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The Southern Route to the Coast

Dec 16th – 22nd, 2021

The next milestone in our plan was to visit the coastal ruins at Kilwa, on the coast. But how to get there? From Kisolanza it is roughly equidistant to travel the Tan-Zam highway towards Dar or to take the coast. To go south would mean taking the T6 via Songea, Mtwara district and Lindi. This would avoid the heavy truck traffic and would generally have fewer people and villages, and it might even be a bit faster.

This southern road is much less traveled, in part because it wasn’t long ago that this road was unpaved. From the Bradt Guide, prior to new tarmac:

“Songea to Tunduru road…mostly through thick, tsetse fly invested miombo woodland, is probably the worst in the country…If you’re self driving outside the dry season, getting stuck in mud is a certainty, so fill up on as many passengers as you can to provide the necessary muscle power when horse power fails.” “At other times mud can block the road for days or weeks at a time….A warning, do not attempt self drive in anything other than bone-dry weather if you’re not an expert off road driver, or if you lack advanced mechanic skills…” 

Those days are behind us though. Chris from Lakeshore Lodge was quite keen on this road and said it was now both beautiful tarmac and had beautiful vistas. Paul, who we’d met in Mbeya, drives this route once a month and was able to assure us that the advice from the old Bradt guide no longer applied; it was drivable in two days. 

Wanting to branch out a bit from the regular routes, we thought we’d give it a try.

With a mere 1199 km to Kilwa, we set off from Kisolanza. This involves doubling back towards Mbeya a little bit, still on that very good stretch of new road, and in not long, making the turn south at Makambako. 

I should note that two veterans of African travel advised us to visit the Kitulo Plateau National Park, known as “The Garden of the Gods” for its high meadows of wild flowers. This is not far from our route, between Mbeya and the T6. These flowers typically only bloom in December and January, so now is the time to go. We were considering it, but we ended up spending  extra time getting the car serviced in Mbeya and an extra day at Kisolanza, and we just ran out of time, wanting to be on the coast for Christmas and to meet friends shortly after. On top of this Paul said it hadn’t rained much this year, that January would be a better time to go. That sealed it. We’d save Kitulo for another time.

The first leg to Njombe was uneventful, just regular medium quality tarmac and a fair amount of traffic, presumably heading to the larger towns of Njombe or Songea. Incidentally the cheese we bought in Mbeya was made by some benedictine monks that have a monastery outside Njombe.

The elevation is fairly high, some 1600m or so, and climbs as high as 1900m. We drove by many forestry plantations, pencil straight tall pine trees planted in tidy rows. These highlands are the hub of Tanzania’s timber industry, all farmed forestry as far as we could tell, so different from the forests at home. 

Njombe is pleasantly cool and smells of pine and eucalyptus trees. After winding through the steep hills of town we spent the rest of the day dropping down narrow switchbacks, down down down. By the end of the day we rolled into Songea, having dropped almost a thousand meters of elevation. 

Some scenes of the road for you

Camping is limited down here. Chris had assured us that bush camping was safe in Tanzania. If we had any concerns, we were to just ask to camp at any police station and they’d have no problem letting us stay the night. That wasn’t that attractive though. Instead we stuck with Paul’s suggestion, to camp in the courtyard of the Heritage Cottage Hotel in Songea.

Camping in hotel courtyards is a thing once you get a little further off the beaten path in Africa. Find a place with secure parking, ask if you can camp in the corner and usually they’ll let you set up. Typically this is at a reduced rate, and they’ll give you a key to a room so you have a toilet and shower.

We could’ve just paid the extra few dollars for a room, but it is surprisingly inconvenient to move out of the cruiser for just one night. Do you hump all your valuables inside, camera gear and laptops and such? Our clothes and stuff are also not in luggage, so it is sort of a hassle to pack up in the cruiser, move into a room, unpack and then move out the next day.

We are much more at home in our little roof top tent, camp chairs and cooking on the stove than we are in odd roadside hotel rooms. 

The Heritage did have a restaurant and bar, totally empty, so we thought we’d give it a try. We started with the typical error of not asking for a “Kili biridi,” which is a cold beer. Many locals drink their beer at room temperature, and we received ours warm. We needed to get into the habit of specifying “biridi.”

