Living the Dream Solo Around the World Trip
- Thread starter schalk vd merwe
- Start date
TVB
Grumpy Mutt
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Stunning, I was very surprised to see how clean it is and the weather all year round is great! No need for an air-con even!
Very nice country :thumleft:
Very nice country :thumleft:
Matewis
Race Dog
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:sip:
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
Yes I think Rwanda is one of the best countries in Africa todayHillman said:
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
Tanzania for the 2nd time.
From Kigali I made it through the two borders back into Tanzania. As I last only had a coffee at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, I was looking for something to eat and pulled off at some spaza shops. I found a place that made some beautiful vetkoek and coffee. Later on I stopped again to have some slap chips which the guy at the spaza shop put into a pancake and a Coke. About 100km into Tanzania there was a roadblock. Just as they stopped me another 2 bikes from the other side approached. After the officials finished with them I indicated that they must come to my side of the road. It turned out they are also WD members (g1 on the forum) Jeffrey and Anneen Davies on two XR 125 Honda’s. They left RSA in March already two months before me and are only in northern Tanzania now but that is the way to do it-slowly. They wanted to end in Israel but I had to break the bad news to them that they won’t be able to do it through the Suez Channel as I have tried for thee and a halve weeks and the only way is either by plane or boat at a considerable cost. Anneen worked on a Kibbutz in Israel before and know some people there and that is why they tried to make it there. Their 125cc Honda’s are the right bike for Africa and is returning a fuel consumption of 30 km/l as opposed to my 660 which has a fuel consumption of 20-23km/l. Also I got into trouble so many times for speeding and a smaller bike will force you to go slower. I would have loved to have chatted to them some more but the sun was setting and they were looking for a place to camp and I was looking for a room and we had to say our good byes. I later thought that I should have camped with them but by then we all already left in different directions. I booked into an African guest house and they also organised me some nice cold ones. I also ordered some goat meat which was brought from across the road later in two plates.
The next morning early I left for Dodoma. The trees next to the road were dry and it was a windy day. As always I was too fast in the villages and as I approached the speeding devise I managed to get my speed down to 51kmh in the 50kmh speed limit area. I think there are only two things that irritate me in Tanzania and that is the 50km speed limit and then the 3 speed bumps in every village. Even though I am a bit on in the years I still cannot get myself to go slow. You would go through a village and then at the end it will be the 50 kmh board that is crossed out just to have the next village to start 2 km further again with the same all over again. I remember when my son and I rode on the western side of Tanzania along Lake Tanganyika 5 years ago it was much better. We did 2000km dirt road with no speed checking and I crossed those speed bumps at 120kmh.
Somewhere along the way there was a game drive vehicle with European tourist on and they stopped me to enquire about my trip. I passed them a couple of times further on but lost them as I was going a little faster than them as I wanted to make Dodoma before sunset. In Dodoma I booked into another African guest house for about R 150 for the night and went to a little restaurant next to the pavement for another African meal.
Coming back to my room one of the glasses fell out of my reading glasses and broke into pieces. I thought now I am stuffed being in Africa with no reading glasses and operating the GPS and all the paper work at the borders is going to be a problem. The next morning I enquire at the lady of the guest house about a place that would sell glasses and she pointed me to a place just down the road.
To my surprise the place do eye test and when I ask her about readymade reading glasses she pulled a whole lot out of a draw. I found exactly what I was looking for although I really thought I was not going to come right in a place Like Dodoma but that is Africa for you, it always surprises you.
After buying new reading glasses I hit the road towards Iringa. The same old story again, speed bump after speed bump and village after village. The population of 51,572 130 are housed all along the road structure of Tanzania. With all the animals and people on the road I suppose it is necessary to have all these speed bumps but it is just very irritating and the speeding fines are not very conducive to my budget.
At Iringa I came on to the main road going towards Dar es Salaam. I had to back track about 120km in order to get to Jennifer’s Crocodile Camp as I will have to come back again to Iringa when I go towards Malawi. I do not mind to do that stretch twice again as it is one of the most beautiful places in Tanzania. About 50km of the road is a downhill mountain pass and with the thousands of Boab trees at the bottom of the pass it is probably one of the most beautiful places in the whole of Africa. The road is rather dangerous though as there are always truck accidents. Due to the continues decent the brakes normally fail due to overheating and then you would see these mangled trucks lying next to the road. It is one of the busiest truck routes in Africa as all the containers are trucked from the port of Dar es Salaam to the rest of Africa along this road. I think going uphill would be more dangerous as a runaway truck could quite easily come on your side of the road and these accidents always happen on a bend. I saw 23 truck accidents on my trip through Africa and back and most of them if not all were caused by bad or no maintenance.
