Blog

December 1st – 10th, 2021

Pulling away from the border post we set our sights on Sumbawanga, the regional hub in the Rukwa region. We wanted to top up supplies before heading to Lakeshore Lodge. The road isn’t even a 100 km, but it isn’t particularly fast, and it took us just over two hours. 

It is mostly dirt road, passing through villages and the small town of Matai. The border marks noticeable changes. Houses are a different style, almost universally bricks made on the spot instead of the mud huts we saw to be more common in Zambia although there were some brick houses there too. The homes have metal roofs, almost none were thatched, and some larger homes have high peaks that someone later told us was a style/fashion thing, it had no special purpose.

The road wound through low points among small mountains here and there, and we saw plots of land cultivated impossibly high up the steep flanks of the hills. Mango trees persisted, but on the whole, we saw the land was more heavily cleared here.

Somewhere after the small and surprisingly well-stocked town of Matai the road turned to tar. We stopped and aired up the tires, drawing the usual crowd of spectators, though at a shy distance. No one approached us.

Not long after, we found ourselves in Sumbawanga. Just off the main highway we parked and set to our chores, dividing and conquering. Tanzania is a mostly cash country, so first step was to pull out a large stack of notes from the ATM. We pulled out 1,600,000 shillings (almost $700 USD), thick wads of red 10,000 shilling notes. 10,000 shillings is the largest denomination bill, equivalent to about $4.35 USD. This was more cash than I’d normally want, but fuel is over $4 USD/gallon and has to be paid in cash. This eats into the reserves pretty quickly. 

I surreptitiously stashed most of it back in the cruiser, a good portion in our little safe. After that Jenny went off in search of the vegetable market and beer, I off to try to get SIM cards for our phones.

We reunited, both successful, and were ready to set off. Jenny had done really well at the market, and we had all kinds of good stuff, fresh peas and beans, fruit, chilis and more. Heading northwest town fades away fast, and we were driving on a pristine new tarmac road. The catch in Tanzania is that all the main roads go right through all the villages, and in each village the speed limit is 50 kph. This is enforced with police radar speed traps and unrestrained application of speed bumps. 

Even if you are willing to risk a speeding ticket, the speed bumps are innumerable and often unmarked. Worse still we found the 50 kph signs to be well in advance of the actual settlement, meaning we were slowing down for fields and trees, not people. This wouldn’t be so bad, but the villages are frequently just a few kilometers apart. This means that the wonderful new road, that should allow speeds up to 100 kph, is actually driven at mostly a bit under 50 kph, as you are always in the process of either arriving at or departing a new village.

Compounding this is the end of the 50 kph zones are frequently missing signs, so you never know whether you’re inside the 50 k zone or not. Tanzania, for who knows what reason, has decided to be sticklers about speeding (but not much else), and if you are not going under 50 kph by the second your vehicles passes the 50 sign, then boom, it’s a speeding ticket for you.

We learned this the hard way in 2018 and this time studiously stuck to 50 kph each of the many times we crossed the signs. 

This whole rigamarole of speed humps and passing through so many villages makes the distance seem much longer than it is, but it is still easy driving. Eventually we finally arrived at the small town of Namanyere, where we turned off the tar. 

The road starts dropping down the escarpment and quickly enters the Lwafi Game Reserve. The internet tells me it’s a hunting reserve. The TAWA (The Tanzania Wildlife Authority) website says that activities include “tourism, hunting, beekeeping and fishing.” I am skeptical that a lot of people come for beekeeping. TAWA also claims there are Pukuand elephants here, supposedly larger than those in other reserves, as well as leopard, lion, zebra, hippo and buffalo and a possibility of chimpanzees. A chimp nest was found in 2014. I am always a little saddened by hunting areas, but then I remember that the chief threat to wildlife over anything else is habitat loss, so if an area is preserved by hunting, perhaps it’s better than being turned into to farm land.

We saw no spoor of any animals, but the forest was beautiful, and we wound our way down towards the lake through a series of steep turns. Like most dirt roads in Tanzania, this one is heavily cambered and not too wide. 

Not long into this road another vehicle came speeding our direction, and we each scooted over a little onto the steep edge of the camber to whiz by each other with not much room to spare. This maneuver is a little hair raising and takes some getting used to. No matter how far you move over, the other vehicle will still only pass you within inches, the oncoming driver feeling that if you have made room, then they do not have to. This all works well enough, except that the verges are sometimes softer and you can feel the vehicle losing grip.

