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| Near Rusumo, just past the border from Rwanda |
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| Near Rusumo, just after the border from Rwanda |
I am here to fulfil a promise made over a year ago in an East London market where I met a lady called Janet who supports a charity called
Hope for Women and Girls in Tanzania that rescues young girls from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and other gender-based abuse in rural Tanzania. She explained how the maps of these areas are often so incomplete and inaccurate that, when they go to find a girl in distress, they often spend days trying to locate them and in this time they can die of their injuries. She has a project,
Crowd2map, that aims to improve the mapping, mostly by remote mappers, and she is excited that I could do some mapping in-country. For me it is perfect - the excuse to go to the most remote corners and for a very good cause.
Janet is a little freaked when I WhatsApp her, 12 months after the fact, and say “I’m here!” She hooks me up with Alpha, a local mapper, and we head out into the hills around logging the positions of hamlets, schools, churches and tracks.
Over dinner of fish, beans and rice I ask Alpha what the strange inverted metal cones scattered around the village are. He says they are for catching grasshoppers, a local delicacy. The grasshoppers are lured by electric lights placed under them.
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| For catching grasshoppers, Muleba |
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| Near Muleba |
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| Near Muleba |
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| Alpha and a farmer, near Muleba |
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| Near Muleba |
My GPS is adamant that there is no bridge across the estuary to Mwanza and, with increasing panic, tells me how many days it is going to take me to reach my destination. I speak soft reassuring words to it to allay the tantrum. It goes into a sort-of Terminator-melting psychosis when I ride onto the ferry and then, on the other side suddenly starts whistling nonchalantly and saying we are just 25 minutes out. Poor thing, Africa is not very left-brain.
As I am coasting into the suburbs, a gigantic Marabou Stork suddenly lands on the road immediately in front of me. It’s like something out of Space Invaders. It’s almost my height. It makes a crunching noise and a sickly sweet smell as my tyres roll over it. I barely manage to keep the bike upright. With this, the goat I strangled in Rwanda and the sheep that Mike bludgeoned in Ethiopia, I am starting to picture my mugshot on some InterPol animal welfare wanted list. The guy in the dalla-dalla next to me gives me an approving thumbs-up.
I meet with the ‘youthmapper’ students at the IRDP (Institute of Rural Development Planning). Zaituni, Praygod, Tizrah, Naomi and Wankyo. We hang out by the waters edge for a few hours, discussing mapping software, student loans and Kiswahili and set up more on-the-ground mapping in Butiama where there is a safehouse.
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| Breakfast, Mwanza |
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| Youthmappers, Institute of Rural Development Planning, Mwanza |
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| Youthmappers, Institute of Rural Development Planning, Mwanza |
I visit Mwaloni Kirumba, the local fish market, which is just pure Africa, the Maribou Storks almost out-number the sellers. A man confides in me, with a clear unspoken challenge, that he is a ‘snitch’ and that later he will ‘snitch’ my bag. I smile and face him down. I pass the test. He relaxes and shakes my hand.
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| Mwaloni Kirumba fish market, Mwanza |
In the evening, sitting on the street, eating Indian food, a mentally-disturbed man appears from the midst of the traffic emitting dismal animal sounds. One of the staff comes with a plastic bag filled with food. He wanders off, barely avoiding being crushed between the buses. Ten minutes later he is back. This time the staff member approaches him with a big stick. Again he melts into the chaotic river of vehicles. I go to buy an ice-cream nearby and he materializes, jabbing my arm and clearly expecting me to buy him and ice-cream. The ice-cream lady shouts at him and I slip away.
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| Mwanza |
The landscape morphs into the shimmering Serengeti of nature documentaries as I head for Butiama. At the safehouse I am greeted by the tireless and larger-than-life Rhobi who runs the place. Currently they are sheltering 27 girls and one abandoned boy. During the ‘cutting season’ they have to find space for up to 200. It’s hard to imagine how they cope in the limited space. I answer questions in front of the class about my journey. Rhobi translates and, through her, I tell stories of men walking from Yemen to Egypt, of gorillas and hippos, of deserts and jungles. They all sing to me which makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
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| Rescued girls, Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania Safehouse, Butiama |
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| Rescued girl, Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania Safehouse, Butiama |
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| Rhobi with abandoned boy, Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania Safehouse, Butiama |
I do more hours of mapping in the surrounding villages with Emmanuel. His job most of the time is raising awareness in the rural areas which he does by showing a film and giving talks.
