welcome to Tanzania...

I've been thinking quite a lot about sustainability and the wastefulness of luxury, or should that be the luxury of wastefulness? After travelling from Senga Bay (Clifton in Africa with warm water) to Nkhata Bay a bit further north, we took a terrible terrible potholed road into the mountains and to Nyika National Park - that's about 150 kilometers at 30 km/hour! It was beautifully remote up there, cold and rainy, with buck roaming through the campsite, fresh elephant dung on the road, and a jackal posing for photo's on the way out ... but really remote! Officially the campsite was closed, which means: we don't bring water, the hot showers last about a minute and there wont be anyone else there. And we had a fantastic time.

Did you know how many liters of fresh drinking water it takes to have a short responsible & eco friendly shower? 25 liters if your hair is short, and 35 liters if its long (I beat laura by nearly 10 liters, and I promise I used conditioner!) Flushing a normal toilet is about 20 liters, rinsing your toothbrushes for a family of 4 (again responsibly) uses around 5 liters, washing the dishes around 10 liters if you do a good job. that's a whole lot of water!

One of the luxuries we're missing is a long hot shower - and by long I'm thinking 200 to 400 liters of fresh drinking water (a normal shower by wasteful luxury standards). We were obviously getting low in our 400 liter tank, and because they weren't delivering water to the campsite we had to conserve our last 90 liters ... and then it started to rain!

In about an hour I collected 250 liters of rainwater! all this while we were recharging the batteries with a generator and managing a fire for our lunch (aah, the modern man) .. (i did use a bit of petrol for the fire, just because the jerry can was open - that's not very sustainable!) It was really fun being self sufficient, and I definately want to start collecting rain water at home, and considering the 12V solar power conversion. I have never comprehended how much energy a full time geyser wastes!! Again, the luxury of 24/7 availability of water as hot as you want it no matter when you want it. Our little gas geyser in the truck heats up 25 liters of water to hot within about 2 minutes of turning it on.

Back to the travel experiences ... we had a recommendation of a place full of potential and a little run-down near Nkhata Bay so we pulled in there and had some supper and a sleep, but we knew when we pulled in that we wouldn't stay for long the next day. Some people seem to have the knack of getting "lost in Africa" and we were happy to find a more ambitious campsite the next day. We did however have our first bump into two elderly (post retirement age anyhow) German ladies, each in their own 1970's (maybe 1980's) landrovers - imported from Germany and they were on their annual Africa holiday. Of course being landrovers there were some issues, but we stayed at the same campsite as them last night (4 days or so after we met them) and they had made a plan to get around the alternator problems ... hardcore!

We found a great place in Nkhata Bay the following evening, and enjoyed a great Balcony / wooden deck high above the lake in amongst the trees. In 24 hours we spent R50 on camping, and R 600 on restaurant food - nice, but I must say with hindsight, "overpriced". We'd do it again! The Central parts of the lake are much steeper shores and more rocky than the beachy south - something we didn't really think about too much, so the  swimming was definately less of a highlight. Very beautiful though. Here's a picture of Kaylin & Xan contemplating what careers they should have when they get back home.

And then there was Nyika, another one of our trip highlights so far. A random National Park with a closed campsite, 200 km on a bumpy road with no-one else around (except for that Swiss couple in a hilux double cab taking a career break and deciding whether to go to Australia or South Africa for their next season of life). After the heat and mosquitoes of Mozambique and normal Malawi, to get into the cool air of the mountains was really fantastic - the kids had one of their best sleeps ever and we got to sleep with our duvet again! We had a few walks in the grass, one where we came across a mommy buck lying in the grass being protected by the daddy buck, and after she had run off we nearly stepped on her baby buck - which scampered off in the other direction. I trust that they'll get together again shortly! 

We also celebrated rainwater and my birthday - the baking of the cake, or should I say the licking of the icing bowls was definately a highlight for the kids, and the most frustrating part of the trip so far (for Kaylin) has been Xan constantly telling me what my birthday presents would be! Of course I was suprised on the day, what else could I have been! The day has added to my good family experiences.

After Nyika we headed back down the bumpy road (with a few mud video stops which has made the truck look hardcore) and we slept at Karonga showing a little bit of earthquake damage, but suprisingly well recovered. The lake definately wasn't a feature and the highlight was talking to two different groups of travellers coming back South about their experiences (2 couples on 3 BMW bikes kind of regretting going to the artificial luxury of Zanzibar, and two families in Landcruisers regretting travelling so hard, and not staying 2 nights in any place except on Christmas day in Serengeti!)

So we're definately decided to stay away from Dar es Salaam & Zanzibar (for the traffic which sounds a bit like Lagos, Nigeria (we can do without that) and because the underwater power cable to Zanzibar broke, and when they plugged it back in, the surge fried most of the appliances on the island!) and we'll be heading North to Arusha and the Northern areas (Serengeti, Ngorogoro, Kilimanjaro etc). That means that we have a lot of time and we really dont have to drive hard anymore! So we were planning on driving 400 km today, but stopped after 200km in Mbeye. We're staying on a coffee plantation and there is a really nice lodge here - one of those places that looks expensive, but isn't, and the small things (like coffee ice cream, and a nice pool and restaurant) tell you that someone has thought about it and is making something of the place. we booked in for 2 nights already, and we're sleeping behind the tennis courts and just outside a really nice set of ablutions (and 200 - 400 liter hot showers!)

So that's it for now, we're in Tanzania, and our plan is still to organise a Carnet de Passage for the truck through the AA (but the forms on their website are down) to leave the truck in Nairobi for a few months, which will save us a long hard landcruiser style drive back home, and we have all the time in the world to enjoy this beautiful country where we've never been before! the luxury of time. 

Have a good sleep tonight (or tomorrow night) to catch up from last night, and get a good start to 2010! May God's plans be obvious to those who seek Him! Catch you later!