The road flattens out past the reserve and passes through a few villages. It is warmer, a little drier. We make the turn off for Lakeshore, and rolling through their welcoming gates feel like we can finally exhale, the long sought goal of Lakeshore Lodge achieved.

Lakeshore Lodge

We visited here in 2018 after I read about it in Stan Weakly’s excellent Slow Donkey blog. The Lodge is owned by Chris and Louise, a South African couple who have spent the last 20 years here, having built the lodge from scratch. Chris and Louise live on site, and their hard work and attention to detail can be seen in every corner.

We had WhatsApp’d ahead to let them know we were coming, and had been assigned campsite No. 1, one of four large sites. Our campsite was enormous and could’ve easily accommodated a large group. The site is on hard packed sand under three huge mango trees, each tree making a spot where you could park a vehicle or two.

The site is gently sloped, but with a little moving around we found a flat spot that would also give us some sun during the day for our solar panels. Since we’d be here for several days without driving, thus no alternator charging, we had to make sure we’d get some sun to keep the battery topped up and fridge cold.

There is a water tap at the site and a picnic table. It looks out onto the lawn behind the lodge restaurant, but not much view of the lake. Not far away are the ablutions. 

Ablution report: First class, 5/5, the best we’ve had on the trip. There are wonderful showers that are not only practical but also stylishly appointed, mirrors (unheard of), good drainage, a place to put your things, private, ticking all the boxes and more. Toilets were equally nice, and outside in the shade of another mango are a couple sinks with mirrors, and two more sinks for washing dishes. The dishwashing station is key and is a feature I wish more American campsites would adopt, being rare back home. 

We got settled into our spot, had a shower and headed down to the lodge. We knew that today was going be a long one, so we decided to treat ourselves to a meal at the restaurant. We had booked this by WhatsApp. Many of these remote restaurants you need to book ahead as sometimes they don’t have the food onsite, or some ingredients might be frozen and need time to thaw. Here we were only asked if we had dietary requirements, the rest of the menu was fixed. We find this nice, that we’re released from having to guess what is good on the menu and they just serve us whatever is going.

Tonight’s meal was a house made coconut lentil soup, fish with a herbed tomato relish on rice, followed by a dessert of some sort of some ice cream brownie. Everything was delicious; what a far cry from the camping we have being doing recently. We retired full and relaxed.

The next morning I woke to the thump of mangos falling out of our resident mango tree, a gentle thwack into the sand around us. The air smelled of ripe fruit, and birds and a single vervet monkey were feasting on the fruit. A few of them were intact and ripe, and we harvested and rinsed off a couple mangos for breakfast. How idyllic can you get? 

Each day faded into the next. Much coffee drank, swimming in the lake and generally lounging about. We spoiled ourselves with pink gin cocktails for sundowners and had breakfast and dinner at the lodge again. Most luxurious was getting laundry done.  

There were a few other guests, nice to not be the only ones for a change. One was a south African family bravely traveling with three young boys, on a big Africa safari before they emigrated to the US. Another was a German couple spending three months traveling Africa only on public transport. They had caught a pikipki (motorcycle) to get the last few kilometers to Lakeshore.

The lodge has impressive grounds and facilities, not just camping. There are more budget priced bandas on one side of the restaurant, and high end lakeside chalets on the other side. They have several boats for different activities, scuba diving, sunset cruises, even overnight trips up to Mahale National Park. Kayaks are also available, and Chris has even built a small six-hole golf course in the back. 

We were particularly lazy and did not partake in any activities other than swimming in the lake and hanging out in the lodge on slow afternoons. There was wifi in the restaurant, and I typed away on the blog, drinking a big pot of french press coffee. Actually, really it was just me that was particularly lazy. Jenny mustered the energy to get back on the wagon and went jogging and did calisthenics in camp, followed by swims to cool off in the lake. 

The last two rainy seasons have been bountiful, so much so that the lake level has risen to its highest level in a hundred years, so we are told. Lake Tanganyika has only one outlet, and it cannot release the water fast enough. This has resulted in Lakeshore Lodge losing much of the beach that used to lie in front of the restaurant and chalets. The lake level is so high that the docks they have built are underwater, and in fact, two of the high-end chalets have been completely flooded. 