Restaurant service was slow, the beers weren’t that cold, the meal average. Still though, as the power flicked in and out and we played cards, ate chapatis and chicken, we were very content. 

Tanesco, the power company, earns universal scorn from all Tanzanians. This is the same in Zambia (Zesco) and in South Africa (Eskom). We hear the gripes of lack of maintenance, incompetence, didn’t used to be like this, etc… However, in the book I mentioned earlier’ Africa, Dowden, he notes that many African leaders have simply underestimated their growing populations need for electricity. With rising populations, reduced poverty and economies growing, sometimes in double digit percentages per year, more and more electricity was needed. They just didn’t build enough power generating capacity fast enough. Thus, brownouts.

Since you can’t build a power plant over night this is a problem that takes years to rectify. No doubt a bit of maintenance wouldn’t go amiss in the mean time. When this comes up in conversation (usually in the dark, when the powers had just gone off), we always mention that PG&E, California’s biggest power company and one of the largest utility providers in America, also turns off the power on us. They do this because in the right weather trees can fall on the power lines and start devastating wildfires, including ones that have burned whole towns. This too is also partially due to lack of maintenance, as they are supposed to trim the trees and brush around vulnerable power lines. Usually this information is received with a mixture of delight and surprise, that America could have such problems. 

We’ve noticed that the United States and Africa actually have a lot of problems in common; it is the magnitude of those problems that is the difference.

The Heritage Cottages was fine enough, but nothing particularly great. Thus it was an early start for us. The next run from Songea was almost 600km, a distance that in most of Tanzania is simply not drivable in a day. But we’d heard the road had just been redone, and it was no problem. 

It was true. Heading out of town a sign proclaimed that this road was a “Gift from the American People,” or something like that. Interesting, as a huge percentage of new roads in Africa are built by the Chinese, usually part of their Belt and Road initiative. This road had several signs, in English and Swahili, with the “Gift of…” phrase.

It was a wonderfully nice road. The lanes generous in width, lines painted clearly and most appreciated were wide shoulders. This means that all the foot traffic, bicycles and other small vehicles have a place to be when full sized vehicles are passing, making for a lot less dangerous situations on the road. 

There is not a lot of traffic from Songea to the coast, and with a perfect road we sped along easily. This driving was much less stressful than the Tan-Zam highway. Villages were spread apart, speed humps applied more sparingly, and all was sunny and easy as the kilometers ticked by. We continued to listen to Spillover, our audiobook, which happened to have a whole section devoted to the first SARS. It was eerie to listen about the initial stages of the SARS outbreak, c. 2003. The book is full of parallels and prescient foreshadowing about the current covid situation.

Some way along the drive the villages disappear, and we saw signs proclaiming that we were transiting the Selous-Niassa wildlife corridor. To the north lies the Selous Game Reserve. The northern part of “The Selous” (pronounced with a silent S at the end), as it is known, has recently been turned into a National Park, Nyerere National Park. Niassa National Reserve is a game reserve in northern Mozambique. There is a huge area of land devoted to a wildlife corridor between the two wilderness areas. We saw no signs of game, but it was nice to see this land available for wildlife movement.

Pushing further east we began to see huge inselbergs, similar to what we’ve seen in Mozambique in our earlier travels. I’m told these great granite rocks also make up part of the Zimbabwean eastern highlands, though we’ve yet to visit there. 

They also reminded me of the hills we’d hiked near Mutinondo Wilderness in Zambia, yet we were some 800 km away as the crow flies. Something to do with the rift valley? But these inselbergs seem relatively isolated. One of my coworkers back home did her doctoral work in Africa, and I thought she might know the story. I emailed with some photos and coordinates and received this reply:

“…the similarities that you are seeing are related to all of these rocks being old, metamorphosed rocks related to orogenic (mountain) belts.  I think the ones in Zambia are part of the Irumide Belt and ~Mesoproterozoic in age (1.6–1 billion yrs old). The Irumide Belt (along with the Zambezi) neighbors the Damara Belt, but has a slightly different history. In general, though, these belts record the suturing of the African continent. These rocks are made up of old crystalline basement that has been highly deformed. Some of this deformation includes intrusion by granitoids and syn-orogenic plutonic rocks, which is probably why they remind you of the Sierras. I am unsure of the Tanzanian rocks you pointed me to, but also think these may be part of an orogenic sequence…maybe the East African Orogen?

