Happy new year... Tanzania & Rwanda

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

On the 10th of January 2011 we had our first ‘hoogtepunt’ of the year: we summited the Kilimanjaro! An unforgettable experience and a good start of the new year! As part of our trip Kilimanjaro is about halfway: in time and in distance. We drove more than 15.000 km in the last three months and we have little over three months left – and we probably have another 15.000 K’s to go.

Malawi

We spent Christmas near Livingstonia, an old mission settlement in the mountains overlooking lake Malawi. There was supposed to be a road going up from the lake, very steep with over 20 hairpin turns, but when we arrived at the turnoff there was a sign that the road was closed. Of course Sander didn’t believe it so we decided to drive up anyway. After about 25 minutes we almost drove into construction workers who were working on a new concrete road and they wouldn’t let us through… The concrete was still wet. So…. we had to go back down and the detour was 100 km. We decided to go anyway, so we spent Christmas eve driving through the dark on a bumpy off road track to our destination. When we arrived there dinner was ready for us.

After a morning walk to the mission we made a four course dinner ourselves from all the local produce we bought at the market (pineapple, avocado, tomato, peanuts, cilantro, lemon, etc.) and South African wine. It was a very good Christmas dinner, even if it was without meat.

Being up north in Malawi we visited the national park Nyika. Very surprising: it looks a little like Scotland, with green and grassy hills, except there are elephants and zebra’s walking around. We hired mountain bikes and explored the area. It was a great day ending with a fire on our campground to keep us warm. Down at the lake at about 800 m altitude the climate is very warm and humid, but in the mountains, and especially on the Nyika plateau at 2700 m above sea level, the nights are cold.

Tanzania

We then crossed into Tanzania. Tanzania is expensive and we decided only to ‘do’ the Kilimanjaro. So, we drove up in a few days through Tanzania to the north, (one day at the coast to relax – but passing Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar) to Arusha, the safari-capital of Tanzania: close to Kilimanjaro and Serengeti National Park. In Arusha we stayed with the most hospitable people we ever met: Eddy and Maria. After spending several months living in our car we could stay with them in their great house on a hill in overlooking mount Meru and Kilimanjaro. From there we arranged to climb the Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, almost 6 thousand meters high (5896 m).

It is an amazing experience. You have to share this experience with a lot of people, for it is very crowded, but still it is amazing. The altitude above 5000 meters was killing and we never experienced a feeling like that: total exhaustion, nausea and dizziness. Nevertheless it was a great experience to have reached the top and once we were going down the views were magnificent. An unforgettable start of 2011!

After spending another 2 days at Eddy and Maria’s paradise we headed north to Lake Natron. This is one of the lakes along the Great Rift Valley, which crosses the African continent from southern Tanzania and Malawi to northern Ethiopia. This Rift area has on several places a number of inactive and active volcano’s. As it was already 4 days ago that we came back from climbing Kilimanjaro we thought it was time for another challenge. Together with a Maasai guide we climbed the active volcano Ol Donyo Langai  (3000m), according to the Maasai “the mountain of the gods”. We started our ascend during the day, which made it even a tougher challenge due to the temperature, but our reward was the sunset from the crater ridge. We pitched our tent somewhere next to the thundering and sulphur-sweating crater and tried to get some sleep knowing the mountain below us was very much alive…

The land of the Maasai stretches from northern Tanzania into Kenia. They are a people living from a diet consisting mainly of everything produced by cows (meat, blood, milk), and sometimes goats. As you can see on the picture their dress is always beautifully coloured and both men and women wear self-made jewellery, often refurbishing their ears into new types of body parts.

In one of the world most famous wilderness areas, Serengeti, we have more close encounters with the well-known animals from “Lion King”. Apart from meeting again with buffalo’s, giraffes, elephants and lions next to the car keeping us awake, at this time of the year Serengeti is loaded with herds of Wildebeests. According to specialists their numbers fall in the range of 200 – 300 thousand, migrating to wetter grounds.

From Serengeti our route goes along Lake Victoria (city of Mwanza) into Rwanda. Till the border crossing of Tanzania into Rwanda all other crossings have been nearly flawless and almost as efficient as going from the Netherlands into Belgium (… though not as cheap). After we checked out at the Tanzanian border and crossed the bridge to the Rwandan border post the customs officer told us we could not get an entry visa. What we did not know was that for a Rwandan visa it is required to apply for it in advance on the Internet. Numerous of our attempts to convince the officer to “be creative” (?!?!) were left unanswered. We had to pre-apply on Internet. So we started to pull strings; first keeping Sander’s father from his work, then also asking the help of our dear friends at the Dutch Embassy in Kigali. After spending a long day and night (sleeping peacefully among the truck drivers), finally a combination of both sources was able to arrange the visa request. The following morning we could enter Rwanda. In the afternoon we visited our helping hands at the Embassy, for a brief moment entering some real Dutch soil again…

For the coming weeks Rwanda, then into Uganda; let’s see how that story will go. In the beginning of February Uganda has new presidential and then local elections, history tells us these periods can be nice and quiet, but in some cases not…