Lions, Elephants and Zebras - from a bicycle!

  Iringa, Tanzania
Sunday, February 25, 2007

Hello From Iringa! Coincidentally at the same altitude as Denver, the climate here is MUCH more agreeable - cool in the evenings, not too hot, although a bit wet so far.  It was also one hell of a climb up here by bike. But I'm getting ahead of the main story which is biking through Mikumi National Park,  trying not to annoy the elephants too much, and going back in a suitable vehicle to look at Lions!

Anyway, a long time ago now we spent a day kicking around Dar Es Salaam, the big city, but on a Sunday, so most of it was closed. We stocked up on Western conveniences at least, and ate expensive Chinese food (but sadly, no Tofu) and then headed off for a hellish 108k of biking out from Dar to Chalinze.

 

There was  LOTS of traffic, but this biking this is much easier when I can actually eat and drink.  Chalinze is a totally unremarkable town, and we arrived very very hot, very very tired, and the spot wasn't worth worth mentioning except that not 1, but two travel angels appeared.  The first spoke a little English, explained that this gesti (small hotel / guest house) only had singles, and follow him (he had a bicycle) to the next one. Here there was only a grubby single available, but he said wait, disappeared for 15 minutes, came back and said "found one" and leads us to a totally off the main road location with a decent enough room. But we're exhausted, and town is a ways a way, cook? or walk?  As I'm packing the bikes in, another resident who spoke very good English said he'd take us to town in his truck - he was here from Dar on biz.  I said thanks very much, but my wife is in the shower.  A half hour later, I had showered, we decided to walk to town, go out of the hotel and Charlie is still sitting there waiting for us! His help as a ride and an interpreter was much appreciated!  Next day was a long hot ride to Morogoro.  At one point, the trees came back (most of the land has been completely cultivated since Dar), and with it the monkeys - occasional small monkeys and baboons scampering across the road.

It was a  long hot climb to Morogoro, towards the end of which we passed the tobacco plant, the fruit processing plant, and the fish processing plant. All grouped together.  Perhaps we'll avoid the processed fruit unless we need a nic fix. Nice Indian grocery in Morogoro - all the upscale groceries are run by Indians for some reason. All other groceries are the small road-side stand sort.  Nice Indian restaurant as well, and this one had real naan bread; the past 3 times we ordered naan we got something akin to toasted pita.  Chapatis on the other hand, are everywhere and very good; they're common breakfast and/or lunch food.  The hotel in Morogoro was an interesting exception in that the rooms were both as described by Lonely planet and actually the same price as in the LP book.  Speaking of LP, their description of Mikumi park was rather limited.  They indicated that we would reach the park about 50km out of Morogoro, and the town of Mikumi, on the other side of the park, is 123 km away. We knew there was camping in the park, for very very high prices, but didn't  know anything else.  The main road, i.e. the paved road, actually runs through the park, but we didn't know if we'd be allowed to bike it.  So we left early in the morning with all sorts of scenarios; the best case was we went 50k, hit the park, were allowed to camp another 10k in, and finished the trip to Mikumi the next day.  But as we biked, 30, 40... 50....60km there was ..... nothing. Almost no towns even. One small town at 45km, the road lined with wicker baskets and rugs (funny sight), but nothing else.  At 69km, we hit a good sized town. WTF?  So we stopped, tanked up on water, had lunch, and realized we might be in for the entire 120km today. But the biking was very easy; mostly flat, slight rolling hills, and light tailwind so the kms were flying by.  Just past the town, finally, a big  sign, which was 90% beer commercial (odd, usually it's Coke),  but also said "Welcome to Mikumi National Park" on the top.  Finally! A long row of speed bumps from hell, and then 2 entry toll booths. completely abandoned. And a big sign saying "Warning! Wild animals next 50km!".  We looked at the empty toll booths, shrugged, and said "it's mid-afternoon,  the lions are sleeping, what the hell", and off we went. The park HQ, and main gate was listed as being 30km hence, 100km for the day we figured, and then we'd camp.

For almost 10k, nothing happened. We rolled along merrily, nice open-forest type terrain on both sides, and were starting to worry that perhaps after all this we wouldn't see anything... when Elephant! Right hand side of the road! CLOSE!!!  Not that big an elephant, so far as elephants go, but outweighed us by a couple thousand pounds. He flared the ears (bad sign) and stomped off into the brush, so I stopped to grab the camera, at which point the elephant turned, trumpeted, and headed for me!  Oh sh*t! There is nothing fast about a 90 lb bicycle, but fortunately fast enough!  G was smart and never stopped but was plenty spooked by the trumpet anyway.

Another 10km of nothing, although there was something big in the bush near the road we never saw, and never slowed down for.  The only real development was the flies started to bite, and the terrain slowly turned more towards the classic Serengeti Savannah type, more open and grassy. Coming over a hill, and there's some nice giraffes! I shot some pics, noticing that there were actually a lot of giraffes looking further back into the bush. They all looked at us a bit curiously; they see buses all the time but bikes hardly ever. So as we got back on the bikes, they decided to come with us! Off they went, running through the bush, parallel the road, and converging slightly, funny creatures to watch run, long gait,  necks out, and as the approached the road, suddenly, foiled! A bus on the road! The giraffes all piled up together as they came to a screeching halt, and then wandered off trying to act nonchalant

A little further, and another elephant a little close to the road, but paying us no mind, and I was more concerned about the massive oil tanker truck trying to a) pass us slowly on the speed bumps and b) talk to me. .  Finally rolled into park headquarters, where there were signs for food and drink and asked about camping.  It would be absurdly expensive;  the park charges $20/person to get in, and $30/person for a basic, "public" campsite (i.e. there could be other people around, the private site is $50/person/night).  And then the part we hadn't thought of - no bicycles in the park. Never mind the bit where we just rode through the park, no bikes through the official gate.  Oh bugger.  They suggested going on to the town of Mikumi (20km more) and arranging a safari from there. So we sat dejectedly at the gate, drank the rest of our water (all food and water signs were for something inside that gate), and watched the baboons walk by.