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| Mapping with Emmanuel near Butiama |
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| Near Butiama |
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| Near Butiama |
Into Serengeti proper to Mugumu where I am hosted by Father Magabe who is like the doctor from The Simpsons. Not Mugabe he intones with a deep and sonorous ho ho ho. We chat over dinner and he reminisces about his time in the Vatican and reveals that he is quite famous for relieving demonic possession. He has people visit him, from all over East Africa, to have him say prayers over them during exorcisms. I notice that his cooking is quite heavy on the garlic. He is a perfect host and presents me with a large bucket of hot water to shower with. He does not say it is holy water per se but I do notice my thoughts becoming positively angelic as I self-baptise.
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| Father Magabe, Mugumu |
The girls here sing to me, this time in English, with a passion and richness that floors me. I go mapping with David in the little town. He is the organisation’s lawyer and spends most of his time working on the numerous disputes that inevitably arise when children have to be taken against the will of their parents. He says things are steadily improving and increasingly decisions go their way although they try to keep the families together wherever possible. I teach him how to use the app maps.me to add new places to the map which he is excited about.
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| Near Mugumu |
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| Near Mugumu |
There is a torrential downpour while we are mapping the new site for the Safehouse and we shelter in a little mud and straw hut.
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| Mapping with David, near Mugumu |
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| Road from Mugumu to Butiama |
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| On road from Mugumu to Butiama |
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| On road from Mugumu to Butiama |
Shinyanga
I travel back to Butiama in a drizzle and then onto Shinyanga in roasting heat.
I sit in the hotel restaurant and eat some rice. A waitress comes up to me and looks at my plate and says “I am hungry”. We lock eyes for a while and then she walks off.
As I am checking-in, I manage to brain myself on a low gateway. For a few moments I just stand there with blood pouring down my face. The staff run around getting me tissues and water and I manage to staunch the flow. My bike is also losing vital fluids and I top up the oil. Then it starts to overheat and, after a bit of messing around, I realise the fan is not working. I poke it with a stick and it grumbles back to life. As I do so, I see blood dripping on the ground in front of me. Hmm. This appears to exceed my technical knowledge and may need referring to a trained mechanic. The hotel guy and I climb on a Boda Boda (motorbike taxi) and we go to the oddly deserted, virtually open-air little hospital. It’s a one man show and the man who admits me at the front desk reappears, Mr. Benn style, in the surgery in a white coat and gloves and stitches me up. I am impressed to find that the hotel pays both the hospital bill and for the Boda Bodas.
Back at the hotel there is a loud wedding reception and they banish me to my room. The waitress brings me my dinner and from outside the door she calls out “I miss you”. I open the door and take my little tray of food and we continue our little staring contest for a few more moments. My head injury, the wedding party music, the heat and the strange energy of the waitress all combine to make me feel thoroughly nauseous and I can hardly eat a bite.
Next day I make for Babati which is 450km through an arid featureless oven. I can barely afford to stop at all but finally, nearing my destination I take a blissful twenty minutes in the shade of a baobab. Until, that is, a teenage boy on a bicycle comes along, stops a couple of metres away and just stands there staring. I have definitely had my fill of being the centre of attention and can't wait for the anonymity of London.
In Babati I do more mapping with a local student, delegated by the local mapper Yohana, called Rayness. Here the scenery is especially pretty with a mountain backdrop and large sugarcane plantations. At my hotel a group of American missionaries sit at the next table and have loud discussions. “…Regional requires you show Level Two Swahili. They expect you to administer the sacrament of Jesus in local…”. In the evening I buy dinner for Yohana and Rayness. What is written on the menu is “Dried Chicken”. I assume this means “Fried Chicken”. Wrong again.