It’s true that you are entering the realm of the East African Rift, which is an incredibly fascinating rift valley on many accounts.  The East African Rift system began developing much more recently (~20-ish million years ago, whereas I think the rocks you are looking at are recording tectonic collisions >1 billion years ago). This divergent tectonic boundary, that is splitting eastern Africa into two tectonic plates, is still active.” – Dr. N Nieminski

Aren’t scientists great? This response made me briefly homesick. I am no scientist at all, but I am surrounded by them at work, and her detailed response peppered with science-y jargon is the sort of thing I’ve gotten used to. I was able to derive some meaning out of the above Sanskrit; I hope you find it interesting. 

In another place these magnificent rocks might be a park or have some fantastic campsite or hiking trails, but here in southeast Tanzania they were the backdrop to a few small villages, or simply left to be alone in the country side, as they always have been, patiently watching over us. 

The final stretches of the drive change character somewhere around Masasi, where the palm trees were growing, thick and it became more and more green. Also more and more Muslim, very few women without a headscarf and men wearing intricately woven cylindrical taqiyah caps and long thobe gowns that look so very comfortable.

Statistical sources disagree, but Tanzania is something like 60/30 Christian/Islamic or 30/30/30 Christian/Islamic/Indigenous beliefs.. Here in the southeast it is very much majority Islam.

This is also the Mtwara region, where, you might note on the US State Department website, there is a travel advisory due to the risk of terrorist attacks. This is due to the neighboring Punta Delgado province of Mozambique, just across the Ruvuma river, being the base of operations for Mozambique’s Al Shebaab. This is not the same Al Shebab as the one in Somalia.

The north of Mozambique has been long neglected by the south, making it a toehold for Islamic extremism in Southern Africa. Though Mozambique was warned by all not to let this issue ferment, ferment it has. This has resulted in violence in Northern Mozambique. A recent incident involving expatriate oil workers got the attention of some of the powers that be. African Union troops, along with other stakeholders, have been sent in, and the situation is stabilizing. 

According to an expat we met in Tanzania this has resulted in Al Shebab being somewhat neutralized, but also dispersed, which has meant a few incursions across the border into southern Tanzania’s Mtwara region. No doubt the situation is much more complex than I have summarized. For us the end result was we’re not going to Mtwara, just barely passing through and into neighboring Lindi.

Lying just up the coast from Mtwara, Lindi is a small beachside town that was the center of regional control for the Germans, way back in the pre-WWI days when Tanzania, then Tanganyika, was a German colony. Paul, the expat we met in Mbeya, had set us up with Matthew, another expat, in Lindi. Somehow we got sort of hooked up in the bored/lonely Zimbabwean expat circle, and here we were bouncing to our next host. 

We’d been in touch with Matthew via WhatsApp, and Paul was correct, he was keen to have visitors. Blindly following a google maps pin into the hills above Lindi, we found ourselves at Matthew’s house, a simple, comfortable abode with a stunning view of the bay. 

Matthew was enthusiastic to meet us, instantly shoving cold beers into our hands as we sat on his patio enjoying the view and started swapping stories. We’ve experienced this many times now, that there is no beating around the bush when we meet people on our travels. They just dive right in.

Long ago I sailed to some remote islands in the South Pacific. The Captain at the time warned us, “When you meet people, they are going to be more forward and personal than you’re used to. They don’t get a lot of visitors and just don’t have the time to spare being timid.” He was right. Almost immediately personal questions get asked, and good natured ribbing starts right away.

The same was true here. In the 2000s, Zimbabwe took a political turn that scattered many white Zimbabweans all over. We continue to meet these curious white Africans, sort of economic refugees. Some have UK passports and could conceivably go to England. Some have stuck it out and stayed in Zimbabwe. Many were born in Africa and would never be happy in England. Instead they have carved out small niches for themselves all over the continent, frequently in agriculture.

Matthew was one of these ex-Zimbos and an incredibly gracious host. After a cold beer, we had a wonderful outdoor shower. Then it was off to town. He was keen to take us to Raymond’s for dinner and where we’d actually stay the night. Much in the way it had been with Paul, we were swept up in a current and just held on to stay with the program he had in mind.

