6th October Chitemba beach Campsite

We made good time from Kisolonga and had the quickest border crossing ever. Form exiting Tanzania to leaving the Malawi Immigration was only 20 minutes. I challenge anyone to beat that. We arrived at Chitembe, must say the first time on our way up we didn’t stop here because the sign and road looked suspect, but after hearing the name mentioned by fellow travellers we came straight here. And what a surprise, very much like Pepeoni Beach camp in Tanga south Mombasa. It’s run by a Dutch couple Eddie and wife. On the lake, nice big trees close to swim, with a lovely bar and restaurant. Also we camped on GRASS, meaning Kikuyu. No more dirty dust feet, which by now we had plenty of. We met a south African couple Jan and Liza – in their mid 40’s (our age He he) and spent 4 days here. They had been at cool Runnings with Jane Stone and travel mate Doug. So all the Skinner was flowing. Short story is that Jane got involved with a guy from UK (Scotland) and dropped Doug to camp on his own for a while, and moved off with this oak. Then came back picked up Doug and shot off to Durban to drop Doug at his home with her Cruiser, flew to cape Town to pick up her anti safari clothes and flew straight over to UK. How’s that for skinner? Anyway we are leaving now going south to Chintheche and then to Cool Runnings then on to SA.

5th October – Kinsolonga Farm.

Again we stayed here as on our way up but this time stayed 2 nights. This is a don’t miss stop. The very best for a couple of nights stop over. If I ever built a camp I would do it on this basis. Its 60k’s south of Iringa, so in a good position just outside Ruaha and a good stop before going to Malawi.

2nd October – Ruaha National Park

Although the Tanzanian Park fees are flipping high on top of which the car cost $40 a day - F@$rk#% - I could not understand why it costs $30 per person to camp. A banda ( a room with 2 beds) cost $20 pppn and an en suite bedroom with communal kitchen cost $30 pppn. I told them they are trying to discourage visitors and camping. We camped anyway. It is actually one of the best Parks for came viewing I’ve seen. I would say similar to south Luangwa which is also on a river. We saw an amazingly beautiful leopard in a tree right next to us and eventually decided to move off – so I got a few pics of it as it came down and then it was gone – nowhere to be found. She was pristine, not often seen like this in the middle of the day. We spent 2 nights there and there workshop rewelded to trailer’s top shock mounting on which had broken on the way in. All Tanzanian and Kenyan parks roads are hectic. The National roads Dept say the parks must sort out there own roads but parks boards say they don’t have the funding. Meanwhile we just stuff up our vehicles and trailers.

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.

29th September – Tanga.

South of Mombasa. We had one stop at Diani Bech Resort and Camp – a small place not on T4A or any other guide book but gr8 for a day or 2 then went on to Peponi Beach resort. Now this is a place you can chill at for a week or so. We stayed 2 nights as we wanted to get on to Malawi. The owners, Denys and Gilly Roberts who knew my uncle was great and we met some ex Capies (who now live in Knysna) who Colleen used to play tennis with 12 years ago. Lionel and June Willmore ( he is ex Unicef Investment Bank) they are travelling with a Challenger off road Caravan – the big one – I don’t know the model name. But they have not had one bit of problem with the suspension in 3 months travelling – and its independent coil spring. Just goes to show you – its possible. This is an awesome camp site on the sea shore with no hassles’ from the locals ( a big plus).

27th September – Kenya to Tanzania

Malindi camp, the only camp left to stay (others all closed down) was not great but we had no choice and was only an overnighter anyway. The manager of the place arrived that night spaced out – on “Mirah”. He showed me some and I tried a piece. Its like thin and long shoots with a few little leaves that grow on a large tree. You strip off the skin of the shoot by pulling it through your teeth and chew on this skin – much like chewing tobacco – but is bitter as hell. You have to chew plenty of it for a few hours before the world gets a better place. I didn’t have the taste for it nor the inclination as by this stage I had paid the manager and he was off to a club, and it was a Sunday. This Mirah has taken off in northern Africa and is now spreading south. Apparently it only has a shelf life of 1 – 2 days and gets flown overnight all over the place even to London. This frightening stuff and is cheap. What next?

25th September – Lamu Island.

Absolutely fabulous. It’s much better than we expected. We could have spent a week there instead of less than 2 days. Because it’s only 130 km’s from the Somali border we were advised not to go by road which is extremely bad and should be travelled in convoy with the army. So we went to the airport at Malindi, to enquire about the flight. Nevertheless 1 ½ hours later we were walking the streets of Lamu. Most of the old town originates from the 13th century with 90% of the streets no wider than a meter – yes only wide enough to walk past a donkey, and there are hundreds of them. We stayed at Amu House which was awesome at R280 per day for the 2 of us including breakfast. We got a guide who was born on the island so knew everything including everyone. We had a tour for about 4 hours until we could hardly walk anymore.
Jean Visser would like this part. That evening we went to a local restaurant to eat local food, (ofcourse), we just sat down and who should walk in? Robin and Dianna – the Lichtenstein couple we met in Dar es Salaam who Jean and Hannelie met in Ghana. Strange how these things happen – neither Robin and Dianna had any plans to go to Lamu and at that stage nor did we. However we had a wonderful evening and I gave them the “vissers” regards. Next morning we had a tour of Shella, the rich people’s side of the island. Lots of film people and including Princess Carolina and the CEO of Peugot have places (or should I say palaces) there.