The Wild West of Tanzania

“Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.” Thomas Euxbery

Chris:

Looking back at the wild west road trough Tanzania I will remember it as an adventure, with the enchanting parts taking precedence in my memory but there is no denying that there were tough times where all I wanted was for it to be over. There is only really one road linking north and south Tanzania on the western side of the country and this road takes the form of a windy dirt track in various states of disrepair.

We crossed the bridge over the impressive thundering Rusumu falls, which forms the boundary between Rwanda and Tanzania and had our Tanzanian stamps in our passports before we knew it. The Rusumu River not only forms the border between the countries but also the border between the steep green Rwandan hills and the more undulating bushveld of northern Tanzania. The road continued to be good tarmac all the way to our overnight stop in Lusahunga. This small trucker’s town had little to offer any kind of tourist. The constant stares were a sign that not many an mzungu stops off here. The dusty road was lined with trucks that had stopped over for the night and after the 5th guest house and still no free space we were beginning to get a little worried. Our self appointed Lusahunga tour guide had even given up on trying to find us a room but we eventually managed to find something in a very dingy little place. Rob and Polly had taken the wild west road up on their way to Rwanda and had said the guest houses usually have at least one of the three luxuries: electricity, water or mosquito nets. This guest house had none of the above. No surprises in the fact that we didn’t hang around long in Lusahunga. We arrived as it was getting dark and left first thing in the morning to begin the 1000kms of dirt road that lay ahead.

The first stretch consisted of roughly 250km of fairly good dirt road down to Kigoma, a bustling port town on the northern reaches of Lake Tanganyika. We broke up the trip into manageable sections of roughly 50km each between towns where we would dismount to give our bums a rest and cool down with a cold coke or two. The day before we had been stopped by a policeman at a roadblock and warned that there had been an attack on a passenger bus along this road by Burundian rebels just a week ago. He said it should be safe as they had now deployed quite a few troops to maintain safe passage along the road but it was definitely something that was playing in the back of our minds while we drove along the section no more than 10km from the Burundian border. We had been considering driving through Burundi en route to Lake Tanganyika as it would have been much shorter and quicker but after consulting numerous travel safety websites we took the advice they issued and went around. According to the websites the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, was relatively safe by day but the roads through the country were still a little on the dodgy side. The last of the rebel armies was supposedly disarmed in April this year but the ambush on this very road the week before was testament that all is not well in this little country.

The last 50km into Kigoma provided for the first big challenge that the wild west road would throw at us. Road works were being carried out on this section and the temporary road that had been haphazardly engraved between the piles of earth and masses of construction works was in a pretty bad state! It did not help matters that the luggage rack on my bike had broken 10km before this all started and was now being held together with straps until I could get it welded again. We bounced along through a constant cloud of dust for 15km longer than the map had indicated but all was forgiven when we eventually arrived at an idyllic little camping spot just above a private little beach on Lake Tanganyiaka. This beautiful spot was the perfect place to spend a few nights recharging before continuing on what would undoubtedly be one of the toughest parts of the trip. Originally we had been planning to catch the ferry down the lake but got our days mixed up and ended up arriving an hour after the ferry had departed, the next departure would be in two weeks. We weren’t quite sure if we were going to be able to get the bike onto the ferry or if it was even running at present so we had thought there was a fairly good chance we would have to tackle the Wild West Road anyway.

I got quite sick quite suddenly whilst at our idyllic camp site and was man-down for 24hours. At one stage I was convinced that I had malaria but the rapid test said otherwise. My glands were badly swollen which probably meant that I had just been bitten by some or other insect. I used a full day in Kigoma to give the bike all the attention it required before it was put through some challenging times. The luggage racks needed quite a bit of welding and reinforcing so I spent some time doing at a welding workshop getting it all done. The welding and new stabilising bar they made for me took some time so I ended up leaving my bike at the make shift workshop and walking around the downtown auto parts shops looking for new mirrors, oil filter etc. Only after I returned to my bike did I realise that the welding workshop was an employment project for ex-prisoners. I had left them with all my tools, my helmet, jacket and even the keys to my bike. To my surprise, it was all still there and they had done a sterling job on the bike. They were an extremely friendly bunch of ex-cons, they seemed to take an extra bit of pride in the job on my bike (probably because I was their first and probably only Mzungu customer they will ever have) and didn’t try rip me off when it came time to pay, which is usually to be expected in Africa.