Chris and Louise saw the lake level rising and mostly disassembled those two chalets to save the materials. We empathized with this threat to all of the work they put in, but they were sanguine about the whole thing. Louise noted that whole villages have been flooded and displaced along the lake and that they could handle losing two chalets. She has plans of building back new ones up on stilts and rattled off all the improvements she wanted to make to the new units. 

They have also been working a lot with the community, including working on a fish farming effort to stem some of the overfishing that is happening in the lake. We were later told that they also managed to weather covid better than most, not laying off any staff or reducing wages. Quite an amazing feat given the tremendous hit to tourism numbers due to covid. How they managed that I have no idea.

We had bought some fresh beans in the market in Sumbawanga, but we weren’t sure how to cook them. Asking around, we struck up a cordial relationship with one of the staff, Notti (spelling?). He was enthusiastic that we were trying the local foods and gave Jenny some pointers on how to cook them, even coming up to the campsite to check on our progress. To Jenny’s relief, he approved of our final result.

After five nights we decided it was time to tear ourselves away from Lakeshore Lodge, lest we become part of the scenery. We now had a little over three weeks to make it to Arusha, where we planned to meet friends right after Christmas.

Originally we wanted to spend this time seeing Ruaha National Park, Nyerere National Park (formerly Selous Game Reserve) and the ruins at Kilwa on the coast. In talking to Chris though he advised skipping Nyerere for now. There is a lot of black cotton soil there, and they had recent rains. Also there is a large hydroelectric project in progress there, and Chris thought that the roads would be a mess from all the construction traffic. 

This re-juggled our priorities a bit. Katavi National Park is just north of here, and even though we have been there before, this was a chance to see it in another season. We decided to go up to Katavi, then double back to Ruaha and from there head onward to the coast. Chris was also enthusiastic about the southern route to the coast via Songea and Lindi, instead of the usual route continuing on the Tan-Zam highway towards Dar. This would have the additional benefit of getting us out of the thick truck traffic that inhabits that road. Chris gave us the contact info for a friend that drives this southern road monthly. He’d be able to advise us on the route.

With this rough plan made we got an early-ish start and headed off to Katavi. It is the same route up to the tar road, back up the escarpment. We spent a little time in Namanyere, getting fuel and a bit of fruit, but pickings were slim in the market.

Then it’s back onto the beautiful tar road, the T9, full of speed bumps and extensive 50 kph zones. At the village of Chisi the road forks, and we had to decide between staying on the main road and entering Katavi at the Sitalike gate near Lake Katavi in the NW part of the park, or heading on the more easterly fork towards the Ikuu area.

We only planned two nights in the park and decided to focus on the Ikuu area, so we headed off to the east. This road is good tar, dropping down a steep pass and onto flat lands, all scenic with relatively few villages. At the village of Kibaoni the road goes to gravel; it was quite corrugated and harsh driving. Soon we saw a sign, “Entering Katavi National Park,” though this portion of the park is more of a transit road and game isn’t often seen.

The sign warns that you can transit this road without paying as long as you don’t stop for photos. Along the way we did see giraffe and impala. Further along we started approaching the Ikuu river, the prime wildlife zone in this part of the park. Louise had told us that there was a new ranger station at Ikuu and that you could pay there, negating the need to go all the way to Sitalike, as we did in 2018. 

There was a nice new looking sign, “Ikuu Gate” and “New Ranger Post,” directing us down a side road. We were impressed. When we visited in 2018, checking in at the gate, it almost seemed like visitors were a surprise; it was all pretty disorganized. This seemed like a big improvement. 

But it was not to be. After the prescribed distance on the sign we found no gate, no ranger post, and we were lost. We did find the airstrip, and doubling back on a different road, we bushwhacked our way around a tree fallen across the track that looked like it might lead to the “New Ranger Post.” It did, though the new ranger post wasn’t looking all that new.

A ranger came out to the car, and we asked to check into the park and said we wanted to camp. This caused some consternation, he replied that the “accountant” was not here and that we should come back tomorrow, but that we could game drive and camp. We would just pay tomorrow. He asked us to pick a time we wanted to meet the accountant, to check in, and he would relay the message.

Settling on noon tomorrow, he noted our number plate and we left with his blessing to camp in the park, with instructions to come to the airstrip the next day to pay for our permit. In retrospect we should have got his name, so if we were stopped in the park without a permit, we could direct anyone to him. 

