Larry - the Xmas Special

Larry is secured in Dar Es  Salam while we do the hard yards on Zanzibar, however, it would be cruel not to turn our minds to the plucky little Brit who has taken us 9,000km into Africa.

It has not been all plain sailing, and whilst Larry has always got us to our destination, we have had a few quality dramas. All of the problems relate to the appalling road conditions, and Larry’s age. We have done over 2,000km on the worst dirt roads you could imagine. Some of the ‘bumps’ have been so bad I think we suffered from concussion!

What has broken:

Engine a little hot after huge hill climbs-                              Welded new spot light mounts above radiator to improve low speed air flow.

Gearbox oil leak-                                                                     Pull down and repair upper selector housing.

Damaged oil cooler line-                                                        Patched steel hose and re-routed to avoid steering arm.

Cracked ball joint, dented sump, bent drag link-                   This was our pot hole disaster, pulled sump dent out, replaced tie rod end, straitened drag ling, string and tape measure wheel alignment.

Leaking thermostat housing-                                                  Stripped, filed all faces and sealed with master gasket.

Damaged radiator core and thermo fan-                                This was when the fan tore out of the radiator. Removed radiator and soldered damage. Welded steel struts to mount fan to (now very nice!)

Cracked chassi-                                                                       Gas welded crack, then ark welded a 3mm patch plate over entire section. …seems to be OK!

Cracked Air cleaner mount-                                                    Manufactured new steel one out of 2mm plate.

Cracked expansion tank mount-                                             Manufactured new steel one and mounted to radiator support mount.

While this seems like a fair bit a damage, Larry has really impressed me. We have driven up clay and
rock tracks that I seriously thought we would need to winch up…. without even coming close to being bogged. In sand and mud, he has been a champion.

On the good roads we can easily sit on 110km/hr….but those roads are getting hard to find since we left South Africa. The stiff suspension is our main Achilles heel. Whist it stops us ‘wallowing’ with the extra weight, every bump shakes the hell out of us… and has caused most of our problems. I guess that’s why the new Rovers changed to coil springs. I plan to pull the front springs apart in Kenya and grease between the leafs to reduce the shock. I know it will reduce their load bearing…but I’m good with that.That being said, Land Rovers are everywhere, and they really love them here, especially the old ones. I have lost count of how many offers we have had to buy Larry. Whilst I do like a good Landcruiser, they don’t seem to cut the grade out here. They are too expensive, and too hard to get spares for.

An African Xmas

Well who would have thought that we would be living our dreams and find ourselves on Zanzibar for Xmas day - we really are truly blessed.

The morning started the same as the last 5 to date, a swim in the sea followed by a breakfast of fruit and pancakes served on our veranda overlooking the sea (now you can see why our Hilton gym membership is such good value) - oh and fruit mince pies which we searched the island for getting a number of interesting variations including a whole date cake (it is not christmas without fruit mince pies).

It was surprisingly surreal in that Christmas day wasn't too much different from home - ate too much, a few too many gin and tonics, and a few swims (it was very hot). Dinner was turkey with all the trimmings (an English lady owns the place we are staying - which is going to make today fun because I just saw the cricket score).

Dave was very happy - he managed to negotiate the purchase of a "traditional" masai working knife (going straight to the pool room or in Dave's case the study where he has a collection from our past trips). The masai are the tribe in Tanzania/Kenya that are tall and skinny, wear red, tend cattle and the like. There are a few on Zanzibar at the moment trying to sell masai beads to the tourists. We have affectionately named our masai friend Marty Masai whilst he seems a little short and overweight to fit the masai bill what he lacks in tradition he makes up for in persistence. For the last 5 days he has been trying to convince us to buy something from him turning up when you least expect it - so much so that I was considering a stalking order but his persistance paid off. A photo of Marty selling his wares to some more unsuspecting toursists is included - little do they know he is going to be their new best friends.

I hope all of our family and friends that are following us on our adventure had a fantastic christmas day - we have both very much got itchy feet and are looking forward heading to Arusha and the Serengetti for new years.

Zanzibar - the beaches

We have left Stone Town and are now trying to resist the continual intoxicating beauty of Zanzibar’s Northern beaches.

Prior to heading North we went on a ‘dolphin experience’. We assumed we would stand on the beach and have the little chaps come up for a fish or something….. not quite. We arrived at the beach to be fitted up with very shoddy snorkelling gear and were escorted to our own boat…. which then joined a flotilla of five other boats.  We roared out to sea like a scene out of Navy Seals, each boat jockeying position …for something.