We pulled into beachside bar, Raymond’s, which is actually called Makuti Bay, though there is no sign. With Christmas music playing, a few locals were having drinks under palms swaying in the breeze over white sand, pretty as a picture. Matthew introduced us to Raymond. He was from northern Tanzania; his family had been in the hospitality business. Somehow he made his way to the south coast. He loves it here, and for the last several years has been working hard to establish a beach bar, restaurant and bungalows, all bit by bit. 

Matthew was good friends with him, and we gathered Raymond was probably his only close friend that wasn’t an expat. All the other expats have trickled out of town over the last couple years, whether because of the security situation to the south or because of covid. I got the impression that Matthew was down here at Raymond’s a lot.  

Raymond was really great and was happy to have some rare mzungu tourists. He has one safari tent for guests, but is building a couple of bungalows right now. We spent the evening chatting with Matthew and Raymond, eating locally grown cashews and freshly caught tuna and generally had a great time. 

We were the first guests he’d had that had our own car, and after some discussion with Matthew they decided that we shouldn’t leave the car parked in the back, but should park it in front of the beach-front-safari tent. This necessitated one of his staff taking down the modest fence in front of the safari tent, and before we could say no, they had knocked it down. So I drove the cruiser right out onto the wide sand beach and then back over the sandy berm in front of the safari tent. Presto, secure beach-side parking.

We slept in the safari tent that night, with a trade wind breeze blowing and the brilliant light of a full moon shining down. On the white sand the moonlight was almost too bright. 

Kilwa was the next stop on our itinerary. In the morning Matthew came down to Raymond’s, and the four of us had a wonderful breakfast of fruit and avocados and rich dark coffee. It turned out the coffee was from Rob, the same Rob who is the Mbaya avocado farmer, who roasts his own coffee.

Matthew gave us a huge bag of fresh, locally grown cashews and a bottle of Rob’s avocado oil and sent us on our way. What a nice guy.

Kilwa

The drive up to Kilwa was incredibly green, and you could tell it rains a lot down here. There where huge baobabs, taller than previous ones we’ve seen, flush and full of green leaves. The drive to Kilwa isn’t too far, and in a little over three hours we arrived at Kilwa Beach Lodge, a place with bungalows and camping a little outside of town. 

We were the only guests, and they let us park right on the beach. We got a view of the fishing dhows, the ocean and swaying palms; it was all very wonderful. And hot. The coast is famous for being hot this time of year, and true to form, it was. If it wasn’t for the breeze, we would have suffered. 

Confusingly there are three Kilwas. Kilwa Masoko is the town at the end of the peninsula. Kilwa Kivinje is a village to the north, and Kilwa Kisiwani is the island that is a UNESCO world heritage site. 

We arranged through the lodge to visit the UNESCO site the next day. We could have organized this ourselves, but naturally this isn’t the sort of thing that one just pays a ticket and goes to; that would be too easy. We needed a permit from the antiquities office (how great is it that it’s called the “antiquities office”?), a mandatory guide and a boat transfer, all paid for and organized separately. We went with the lodge-organized package, which seemed simpler and the markup was minimal. 

The next day a bajaj, a sort of three wheeled Indian motorcycle taxi, called a tuktuk in Thailand, showed up. We took the bajaj to the antiquities office, got our permit and then headed down to the port. To my surprise the port, a modest affair, had a fenced off area that said “ISPS Secure Area.” ISPS is an internationally recognized set of rules for port security that came into effect after 9/11. It is also the source of some unwelcome administrative burden at my regular job back home. I was amused that even this small port had not escaped the ISPS effort.

We hiked down to water on the non-secure side of of the port and were shown to our transport, a rustic wooden sailing dhow normally employed for fishing. We had requested a sailing dhow specifically, whereas normally they charge a little more and use a power boat. 

Doffing our shoes and socks we waded through the mud and boarded our transport. The captain shoved us off and gave some quiet instructions in Swahili to our guide, who became the impromptu crew. The sail was set, and we began silently gliding across the channel towards the ruins at Kilwa Kisiwani. 

