Into Tanzania

(725 km)

S 07º 46’ 83” – E 35º 41’ 72”

I had earlier read Guill Marais’s account of his trip to Zanzibar in 2005 in the BMW Touring website pages, and had a good idea of what to expect on the way to Dar es Salaam. His mention of elephants on the road east of Iringa had me saying “Here we go again!” to myself…. Allan rolled his eyes and asked if there was a different route we could take… First we had to get to Iringa…

We were up at 6.00am, loaded and ready by 7.00am, and then Allan decided that seeing as our rate included breakfast, he would have “just a piece of toast”… While we waited for them to process the bill using both our credit cards, we ended up having a “Full English” version of breakfast… We finally left the Sunbird at 8.00am… A large contingent of the staff came out to see us off, probably about twenty people… We were not sure if they really liked us, or if they were just making sure that we were really leaving! We had given them all a hard time, playing practical jokes on everybody we came into contact with…

We rode quickly out of Mzuzu, continuing up the M1, hoping to get to Chilumba before 10.00am, where we were told there would be fuel. It had started to rain just before we left, so we had put on our rain suits and were prepared for the worst… Under grey skies we made good time, passing over many flooded rivers, with mud and piles of sand washed onto the road surface, making the ride tricky in places… We had to ride from one side of the road to the other, dodging potholes and pools of water. We took turns riding point, as this gave us each a chance to rest when the other was up front, leading us through or around any obstacles that might have presented us with the possibility of a fall…

I was hoping to reach Chilumba by 10.00am, but once again I had forgotten to take Allan’s penchant for “a great photographic opportunity” into my reckoning… We had passed through Ekwendeni and the turnoff to Rumphi, and were riding alongside the South Rukuru River, which was in full flood. A raging torrent of muddy water was carrying trees and debris along on its way to the lake… The road wound its way along the river’s banks, in some cases within a few metres of the water. We came across a sign advising of a suspension bridge of some sort, and Allan who was in the lead at the time pulled over… “Here we go again,” I thought…

We were led down to the bridge along a winding muddy path, by an over-enthusiastic guide, who jabbered non-stop about the bridge and the traditional village which it served. The bridge was originally built in 1904 by the villagers themselves, to connect them with the road which led north to Karonga and south to Mzuzu… Every six months, the bamboo stays which form the basis of this bridge are replaced and the bindings, made of bark, are tightened and in some cases, replaced as well. The villagers gather together to make these running repairs, and it is apparently quite a festive occasion… The entire bridge is made from natural products.

We took many photos and filmed the river flooding its banks….an amazing sight… The guide also advised us that the floodwaters had brought hippo down the river from Nyika National Park, and they now faced a problem as these hippos were damaging their crops… They had already made repeated requests to the government to have these hippos shot, but their requests had fallan “on deaf ears”…

The sign that had us off our bikes to view this “Major Tourist Attraction”…

I finally managed to tear Allan away and we resumed our ride. The road became a series of hairpin bends as it wound its way down towards Chilumba and the lake. Cattle stood idly in the middle of the road in this area, and we wasted precious time dodging them while trying to keep the bikes upright on some of the very sharp corners. Potholes were also a major problem… We both however agreed that it was one of the most beautiful places on the lake…deep green valleys running perpendicular to the lake, the Nyika Plateau forming a massive backdrop to the winding road and the valleys it crosses. In some places the mountain marched right down to the lake shore, rocky outcrops dropping away to its surface…

Allan on the Zuwulufu Suspension Bridge, in operation since 1904!!

When we reached Chilumba, we were informed that the service station had closed down some months before, and that the only fuel to be had was on the “Black Market”…at one and a half times the price…R 16.00 per litre!!! Allan was on reserve, and I had already done 305 km on my tank… We located the guy who sold the petrol from a shack just off the main road. He brought out a dirty 5L container and sucked petrol from an even dirtier 200L drum…

Allan bought ten litres and I decided to take my chances and wait for Karonga… I was sure that the petrol had been watered down, as the colour did not look right to me. The ride to Karonga was nerve-racking… Just as we left Chilumba, my fuel warning light came on, advising that I had a range of 75km left… It was 77km to Karonga!! I rode at 90km/h for the entire distance and just as we came within sight of the garage, I opened the throttle in defiance and roared past Allan… I put 21, 6 litres into my tank, which has a capacity of 22 litres!! The last few kilometres, my range reading had shown zero!! I had travelled 376 km on one tank, and most of it at speeds in excess of 100km/h…

Allan takes a chance with fuel sold on the “Black Market”….. The “Big Fella” was having none of it!!!