The word was spread…dolphins off the bow…and then our assault commenced. As the poor buggers were getting a nip of air, all of the boats descended on them,  frantically disgorging poorly prepared divers on top of the dolphins.

The dolphins responded appropriately, and just swum away. It really was an un regulated disgrace…..that being said, when the dolphins came up near our boat  I jumped in without the  rest of the assault group, and had the pleasure of swimming with three very large dolphins for a little while. They seem much bigger when you are in the water with them.

They were very chatty, and gave me a good look over, but I got the distinct impression they were pretty jacked-off with the whole fiasco…. and as the other boats descended on us, they took off.

We are staying in a cottage at Nungwi, on the North coast. The beach is amazing, the sand is like pure talcum powder…it’s so fine it sets like a layer of plaster on your wet feet. The water is the type of blue you only get in photo shop pictures. Our section of the beach has a small reef that sets up semi-circle between us and sea….it really is beautiful.

As pretty as it is, I was bored within a day, and we have set up some good snorkelling trips to various reefs to keep us on the go. I am of the view our best coup has been setting up daily access to the Hilton ‘Double Tree Resort’ gym. We approached the staff and they told us it would be $30US a day per person to use the facility. We then had a chat to the gym ‘manager’ and established a far more suitable personal payment to him to allow access….more like $3US!

This evening we will do some  training with all of the locals on the beach. Each evening they crowd out the beach and run everything from kick boxing classes to yoga….it really is a sight. At the end the whole town seems to run into the sea to cool down, the women all still wrapped up in their Muslim attire!

They hire trail bikes here that appear to be reasonable sound, so I sense some Crusty Demon action coming up (watch for the photos).

The food is excellent here, with good variety, and we are really looking forward to our Zanzibar Christmas feast.

Larry is safe and secure on the main land, and will be well rested like us for our push north to the Serengeti.

Zanzibar - Stone Town

The first part of our trip to Zanzibar has seen us spending 3 days in the historic Stone Town wondering through its narrow streets and alley ways. The old town has glimpses of its portugese, arabic, british and slave trading past all of it supposedly captured in its doors - we have tried to capture it in some photos but I think our building photography still needs a bit more work.

 

Zanzibar is also known as the spice islands and you can get any spice imagineable at the local markets. Might even be enough to lure me into the kitchen - who am I kidding but I might luck upon having another personal chief who will do them justice.

 
We have definately used our time well to recover from some long days travelling by shopping, eating and drinking cocktails whilst watching the sun set. So far Zanzibar has well and truely lived up to all expectations !!!

Ruaha National Park

Well travel in Africa is not all beer and skittles. After crossing the border into Tanzania our focus was getting Larry's radiator problems fixed. We ended up in the town of Mybea where Dave (ably assisted by a team of Toyota mechanics) worked into the night to fix the radiator whilst I watched Tanzania play play soccer with the locals (shame I am not more handy).

We then headed to Ruaha National Park which is the second larget game park in Africa. Well we put Larry's repairs to the test with 120km of bad dirt roads to even get into the park and it didn't get much better from there. After demanding $120 in US dollars (good way of getting foreign currency) for 24 hours in the park we realised why everyone stays outside the park. Our accomodation was a very stylish small garden shed which was perfectly suited for the 35 degree heat.

Reality none of this would have mattered if we had got to see the pride of lions that the guides were talking about however as we saw in Malawi as soon as the rains start the animals scatter to all parts of the park - oh well the highs and lows of travel in Africa. Some pictures of what we did see.

We then started our track towards Dar es Salaam and realised that Larry also didn't appreciate Tanzania's national parks or the tendency to put ripple strips and speed humps in every village in Tanzania and there are a lot of villages. Needless to say we found ourselves back at a roadside mechanic getting more repairs - welding for cracks in the chasis.

All of us have made it to Dar in reasonable shape despite the last 20km taking 2 hours (terrible traffic and a GPS that decided to pack it in at the best time). We are all looking forward to a break from the Tanzanian roads with some well earned time in Zanzibar.

Vwaza Marsh - Dickson's Jungle Cookies

Our journey into the National Parks of Malawi have been quite something.

The day we set off from Nkhata Baya there was a diesel shortage in the country. A nice chap from a servo called around and found a place near the Tanzania boarder that had fuel.  We had to do a 220km detour to get diesel, needless to say we filled both tanks right up!

