Monday, 11 August 2014

Day 19 – En-route to Katavi, Tanzania

We had a bad night killing mozzies that had somehow got into our net. Hell I just don't know how they get in as I have practically glued the net all around but the buggers still creep in. Well let's hope our Malaria tabs work as there is definitely malaria here and we got bitten good and proper.

Up early; quick coffee and cereal as we have far to go and the trip up the mountain was foremost in everyone's mind. We finally managed to get off at 7.30 and started our low range first and second gear trip up the rocky bicycle track. They always say going back always seems shorter than getting to your destination in the first place... I am sure that is true except for going up that damn mountain; there was nothing quick about it...two hours later!!! We let the cars go first as we thought they would be much quicker than us and they wanted to drive the extra 6 Ks to go and see Kalambo falls which are the second highest falls in Africa and very impressive to see. Well Ernest was thrilled when he found that the truck kept up with the two cars and they just couldn't shake us off. He says he has regained confidence in his truck and asked me to tell the guy he will be impressed with its performance when he uses it.

We all arrived at the cross roads together and they then left to The Kalambo falls. We turned right to the main road where we waited for them to have a quick look at the falls and then we would head to the border and Tanzania. We knew it was going to be touch and go as to whether we would reach Katavi by nightfall. Last time we did this run we landed up bush camping, creeping deep into the bush so nobody would see us from the road as it got dark and we just don't like to push on after dark on these bad roads.

The guys only eventually caught up with us well after 11am so our chances of reaching Katavi by nightfall were pretty slim. We had been told that the road all the way through was now tar so we were still hopeful that we might get there before dark. Well, there was a small section of tar and the rest was the most atrocious road that you can imagine, even though the lady on the GPS kept insisting that we were on tar.

First section was inside Zambia and we just went from one crater in the road to the next, oh my gosh that piece was so bad, we rarely got over 35 Ks and hour. It was bad last time but now it was 50 times worse. I just don't know how they can let their roads get so bad especially en-route to a border post. Anyway we reached the border post and we got through without too much hassle. It is literally a little hut with a sign outside that says "Immigrations.” Fortunately we had done the customs bit before going to Isanga. The Tanzanian border post is such a surprise compared to the little hut on the Zambian side. There they are much more ‘amptelik official like’’ and even searched our cars.... Not sure what they were looking for but whatever it was they never found it. I also think they were just get curious about the truck and want to have a look inside. He wanted to look inside all the cupboards and even wanted to see the bathroom and remarked “hai this is a house not a car"

We asked about the road and were told it was “tar". Unfortunately it is actually want-to-be-tar and hasn't quite got there except for a small section of about 40 kilometers. The trouble was the road used to be quite good but they have now dug it all up while attempting to build the new road.... Oh what a mess!

So it became obvious that we were not going to make it to Katavi and Ernest started looking for a campsite at about 5pm. I was keen to push on for a bit but he insisted as soon as we found a little side road that we go down it and find a place tucked away far enough away from the road so that the passing trucks could not see us. I must say we found a really great spot, away from the road and overlooking this beautiful countryside with some huts in the distance and a little village further on from where we had stopped, you could see for about forty Ks over the countryside and I suppose we must have been visible from that distance as well but these guys are pretty peaceful and I am sure we were quite safe. The altitude was 4000 feet so no mozzies accept the one that we had brought with us in the truck.

We set up camp and started cooking.... One problem and that was that earlier I had taken out two chickens for dinner which needed to be cooked on a fire and we were camped in nice brown dry grass and we didn't want to start a veld fire, even though most of the countryside has been burnt by fire anyway. So Stevie, the solver of all problems built a small fire with charcoal which we used to cook the chickens.

Oh what a disaster as we went from the fire to the pot, back to the fire and then decide that they must be cooked only to find that they were still raw inside, so back to Stevie's fire. So the dinner was not exactly what I call “up to standard" but we eventually ate and flopped into bed all exhausted after a very long days drive.

The one really great thing about the truck is that we can all happily shower and clean up every night even if we are bush camping. Being clean at the end of the day kind of gets important.


Signing out, till tomorrow!

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