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| Mapping with Rayness near Babati |
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| Near Babati |
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| Rayness, mapping near Babati |
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| Near Babati |
I ride to Mto wa Mbu, which translates worryingly as “River of Mosquitos”, and pitch my tent on the lawn of Twiga Lodge – I feel like the poor relation come to visit alongside all the two-weekers here spending hundreds of dollars a day for their Safaris. I lurk by the pool all day and wander in the little village that the other guests are scared of. I shop for rubber solution to fix my perennially deflating mattress. One guy takes my empty tube and runs off, coming back breathless ten minutes later with a tube of similar size that contains an antibiotic. I decline. In the evening I get eaten alive by mosquitoes. Can’t say I wasn’t warned.
The only place you can visit around here, that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, is Lake Natron. Before I head off I go for breakfast at a rasta place down the road. Of course it takes about an hour for my food to come, bloody stoners. Then they try to overcharge me. “One love” my arse. I trundle off up the absurdly rocky and sandy road. It gets rougher as it goes and by the time I have gone 50km I am starting to think I will lose a filling. The bike is none too happy about being beaten like an egg white either and starts to display a warning light on the worst bumps. It’s probably the battery terminal again, I think, and laboriously unload, get out tools and deploy screwdrivers.
It’s punishingly hot. The landscape is stark and beautiful. Here and there, Maasai tribesmen, in their shawls and beads, sticks across their shoulders, adorn the dusty ditches. A tiny whirlwind strikes up like a celestial vacuum cleaner and scorches across the road just behind me, spewing leaves and blood-red sand.
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| On road from Mto wa Mbu to Lake Natron |
The warning light appears again and I stop in the utter desolation and scratch my head. I check a few things but have no idea what could be the problem. I haven’t seen any other vehicles in a while. The problem seems to go away after stopping for a few minutes but is not heat-related, it happens on the worst corrugations. Getting stuck out here would be a bad idea and reluctantly I turn around, hoping I can get back in fits and starts. I manage the 20km to the previous village, with increasingly frequent stops, but shortly past it the bike stops for good. A Maasai appears unfeasibly, from behind an acacia and, reaching into the depths of his loincloth, produces a mobile phone from the nineties. With complicated charades, he conveys that he is calling someone from the village who can help. In what way I cannot imagine. Just then, miraculously, a flatbed truck passes and a hyperactive man, called Innocent, jumps out, swearing in Swahili at the Maasai, who he accuses of trying to rob me. It is the only vehicle I have seen all day that would be able to carry the bike but Innocent wants $200. He is slightly mad and the conversation is a little surreal but, eventually, I manage to get him to agree on a more reasonable price. He doesn’t stop talking for the next four hours as we labour the bike onto the truck and then the two of us sit next to it, frequently lunging to stop the bike falling over as the truck gets the full Einsturzende Neubauten treatment from the road. He throws bottles of water to the Maasai kids that sprout by the road from time to time and fries my brain, already sautéed by the sun, with supernatural talk in barely comprehensible English. It turns out he is from the sugar plantation that I mapped in Babati with Rayness. I am completely wiped-out by the time we get back to Mto wa Mbu in the dark and don’t notice that he breaks my mirror as they unload the bike. I guess that's why Innocent was looking a little guilty as he snuck away..
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| Innocent, and crew, putting the bike on their truck, road to Lake Natron |
Next morning the bike starts no problem.
Next, it won't start at all.
I haggle with a truck driver in the village and get him to take me and the bike, squeezed in with his load of bananas, to a mechanic called Sam in Moshi. We unload the bananas in the market in Arusha which is utter bedlam. My jaw drops as I watch the guys who unload it carry the sacks of bananas, each weighing around 160kg, on their shoulders. Their jaws all drop when they see the bike.