Twenty or so minutes later, too soon really because I was thoroughly enjoying the sailing, we came to the island. Again it was off with the shoes and over the rail to wade ashore. It was low tide, I gather this step is not necessary if the tide is higher. 

Our guide led us through the major sites of the ruins, a graveyard, a fort built by the Portuguese, and a palace and mosque complex. The earliest ruins date from the Sultan of Oman’s reign in the area and are pretty dilapidated. Being newer the fort is in better shape, dating from the 1800s, built by the Portuguese. Still, it was not possible to go up to the ramparts, it being too far gone in condition. The great mosque is quite impressive. It is old, but apparently much of it had been buried in a few meters of sediment. This preserved it, and it has recently been excavated so that you can now walk around. 

The island is still inhabited, a thousand or so residents that make their living by fishing. Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta visited Kilwa in 1331 and described it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with a population over 10,000 at the time. Now it is a simple fishing village with crumbling ruins. I spent a lot of time pondering this. It was interesting to think about the rise of a city like this and its return to something that is probably not all that different than before the palace, forts and grand mosques and city were built. 

At the height of power in the 15th century, the Kilwa Sultanate claimed authority over the city-states of Malindi, Mvita (Mombasa), Pemba Island, Zanzibar, Mafia Island, Comoro, Sofala and the trading posts across the channel on Madagascar. Eventually this power moved to Zanzibar, and Kilwa began its decline.

We saw that the grand palace had not faired well over time, mostly crumbled walls, but there are a few interesting sections that have stood up to time and the elements well enough. Particularly and octagonal swimming pool, that we’re told was filled by hand from a nearby well. 

In deference to local custom Jenny wore a wrap to cover her legs, though no head scarf was expected. This was fine, except that it made activities like wading through the water, sailing and hiking around ruins a little more difficult and a little hotter on an already sweltering day. The guide was not concerned about this formality, and towards the end of the tour, when it was just him and the boat captain, he told Jenny she could take it off. 

From the grand palace we took crumbling steps down to the mangrove swamps, and not long after our little sailing dhow coasted into the shallows to retrieve us. The boat trip back was blissfully tranquil, skimming along.

I admired the vessel. At first glance it appears a rustic and humble craft. However in the parts that count you could see perfectly fit joints in the timbers and expertly done lashings for the spars. Other details had been deemed unnecessary and were left unfinished, an unnecessary vanity.

The staff at Kilwa Beach Lodge were really nice and checked in with us often. They kept asking us if we wanted to eat at the restaurant. This has happened to us a few places we’ve been now. Frequently we’ve been the only guests, and I don’t know if this is in an effort to be helpful, to drum up business or simply because the staff are bored. I suspect the latter. We relented and signed up for dinner. Dinner was fish, prepared perfectly, and we had a nice time discussing the day over our meal. 

For the Christmas holiday we had reserved five nights at Peoponi Beach Resort, to enjoy the beach and rinse off the road weariness of so many kilometers. This plan was what had set our Tanzania pace, and we were excited to stay put for a few days at the beach. 

Peponi is too far to drive in a day, and we needed to brave the notorious Dar es Salaam traffic, which I was not looking forward to. We got an early start to hit Dar midday and hopefully ameliorate the worst of the traffic. We swapped drivers on the outskirts of town, and Jenny summoned her nerves of steel for African city driving while I navigated.

We were low on supplies and stopped at a huge shopping mall, the first one we’d seen since Lusaka over a month ago, including a proper supermarket. Driving into the entrance all vehicles are stopped by security, and guards use mirrors on sticks to check the underside of your vehicle for bombs.

Jenny remarked, “I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse?” Heading into the Shoppers we were amazed. Here was a store that had everything. Frozen meat, spirits, snacks, highly coveted paper towels and all the other usual stuff. They even had tortillas, so we planned Mexican food. To my surprise they also carried products from Bob’s Red Mill, a specialty miller from the United States. 

What they did not have was much going in the way of covid concern. Theoretically Dar es Salaam has a mask mandate for covid, but I would estimate that at the mall less than 1% of people are actually masking, and outside the mall…0.1%? Nevertheless, the wide variety of selection in the supermarket was a huge novelty; however given all the omicron covid news we masked up and got in and out as fast as was practical. Whatever your opinions may be regarding covid, getting sick in a foreign country without our usual network of support, or getting stuck not being able to cross a border because of a positive test was not on our list of things to do.