We had arrived at the garage just before midday, and the first doubts about reaching Iringa before nightfall began to assail me… It had taken us four hours to reach Karonga from Mzuzu, which was a distance of 235km!!! We still had to cross the border and ride a further 500km to get to Iringa… I had a quiet word with Allan, advising him that at our current pace, we would reach Iringa after midnight!!! I also informed him that for me, it was Iringa or bust!! If he wanted to chat to the locals and interview arbitrary individuals along the road, he would see the back of my bike disappearing in a north easterly direction to Iringa… He began muttering something about experiencing the culture of the local inhabitants, but stopped when he saw the look of thunder on my face…

After refuelling both bikes, we set off for the border. At the traffic circle exiting Karonga, Allan took the wrong exit and rode into the old part of town. I turned around and tore after him, dodging buses and pedestrians as I went. I couldn’t find him anywhere and rode back to the circle and turned for the border, planning to wait for him there. At the first police check-point, I was told that he had already passed through!! The road here was in good condition and I pushed the bike as hard as I could, thundering over the North Rukuru River Bridge, my front wheel coming off the ground as I mounted the slight kerb at it’s entrance… The bridge was made of a mixture of wood and steel, and rattled alarmingly… The wooden slats ran perpendicular to the road and some of them were not nailed down….scary moment… I turned the bike around and rode back over the bridge and then parked it half way along to take the photo below….

Bridge over the North Rukuru River, scary at 140km/h….

I rode on, through the village of Kaporo, and on to the last settlement before the border, Iponga. (And it did too!! Dried fish in huge bags were being sold on the side of the road; the smell seemed to follow me for a long way out of town!!) Still no Allan…

I finally arrived at the border, and was relieved to see “Doc” parked in front of the customs offices. We exited Malawi in double quick time, changed money at the little office in “no-mans land”, and then rode over the Songwe River to the Tanzanian side… Here the fun started…

We had a hard time getting the illegal “money-changers” to leave us alone. They even blocked the road at one stage, forcing us to stop, then thrusting huge wads of money under our noses, and shouting exchange rates at us… They followed us right up to the Immigration and Customs offices, where a large sign said “The changing of money in public is illegal”… They continued to harass us right under the noses of the policemen who lounged around the offices, paying no attention to the sign or the men who the police were presumably there to arrest for this practice…

Allan and “Doc” get up close and personal with the Forex Office, Tanzanian Border…

Allan had to pay US$100.00 for his visa, while mine cost US$50.00. Sometimes it does not pay to be an American!! Apparently Tanzanians had to pay $100.00 to get a US Visa, so the Tanzanian government had reciprocated with the same cost for Americans entering their country… I had a hard time getting my bike cleared through customs, as I did not have Carnet Insurance. They eventually let me go after filling in a temporary import permit and mumbling about “incorrect procedures”… Then the Third Party Insurance guys got into the act… A group of them, all representing different companies, clamoured for our attention, insisting that this insurance was a legal requirement. I negotiated the price down from 50 000 Shillings to 20 000, filled in the forms and we rode out of the border area to Songea, the first village in Tanzania… We had made it over the border, taking almost two precious hours to do so. We also discovered that we had lost a further hour, as Tanzania falls into a different time zone!!!!

The B345 through Kyela and Tukuyu passed numerous tea plantations, and was in excellent condition, allowing us to speed towards the t-junction which lay a short distance east of Mbeya. The winding road through the Poroto Mountains made for great riding, with long sweeping bends and gentle climbs through banana and sisal plantations, reminding me of the road to Sabie once again… We turned right onto the A104, which runs east and then north-east to Iringa, over 360km away… We put our heads down, wound our throttles wide open and prayed that the sun would hang about an extra few hours for us… We passed numerous police check-points but fortunately were never stopped. We flew through the towns of Inyala, Igurusi and Chimala, scattering chickens and pedestrians alike, on to Igawa, Iyayi, Wagingombe and into Makumbako, where we stopped for a leak and some fuel, in that order!!

This was one of many rules we were not planning to obey whilst in Tanzania…

Joshua Doore, Tanzanian Style…. Songea, Tanzania.

We still had 175km to cover to get to Iringa, and it was 5.30pm when we finally rolled out of Makumbako…. The sky had darkened considerably, and we knew we were going to be riding through rain… I had earlier changed into my rain gear, and Allan now thought it was a good idea to follow my example… It got dark before we reached the little town of Ugimbaro, and a steady rain began to fall.

Allan suits up for big rain in Makumbako, preparing for the “assault” on Iringa…

We had been on the road for almost ten hours, and were beginning to tire…We began hitting potholes which we ordinarily would have missed, and struggled with the heavy bikes… We took turns riding in front, to give our straining eyes a chance to rest… The rain fell harder, and we struggled even more to see where we were going, doing speeds of only 40km/h in places where huge potholes scarred the surface of the road. At one point we were riding through a pine plantation, the trees growing up to the verge of the road. There was no room for error here… We could not see much beyond our headlights, and somewhere on the ride, passed the towns of Sao Hill and Ifunda, without even seeing them!! This was “Dark Africa”!!….