Moshi
Moshi is a nice town. It sits at the foot of Kilimanjaro but in the three days I am there, the mountain emerges from the cloud for one ten minute period. To be fair, it's a pretty stunning few minutes. Moshi also has a coffee shop that serves me the best Italian-style coffee that I have had all year. While I'm sitting there, a Vietnamese guy comes and sits opposite me. Breathlessly he informs me that it is his birthday and his friend bought him a book to write in. He saw me sitting here writing and knew it was an omen. He tells me that every day you should: 1. Be nice to yourself, 2. Write something, 3. Find a quiet space to meditate, 4. Be with nature. He scurries away without telling me his name.
I go to the local hospital to have my stitches removed. The nurse is standing in a rubber apron swilling the cracked tiles of what appears to be the post-mortem theatre from a horror movie. I sit next to two buckets. One is labelled "Infectious", the second is labelled "Highly Infectious".
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| In Moshi hospital |
Sam gets to work on the bike and fairly quickly diagnoses a loose fuel pressure switch.
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| Sam, The Garage, Moshi |
He also offers to buy the bike from me and for a reasonable price. He says he can get around the customs issues. I say I will go sit on a beach for a while and think about it. As it is, I am already flying back to London for a film project in November. The idea is to come back and continue to South Africa but the desire to just stay home and put an end to my journey has been growing in me for a while now and Sam's offer of an easy exit is appealing. In many ways I am increasingly not fully appreciating the amazing experiences I am having to the same extent that I was earlier in the trip. I am tired of the various discomforts and feel increasingly at the mercy of the mechanical whims of the bike that can maroon me in the middle of nowhere at will. I meet people all the time but a nagging sense of solitude and a lack of deeper conversation remains. At the very least I need to regroup and return so I don't start to waste the great privilege I have been given. But it's hard to let go and I ride off in search of the ocean to reflect.
Tanga
I follow the graceful escarpment that is the Kenyan border, the higher points wreathed in clouds and occasional snow, and within a few hours I am back, after a 3 month hiatus, at the Indian Ocean, drinking in it its mouthwatering blues and greens near Tanga at a camp called Peponi, which means paradise. I can't argue.
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| Peponi beach campsite, near Tanga |
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| Peponi beach campsite, near Tanga |
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| Peponi beach campsite, near Tanga |
Pangani
I inch down the coast to Pangani.
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| Door Frame, Pangani |
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| Cemetery, Pangani |
All along the coast I run into Olga, a hiking tour leader from Austria, We appear to be the only two tourists on the entire coast.
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| "Hot Hot" (our guide) and Olga, Pangani |
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| Betel and Coconut workers, Pangani |
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| Coconut workers, Pangani |
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| Old hospital, Pangani |
Saadani
Through Saadani National Park.
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| Saadani National Park |
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| Saadani National Park |
Bagamoyo
And onto the arts-and-craftsy Bagamoyo.
The coast, in general, feels very Death in Venice as I am ill with a stomach and throat bug. I spend the whole time slumped in deckchairs and hammocks poring over novels. Both my body and my bike are trying to tell me something.
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| German Boma, Bagamoyo |
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| Bagamoyo |
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| Bagamoyo |
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| Bagamoyo |
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| Bagamoyo |
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| Old Mosque, Kaole Ruins, Bagamoyo |
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| Old harbour, Kaole, Bagamoyo |
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| Livingstone chapel, Catholic Museum, Bagamoyo |
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| Bagamoyo |
Zanzibar
Getting the bike over to Zanzibar is a bit of a mission. The "Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar" makes the border formalities the most complicated since Egypt and this is not even a separate country.
There, in pretty Stonetown, I meet up with Shanshan, who I first met back in November in Dahab, Egypt. It's her 40th birthday. She's keen to come ride pillion with me around Tanzania. She's a little self-involved but she's fizzy and smart and I enjoy listening to her stories of her stepfather's life - an inventor, actor and fighter on both sides of the Cultural Revolution. We have a nice cheery, chatty sort of time for a few days. We wander the windy maze of the old town, catch a performance of the quintessentially Zanzibari music Taarab and meditate on the beach together.
