Getting used to travelling by ourselves again took a little while to do. However, Sean and I have learned many things on our travels - such as always allow a small daily budget to get 'local transport' such as taxis. And I was very grateful for this allowance when we arrived back in Dar Es-Salaam off the Zanzibar ferry - for it was flipping hot!
We managed to find a room, which compared to our Zanzibar accommodation, was bright and airy and complete with air-con all for under $30 which in Dar is unbelievable (and necessary)!
We could have stayed there lying in the air-con for days, but were keen to start the journey to Malawi.
We got our taxi driver to pick us up later to take us to the bus station to buy our tickets to Iringa, only to find that the bus company had folded (this is the only bus company the Lonely Planet recommends for having a good safety record in Tanzania, so it's interesting that this one has folded - do the Tanzanians value shorter journeys over their own lives I wonder?). So we had to just take pot luck on companies when buying our departure ticket the next morning.
The [cheap] buses here are 5 seats across (3 on the right, 2 on the left of the aisle). That's quite a squeeze for tall folks like us! The lady next to us was small though thankfully so we managed to get by without feeling too much like we were sat on each others laps. Oh, and of course the bus was overweight and we had to wait at a Police Check for an hour and then later we had to change a tire - all normal stuff!
The journey to Iringa goes through Mikumi National Park. Now, having just paid a small fortune to see animals in the Masaai Mara and the Ngorongoro Crater I was a bit peeved to suddenly be on a $10 bus journey and passing herds of elephants, giraffes, monkeys (not collectively known as a herd I know) and antelopes! On the other hand it was so brilliant to be just on this normal bus and passing plains of these animals as you would fields of cows and sheep back home. Being the only tourists on the bus, the locals took amusement in our amazement and interest in seeing the animals.
On nearing Iringa, we started to pass hillier, rockier terrain where fields of sunflowers were growing. It was so pretty and lovely to try to spot the mud huts of the villagers amongst the towering sunflowers.
We stayed in Iringa for two nights to give ourselves a breather and also to make a few onward plans and get ourselves in order. It's a lovely little spot really - with lovely views of mountains around it. There is also a lovely little cafe that served the most amazing quiche (and food standards in Africa demands that food like this be consumed in great quantities when found).
Our next stop was Mbeya. Basically a not-much-to-say-about-it town near the border to Malawi. We stayed in a place near the bus station for convenience sake. It served the best fried chicken and chips that we've eaten yet but the door of the room housed as many cockroaches as we've eaten this dish on previous occasions. Nice. Needless to say the mosquito net was firmly tucked under the mattress and we slept with the light on after stomping as many as we saw. Oh yes, and the water in the taps was brown. So we skipped showers that day too. But the food was good at least. Oh and Sean bought 5 new pairs of undies for 75p each which was also good.
So an early start the next day and we made our way on a cramped mini-bus (dala-dala in Tanzania) to the border town. They fill mini-buses to the max over here, a normal 8 seater vehicle in the UK will seat at least 20 over here - how wasteful we British are! One vehicle change later and we arrived at the border town, and began the 2k walk to immigration. Nothing eventful really about this border except that we got the best rates ever on our money exchanges (almost the rate xe.com stated) which we were surprised about.
We had to take a 'shared taxi' to Karonga (the nearest Malawian town past the border). Again, a standard 7 seater car demanded to fit 9. We even had to drop off one lady before a police check-point, the driver paid some boy on a bike to peddle her across the check-point so we could pick her up on the other side and continue our journey. Nice.
Karonga is famous only for having discovered the 'Malawisaurus' which we didn't bother seeing (because the museum no longer holds any original bones only replicas). We stayed in a place which could have been beautiful right on the lake, but was just a bit run down and shabby.
We got a mini-bus the next day to Chitimba - again sardined into the seats. This mini-bus picked us up from the bank before going to the bus station. It then did 5 circles of the bus station touting for custom (if the customers think you're about to leave they're more likely to take your minibus over the others present). We then stopped at the post office for one lady, the rice sellers for another passenger and then finally began our journey (stopping to buy sleeping mats for others on the way of course).
Our first main Malawi destination is Livingstonia (which is high up a mountain about 15k from Chitimba. The bus dropped us off at the bottom and we began to think how to accomplish the climb up. In the drizzle. After substantial evening rains...
Here are the photos:
No comments:
Post a Comment