We left on our trip to Iringa Friday afternoon with a very hot wind blowing as we (7) left Dodoma in the Nissan Patrol from school, after an hour or so it cooled down somewhat. Just after 7pm we arrived at Morogoro where we were staying the night at the Kola Hill hotel, just after 7:30 we found the hotel – out of town – on a hill… My room had a nice breeze blowing through the window , I found out later that some of the others weren’t so fortunate. We had dinner in a very pleasant outside bar area. I ordered fillet steak & chips – the steak was nice though it came in thin strips more like stir fry. Only 3500 Tzs.
Other interesting alternatives that we didn’t try were beef biting -, pea sandwiches and by popular vote the most interesting was mixed grill – described as “assorted gribblings –(fish etc)”
The next morning we set off early for Dar (Dar es Salaam for those of you who have forgotten) saw a truck that had come out of a street and driven straight into the deep drain on the other side of the road. In time we reached hot humid Dar – only 18ft above sea level. The others went to the discount bookshop for school and I went looking for computer shops. Eventually we all met back at the Econolodge – I had an air conditioned room on the 5th floor which is the top floor – turned out to be not such a good choice because there was a compressor making a huge racket on the roof above my room all night. We set off to Wet & Wild about an hour out of town – but it took a lot longer because the traffic was horrendous. When we finally got there I was rather disappointed to discover that the water was very warm, but the rides were pretty wild so it wasn’t too bad. We decided to go to the Movies on the way back – we chose Closer with Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman amongst others, without any idea what it was about – a BIG mistake! – take my tip and give this one a wide berth – lets just say we all came out feeling polluted.
The next day we set off for the long drive to Iringa – having to drive back to Morogoro to get on the road to Iringa. About an hour or so out of Morogoro you pass through Mkumi National Park and it was here we saw our first and only elephants, including a very cute little baby who was having very great difficulty climbing up the muddy slopes out of the large puddle they were refreshing themselves in until he got a helping nudge from mum. Here we also saw some very large giraffe and some monkeys crossed the road in front of us. Eventually we reached Iringa, which at 5000 feet is much cooler and more pleasant than anywhere we had been in the last month. We stayed at the Baptist guest house which was a pleasant place in very nice gardens.
The next morning (Mon) we explored the local markets and Ian Oates dropped by and kindly invited all of us to dinner which was a lovely time. Peach crumble for desert.
Tuesday most of us went on the long drive to Ruaha National park – 3hrs over dirt roads some of it rough even by Tanzanian standards. I was staying in a tented lodge deep in the park, the others were staying in the public accommodation huts called bandas. It turned out that theirs was relatively new and had good beds and nets with nice towels supplied for only $20US pp. When they dropped me off at the lodge I discovered I was the only guest. The lodge is on the Mwagusi river and my very spacious banda was high on one bank overlooking the river The river was dry and about 30 metres across where I was. I went on a game drive, saw many impala, a few giraffe and several groups of zebra but was disappointed to see no big cats or elephants.
After a wonderful hot shower I was escorted to a clearing about 400m from camp where they had set out a perfectly laid dinner table. I ate with the owner and his wife and 2 of his staff. It was a lovely meal and a very interesting conversation over dinner with 3 courses. The only thing missing was a clear sky – the clouds covered what must have been a beautiful sky – so far from any other light pollution.
The next morning I was woken by the sound of the river flowing again swiftly past my banda. After another hot shower and a breakfast consisting of fruit, scrambled eggs and hot cinnamon bread – yummo !
my friends arrived to collect me except this time they had to wade across the river to collect me. After wading back across the river we set off to find some LION. They had already had an amazing experience earlier that morning when they came across a family of lions, a big daddy with a full mane, mum and several cubs – the cubs were playing then mum and the cubs walked around the vehicle – unfortunately it was still too dark for photos. For three hours we saw nothing except the ever present impala and a few giraffe in the distance. Then at last we came upon a group of lions resting under a large tree. We got very close –about 3 metres. For a while they were interested but eventually decided that they’d had enough of being photographed and turned their backs to us. We never saw any more elephant but it was time to leave. I drove most of the way back to Iringa which was quite a tiring experience as the roads are very rough in places and would do nasty things to the suspension on a sedan. After a hot shower – went to dinner at the Bottoms up pub and had a very nice meal – ordered a lemon sole fillet – when it came it was this big black thing that looked more like a rissole than a fillet of fish – it was however very nice. – Soda’s ie Coke, Sprite etc are very cheap in Tanzania, a 350ml bottle will generally cost you 300 Tzs - about 42c and a litre of water is about 500Tzs
The next day we went to Isamilla – a must see if you are ever in Iringa - where they found and still find large quantities of prehistoric stone tools, axeheads etc they have them out on display and you can pick them up , if you look around the ground you can even find your own quite easily. There is also a gorge just a short walk away which has the most amazing natural rock formations caused by weathering and water erosion. Just as we were climbing out of the gorge it started to rain lightly- fortunate for us because the gorge is known to flash flood.
A couple of hours later it poured for an hour, after it had eased of a bit 3 of us went to visit a CMSNZ family at the Armani Christian training center – to deliver a parcel from friends in Dodoma. We took the wrong turn and came to a ford across a small creek – which had now become a raging torrent so we stopped and waited after about 30 mins the water level dropped enough for one of the trucks on the other side to attempt the crossing, having been successful more people got courage to attempt it – then we took our turn – only to discover that we were on the wrong road 15mins later. And had to come all the way back , the water flow had dropped to a trickle by this time, never the less it was an exciting diversion. We did eventually get to the right place and spent a very enjoyable time with the family and got our hair cut in to the bargain. There are many hair dressing “saloons” around but they are not used to cutting wazungu hair and you would probably come out with a No2 all over.
Next day we set off early to head home.
Computer room
Things continue to progress slowly , Jeremy spent his holidays running cable into the school office , and fixing and having fixed lots of things that needed fixing. We are still waiting for the router to arrive so we can at last have internet access. Eventually we will create a school intranet – the teachers will be able to download pages from the www and then we will host them locally and create home pages with links for each of the different subject areas.
Truth is stranger than fiction: A very kind friend sent me a care package of a number of blocks of dark chocolate weighing just over a kg – this parcel arrived 8 days after it was sent !! When I sent my residency application – thank you Colin for signing all the copies I sent them by EMS post at the cost of $49.00 and it took 16 days – Australia post did however refund the charge when I pointed out to them that their stated delivery time was 7-10 days .
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