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Shanshan, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Harbour, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Shanshan with Soursop, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Fish Market, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Fish market, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Shanshan, 40th birthday, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Taarab concert, Dhow Countries Music Academy, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
Then we travel across the island to Kiwengwa beach which is one of the many gorgeous stretches of fantasy white sand around Zanzibar. There she becomes oddly quiet, and a little rude, hiding in her phone, exchanging unending audio messages with her mother back in Chengdu and dismissive of anything I say. I try to talk to her about it but she throws a monumental tantrum and storms off down the beach. Next thing I know, she sends me a spiteful message and unfriends me on facebook.
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| Shanshan eating a sea urchin, Kiwengwa, Zanzibar |
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| Kiwengwa |
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| Jacuzzis in the bar, Kiwengwa |
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| Kiwengwa |
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| Fishermen, Kiwengwa |
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| Fish, Mnemba Island, Zanzibar |
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| Mnemba Island, Zanzibar |
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| Woman searching for seafood, Mnemba Island, Zanzibar |
I tell Sam, in Moshi, that I will sell the bike to him. I am ready to go home and this will be an easy out. Only thing is, he then seems to lose interest. But the cogs have already turned in my head and I find another way. Through the magic of the internet, I find two swiss families who are shipping their cars to Italy from Dar-Es-Salaam and buy my bike a space in their container.
I ride south to Jozani National Park, a-flutter with butterflies and tiny frogs, and gaze at Red Colobus monkeys, sleepily adorning the branches in the midday heat. Scuttling crabs, in angry red shells, weave through the mangrove roots.
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| Butterfly, Jozani Forest |
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| Tiny frogs, Jozani Forest |
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| Red Colobus monkey, Jozani Forest |
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| Red Colobus monkey, Jozani Forest |
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| Mangroves, with crabs, Jozani Forest |
In the blissfully peaceful sheltered bay at Michamvi, I feel the warm sand between my toes, record atmospheres and explore the peninsula.
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| Michamvi, Zanzibar |
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| Michamvi Peninsula, Zanzibar |
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| Michamvi Peninsula, Zanzibar |
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| Michamvi Peninsula, Zanzibar |
Jambiani is a lovely, unspoiled village to wander, the locals are both friendly and not intrusive and I amble around, making recordings of the asthmatic motorbikes, neurotic chickens, passive-aggressive goats, lazy tree-shade kiswahili and mystical melodies of elusive birds, all against the roaring waves and shrilling insects. Ducks waddle in endearing conga lines across the street, honking under their breath. Bizarrely, it is here, of all places, that I find a man sitting in the sand who sells me an iPhone cable. That's the tenth one of the trip.
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| Jambiani, Zanzibar |
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| Jambiani, Zanzibar |
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| Jambiani, Zanzibar |
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| Jambiani, Zanzibar |
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| Jambiani, Zanzibar |
10 kilometres short of Stonetown, the bike packs up. I sigh, wheel it into the shade and resignedly pull out the tools. The old man, whose garden I am invading, comes over for a chat. He says he once visited Bath, my hometown - he is a musician and played at the WOMAD festival back in the eighties. After a couple of hours of chin-scratching I find the solution to my woes is sandpaper. Onwards.
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| Broken-down, on road back to Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Stonetown, Zanzibar |
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| Forodhani Gardens night market, Stonetown, Zanzibar |
Dar-Es-Salaam
I have a sleepless, roasting night in Dar-Es-Salaam at the home of Denis, a local biker. The rattling fan seems to only blow hot air at me and, in the next compound, abused puppies shriek all night. I resolve to spend my last two weeks somewhere cooler and head for the hills.
Morogoro
In Morogoro, I visit
Apopo, where they train African Giant-Pouched Rats to detect landmines and TB. They are such sweet creatures with their twitching noses and little jackets..
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| African Giant-Pouched Rat undergoing landmine detection training, Apopo, Morogoro |
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| Landmine detection training, Apopo, Morogoro |
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| Feeding Rat after landmine detection training, Apopo, Morogoro |
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| Jairus, African Giant-Pouched Rat, Apopo, Morogoro |
Udzungwa Mountains
At Hondo Hondo camp, in the layered mists of the Udzungwa mountains, as I eat my breakfast, I watch baboons and Mongeese lope in a clearing.
