Tanzania: Tabora to Rungwa

Thursday 25th June: Tanzania. Tabora to Rungwa We had a leisurely start to the day, meeting for breakfast at 9am. We then plotted our course for the next leg and decided that the town of Mbeya was too distant for one days travel as we didn’t think the road would be very good. That was absolutely correct. In fact, our GPS system, Tracks 4 Africa, stated quite clearly the road was not recommended. All 287 kms of it. And this is an overlanders GPS, so all the more alarming!

Well, that would be right up our street then! The alternative route available to us is a huge diversion so we had little choice anyway. We were going to head for Rungwa, about half way. We also wanted to stop in at a house that David Livingstone spent some time in, during his travels in Africa. This was just 15 minutes outside Tabora, our departure point today. It was a dirt road again, the last 135 kms of our journey yesterday was also on a corrugated dirt road. The corrugation really shakes the vehicle around and we’ve found from our journey up that a speed of 65-80 kph irons most of that out. Before we left town, we had to use one of our 2 spare wheels as we had a very slow puncture, probably due to sidewall damage on the tyre where a small flap of rubber was hanging off. That took about 30 minutes & then we were on our way.. We also met a bunch of kids near Livingstones house & they were very excited to see us.

We found Livingstone's house and had a walk around, reading the history of the place.

It doesn’t seem to get many visitors, judging by the visitors’ book. We departed fairly quickly and indeed the road did deteriorate, sometimes to an absolutely dreadful condition that challenged Dusty and ourselves. It changed every few kilometres from corrugated with rocks and sharp stones to deep sand and then red dirt. It was very slow going and we had 265 kms of this. We are often amazed that it stays together with the rattling it gets. On this road we only met one vehicle in the entire day, so breaking down would not be a good option, if we couldn’t repair it ourselves. Also, given that we were in deep sand a lot of the time, stalling would be disastrous because we wouldn’t be able to push start it, which is our usual start to the day, due to two dead batteries. Keep the revs up boys!

Finally, just before sunset, at nearly 7pm, we reached our destination, Rungwa. It looked like a big town on the map but in fact we’ve seen far bigger villages. So, where was the camp site? We stopped and asked the lone person on the street and he actually worked at the reserve, which was just 1 km from town. He said he’d send the boss out if we drove ahead. There is a dirt airstrip there and we found out that people come to hunt & kill elephants & lions at this reserve. How awful. There is no accommodation available and a field that is called a camp site, with zero facilities. When boss man arrived, he explained all this to us. It was now dark so the option of setting up camp was looking less desirable all the time. We asked him what the building was & he said it was accommodation for government employees. 

We persuaded him to let us stay in them although he wanted to charge us $45 for the privilege. A figure I'm quite sure he just plucked out of the air, as it's not usually for rent. I knocked him down to 40,000 shillings, about $25 & said we didn’t need a receipt! Smiles all round. 

I should also mention that was no water and no electricity although John & I were presented with a bucket of water for the toilet. Once we’d got our few bits out of dusty, we sat outside for drinks and dinner. The room was really too depressing to go into. Dinner was quick; it doesn’t take long to eat an energy bar. Drinks consisted of a couple of cold beers. While we were sitting there, a woman came to tell us that it was dangerous as there were black mamba &  spitting cobra snakes here. She reckoned they could even be above us, on the low roof or rafters. We thought we only had to worry about the lions! Apparently, if the cobra spits venom in your eyes, you’re blinded for life. Still, we elected to stay outside a while longer. She also said we must close our windows as they would come in at night, for the warmth. We certainly didn't relish the idea of a snake snuggling up to us so we did just that. Oh, and we're sharing, I think for the first time.