Arriving at the Crocodile camp site I noticed that the GPS indicated that it should be another 9 km further. So either my GPS is out or different from the one that Jennifer and Frank used to plot their position. It was nice to be back on familiar ground and Jennifer offered me a Chalet with a view over the river for a couple of rand more than should I have chosen to camp instead. I decided to stay for two nights as I wanted them to do my washing as well. The food is good and there are cold ones in the fridge. Jennifer is a real entrepreneur and her German husband is normally teaching in Germany but he was there due to the holiday break in Europe and was only going to leave the following day. Although he is married to Jennifer who is a Tanzanian lady he jokes about the way they do things here in Africa. He told me in Germany there are no problems around his house but when he comes back he is continuously have to solve problems around the camp.
The one day rest did me good and I went for a walk along the river in thick bush to look for the Elephants. I could see their droppings all over but they were not to be found. It could be that they crossed the river in to the Udzungwa Mountains National Park. I wanted to go on one of the dugged out canoes across the crocodile infested water but the quote that Jennifer’s brother gave me was too much for my fragile budget so I turned his offer down. As I said before Jennifer is a real entrepreneur.
So the next morning I left early from the Crocodile Camp as I wanted to be in Malawi close to Livingstonia that night. I had to cover about 700km for the day with the 2 border crossings in between. The 50km uphill mountain pass was a pleasure in the early morning freshness.
As I was about to leave one of the small villages it happened to me again. By the time I jumped on the brakes the cop already had his hand up for me to stop. Spot fine one of many. I tried to talk my way out but they would not budge. I don’t pay bribes but if I can convince them to let me go with a warning why not? There was a driver from Zambia as well who was supposed to deliver a car in Dar es Salaam but he did not have money so they kept him there. As I was busy paying my fine they caught a local guy. I said to them now I want to see what happens. Although he was in a BMW he claimed he did not have money on him so they took his driver’s licence away and told him to go and draw money at the ATM. Before I left SA I had some photo copies made of my driver’s licence and had them laminated and it looked like the real thing. I always used one of those when they stopped me but I never used it to be dishonest. The main reason was if they wanted a bribe and I refuse to pay and they confiscate my licence then it would be no problem but fortunately it never happened on this trip. 5 years ago when my son and I traveled to the Equator on two bikes we were on the Island of Zanzibar and they confiscated a ladies drivers licence because she did not want to pay a bribe but after a lot of arguing I managed to get her licence back for her. So you lean as you go along.
After the forced stop I was on the road again and crossed the border into Malawi one of my favorite countries in Africa. As with all the other borders this one was once again incident free and it was nice to be away from all the speed bumps. I was looking forward to see the blue blue waters of the 700km long Lake Malawi again.
From Kigali I made it through the two borders back into Tanzania. As I last only had a coffee at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, I was looking for something to eat and pulled off at some spaza shops. I found a place that made some beautiful vetkoek and coffee. Later on I stopped again to have some slap chips which the guy at the spaza shop put into a pancake and a Coke. About 100km into Tanzania there was a roadblock. Just as they stopped me another 2 bikes from the other side approached. After the officials finished with them I indicated that they must come to my side of the road. It turned out they are also WD members (g1 on the forum) Jeffrey and Anneen Davies on two XR 125 Honda’s. They left RSA in March already two months before me and are only in northern Tanzania now but that is the way to do it-slowly. They wanted to end in Israel but I had to break the bad news to them that they won’t be able to do it through the Suez Channel as I have tried for thee and a halve weeks and the only way is either by plane or boat at a considerable cost. Anneen worked on a Kibbutz in Israel before and know some people there and that is why they tried to make it there. Their 125cc Honda’s are the right bike for Africa and is returning a fuel consumption of 30 km/l as opposed to my 660 which has a fuel consumption of 20-23km/l. Also I got into trouble so many times for speeding and a smaller bike will force you to go slower. I would have loved to have chatted to them some more but the sun was setting and they were looking for a place to camp and I was looking for a room and we had to say our good byes. I later thought that I should have camped with them but by then we all already left in different directions. I booked into an African guest house and they also organised me some nice cold ones. I also ordered some goat meat which was brought from across the road later in two plates.
The next morning early I left for Dodoma. The trees next to the road were dry and it was a windy day. As always I was too fast in the villages and as I approached the speeding devise I managed to get my speed down to 51kmh in the 50kmh speed limit area. I think there are only two things that irritate me in Tanzania and that is the 50km speed limit and then the 3 speed bumps in every village. Even though I am a bit on in the years I still cannot get myself to go slow. You would go through a village and then at the end it will be the 50 kmh board that is crossed out just to have the next village to start 2 km further again with the same all over again. I remember when my son and I rode on the western side of Tanzania along Lake Tanganyika 5 years ago it was much better. We did 2000km dirt road with no speed checking and I crossed those speed bumps at 120kmh.
