The NGOROGORO CRATER

Another few hours of driving, US$360, and a hefty mountain pass later, we found ourselves at the rim of the Ngorogoro Crater. Only 20kms wide one can see across it, and well, its just amazing. From the top, it is like staring down into the Garden of Eden, and one can see herds and herds of Buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, elephants and gazelle.

Contrary to our initial ignorant thoughts, the crater has nothing to do with meteors or asteroids. Rather is is a volcanic land form, and apparently, or word on the street is that it was a massive volcanic mountain about the same size as Kilimanjaro. Its base was however full of volcanic vents and eventually the mountain collapsed in on itself creating a massive basin. It truly is one of the most amazing places i have ever been to, and i think we all agree, that it is somewhere we will all visit again some day!

We also spent a night camping inside the reserve - on the crater's rim. Initially we thought that most of the game was inside the crater, but we took a small night drive on which we saw lion twice, hyenas, elephants, Buffalo, and a massive herd of spring hares (kept us guessing for quite a while). And since the Tanzanians are about as keen on game fences as the Kenyans, we had a fairly entertaining night of camping. First a Buffalo interrupted washing dishes, then bush-pigs attacked our food crate, and later hyenas bit holes into our beers :)

Ghost in the Darkness

After arriving back on the mainland, and finding quite a bit of relief in finding our car in exactly the condition we left it, it was time to move on... We decided to head off to Amboselli National Park right in the South on Kenya. However, with too much distance to cover in just one day, we planned to stop off in Voi, a small town near Tsavo and entirely surrounded by Tsavo National Park. Since we were camping, and Tsavo is the place where all the people we're devoured by man-eating lions while building the railway track between Mombasa and Nairobi, and there are absolutely no game fences in Kenya, well it was quite a daunting thing! Luckily, or unluckily i suppose (depending on your point of view), we saw no wildlife whatsoever, and Voi in fact happened to be a fairly large town.

The following day we made our way to Amboselli where our hopes and dreams were again shattered by the Kenyan Wildlife disService, who wanted $85ea for us to enter the park. With few options, we decided to head for the Tanzanian border and to 'camp wild' just outside the park. This later proved to be a fantastic decision and we found a completely untouched piece of reserve just outside the park. With no fences, we found giraffe and later hyenas within 20 meters of the tent. It was great being completely out in the wild, and things got even better the next morning, when the clouds lifted and we had our breakfast and coffee with a, well, okayish sort of view of Kilimanjaro.

After breakfast we packed up the tent and made our way to the nearest border - Oloitokitok. We spent the night in Arusha (Masai Camp), where we had a few drinks and played pool with a group of Australian guys on a similar sort of trip...

Lost in Time

From Watamu (Malindi) we pushed on further up the coast to our last salt-water destination - Lamu Island. We arrived at the mainland port to be swarmed by at least a thousand tour guides, car guards and boatmen. After fending them off we finally, and hesitantly, agreed to leave the car with the most official looking of the crowd, and caught the cheapest local ferry to the island.

Arriving on the island was somewhat of a time-warp, and best described by Tim as, "Just like Zanzibar, only 300 years ago". The entire island was donkey powered, with the exception of the minister of finances vehicle (the only one on the island) - TIA! Being so close to the Somalian border the island is also entirely muslim, and looks like something out of Aladin. With Narrow streets separating the old buildings, hand-crafted woode doors, open drainage canals, and more donkeys than people, it really is quite a special place (and well worth the visit).

We spent our first night in Lamu Town itself, and then moved to 'Shella' on the other side of the island. There we rented a loft apartment type of guest house with an amazing view of the beach. Finally we took two full days off and spent some time relaxing, collecting our thoughts, and even sailing around the bay.

OCEAN!!

From Zanzibar we went back to Dar es Salaam for a night, before heading further up the coast. Our first stop was in Twiga (Northern Tanzania) at a place called Peponi. Owned by an old English expat, it was one of the nicest places we’ve visited and we spent two days hanging out with other overlanders, swimming, snorkeling and relaxing.

We then made our way across the border to Tiwi and later Malindi in Southern Kenya. Malindi (Watamu) is a massive marine reserve, and with the local park rangers on strike we took the opportunity to do some free snorkelling. It was quite an amazing experience with thousands of extremely colourfull (and even more iniquisitive little fish), coral reefs, sting-rays, and well - pretty much everything else you would see in a nature documentary...

I'm not going to cook it, but i'll order it from ZANZIBAR!

On the morning of our Zanzibar excursion, we found ourselves in luxury at Maureen's place, a random expat who took us in for the night.  We met another expat, Sarah, for coffee and she properly organised us to get across to the island.  We got onto our speed machine ferry, the Ms Sephide Express, and were assured to be on Zanzibar in an hour, but to true african form, we rolled into the harbour only on one engine an amazing 8 hours later!

We were met at the harbour by our local connection, Selle, with four 250cc motorbikes.  There were some initial nervous moments, and a couple of hospital scares, but we managed to survive two days without killing ourselves on the island!  The bikes were great tho.  Our first night we spent at Luis' place (Darren's girlfriend's sister's friend from London from Zanzibar who she met once in a bar in a far far away land somewhere), needless to say it was random.  We biked up the following morning and headed to the northern most tip of the island, Nungwi, and bargained and wheeled  our way into a shifty local place. New years now loomed, and it was an extremely strange one at that, involving fire jumping through tyres, local shabeens, chips mayen, and bewilded foreign mazungus.  New years was announced by a confused local..."in 55...1,2,3,4,5,6 happy new years!!!!"