This sort of casual arrangement seemed a little odd, especially since fines for being in the park without authorization are high, but we were hardly going to be mistaken for poachers, and we had tried to pay.

Katavi is unique in Tanzanian National Parks, or maybe any National Park in Africa, in that if you pay for a special camping permit, you can select your own campsite and camp anywhere in the park. Authorized wild camping in a national park, fantastic. We had made clear that we wanted to do this when we talked to the ranger, and he consented, making clear that we knew this was priced at the higher “special campsite” price. He asked vaguely where we were going to camp, and we replied, “near the river,” and he was satisfied with that.

The problem with this freedom is we spent almost as much time scoping potential sites as we did game viewing. We thought this was great fun, and we noted potential spots on our GPS as we drove around. 

So far we had seen no one else in the park, normally we would ask for some suggestion of where game might be concentrated. Instead we divined some sort of exploratory path along the north bank, then along the south, all west of the bridge. We thought this would give us good game and a good chance of finding a nice campsite. This would allow us all day the next day to explore towards Lake Chada, east of the bridge that bisects this part of the park. 

The Ikuu river did not disappoint, the scenery is really beautiful. You can’t help but feel you are in some sort of lost world, with tall palms flanking a winding river full of hippos and crocodiles, acacias and tamarind trees all about. 

Chris had told us that the park had done prescribed burning of the brush a few months earlier, and this meant that fresh shoots of technicolor green grass carpeted the forest floor. This was complimented by crystal-clear blue skies punctuated with brilliant white cumulous clouds. The whole scene was stunning. 

We noticed that the sky was so clear here, so much clearer than our whole trip. There is fairly low population density in the area outside the park, and maybe more people are cooking on gas instead of charcoal? That along with the rains made the skies stunning with excellent visibility. 

Game was plentiful, there was a huge tower of giraffes, a lone elephant patrolling the river bank, herds of impala, some waterbuck, warthog, crocodiles and Katavi’s specialty, a lot of hippos. Birdlife was also excellent, with woodland kingfishers being in particular abundance, their wings looking like bright blue little waistcoats.  

Somewhere along our search for campsite and wildlife, a park vehicle came up to us. After establishing that it was us, that we were in the park without a permit, he instructed us to follow him to the airstrip, and he would check us in right now.

It wasn’t clear if we were in trouble or not, but off we went following him. This included driving across the seasonal river crossing. It’s always fun when you need to do a water crossing just to get a permit to the park. We also weren’t sure if we were in trouble. Or Jenny posited that maybe the ranger that let us in was in trouble. 

We arrived at the airstrip, where there is a small building that has the computer for issuing permits for the park. All the Tanzanian parks have switched to a digital system, and there was quite an impressive wall of Victron electrical equipment, inverters and batteries and the like, to power it all. 

This ranger, some one higher up (the “accountant?”) was taking quite a long time to issue the permit and apologized for the inconvenience, which was nice to hear. The whole thing was a little odd. It was 1600, prime wildlife viewing time, and given the cost of staying in this park, I felt like we could have been perfectly within our rights to be put out by this. On the other hand, we came to Katavi because it is a little more off the beaten track, a little more wild than the regular parks. So I can hardly complain that things are not “off the beaten path” in the right way, when we are the ones who sought out this out-of-the-way place.

Finally the permit was issued, right during a tremendous down pour. Fortunately it passed just as he finished and we were good to go. We headed off, back across the river, with a notion to camp somewhere with a westward view of the plains so we could have a nice sunset.

After a bunch of hemming and hawing we settled on a spot that had a nice view of the wetlands that feed the Ikuu river. The plains were huge, and off in the distance we could see buffalo, topi (kongoni?) and a huge amount of waterfowl. 

It felt fantastic to be bush camping, back in a park with wildlife around. We are of course spoiled, but it had been a few weeks since Nsobe camp in Bangweulu and we had missed it. 

We had a nice campfire going, and after dinner the rain came and drove us into bed. At least it was well timed. We planned an early game drive the next day. That night we heard the distant whoop of hyenas and I think the sawing call of a leopard, though I’m not sure. A guide said that two had been seen in the area, so it seemed likely.

The next day we were up early, and we made an all day game drive. We saw another vehicle that turned out to be a scout vehicle for a film crew that was working in the park. He said they’d seen lions on the east side of the bridge the day before, so we went off in that vicinity to search.

