Welcome to the Serengeti Trip series of blog posts! This series of posts covers the planning, packing and progress of a massive 70-day trip through 6 African countries early in 2011. The trip started on 20 January 2011 in Pretoria, South Africa, and is heading north through Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania to the legendary Serengeti National Park! From there the guys will head back south through Malawi, another part of Zambia and Zimbabwe… These blog posts are syndicated from the Official Trip Website.
Where to begin…?! First I would like to apologise for skipping a day with the posts. It was always going to happen, wasn’t it? It’s not because we were lazy, but rather because we were caught in the mother of all rainstorms at Kapisha Hot Springs in Zambia. We specifically decided to make the fire early (around 16:00) so that we could eat early and then post, but without much warning the heavens opened up! It rained a wopping 150 mm in just under three hours!!!
- Our lovely little campsite at Kapisha (before the rains!)
As you can see from the photo above, we did have a little thatch lapa next to our tent, but it proved to be close to useless during the downpour. There were leaks everywhere and we were forced to move most of our goodies, including the fire, to another, less leaky lapa close by. Believe me – it was a team effort! Our main goal was to get the fire safely to a dry spot, because JI was going to bake us a bread to lift the moral! In the moist weather, however, it took about two hours to bake…
- JI dries his bum over the fire
Both of us were completely soaked, but thanks to the lapa, the fire, another killer bread and of course good company, it turned out to be one of the most memorable evenings of the trip thus far!
Okay, so I’m sure some of you would like to see some more photos of the hot springs! Enjoy:
- The hot springs are located in stunning riverine forest
- The water is crystal clear and has no smell whatsoever!
- Personally I enjoyed the hot springs most at night
- Boys will be boys! Of course we had to have a bit of fun in the water…!
As you can see the Kapisha Hot Springs are as close to perfect as you can get! The water temperature feels like that of a nice bath and the best of all is that it’s crystal clear and has no smell. The truth is, it’s VERY romantic and I’m sure JI was wishing that he were there with Talita rather than with me! 
We were extremely temped to stay another night, but at the end of the day we realise that we’ve got to keep pushing on… I’m sure there will be many places that tempt us to stay longer in the next 53 days.
Fortunately it didn’t rain this morning, giving most of our stuff time to dry. We left the Hot Springs around 10:30 and aimed for Tunduma – the one border post that we were warned about most before the trip! But first we had to deal with the last 250-odd km of potholes on the “Great” North Road in Zambia. We passed a few very bad truck crashes along the way and made sure to take it easy on the road…
We finally reached Tunduma at 15:30 Zambia-time. Tanzania is one hour ahead, so effectively we had 90 minutes to get through the border before it closed at 18:00. The madness started a few kilometres before the border entrance. Trucks were lined up for as far as the eye could see in a very crowed and narrow little road. We were forced to pass the trucks in the right-hand lane, driving into oncoming traffic! Every time a car from the front got close, we pulled over the right-hand side of the road…and sometimes drove there for a while. Don’t worry – all this was happening at about 5 km/h!
During the mad ‘rush’ to the border we were surrounded by at least 15 men who wanted to be our border “agents”. At first we thought we’d avoid them, but we soon realised that there was no way of getting through the mighty Tunduma without a fixer. Ours was called Nixon.
Nixon helped get through in just under 90 minutes and saved the day when a VERY rude lady from Tanzania’s customs didn’t want us to take our camera gear through! She refused to stamp our SARS-form and insisted that we pay a “bond” with her. Long story short: let’s just say, Nixon made the problem go away…
From Tunduma we still had approximately 90 km to cover to the next big town, Mbeya, where we planned to stay. Unfortunately the speed limit through the rural villages is 30 km/h and sometimes as little as 10 km/h! I didn’t want to get another fine, so yes…it took us a looooong time to get to Mbeya. For the first time we had to drive in the dark, but fortunately only for 30 minutes.
Tonight we’re camping on a tiny piece of lawn at…uhm, I can’t even remember what it’s called. Just look on the “We are currently at:” notice on the main blog page. Anyways, it’s a small church centre with very dodgy bathrooms. Tomorrow we’ll leave early and see how far we can get.
Hope you enjoyed the read!
I hope we can post every day, but now you know that it won’t always be possible. My cellphone is also struggling to pick up signal every now and then, so please bear with me…
Enjoy your Sunday!
Villiers
Highlight of the day:
Villiers: The chaos of Tunduma!
JI: Driving into Tunduma…on the wrong side of the road!
Lowlight of the day:
Villiers: The price to get into Tanzania (nearly R2000 of border costs!)
JI: The trouble with our lady from customs on the Tanzanian side of Tunduma.
Read more…