Somewhere along the way there was a game drive vehicle with European tourist on and they stopped me to enquire about my trip. I passed them a couple of times further on but lost them as I was going a little faster than them as I wanted to make Dodoma before sunset. In Dodoma I booked into another African guest house for about R 150 for the night and went to a little restaurant next to the pavement for another African meal.
Coming back to my room one of the glasses fell out of my reading glasses and broke into pieces. I thought now I am stuffed being in Africa with no reading glasses and operating the GPS and all the paper work at the borders is going to be a problem. The next morning I enquire at the lady of the guest house about a place that would sell glasses and she pointed me to a place just down the road.
To my surprise the place do eye test and when I ask her about readymade reading glasses she pulled a whole lot out of a draw. I found exactly what I was looking for although I really thought I was not going to come right in a place Like Dodoma but that is Africa for you, it always surprises you.
After buying new reading glasses I hit the road towards Iringa. The same old story again, speed bump after speed bump and village after village. The population of 51,572 130 are housed all along the road structure of Tanzania. With all the animals and people on the road I suppose it is necessary to have all these speed bumps but it is just very irritating and the speeding fines are not very conducive to my budget.
At Iringa I came on to the main road going towards Dar es Salaam. I had to back track about 120km in order to get to Jennifer’s Crocodile Camp as I will have to come back again to Iringa when I go towards Malawi. I do not mind to do that stretch twice again as it is one of the most beautiful places in Tanzania. About 50km of the road is a downhill mountain pass and with the thousands of Boab trees at the bottom of the pass it is probably one of the most beautiful places in the whole of Africa. The road is rather dangerous though as there are always truck accidents. Due to the continues decent the brakes normally fail due to overheating and then you would see these mangled trucks lying next to the road. It is one of the busiest truck routes in Africa as all the containers are trucked from the port of Dar es Salaam to the rest of Africa along this road. I think going uphill would be more dangerous as a runaway truck could quite easily come on your side of the road and these accidents always happen on a bend. I saw 23 truck accidents on my trip through Africa and back and most of them if not all were caused by bad or no maintenance.
Arriving at the Crocodile camp site I noticed that the GPS indicated that it should be another 9 km further. So either my GPS is out or different from the one that Jennifer and Frank used to plot their position. It was nice to be back on familiar ground and Jennifer offered me a Chalet with a view over the river for a couple of rand more than should I have chosen to camp instead. I decided to stay for two nights as I wanted them to do my washing as well. The food is good and there are cold ones in the fridge. Jennifer is a real entrepreneur and her German husband is normally teaching in Germany but he was there due to the holiday break in Europe and was only going to leave the following day. Although he is married to Jennifer who is a Tanzanian lady he jokes about the way they do things here in Africa. He told me in Germany there are no problems around his house but when he comes back he is continuously have to solve problems around the camp.
The one day rest did me good and I went for a walk along the river in thick bush to look for the Elephants. I could see their droppings all over but they were not to be found. It could be that they crossed the river in to the Udzungwa Mountains National Park. I wanted to go on one of the dugged out canoes across the crocodile infested water but the quote that Jennifer’s brother gave me was too much for my fragile budget so I turned his offer down. As I said before Jennifer is a real entrepreneur.
So the next morning I left early from the Crocodile Camp as I wanted to be in Malawi close to Livingstonia that night. I had to cover about 700km for the day with the 2 border crossings in between. The 50km uphill mountain pass was a pleasure in the early morning freshness.
As I was about to leave one of the small villages it happened to me again. By the time I jumped on the brakes the cop already had his hand up for me to stop. Spot fine one of many. I tried to talk my way out but they would not budge. I don’t pay bribes but if I can convince them to let me go with a warning why not? There was a driver from Zambia as well who was supposed to deliver a car in Dar es Salaam but he did not have money so they kept him there. As I was busy paying my fine they caught a local guy. I said to them now I want to see what happens. Although he was in a BMW he claimed he did not have money on him so they took his driver’s licence away and told him to go and draw money at the ATM. Before I left SA I had some photo copies made of my driver’s licence and had them laminated and it looked like the real thing. I always used one of those when they stopped me but I never used it to be dishonest. The main reason was if they wanted a bribe and I refuse to pay and they confiscate my licence then it would be no problem but fortunately it never happened on this trip. 5 years ago when my son and I traveled to the Equator on two bikes we were on the Island of Zanzibar and they confiscated a ladies drivers licence because she did not want to pay a bribe but after a lot of arguing I managed to get her licence back for her. So you lean as you go along.
After the forced stop I was on the road again and crossed the border into Malawi one of my favorite countries in Africa. As with all the other borders this one was once again incident free and it was nice to be away from all the speed bumps. I was looking forward to see the blue blue waters of the 700km long Lake Malawi again.
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
schalk vd merwe
Race Dog
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