We spent the whole day driving around, scouting for a new campsite and looking for those lions. We had no luck on the lions, but the game viewing was otherwise good. We saw a lot of elephant, including very young ones, near lake Chada, and a very large herd of buffalo in the distance.

In 2018 the road to the east side of the lake was washed out, but this time we were able to access it. We saw a hippo kill with hyenas on it, but no lions. The plains to the east of lake Chad were wonderful, with a fair amount of game present and generally great views. We drove this area too late in the day, and given more time, I would have explored further. 

For this night we settled on a spot right by the river, but with a high bank so that it was not where animals come and go. A small pod of hippos occupied a spot just down river from us, and we settled into camp with their wheezes and honks serenading us. 

Later, right at sunset, a huge flock of hawdedaw ibis settled in the trees near us for the night, making a great racket. Vervet monkeys also watched us closely, but they were not habituated to humans and didn’t make any mischief like their more familiar brethren. 

While not exactly relaxing, the harsh call of the ibis and cackling of guinea fowl lulled us to sleep. There were nighttime thundershowers again, though not too strong, and later that night we heard lions roaring. 

Katavi is a good example of why we prefer to stay inside the parks. Even at night the bush experience is not finished, all the noises and visitors and weather combine to make the whole experience; it’s not just driving around in a car looking at elephants.

In the morning we made a hasty game drive looking for the lions we’d heard the night before, but after a couple hours we had to make our exit. At the least we planned to drive to Sumbawanga today, and if we made good enough time we’d get the vehicle serviced in the afternoon.

To Mbeya

We were making excellent time southward and after a little number crunching figured we might push onto Mbeya. Sumbawanga was just going to be a logistics stop and would result in some awkward camping in a hotel parking lot. Why not push on to Mbeya if we could make it and then have an extra day in our schedule?

The drive to Mbeya is long and not particularly interesting. We started listening to an audiobook (Spillover, by David Quammen, highly recommended) and ticked off the kilometers. The road is in good shape all the way to the border town of Tunduma. Turn right and it was back to Zambia. We turned left, onto the same Great North Road of our earlier travels, though now dubbed the Tan-Zam highway here in Tanzania. 

This makes the main route between Tanzania and Zambia chock full of truck traffic. The quality of the tarmac deteriorates considerably, but we trundled along just fine. All the while we studiously obeyed all the numerous 50 kph zones as this road is rife with radar speed traps. 

Finally we rolled into Mbeya, road weary, and went to meet Paul.

Chris and Louise had put us in touch with Paul. He’s an expat who lives in Mbeya and would advise us on the southern route to the coast. He also has a butchery as a side business and is a reliable place to buy quality meat; it is not all that easy to find that sort of thing here. We got in touch with him via WhatsApp to ask about where to stay, and he insisted we stay with him.

On the way we stopped at the Azra Provisions Market to stock up on a few things. While we were there, another mzungu walked in and after greeting the shopkeeper, who he clearly knew well, he turned to us and said, “You must be Jenny.” Not a question, just a statement. 

This was Paul. He is what our friends would call “The king of town,” and he certainly seemed to know everyone. He joked easily with all the shop keepers, a family. A women in a full hijab walked in, and he was joking with her too. She was laughing, and it was nice to see his cross cultural charisma. 

Paul scooped us up and showed us Mbeya and really took care of us. Being a bachelor, with his girlfriend was out of town, he made us a three course dinner. First course, his own cured ham. Second course, peppered beef fillet. Third course, horse sausage. Thats it. No, I lie, there was a side of a lot of beer. The horse sausage was as terrible as you’d think.

We stayed at Pauls for two nights, sleeping in a bed for the first time in two months. It turned out it was Tanzania’s Independence day the next day, and all the workshops were closed, so no vehicle service was possible. 

Instead Paul took it upon himself to show us the sights of Mbeya. We were put into his little Rav4 and zipped all over the place, him cursing at traffic and us hungover and wide eyed as we blazed around blind corners and zipped past busses and trucks. We went south of town, on a winding road through the lush hills leading to Malawi. One stop was his friend’s avocado farm. Mbeya is a coffee growing region, and while we stared out at a stunning hillside panorama from the farm house, they treated us to the best cup of coffee I’d had in ages. It turns out that they roast their owns beans on site.