Fortunately the last 20km we still pretty easy, the flies stopped biting, and we even saw a couple zebras! .  As we approached Mikumi, we saw signs for the Tan-Swiss hotel, and couldn't pass that up.  It's a slightly upscale joint, with fantastic murals all over the place - half of Tanzania, half of Switzerland. The owner is Swiss, very nice chap named Joseph Gwerder, his wife is Tanzanian, and their cute kids are HIV orphans....  Anyway, he runs a mid-range place, but was very sympathetic to budget travelers on bikes and gave us a great discount, AND arranged a cheap safari back into the park for the next day. So off we went in the mighty Land Rover this time, safe from the lions, and determined to see some. We bounced around the park for over 5 hours, and actually did see a helluva a lot of animals, and almost no other people!  Lots of birds, very cool, some of them very big .  Along with the birds, a few hippos (although we've heard these are not natural to the park, and were brought in to an artificial pond for tourists). , a few thousand Impalas, buffalo ,  and of course, lots more elephants.  The elephants in Mikumi aren't that big as far as elephants go - not that tall really, and from a car, not quite so threatening, but still very cool to see.   .  Towards the end, we came up on an elephant standing in the middle of the road; the driver gunned our trusty Land Rover right towards the elephant and he hesitated, then wandered off the road .  Maybe I'll try this tactic next time on the bike.  NOT.

And finally, Lions!  We only saw lions due to our guide being pretty savvy. The cats spent almost all the time lying around, in the shade (it was damn hot), and one had to know where to look, but we got lucky, saw 3 females and a male! Kinda like Disney. but not really. My what big sharp teeth... nice kitty!
    So that was our big Safari adventure. Incidentally, Safari is just Swahili for "journey",  when we explain our bike trip to locals, they laugh long and loud, and then say "biiiig safari!".

After another delightful night with the Swiss (who even went out of his way to get me Castle Milk Stout, the only dark beer in this entire country, but a very good one when you can get it, and then off to Iringa.  We knew the ride would be tough, but didn't break it up very well. It's 190km total, and we did 80 the first day to a place called Mbyuni, a tiny town. We found an English speaker, of sorts, he liked to talk, a lot, and he lead us to a gesti which sets our low bar on the price for the trip so far - 3000/=,or about $2.50!  And that's about what it was worth. The road shoulder is now completely gone, but at least the traffic had died down a fair bit since Morogoro. The buses are still fully homicidal though, good to know some things never change. Fortunately  truck drivers are pretty nice to us, and we wonder if they recognize us by now - they probably drive this route every couple days, we've been on it for  week. The red buses are the worst - they seem to aim for us.

Next day we knew would be hell - 100km, and over 1000m climb to Iringa. Ow. We should have stayed at the hotel at the base of the climb (which we didn't know existed), we should have done the distance in 3 days, but we're stupid, goal oriented, type A Americans, and went for the whole thing in one big chunk. The climb began immediately at 42km, and it was a continuous 8-9% grade the whole way up. The road changed to concrete during the climb - thanks to the Japanese according to a sign, and a very very good thing according to former travelers. We'd already seen lesser hills where the heavy trucks on the hot tar resulted in deep grooves in the paved road, and before the concrete, the road had been "like rivers of rutted tar running down the hill".  As was, the climb was brutal on bikers and buses alike.  Shortly after starting, about 45 well dressed folks came walking down the hill... and a short distance further up, we found their broken bus ;)  The road up was in fact littered with broken buses, but the drivers here also come with mechanics, so legs are sticking out, work is being done.  Over an hour to climb the 600m, and finally, the top! Sort-of.  Actually it was another 600m up, spread out over the final 40km, before we finally kicked, clawed, and crawled, our way, uphill, into the wind, to the riverside campsite. Mostly crawled.  It was wondrously cooler up at elevation,  but it rained all night. oh well, tent will dry sooner or later.  Iringa has been a great recovery spot.  There seem to be a lot of NGOs here, not to mention missions (As Neil Pert says, Missionaries may be crazy, but they're not stupid, there's plenty of souls needing saving in the highlands where the climate is more agreeable....)

One more week in Tanzania, then on to Malawi! We met some folks this morning working at an orphanage down near Tukuyu - the last Tz town before the border, and also a really cool area of volcanoes, crater lakes, and tea plantations, so we'll be biking the next 4 days, and then kicking around there a bit. before heading for Malawi!  The legs are mostly in shape now, our arses are a bit sore, but getting in shape. The bikes.... well, 1000km and not a single flat tire!!!! (I probably shouldn't have written that, you never know which god might be listening in),  but G's headset is stiff, we lost a screw from her rear pannier rack (no problem, had a spare),  my bottom bracket has developed a nasty little click (I knew  I should have replaced the damn thing before leaving), and  most challenging, G's rear pannier rack has already broken a weld. Not a critical weld, but not a good sign, only 1000km, and her rack is Aluminum, so there is NO WAY I'm letting anyone with a welding torch get near it around here - they'd probably vaporize the whole rack!  So we're trying to wire-wrap and hose clamp and hope that gets us to Germany where they have Tubus racks to go with the Ortliebs. Ciao!