The 4h30 peeping of the alarm is by now
familiar but we didn’t hop as quickly out of bed this morning. Fatigue and a
diet high in carbs and low in fresh veggies is beginning to make itself felt.
Once we slow the mad dash to get to Tanzania, hopefully we’ll spend a few days
in one spot and visit a market.
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| Well named lodge, the mango tree was groaning |
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| Local East African hotels usually provide a pair of 'shower slops', in odd colours. I guess to prevent greedy guests? |
As our time in Mpika is limited and we are
still 373kms from the Tanzania border, we’re unable to go hunting for Shiwa
Ngandu, Stuart Gore-Brown’s grand old house which is apparently in the area.
Him Outdoors, now in a headlock, has no choice but to faithfully pinkie promise
to return on this route. We are passing too much without stopping, this is not
at all what a roadtrip should be.
Zambia is mile after mile of tarred roads
with little traffic except heavy transport trucks by the hundred. We have seen
two of them twisted on the road this morning, overturned onto their sides. The
drivers have set up tarpaulin tents under the trees and are guarding their
vehicles, awaiting rescue.
Today for the first time in Zambia we see
PV panels on huts and shops. Roadside provisions along the way include giant
mushrooms, mangoes, live goats and chickens and bag after bag of charcoal,
which explains why the bush is much thinner along this stretch.
We made excellent time, the roads in Zambia
are very good and despite the regular roadblocks (police, army, immigration,
local council) we don’t run into any delays so decide to push through the
border. George, owner of Kings Highway accommodation in Nakonde, where we’d
thought we’d spend the night, recommended a campsite on a coffee farm near
Mbeya, Tanzania, saying we had plenty of time to cross the border and cover the
90kms so on we cracked.
The Zam/Tan border wasn’t as frustrating as
the Bots/Zam one, but still, an inspector had to check that Henry WAS a camper,
not a panel van (Him Outdoors raced ahead of said Inspector to give me a few
seconds warning to hide the cats.) Fortunately, Speckle had repaired to her hiding place in the
narrow gap beneath the bed and a large plastic container and Anushka, who’d
entertained the crowds by standing on the driver’s seat, pressing her nose to
the window and watching the border activity with intense interest, had settled
on my lap so a cardigan and a towel were hastily draped over her and a very smiley passenger popped her head
out of the window and used her best Swahili on the gloomy Inspector.
That hurdle past, we still had to clear the
police barrier and, curious about the house in the van, the cops were hell bent
on checking the interior out. Not what we needed, especially as I’d just shooed
A into the back and I had no idea whether she was undercover or not.
Fortunately, she was, as spending another 2 hours clearing livestock through the
Agricultural Department in the rapidly heating day had no appeal for us.
Roads in Tananzia – the speedlimit is
50km/h. Every few hundred metres in the endless towns along the route had
pedestrian crossings, which EVERY vehicle had to stop at, regardless of whether
anyone was crossing or not. Slow trucks, weighstations overflowing back onto
the narrow road, snarling all traffic and more police road blocks proved what
we’d been told – travel in Tanzania is WAY slower than you could possibly
imagine.
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| Tanzania road scenes |
We missed the turn off to Utengule Coffee Farm (apparently, they had to take their sign down as the main road is to be widened, sometime in the next 10 years or so!) and ended up in Mbeya town itself. We stopped at a beer garden and offloaded the cats for a paw stretch. Anushka needed no invitation and a passerby was so amused he called the owner of the beer garden out to see this cat on a leash.
Speckle had to be forcibly removed from her hidey hole and lay in HO’s lap for some time, trembling like a leaf. No amount of persuasion could get either of them to drink the water provided but Madame A gave the garden a thorough inspection, greeted the guests and generally entertained the patrons. We’d been very surprised by the positive reaction to cats the Zambians had – whenever they showed themselves, even at road blocks or toll gates, let alone when out of the van, we were asked if we could give one or the other away. Anushka blossomed under the attention, taking it as her due homage. Speckle turned herself inside out to avoid people. Such is life!
Fortunately, one of the patrons knew the
coffee farm and directed us back 11kms, with a further 9 kilometres on a
challenging, muddy road but Utengule was well worth the search. The coffee farm
has been growing Arabica beans for over 100 years and has a delightful
guesthouse. On a lower terrace, complete with a helipad, is the campsite. We,
along with Christel and Ruan from Stellenbosch, are the only occupants. Ruan
has been working in Mombasa for a year and is returning home via a lengthy
road trip. Christel flew up from Cape Town to drive home with him. They gave us really
helpful info re our next overnight stop at Iringa, and the acceptable ‘fine’ to
pay to local cops, and were looking forward to driving their Toyota double cab
at a speed higher than 50km/h. Going somewhere slowly seems to be the rule of
the road here.
We’re spending 2 nights here and taking a
rest day today, enjoying the chance to clean up and repack Henry, do some
washing, read our books, blog, sleep late and prepare for another long day
tomorrow. It’s 400kms to Iringa at 50km/h, so it’ll take a while. After Iringa
we’ll pass through Dodoma and get as far as we can for another night’s camp,
then it’ll be Arusha for a longer stop. If Riverside Campsite is as lovely as
Ruan and Christel have vouched, we may stay 2 nights there.
Anushka, trailing her reflective leash, has
inspected most of the grounds and spent some time checking out the interior of
Ruan’s doublecab. She then curled up on a camp chair to catch up on her beauty
sleep, accepted the strokes and worship of two little girls who HO swore to
secrecy (no pets at this lodge!) A while later, the girls’ father arrived,
announcing himself as the cat inspector! Speckle removed herself early when we
began emptying Henry and hasn’t been seen since but she will definitely not
sleep outside so we expect her to reappear at bedtime.
Therefore, in a few minutes we’ll be enjoying the
swimming pool and in due course relish an icy sundowner on the terrace with a
magnificent view of the mountains and sunset.
Kwaheri for now from Tanzania.
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