Well.......the park is beautiful. The road to get there is a death trap. The drivers here are a law on to themselves. There are very few main roads out of Dar and there is no such thing as police cars monitoring them.
We left late on Friday (about 3pm) for what we thought was going to be a 4 Hour trip. It was 7 hours long. There is no way that this trip would only take 4 hours as all the on-line information tells you. We went the speed limit on the way back and it was 5 hours to the outskirts of the city in midday where we then hit traffic for another hour and a half. Night driving is not recommended by any of the embassies or UN. We were with another couple whose wife threw a hissy fit so we took two cars. First mistake as we are driving a 14 year old car and the journey was 284 kilometers long with no chance of road maintenance help. It took us an hour and half to get out of main Dar. At one point we were pinned in and as people walk through the traffic the men walk by and try our doors to steal things from us. This is the road improvements going on. No one cares if they drive around or through it. A worker tried to block the side of the road but people just pushed around it. Lawless I tell you!
I think that is a sidewalk the bus is driving on.
Once we made it to the open road it was mostly us with a few other cars and a lot of truckers and oil tankers. Dar has the main port for the area so the oil tankers have to travel to the inland countries. Overworked and underpaid, they are reckless and drugged up as they chew on a drug called khat. I did take notice of an oil tanker with a driver chewing it on the way home. It looked like someone eating a piece of licorice. I guess it is a large problem here with the drivers along with the spread of HIV. This is a picture of it but the guy is just a news host (not my pic).
Below is a picture of some lovely traffic police ladies. These were not the friendly two that stopped us at the first speed trap (and the only one we got stopped at as you can tell when it states to slow to 50 kilometers that if it is before 6pm the traffic police will be waiting for you). Even they think it is not safe to be out at night on the roads.
So.....the ladies pull us over and say hi. Super friendly and smiling at us. She looks in the car to talk to me then the next words exactly........Here is your speed on the gun (75km in a 50 km)........30,000 with a receipt or 15,000 without a receipt ( 30 is 12 pounds). We contributed to the corruption by paying 15. The other car we were with got stopped 2 more times before they learned their lesson. It's important to have the cash on you but we hid it in many different places in the car.
So, the other driver acts like he is on a Formula 1 course and pushes ahead of us before dusk. From about 4:30 past the sun setting at 6:30pm we did not see them at all. We had the luxury of knowing they were ahead of us as we didn't see there car in the ditch or pulled over the side. We were unprepared as the people planned the trip so we didn't even know exactly where we were going for most of the night drive. We got to the city of Monogoro,
population of over 200,000. Luckily they were waiting by the main round about and tracked us down. We still had a 2 hour ride to the lodge in Mikumi for the night. There are a lot of speed bumps along the way in the towns and then in the park for the wildlife.10pm arrival at the Tan-swiss where the night staff was unaccommodating to our request for any food so we went to the room with a few Kilimanjaro beers.
The bungalow was OK, clean but not really attractive. It was only one night so it was fine but the breakfast was presented poorly and I had bread and butter with a yogurt. Not so great and the staff wasn't that outgoing like most of the other hotels we spend time in due to better quality food and surroundings.
Our next two nights were at the luxury tents at Vuma Hills. It was located within the park itself so the wildlife roam freely, especially at night. On the way in to the lodge (6km), we saw impalas, zebras and giraffes.
http://www.tanzaniasafaris.info/VumaHills/video.htm
First picture is our tent, the last one in the resort so it was the furthest down with a good view and quiet. Second picture was taken on our deck and the third was from the restaurant.
The lodge was nice and we invited our Belgium manager to sit with us at dinner after our day long safari. We retired to the fire pit and I was able to feed the bush babies by hand and see the animals at the little feeder they set out.
