Again I
noticed the change in “affluence” as soon as I crossed the border from Malawi
to Tanzania… The road quality remained about the same but the buildings
immediately became far more “substantial”… The grass roofs and mud walls were
replaced by concrete block buildings and corrugated iron. And the roadside
stalls although still plentiful were now backed by a solid line of little shops
of a more traditional nature. Im up in the hills here at the North end of the
lake so there is a lot more rainfall than the lower areas and there are lots of
plantations of Bananas and Tea… I haven’t seen tea plantations like this since
Darjeeling J (they seem different to the ones
in Argentina?).
As I rode
along, the heavens opened on me properly and I was glad I had stopped earlier
to put on my wet weather gear… It’s the first day of real rain that I have had
so I cant really complain… Though my dried out leather boots really soaked the
water up quickly and riding with cold soggy feet is never enjoyable.
I rode on
carefully in the wet and even after it stopped outright raining, it pays to be
very cautious if the roads are at all damp (every time Ive come off the bike on
a tour has been on damp roads and every time it could have been avoided if I
was going slower!… thankfully there was never any other vehicle involved).
Anyway, there is plenty of evidence around that the local long distance truck
drivers are not very good at driving with wet roads because there are trucks
off the road and on their sides all over the place… I pass one truck down a
gully in steep mountain terrain with a 40’ container load of 200 125cc
motorcycles disgorged all along the side of the road… waiting for another truck
to come get the cargo… the original truck is pretty much a gonner!
Then Im
down on the plains again and things get a lot warmer and drier… There are
woodland forests of Baobab trees and the local crops have changed to onions!...
Same system as higher up though… The local farmers display their produce along
the sides of the rod in buckets or bags or piles and trucks come buy and buy up
the small piles till they have a full load and then take it all off to the
cities for distribution or bulk processing.
I ride on
for a couple of days…
I tried
stopping in a couple of the small cities along the way in Tanzania so I could
go into a couple of the Southern game-parks but there is virtually no local
tourism support here and it seems its all organized from either Dar es Salam or
larger towns (Moshi and Arusha) in the North… So, I decide to press straight on
through to the capital.
As I get
nearer the capital, the traffic rapidly gets more congested and more
interesting and Im very glad the roads are dry. And once Im in the urban area
traffic grinds to a complete standstill and things get VERY creative! (see next
post)... I get through it all without incident and then catch a short ferry
ride across the mouth of the river the city is built on to what seems to be
almost a forgotten little enclave of a beach town… there is camping here and I need
to keep my costs down… So, camping on the beach it is J
Now that
Im at the coast Im going to leave the bike for a week or so and go see the
island of Zanzibar before I go see more game-parks… Im definitely ready for
some beach time!