Jigs:

On our third day we packed up our camp and headed into the unknown once again. We planned about a 240km day. The road was meant to be unrideable in the rain... as we pulled out of Kigoma the grey sky opened. Fortunately it didn’t last long and the quality of the bad road would be preserved for a few more days...

This was one of our most challenging days, with ‘towns’ and thus petrol spread sparsely. The road went from brilliant dirt to corrugation, soft sand and fine dust. We took a few knocks and falls but made it in tacked to the planned stop over. This would be our first night of ‘wild camping’, next to a bubbling stream that carved through the bush. The Pommies had given us the GPS coordinates for this perfect place for weary travellers. Cooking on an open fire in the middle of nowhere, we were vulnerable to Mother Nature and the elements.

We were cooking pasta for dinner and Chris went off into the dark in search of some rocks to prop up the pot. “Jigs, I’ve been stung by a scorpion.” Chris called out surprisingly calmly. “What!” “Come here,” he said, as he was killing his attacker with his shoe still holding his finger where the scorpion had got him. His finger had a black sting in it, we tried to get as much poison out as possible and tied off all blood to his finger to buy us time to make some decisions. So, we were out of cell phone reception, it was dark, the roads were terrible and we didn’t know how poisonous the white scorpion was.... I couldn’t ride the loaded bike on these roads if things got messy. Hectic! Our only option seemed to be to sit it out and see what happens. Scary stuff! Other than numbness of the affected finger tip and a pain shooting up his arm at one stage, he was alright and has no residual symptoms.

Chris:

Wow that was a close call. The next day I woke up feeling absolutely fine, we loaded up the bike and got on our way fairly early. The day before had ended with about 70 challenging kilometres. The road was mainly soft sand, punctuated by the occasional bumpy hard gravel section. The rear suspension had been taking strain with the two of us on the bike and the entire luggage piled up high behind us. It had started to get worse and worse towards the end of the previous day so we decided to rather take it a bit easy and cover shorter sections each day so that we could travel slower in an effort to help the suspension. The road improved slightly that day, which allowed us to get to Mpanda, the district capital, in good time. We stopped at the market in the middle of the dusty town to stock up on a few supplies for the next stretch. After Mpanda the road improved dramatically and we sailed down to a small village called Sitalike on the fenceless border of Katavi National Park. It was only lunch time but we thought we had done enough for the day so set up camp in the Riverside Camp Site. Our tent was a mere 30meters from a pool in the river that was home to no less than 100 wallowing hippos. All that lay between us and the biggest killers in Africa was a rickety paddock fence with missing stiles here and there. We had a nice relaxing afternoon on the river bank, watching the hippos yarning the day away.

That night would prove to be another interesting one. Just before bed I had put an old plank across the nearest gap in the fence as we had been told that the hippos came out the water at night to graze. This was a good move. In the middle of the night we were awoken by the loud clank of the plank being knocked over. A hippo had tried to make tracks right through our camp. It had come within 5 meters of our tent but was frightened by the noise of the falling plank and scurried back to the water’s safety. We lay there a little tense for a while. Just as we were starting to dose off again we were suddenly roused by the calls of a Hyena... and the calls were getting closer and closer until eventually the Hyena walked right past our tent. So close that we could hear it breathing in a purring sort of manner as it strolled by. We lay there dead silent until long after it had gone, partly because the sequence of events in the last half hour had left us a little in shock.

The sun finally rose and we had survived yet another truly wild African night. It was a splendid day and a good one for travelling. The first 50km of that day’s ride took us straight through the Katavi National Park. We rode past herd after herd of buffalo and saw a fair amount of zebra and the occasional giraffe. We could not stop until we were well out of the park on the southern side as the tetsi flies were quite bad in that area and when we did try to stop we would find ourselves instantly swarmed by them. The road was bumpy at times but we just took it easy and slowly made our way along the 200km down to a town called Sumbawanga. There we found a very nice guest house with all three of the west Tanzanian luxuries and to put the icing on the cake... the water that FLOWED from the shower was HOT!!!!!! WOW!!!!!! It was the small things in life, which one usually takes for granted, that had begun to bring much happiness. The next day was our last in Tanzania and involved a short 100km ride down to a town called Mpulungu in Northern Zambia. The 100km took longer than the 200 we had done the day before as the road got worse and worse the further south we headed. The border was hassle free, there wasn’t even an immigration office on the Zambian side of the border gate so we were instructed to go and find immigration in the next town so that we could legally be stamped into the country. Seeing the first bit of tar in over a thousand kilometres was a marvellous site. The rear shock was close to finished by then and would not have handled another day on the dirt. Luckily it was tar from here on in.