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| Baboon, Hondo Hondo camp, Udzungwa Mountains |
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| Udzungwa Mountains |
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| Udzungwa Mountains |
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| Mongoose, Udzungwa Mountains |
The road up the parched Ruaha gorge is lined with the wrecks of lorries whose brakes failed and cuddly misshapen Baobabs. I love these ancient 'upside-down' trees who make me think of wax melting or internal organs. Usually you just see one isolated, here and there. And now this forest.
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| Baobab forest, Ruaha gorge |
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| Baobab forest, Ruaha gorge |
Iringa
After the peppy little hilltown of Iringa, I visit the stone-age site at Isimila. Tools from before the invention of fire and, in a bookending of my trip, rock formations that echo Cappadocia in Turkey.
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| Ants living in Acacia pod, Isimila Stone Age Site, Iringa |
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| Isimila Stone Age Site, Iringa |
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| Isimila Stone Age Site, Iringa |
I stay at the lovely old Kisolanza farmhouse and walk around the lakes nearby. I talk to Nicky, the farm's thoroughly British owner. She knows the Southern Highlands like the back of her hand and gives me tips that basically plan the whole rest of my trip.
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| Lake near Kisolanza Old Farmhouse, Iringa-Makambako road |
Kitulo National Park
On her advice, I head to Matamba, gateway village to Kitulo National Park, up 'the road of 50 corners' - a rough and rocky road at the kind of hair-raising gradient that terrifies me all the way back to my travels in the Andes and the camino de los muertos.
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| Road of 50 turns, approaching Matamba |
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| Near Matamba |
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| Matamba |
I spend time walking and biking the gorgeous flower-strewn plateau of Kitulo National Park.
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| Kitulo National Park |
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| Kitulo National Park |
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| Kitulo National Park |
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| Kitulo National Park |
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| Kitulo National Park |
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| Kitulo National Park |
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| Kitulo National Park |
It is a little bumpy and my exhaust falls off. Luckily there is a fundi (mechanic) around the corner.
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| Bathlomeo welding my exhaust, Matamba |
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| Bathlomeo, mechanic, Matamba |
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| Kitulo National Park |
I descend back to the heat through Kiwira Forest along tiny tracks and through logging villages lost in the mist.
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| Ngumbulu |
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| Kiwira Forest |
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| Kiwira Forest |
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| Bujigijila |
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| Makarele |
Matema Beach
Finally I emerge at Matema beach on Lake Malawi.
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| Approaching Matema Beach |
This is the nearest I am going to get to my erstwhile destination of Cape Town and I sit and meditate at the water's edge and try to accept.
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| Matema Beach |
The hills around here are a hiker's paradise and I visit waterfalls and crater lakes, trying to hold onto the sense of otherworldliness, freedom and isolation that I know will evaporate as soon as the plane door shuts.
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| Road to Kaporogwe Waterfall |
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| Kaporogwe Waterfall |
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| Ngozi Crater Lake |
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| Road to Ngozi Crater |
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| Daraja la Mungu - Natural Bridge, near Tukuyu |
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| Near Tukuyu |
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| Baobabs, Ruaha Gorge |
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| Baobab, Ruaha Gorge |
As I ride back from the highlands to Dar-Es-Salaam to meet my flight, I try to get my head around the enormity of what I have been doing for the last 13 months. Just 3 months before I left I was facing mortality in Bart's hospital and unable to even stand up without losing consciousness. The phrase 'Life is too Short" has a special resonance. I was always a patient person but Africa teaches patience on a post-doctoral level and, at the same time, I have also learned when not to be patient. I no longer suffer fools in the way I once did. I've learned so much about myself. What I am and am not capable of. Of the flows and overlaps of culture, history and landscape. For me, learning is the main reason to draw breath.
I haven't been everywhere, not by a long stretch, but I have made footprints and tyre tracks all over six continents. I have seen just how many ways there are to live a life. This makes me freer with my identity. It both humbles and emboldens me.
I am staggered at this privilege I have been gifted - heading to such far-away places that I lose all trace of myself. Yet there, I find, against all intuition, that's exactly where I am.
