30367 km since the beginning of the journey.
The Tanzanian road from Arusha towards east was decent and with little traffic.
Briefly to the Indian Ocean - Peponi Beach Resort. Was supposed to be a camping of normal living facilities and favourable price (5 USD). And plus 1 USD more for electricity.
Guinea fowls were walking around between the tents.
Living standards in Africa in this camp were above the average. In the image below – a place for laundry.
There was hot and cold water in the shower-rooms. Warm water only in the morning and evening, but at least there was some. There were toilet seats and covers in the toilet room and water.
This is the way that toilets for men and women are marked. Somehow the tags seemed similar at first glance. You go first to the first door, then to the other and then back again to the first. Then you bring your camera and begin to compare the images.
A crab. I've always thought that crabs are a kind of creatures that try to avoid people. And if you try to make a closer image, it will usually run away. And quite a story happened in the evening, while I was sitting in the twilight under my shelter. Suddenly I feel that someone is climbing on my shoe. In the dark I usually do not like to wear sandals all the time because if you don`t look carefully continuously in front of your feet , you can get some acacia needle in your feet or whatever. And a crab attached to the toe, is not the best pleasant surprise for the evening. I turned on the flashlight , and there was a larger creature having climbed on my shoe. Scorpio??, that was the first thought. Then a clip with many big black spiders of an Indiana Jones movie was in front of my eyes. Anyway, one quick motion, this creature was shaked from the foot successfully and it turned out to be a smaller kind of a crab. Even this was good. Scorpio could have been be a lot worse solution, as much as I know the crab at least is not poisonous.
In Serengeti park a greater number of horse-flies were flying around and they bit so that several days the hands and feet were covered with red itchy hives. And unlike the local mosquitoes these horse-flies could bite through the socks and t-shirt. Mosquitoes are weak around here, after all, even a flimsy fabric is enough, to protect from the mosquito bite.
Next the journey continued towards Dar es Salaam. Dar Es Salaam is Tanzania's largest city with a population of 2.4 million, and until 1996 it was the capital of Tanzania. Currently, the capital of Tanzania is Dodoma, which is located in the middle of Tanzania..
Peponi camping is 400 kilometers from Dar es Salaam, the owner of the camp said that it could take about 9 hours to reach the place. It took 10 hours because in the meantime there was quite a downpour . Good that it was asphalt road.
I reach the town and a few kilometres further the intersection traffic jam begins, about 300 metres long. It`s not so bad but it is getting darker . A quarter of an hour of waiting, and finally the traffic jam is over. I drive towards the center in order to reach the ferry of Magogoni before dark. I have GPS-coordinates, so that there should not be any problems to arrive there. Only - while using the same card - different Garmin devices offer a variety of streets to arrive at the place.
No wonder it's not the first time. Past experience has shown that more reliable is the handheld Garmin Mobile XT, and it is safer to rely on it in urban areas. And so it is. At least no need to drive along an one-way street in the opposite direction. Never mind that in Khartoum this kind of driving was practised.
I approach the harbor and in the dark unintentionally pass the end of the ferry queue, then try somehow to skip between. I do not succeed very well , until in the end the police on duty realizes that I am a tourist and the car with the foreign number plate and the wheel in the wrong side was allowed stand in the queue somewhere between.
In the dark I am on the ferry, which is packed full of people and cars.
Kipepeo Beach Village.
a view of the overnight place...
.. and the other side.
The next day, the ferry again, this time in daylight. At the beginning one hour in ferry queue. Then the embarkation. Different sizes of cars embarked first . And then the passengers and bicycles followed , until all places between the cars were tightly crowded.
And everything and everybody went off the ferry all together and at once. Cars, bicycles, motorcycles, passengers.
The ferry ticket.
In the opposite direction the queue of ferry reaches the intersection and even further on.
Another picture of the ferry. This time the ferry was waiting until a big container ship had passed.
Coconuts
National Museum Of Tanzania.
Wooden bikes that were supposed to be, even now, in use in some remote areas.
This propeller is from a plane that has crashed in Tanzania in Tabora and it had been the first attempt to fly from Cairo to Cape Town.
There was a larger display of slavery and slave trade.
And about the history of the slave trade – here is beautifully indicated that the Arabs started buying slaves from East Africa in the 2nd century AD. So long before the Europeans came to Africa.
The display of the vehicles of the Heads of State.
Monday - the story of Malawi visa. Various guidebooks (Lonely Planet and Rough Guide) lead to the same address, which is itself very possitive. If anyone is still planning to look for the Malawi Embassy in Tanzania, then the Embassy of Malawi is located in the same building as the Embassy of Zambia. As to parking spaces – it is the same as everywhere else in centre of towns – no empty space. But I can find a vacant place opposite the road in front of a bank. The security guards will agree to keep an eye on the car and the thing is settled. Sometimes it is useful to be the white man around here.
There is no queue at the Embassy . At the reception having explained my wish to visit Malawi I am asked to wait. After half an hour waiting I am invited to the next room and I tell my story again. The official looks my passport through and asks two times how I had covered the distance there from Estonia , and then I am given two questionnaires. Bilateral, but nothing special. I fill them in the waiting room, and pass them over together with 2 passport photographs. „Please wait,“ - I am told. I wait. Then I look over some magazines about Malawi and Tanzania and wait. More waiting. I'm still waiting. Someone important is not present there just now. Another hour of waiting and the man enters. Reviews the documents, cuts the passport photos into the right size and sticks them on the questionnaires. Then comes the unpleasant part - payment for the visa. Estonians must pay for the visa 100 USD. The most expensive travel visa till now.
Malawi is a visa-free country for the citizens of many states. The citizens of Estonia are not included to the selected ones.
I am still waiting, and then get the receipt for payment and my passport with the fresh Malawi visa. Finally. And the first 4 pages of my new passport are already used. But the positive side is that I received the visa on the same day and I was engaged there half of the day. No need to wait for several days.
More of Indian Ocean.
The technical story too. It is quite an unscheduled issue. In fact, it so happened that after visiting the shopping center my eye caught some fresh drops of oil under the car.
The trouble-maker or gearbox in a large scale. Here is the bolt between which the oil had dripped out. The last change of the engine and gearbox oil was in Burundi, and they had not fixed it securely.
Another good lesson that all the things should be personally checked and personally tightened with the spanner.
A picture from the road – the name sells.
Estonians in Tanzania.
Next the road took to Iringa region, Sao Hill, the place where Aadu and Imre have lived for some years already. And more reading about their life and activities while starting a sawmill
here - http://africaandai.blogspot.com/
To be continued ...
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