and returned to the headquarters frustrated and annoyed. We complained to a more senior guide who apologised but not much more.
The next day we returned early (park entry is per 24 hours) and headed to see the habituated mangabies, with a different guide from yesterday. He took us to meet a ranger, who both took us to another ranger in the mountains who was tracking the monkeys. It was amazing to watch them swing right above our heads, uninterested in our presence. We followed them around the forest for about 30 minutes. The troop have been stuided, tracked and habituated mainly by a few PhDs students and are now permantley tracked by local rangers. Sadly the rangers lack detailed knowledge about the troop and couldn’t add any information to the experience.
With the continued rainfall the short dirt road between our campsite and the village with the park headquaters was very interesting. There was a constant stream of lorries getting stuck in the mud, others getting stuck (or simply breaking down) trying to pass them and us getting stuck trying to use the ditch to pass the two lines of stuck traffic (quote “you have 4 by 4? No problem!”). The first time we have been stuck on the trip, the first time we have really used our welly boots and the first time we have used our tow strops and shackles. Just glad it was here, with the other vehicle on hand, rather than deep in Mikumi on roads we’d been told not to use!
We were hit by the rainy season in full force in central Tanzania. Often, it would rain all night; the flipflops are only beside the ladder in this picture as Kathie had already been up and carried them back from the bottom of the carpark.