We spent the night at the Traveler’s Lodge in Bagomoyo, camped on a beautiful lawn full of blooming flame trees. The owner stopped by and chatted for a while, telling us his story. He was a German expat who moved here in his 20s. Now in his 60s, he’s spent his whole life building this lodge and living in Bagomoyo. 

He told us his covid woes. When the pandemic began, he had 100% booking cancelations, and with tears in his eyes, he had to lay off staff he’d hired decades ago. Then to his surprise he started getting a lot more bookings from well to do locals, mostly from Dar, coming up to get out of the city. For now his lodge is making it, just. He also poured out a torrent of opinions on Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Alex Jones, Black Lives Matter. So much and so fast that we could hardly get a word in edgewise.

There is a bit of a shortcut to Peponi, through Saadani National Park. This park sits on the coast, and you can drive through it or take the longer road around. A national park on the coast, complete with wildlife, appealed to me. Even though we’d incur park fees to transit, we decided to bite the bullet and give it a look. And it’d get us off the hectic, busy roads and into the back country. Grey rain laden clouds loomed as we made the right turn onto a dirt track towards the park.

Rain looked certain, so we went into 4×4 and dropped our tire pressures, hoping that the rain didn’t make the roads impassable. At the gate we asked hopefully if there was some reduced fee for transit, knowing there probably wasn’t. 

There wasn’t, and relieved of $118 USD, we were into the park. This stung, and we started to regret our decision. It just sort of ruins things when you can’t decouple the expense from the experience, and on this gloomy day it was hard to not think about it. Our own fault I suppose. We could have gone around. On the other hand, we had an opportunity to get a glimpse at a rarely visited park.

Saadani was a bit of a disappointment. To be fair we didn’t give it a lot of effort as we wanted to get to Peponi before it got to late. We did see giraffe, bushbuck, impalas and reedbuck. We stopped by the public campsite in the park, which is just back from the beach. It looked like it was being lived in by somebody, with trash in a pile in the back and laundry hung up outside the ablutions. There were a few little shade huts to camp at with a view of the beach, but frankly I think I’d be pretty annoyed if we had paid to camp here. Do not recommend. 

Peponi

Onward north, we checked out of the park and in not long came to the Pagani river. There is a small town on the north bank and a ferry that crosses the narrow channel. We paid for passage, 5000 TSH for the vehicle and 2000 (?) for a passenger. I guess the driver is included with the vehicle? Fortunately for us the ferry was leaving in just a few minutes. We drove on and shortly thereafter made the 5 minute trip across. 

Peponi is on the beaches north of Pagani. We drove through huge fields of spiky blue green plants that at first we mistook for agave. That seemed out of place here in Tanzania, and in fact we were driving through a huge sisal plantation. 

Arriving at Peponi was a long sought goal, and it felt good to arrive. We got a beach front campsite with shade. With a sea breeze blowing and palm fronds swaying overhead (beware of falling coconuts), it felt great. Peponi is a pleasant beachside camp with a few bungalows, a beach bar and lounge zone and a restaurant set back in the trees. It did have a feel of a place whose heyday might have passed a few years back, but we were comfortable. 

Next door is a place called Capricorn, with more upmarket bungalows and a really excellent restaurant. It’s run by a Kenyan born Indian couple who spent 30 years living in Los Angeles.  We had a nice time chatting with them about California, and we were able to order chips and guacamole, a true rarity in Africa.

We whiled away the days walking on the beach, reading and swimming. You can blame any delay of blog posts on Ken Follet’s Never. 

The beach here is very flat, and when the tide goes out, it leaves huge tide flats. When it comes back in, the water is as warm as bath water, not very appealing. We found swimming in the morning to be the most pleasant.

Just south of Peponi is a village with a substantial fishing fleet sailing outrigger canoes. We tend to call these dhows, but of course each craft has differences, for different work and capabilities. These sailing outrigger canoes with their triangular lateen rigs are called ngalawas. 