After that they offered a tour of the “pack shed” and where they make the avocado oil. The pack shed was full of more avocados than I’ve ever seen, huge heaping piles all over the place. Apparently they had done a trial run at making avocado oil, and it was a success. An Italian company impressed with the product had ordered so much more avocado oil, “green gold” they call it, that they needed to process 50 tons of avocados a day for the next few months to meet their order.

Inside an unassuming building we were shown a huge sophisticated machine that makes avocado oil. A gleaming stainless steel contraption crushes and centrifuges these huge piles of avocados to produce extra virgin avocado oil. 

Thats a lotta avocados.

The whole thing was really impressive. And I kept thinking how amazing it was that down this unassuming bumpy dirt road was a highly sophisticated machine, a huge operation underway. What other operations where down those other dirt roads? 

Paul sped us all the way to the shores of Lake Malawi, his Rav4 weaving through traffic and rattling hard over all the pot holes and speed bumps but miraculously holding together. After a slow lakeside lunch on the way back we had a look at God’s Bridge, a little known local tourist attraction. 

We finished the day with a delectable chicken tandoori cooked right on the side of the road. We were exhausted by our day of sightseeing. The next day we hoped Toyota would be able to service our car in short order and we’d be on our way north. Paul was fantastic, but we weren’t sure we could take another night of imbibing at Paul’s pace.

We had bumped into the service manager for Toyota the first night we were in Mbeya, and this got us first in line for an appointment. They did a basic service and checked out a small oil leak for us. Paul was not content to leave us to wait; instead he whisked us up to World’s View, an incredible viewpoint above town. At over 3000 meters high it had a spectacular view of this part of the rift valley. 

When the car was done, we said our goodbyes to Paul. He was incredibly generous, and it was really fantastic for him to put us up, to hear his stories and insights into Mbeya, Tanzania and to get the grand tour around town. Thanks Paul!

We settled back into the familiarity of the land cruiser, even two days sleeping in a bed and being in another car had felt a little strange. The road leaving Mbeya north is lousy, tar rutted by overloaded trucks, traffic thick and terrible. Sometimes it seems the drivers have no interest in preserving their own lives. The risks some were taking do not make for fun driving. We just hang back, give plenty of room and go slow.

However somewhere along the way, maybe halfway to the T6 junction, the road turns into the best road in Tanzania. Or the best one we’ve driven anyway. Its wide shoulders give a place for the slow motorcycles and bicycles to be, and climbing lanes discourage the riskiest of overtaking maneuvers. Really, it’s a pleasure to drive, or as much of a pleasure as it’s going to be on a main thoroughfare in Tanzania anyway.

This brought us to the wonderful refuge of the Old Farmhouse at Kisolanza. This is a long established campsite in the southern highlands. They also have a restaurant, farm shop, coffee shop, chalets and, an actual farm.

The campsite has everything we wanted, a cool pitch in the shade, power, a fire ring, clean ablutions. We decided to stay two days and relax a bit to charge up before heading to Ruaha National Park. 

The first night there was one other self driver, a Swiss man in a Namibian registered land cruiser similar to ours. He was headed to Ruaha a day ahead of us. 

The Nitty Gritty: 

Kasesya to Sumbawanga – 2h 3m, 97 km

Sumbawanga Deets:

SIM cards. I randomly selected Vodacom as the network to get. I don’t know if it has the best network, but no troubles in our travels so far. A SIM has to be registered to your ID in Tanzania, so not anyone can sell you a new line. If they sell you a SIM and don’t get your fingerprint and passport info then it is not a legitimate line. 

A SIM was 5000 TSH, ($2.17 US). The guy had a fingerprint scanner that plugged into his phone via USB for registering. They also took my photo, and scanned my passport. He said I’d have to wait 10 minutes for it to register in the system, but in just a couple minutes it was good to go. I presented Jenny’s passport, to get her a SIM as well, and he said she had to be here, but she was off shopping. Hmm. I asked if I could get a second SIM on my passport, and put it in her phone? Yes, no problem. I don’t know why he didn’t volunteer this, but apparently you can have up to five lines registered in your name legally.

We purchased 10,000 shilling in scratch cards to top up the air time. Using the weekly bundles of internet I got 1.5 GB for 3000 shillings. This seemed a good balance of value to us. We use mostly WhatsApp, so you don’t need to get minutes for calling. I use Skype to make calls to non-WhatsApp numbers if needed, and Jenny did buy some calling minutes for local numbers for pretty cheap.  

