1st October – Tanga Riots

On Thursday morning we left for Morogoro (our half way stop to Malawi) from Tanga at a place called Segera and were following two busses when all hell broke out. People were running around the busses with stones in their hands, Machetes’, clubs and all sorts of things, mostly young kids inspired by older types. They were shouting at us not to go any further or our windscreen would be smashed, so we stayed put for nearly 2 hours till the police and army arrived and fired shots in the town and they mob eventually dispersed. Colleen was so upset she had her cigarette in her mouth the wrong way around and was trying to light the filter. By this time there were hundreds of cars and busses behind us. It appeared that Shell had bought land to build a Garage and had evicted the people out of there houses. Even though they had been paid compensation they thought they were entitled to more. Typical.
We pushed on passed Morogoro to just before Iringa to a great camp called Baobab, on the small Ruaha river. A great place to stay – I can recommend it to anyone, also great rooms.