On the second night we had a visitor to our tent. An elephant woke us up at 3 am. He circled around our tent breathing heavily and you could hear his stomach growling in between the trunk sniffing the tent. Holy smokes,was I scared. I was being quiet and I thought Andrew was as well as I knew he woke up at one point. A few minutes later he started snoring. I was trying to be quiet and I didn't know what to do so I stumbled into the shower area that was protected but then I remember that the manager said that she had to capture a tarantula so I didn't want to go in there. The elephant walked all the way around the tent scraping his body on the wooden structure the tent was on supposedly giving himself a scratch. He finally left after an hour or so. The manager mentioned that I could work relief at a few of the resorts while in Africa but something tells me I need to stick to managing humans as I can't deal with the wildlife well.
I have since learned that our lovely manager of the resort has to do more animal contact as she had to take a tarantula out of one bathroom and a large snake (not the garden type) out of another room.
We met some tobacco company employees from Virginia and Switzerland by the fire. They are lucky enough to fly in a charter plane around Africa. The one guy told me how he used travel from Dar all the time up to the factory in Monogoro on the A7. He refused to do it again as he saw some dead bodies along side the road and people were pickpocketing them. He also heard how cars sit behind semis only to hit you straight on to cause an accident so they can rob you. It's all about the color of your skin as people along the roads in towns call ahead to tell their friends what kind of car you drive since you have to slow down in the towns. Also, there are no alternative routes.
Someone told me that many Tanzanians do not value a life and sexual experiences the way other people in the world do. I dismissed it as a crude comment but the more I talk to people and as I become more exposed to locals I am beginning to believe it.
Many of the men we met over the weekend have more than one wife and the wives don't know each other. Many parents don't name their kids right away as they don't think the baby will make it to two months. Also, it is very rare to see an elderly Tanzanian. Men die in their 50's,about ten years youger than men from Kenya. The healthcare is so bad people don't know they are sick or they cannot get help if they are sick.
I wanted to leave a day earlier but we decided to get an early start on Monday. Plus, many tourists would be traveling on the Sunday so we didn't want to be an obvious target. I was sick in worry......I wanted to sell the car and take the bus back but that idea was rejected. We had a nice dinner with the manager as we were the only two guests on Sunday night as the people with us left on Sunday since we are no longer on speaking terms. We learned that our resort manager teaches some of the wives how to sew to keep them busy and give them a skill.They make all the linens for the resort and they are colorful and good quality. It also gives them some of their own money.
Luckily, the early start at 8am meant smooth roads to Dar that was safe and uneventful. It is beautiful with mountains by Monogoro. Too bad I was so nervous about robbery, rape or death. We will never be so foolish again.Even the manager at the resort takes the bus in as well. We drove one of the servers to the gate to meet a ride for the hospital. He had malaria for the second time. He is one of a few people I have me that have got malaria more than once. He said he will be back on his feet in a day or two.
Whether it worked or not I dressed myself up in long sleeves and pants with a scarf around my head likes Muslim lady and big glasses for the ride home. I was more comfortable this way and we actually ended up in a makeshift convoy with a Muslim couple going the same speed for two to three hours of the journey. I felt safer even though my driver was showing his paste white skin.
The A7 is a dangerous road with many traffic accidents that turn fatal as there is a long wait for emergency assistance along with the crime. The police presence is on foot and only for speed traps. Plus, they go home at 6pm. A semi was passing a tanker going uphill on our side of the road illegally. He finally honked his horn and we had to swerve close to the side of the road. Many people walk on the road or side for most of the trip. This is their only means of light during the night to walk with the cars. You never know who can jump out at you or worse that you have to swerve out of traffic and kill an innocent person. Do you stop then and risk your life knowing it will take hours for someone official to arrive on the scene? Scary situation. Oh......and our cellphones didn't roam all the way up to the park.
Now that I made it back safely I will look at this weekend as a good experience and that we can only rely on each other to do our homework on safety, which is something you don't always have to think about at home.
The park is a beautiful, majestic place with many kind people. I would love to go back and experience it again without the tense feeling for my safety on the way home.A bus or charter car or plane is not that expensive and it is worth it for safety reasons.
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