A few important notes about getting a SIM card. First, all networks have a mobile money payment system. Vodacom’s is called Mpesa in Tanzania, airtel’s is airtel money, etc. When you get your SIM registered you’ll get a flood of SMS messages in Swahili, mostly advertisements for different bundles. I deleted them, but one of those messages has your introductory Mpesa PIN number, which is critical if you want to use the Mpesa system. Not essential for travel here, but handy. You can go to one of the small “Wakala” booths in any village and give them any amount of money, could be just a 1000 shillings or it could be a million, and they will get their phone and add the same amount to your Mpesa account via your phone number. Voila, now you have your own Mpesa funds to zap to whomever needs them, including many government services can be paid via Mpesa.

To recover your deleted PIN, like me, you can theoretically go through a convoluted series of button presses and verifications in the menu system, but I could never get it to work. I went to an official Vodacom store and they reset it for me in short order.

Second, all messages and menus are in Swahili. You can ask whoever you get your sim from to change the language to English. Some messages are still in Swahili, but the menus for getting additional bundles, data, etc, will be in English. 

Lastly, when you get your first data package you’ll get a choice to “allow data use without bundle”, where they charge you by MB at a high rate, or “don’t allow use without bundle”. I recommend the latter. That way if you have surplus air time it won’t get eaten up rapidly.

We buy extra scratch cards (aka “voucher”) to have credit available whenever. Alternatively you can get any Wakala to add airtime via their phone. Shit, look at how much I’ve written about phones? Stupid, but they are ubiquitous here and traveling without them is much more difficult. 

Banks – Different banks have different ATM withdrawal limits. We used NMB, and they allow multiple withdrawals of 400,000. We’ve never tried more than two. Some banks only allow 200,000.

Mechanic – Chris from Lakeshore Lodge takes his vehicles to Nastory, marked on iOverlander. We were going to go there but changed our plans, so I have no first hand account. Chris did have an issue he couldn’t figure out and ended up having to take his bakkie to Mbeya Toyota for something complex.

Butcher – Chris reccommended Safi Meats in Sumbawanga for a good, if a bit limited, butcher. For more selection or better quality find Paul’s place or Azra provisions in Mbeya

Mbeya

Butcher – Ask Chris and Louise for Paul’s number to buy eggs, meat, coffee and avocado oil from in Mbeya. 

Azra Provisions in Mbeya is a small shop with everything you need, from paper towels to good whiskey. There is no large supermarket in Sumbawanga or Mbeya. 

Toyota Shop – The Mbeya Toyota used to have a poor reputation (Stan – perhaps this is the same shop you went to?), but Toyota headquarters in Dar took notice and sent down a new manager to sort it out. This new manager, Manoj, is a real pro and now everything is running smoothly. As a mark of confidence, Chris from Lakeshore had a more complicated problem with one of his bakkies and he drove it all the way here to get it sorted out.

Namanyere has an ATM, fuel, and limited road side produce and dukas (a small shop) with odds and ends. 

Katavi National Park

Stan – we looked for your campsite near the old Ikuu ranger post and west of the hippo pool, as near as we could discern it. However it seems that the road heading out there no longer exists, though we could see a spot that seemed like a prime location in that vicinity. We decided it was a bit too much bundu bashing to get there. 

Special Campsites – The ranger that checked us in confirmed again that we were allowed to camp anywhere in the park, though with the qualification that we should not get too far off the road, to limit ecological damage. I suggested within 50 meters of the road and he was very happy with that, I suspect you could push that further, within reason. The ranger did have to select a named special campsite in a drop down menu on his computer, even though he said we could go wherever we liked. There were seven sites (if I recall correctly) on his list, and I asked for a map of them, but he didn’t have one. It would be interesting to learn where those seven special campsites are.

Katavi still impressed us, even though predators were elusive. Later in Ruaha we talked to a camera man from the same film crew that was working in Katavi. He said we’d missed wild dogs by a day, and that it was true that you had to be lucky to see predators in Katavi. Interestingly he also said that the lions there will climb trees, unusual for lions, but only at certain times of year. He had spent a month and a half in Katavi filming, what an experience that must be.

There is much more to write about Katavi, but I am running out of time to post. Short version, this park deserves more time.

I will post some notes on Tanzanian park fees in the next post. Spoiler alert – they are really expensive. Whether it’s worth it, that is up to you.