We had to overtake trucks which were crawling along this lonely stretch of road, going even slower than we were. Spray from their wheels completely blocked our view as we took risks in overtaking them. I remember gritting my teeth and gunning the motor as we passed through their spray, hoping I would not run into the back of Allan or hit an oncoming car, a cow or an idiot on a bicycle… I couldn’t believe that there would be people out in this weather in the dark of night, but there were… many of them…walking along the road, umbrellas up, hunched against the cold, driving rain…

When we left Makumbako, I had packed my gloves away, as I hated riding with sopping wet gloves… The rain now stung my hands and I felt as though I was having a very long session of acupuncture… They began cramping up with the cold, and I remembered that MY bike had heated grips!!! I put them onto the highest setting and that solved my cramp problems, but the rain still stung the hell out of my hands…

We were dead tired as we rode into the outskirts of Iringa, the rain falling so heavily that we could hardly see a few metres in front of us… The road up the hill and into the town was like a river…!! It ran down towards us, about a foot deep, the bow wave from my bike hitting my knees… I chugged along in 3^rd gear, hoping that I would not hit a pothole and fall into the water… Frogs swam across the road in our headlights; trucks coming towards us pushed waves of water in our direction… It was a living nightmare!! I remember making promises to the good Lord, that if he got me through this, I would try and be a better Christian…and be more patient with Allan…I was that scared!!

My GPS started blinking to advise that we had missed the turning to the hotel located on the escarpment above the town… It was raining that hard that we could not even see the turnoffs on either side of the road. I rode on and into a garage and stopped under the awning. Allan pulled up next to me and the first thing he said on opening his helmet, was,

“Fuck, Dude, did you see the frogs?” I burst out laughing, and advised him that we had missed the turnoff, to which he replied,

“What turn-off?”… We rode back, and when My GPS showed that it was 20 metres to turn, I just swung the handlebars to the right and for the first time saw the road that led up into the mountains above town…

We struggled up this road for about two kilometres before entering a road that wound its way down a hill, between shacks and hovels, a few shebeens and run down hotels, and eventually arrived at the MR Hotel, nestled between a row of shuttered shops and shanties… We rode into a large secured parking area at the rear of the hotel, startling the night watchman, who was sound asleep in a little shelter next to the gate… He stared pop-eyed at us as we walked past him, back into the road, and up the steps to the front door of the hotel. It was 9.30pm!! We had been on road for more than 13 hours, the longest either of us had spent on a bike in a single day…

As we barged into the hotel entrance, running to get out of the rain, the receptionist leapt back in terror, as we had not taken off our helmets, and must have looked like a pair of aliens to him… He stared wild-eyed at us, crossing himself quickly with his right hand while reaching for the telephone with his left… Allan flipped his helmet up and gave his usual, “Allan Karl, Newport Beach, California….this is my associate Dr. Ronnie B. Nelsproot, South Africa….” The receptionist looked relieved that these apparitions spoke a language he could understand…

We haggled about the price for about ten minutes before giving up the battle… The guy knew we were in no condition to go anywhere else in the driving rain and pitch dark, and stuck to his guns… TSH 30 000 for a double room… We agreed to the rates and then the final bit of bad news for the day crashed down around us… This was a Moslem owned hotel, and no alcohol was sold or allowed on the premises…

“Holy Mother of God!! No beer??” shouted Allan…

The receptionist crossed himself and muttered “Amen!!”…

We looked at him and peals of laughter rang through the room, as we rolled around on the couches in our sopping wet gear….

“Are you a Moslem?” asked Allan through his tears…

“No Sir,” was the reply, “I am a Christian, but I work for the Moslems…”

“Do you drink beer?” I asked…

“Yes Sir, but only on Sunday with my lunch…”

We sensed an opening and began making some headway with this guy… After a lot of haggling, pleading and promises not to tell his employers, he eventually agreed to let us sneak a few beers into our room, which we hurriedly bought from the shebeen across the road. We wrapped them in a brown paper bag, and with our precious cargo tucked into another plastic bag, we trudged back to our room… We needed to have at least one victory to celebrate after the days ride, and getting to have a beer in a Moslem hotel, fitted the bill perfectly…

We also convinced the kitchen to remain open and ordered two plates of spaghetti, which we wolfed down with a couple of Fanta oranges… I felt we deserved a much better meal, but considering it was after 10.00pm on a Sunday night, we accepted that this was the best we were going to get… It had been a very long and tiring day, and after getting our cell phones, cameras and laptops plugged in for re-charging, we each had a beer and a shower, and then fell into bed… I fell asleep to sound of the rain beating down on the roof, and wondered if we would have to ride in the same conditions all the way to Dar the next day… I said a silent prayer that it would not be so…

The next morning, this view greeted us as we drew back our curtains… We were in a shanty town!!!

© 2008 TBMH