The early hours are the my favorite in Africa. The pre dawn air is cool and less humid, and all is quiet. I get up and make coffee and tip toe down to the beach. With towering thunderheads on the horizon, I saw dozens of ngalawas and dhows setting sail and heading out to fish for the day. Working sail is a fascination of mine, and to see it alive here in 2021 is amazing. I see a few reliable two stroke Yamahas on a few vessels. I suppose the locals see this as progress, but I will be sad when all these boats have little Yamahas on the back chugging away.

This leg of the journey had a different feel than what we have done so far. Less wilderness, but I feel we are doing some proper traveling, meeting people, staying in some off the beaten track places and generally having a good look around.

The Nitty Gritty

Kisolanza – Songea: 402km, 7h 21m – Seems we usually average around 55-60 kph on a trip including stops. So faster when driving, but with traffic, police stops, lunch stop, etc, don’t expect to do much better than this in Tanzania. Paul from Mbeya drives like a maniac and he says the best he can do is 75kph. 

Kisolanza has an incredible farmstall, don’t forget to stock up before you leave. Coffee, cheese, meat, veggies. 

Heritage, courtyard camping, in Songea was 50,000 TSH to camp in the courtyard, overpriced in our opinion. We were tired and didn’t try to negotiate, I suspect you could get that down a bit. Mens ablutions were functional but smelled awful. Jenny was the only female here, and she kindly let me share her bathroom, much nicer. Combined ablution score…2/5?

Songea to Lindi – 605km, 10h 00m – A long but relatively pleasant and stress free drive. We stayed at Makuti Bay (aka “Raymond’s”). 50,000 TSH to stay in the safari tent. You can order food here, but order ahead of time or expect a long wait. Super nice beach place, Raymond is great. Ablutions are simple but functional and clean, but the water ran out in the morning, 2.5/5 with improvement on the horizon.

Lindi to Kilwa Dreams – 194km, 3h 5m – An easy drive. Fuel available on the way, numerous roadside stalls for fruit and vegetables. The road is in pretty good shape, traffic typical, meaning busses and some trucks with not a lot of private vehicles. 

Kilwa Beach Lodge camping was very pleasant. They have shade shelters built for four campsites and a central one close to the beach. Since we were the only campers they had us at that one. Ablutions were simple but spotless, 3/5. Restaurant was very good, staff were super nice. I would recommend this place. Swimming was not so great because the tidal range and shallow beach. We heard in town there is a better beach for swimming that works at all tides. I forget the price to camp here, but something like $10pppn.

The ruins were an interesting stop. It was nice to do something that wasn’twildlife viewing. Southern and Eastern Africa do not have many architectural sites from the past and it was nice to visit these. I wouldn’t say they were top on our list of attractions, but coupled with the boat trip and the walk through the village it was well worthwhile. It’s hard to say how far out of your way you might go to visit here. Generally we find that anything designated as a UNESCO site makes for a good stop.

Kilwa – Bagamoyo – 387km, 10h 37m I sort of can’t believe it took this long. We did stop at the mall for quite a long time, we also had lunch there. Dar traffic was more or less as expected, an ordeal. 

Travelers Lodge Bagamoyo Campsite – It’s really just the lawn between the chalets. The grounds are beautifully kept with wonderful trees, all very pleasant, but it isn’t a designated campsite. Just a place you can camp. No fires. We were given keys to a chalet for a toilet and shower, but I think that was just because they were working on the normal ablutions. Camping was 30,000 TSH pppn.

Has beach access to a nice beach. They have a restaurant, and there are others nearby, but we cooked our own food.

Bagamoyo to Peponi via Saadani NP – 171km, 5h 47m AND $118 in park fees. A good route that is not really worth the cost in our opinion. 

Peponi is cheap, $8 pppn. There are two campsites closest to the beach that get the most breeze and are still in the shade. Campsite “K” is the best. The other sites are okay, but it was fairly full for the holiday and felt a little cramped, though not bad. 

Ablutions are not all that great here. They are the same ablutions for day visitors, campers and restaurant visitors and are just over taxed, combined with being in need of some maintenance. Functional enough though. 1.5/5? Maybe 2/5. The owners next door at Capricorn said that the Peponi owners hadn’t been around for a few years and it showed, even though the woman who appeared to be in charge was very efficient and professional. I would still recommend Peponi, but know their website sets higher expectations than might be appropriate.