New Year's day we biked our way back to Stonetown, stopping at a couple of great beaches along the way.  We hopped onto our ferry, which now had two engines running, and made our way back to Dar.  A fantastic New Years, Kenya to come still!

Dar Es Salaam

After the delay at the border, we had to make time in order to meet up with Darren in Dar es Salaam. We spent a night in Mtwara, and another in Kilwa Masonga. The drive up through Southern Tanzania was truly amazing. The scenery is unreal, with green grass plains but dense vegetation and baobabs all at the same time. The bush also continues right up until the coast, and in places there were quite literally baobabs on the beach. It really looks like something from the Lion King, and one expects to see herds of zebras, giraffe and elephants around every corner. 

It was a pity to have to rush through it all so fast, and hopefully we will get the chance to go back there some day. Kilwa also looked incredible, but one got the feeling the one would need to spend about a week there to appreciate it for what it is. 

We finally reached Dar Es Salaam after negotiating some of the worst roads yet - rough, muddy, and water-logged! But we arrived only a day late to find a somewhat relieved Darren. Dar es Salaam was quite great, and much like South Africa - we even had lunch at the local Spur! Was nice to finally endulged in a little civilization.  

Crossing the Rovuma

In Pemba we spoke to a South African guy who assured us that the best way to cross the border would be on the temporary bridge near Mueda and not via the ferry (at Mocimboa da Praia) which had sunk earlier in the year. We set off to find the crossing, but things did not go well: Firstly we had three maps with us which were all different, and secondly, they all said that the road went through a town called Mocimboa da Rovuma, which was a complete an utter lie. When we finally found the right town we were informed that the bridge had been removed for the rainy season and that we should try the ferry (which sunk). 

We had quite an adventure trying to cross the river, and one which is far too detailed to possibly explain in writing, but quite a story nonetheless. In summary, there is no way to cross between Mozambique and Tanzania, and we finally got across 3 days later with the help of some locals who strapped 3 fishing boats together with logs. The locals had however done it a few times before and were quite aware of what sort of situation you have got yourself into by the time that you arrive at the river; and ask for an non-negotiable US$300. The only alternative is to backtrack a few thousand kilometers and ferry across lake Malawi. And so, with few options, limited petrol, and even less cash we borrowed some money from a Tanzanian guy and went for it. 

We took numerous photos, but unfortunately the camera's SD card picked up a virus. We are hoping to recover them when we get back, but at least we got the whole thing on video. The whole ordeal was quite a stressful one, and after not showering, barely eating, and arguing for three days, arriving in Tanzania came as quite a beautiful thing! 

Heading: Due North

After waking up to stray dogs fighting near the tent, we spent a day getting the exhaust fixed and again appreciating the scenery of Zalala beach - which was as unsettling by day as it was by night. With a flat beach about 100m wide, lined with another 100m of tall pine trees (infested with crows), it was truly one of the most surreal places i have ever been to.

Next, we pushed on to 'Ilha da Mocambique', which was quite a great place. It was initially colonized by the arabs in 1497 as a trade port, however in 1500 the Portugese took over and set it up as their Naval Headquarters in East Africa. The town later served as a major port and was in fact Mozambique's capital until the 20th century. And so, now there is quite a mixture of old buildings - churches, mosques, museums - definitely a place worth visiting! 

Next, we moved further up the coast to Pemba where we spent an afternoon on the beach, and prepared to make an early start in order to reach the border and make it into Tanzania before christmas day...

Thunder Horse, the movie

From Gorongrosa we headed up to Quelimane, which involved crossing the Zambezi via ferry. Quite an experience, and done on what could only be described as african time. About 30kms outside of town the exhaust broke in half giving the cruiser an even more impressively thunderous roar! We only managed to reach Quelimane at around 9pm, and with no backpackers around, we decided to drive another town, Zalala Beach, which was about 30km up the coast and more importantly had a campsite.

What the map didn't indicate was that Zalala beach was the perfect setting for a horror movie. We drove around the entire town and found only 2 people, no tire tracks, 100's of stray dogs, bats, crows and mist. With the cruisers new roar the whole situation was actually quite hilarious. 

After about an hour or so of looking we finally found another human being, who was thankfully not carrying an axe or massive hooks, but was rather in charge of a car park, and said that we could camp there. Relieved, we set up camp and ate some maggi 2 min. noodles and baked beans - quite a delicacy given the situation.  

Into the Wild

From Vilanculos we decided to make our way to Biera, the second biggest city in Mozambique. After unsuccessfully attempting to draw money, we put what we had into the cruisers fuel tank, and managed to leave at around 3:30 in the afternoon. In hindsight it probably wasn't the wisest decision, but we needed to leave that place - for Darren's sake. 

As we drove inland the landscape really began to change, and we soon found ourselves on a road that looked more like it belonged somewhere in the Kruger Park. As the sun set, along with the cruisers fuel guage, we decided to pull over and drive off into the bush where we would spend our first night camping wild. 

We spent the next day in Biera where we were able to sort out our money, food and fuel situation. Later on we drove off to the Gorongrosa National Park where we found a really nice bush camp run by a young afrikaans guy who introduced himself as Sakki? He turned out to be quite a legend and we just sat back and enjoyed camping out with the lions and elephants... No fences in Mozam...