3 February 2011

2 February 2011

Once we had left the Old Farm House we went shopping in Iringa – Larry to buy a bird book and I wanted  to get my Black Berry connected.  We found a very nice book shop combined with a coffee shop and an extremely helpful lady and got everything sorted out.  So I now have BB services and can chat to both Amy and Ralph and lots of friends via BBM.

Once we left Iringa we headed for Tan Swiss, a camping site on the edge of the Mikumi Reserve, we dropped from the top of the mountains where it had been nice and cool and encountered heat in some of the valleys in excess of 45 degrees (my aircon was not working on my bike!).  The drive was really spectacular with huge gorges and a huge mountain pass.  The trucks and busses stop anywhere and overtake whenever they like, it is really scary. 

We arrived at Tan Swiss very hot and tired to find our German friends there again.  We had a very pleasant evening meal with them.  Unfortunately the camp site was not great, lots of noise and mozzies.

We were up early the next morning for our drive through Mikumi Game reserve.   The first section we saw just about nothing and then suddenly we came across a huge herd of buffalo and then we started to see animals, elephant, giraffe, zebra and no lions to chase the motor bikes!!  Unfortunately the big trucks and busses are still thundering past you all the time.

We arrived in Dar res Salaam at about 1pm and the traffic was unbelievable, we got stuck at intersections for 10 mins at a time in 40 degree heat with all our riding gear on, not fun!  Everyone switches off their motors and waits.  We encountered this kind of traffic 30km out of the centre of town, once we got to the centre it was completely gridlocked!  The small motor bikes were weaving in and out of the traffic but with our panniers we were just too big.  I am sure that we push and shoved and went through intersections where we should not have and then suddenly we were on some nice tree lined streets right near the water front and heading for the ferry.

The ferry was also an experience, no signs showing you where to go and eventually a guard shouted at us to continue straight- where all the pedestrians were walking!  We got to the ticket window lots of pushing and shoving and I jumped off my bike and bought two tickets for motor bikes - 400TS about R2,00 for the crossing.  The ferry was packed, motor bikes push carts loaded with steel and thousands of people.  The chaos started again once we had docked and we rode through the crowds.

We arrived at Sunrise Beach Resort, but we have been very disappointed the camping site is just very dirty sand under a few palm trees and lots of locals on the beach, apparently  this is the only place to camp where your possessions are relatively safe.  While having breakfast here we have witnessed the horrible practice of dynamite fishing, this is where they dynamite a section of reef and then collect the stunned fish on the surface.  This is happening every 5 minutes or so, as we sit, about 300 – 500 m out in the bay in front of us!!!!!We are hoping to move to Zanzibar tomorrow and will go to a hotel in Dar and leave the bikes there and then spend one night there when we get back so that we can go to the Saudi Embassy and then see if we can find anyone to replace the seals on the front forks of my motor bike.

S