The road into Vwaza Game Park was quite bad, and a good 50km of car breaking corrugations.

We arrived at the park quite late and tired, and to find out we were the only visitors!

There was a lovely chap, Dickson, who offered to do all of our cooking. At fist I was sceptical, but he turned out to be a wiz on the camp fire. We just gave him all of our food and left him to it.

His specialty was ‘Jungle cookies’ which he baked in a clay oven….. they were delicious, and kept us going for days.

The recipe is attached, and if you like them, you can send him a donation to put his kids through school (there’s no free education in this country!)

After we had our dinner cooked for us, I offered to drive the cook and his helper home as it was raining…which they were happy to accept. In most parks you are forbidden to drive at night, and I know why, on my back from the staff settlement, I turned a corner to come face to face with a very surprised hippo! Clearly my bright spot lights dazzled him, and he took off into the bush…it is true when they say an angry hippo can run at 40km/hr!

We went through the same scenario after dinner on the second night, it wasn’t raining, but they were both very keen for a lift home (only about a 1km). Once I started driving I figured out why, as it wasn’t raining, the visibility was much better, and all my headlights picked up were different coloured eyes peering out of the bush at us! I don’t think I would have been keen on walking the track at night!

The park was nice and rangers we very kind to us…but the reality was there was not much wildlife to be seen during the day. The Elephants had moved on, and apart from baboons and impala, it was a dud. They do say during the dry, the elephants are always near the lodge lake.

The drive out of the park caused our first real show stopper mechanical failure. The constant vibration and huge thumps tore our thermo fan out of the radiator, damaging the core on the way. We spent the night at Kaponga doing a bodgie repair to cross the boarder in the morning.

The border crossing  into Tanzania was un eventful, except that they weren’t going to let me in without permission from my government… apparently all Tanzania Police officers must have ‘orders’ to leave the country. I assured immigration it was all OK, and we were in!

Country number 5 - Tanzania here we come

Recipe for Dickson's Jungle Oat Cinnamon Cookies

Ingredients
2 and a half cups of self raising flour
2 cups of jungle oats
1 cup of brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons golden syrup
4 tablespoons of milk
3 tablespoons of margarine
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Rub margarine and flour together with jungle oats. Add sugar, mix well. Make a hole in the flour and oat mixture. break in egg, milk and golden syrup. Mix all in and make a stiff dough.

Grease a baking sheet pan. Roll in a ball and place on baking pan about 2 inches apart. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes till brown and then turn on wire rack to cool. makes 36 to 40 cookies (surely I didn't eat that many!!!).

By Dickson Chawinga, Vwaza Ecolodge Box 170 Rumphi, Malawi

Traffic police Malawi style

The only detraction with being in Malawi has been the Police….they are a disgrace! We had barely crossed the border and hit our fist road block, the first thing that struck me was the local vehicles were being waved through, and only we were stopped.

The young constable walked boldly up to the door and said, welcome to Malawi, what did you bring for me?...Tanya replied, “a nice smile?”

He was clearly hoping for little more. I managed to talk my way through that one…showing my police badge and explaining I was a visiting police officer certainly helped…and he sadly let us go.

The next check point was about half an hour on…this time the young sergeant decided I must pay a $2000 kwachas fine, as the were not sufficient reflectors on the rear of our vehicle….but I could pay less if I paid him now! Once again the visiting police officer line worked, and he sadly let his meal ticket drive away.

We stopped for the night and decorated our car in enough reflectors to make it clearly visible from space.

We barley hit the road in the morning and were stopped by another check point, this time they decided that not having two reflector triangles would cost us $3000. The woman constable would not budge, and when her sergeant came over, he was pleased I was a visiting officer…..and because of that I could pay them only $1000, and it would all be OK. Right at that moment Tanya decided to take some photos of the negotiations…which did not go down well!

I finally agreed to pay $1000, so long as I could have a receipt and the name, rank, and number of the officer receipting the fine, as I informed them I wanted to speak to their district commander to ensure all correct procedures had been followed. I explained it was important for me to record their procedures in detail, as I may be able to learn from the way they do their police work.

That worked! We were suddenly best friends, and we could go on our way…they even wanted to pose for a photo for my professional journal!

So, just in case anyone from the Malawi internal affairs reads our blog…..these two idiots tried to extort money from us and were dumb enough to pose in this photo!

We were stopped again that afternoon, and we went through the list, show me reflectors ..OK, show me insurance ..OK, show me reflector triangles…OK….. She was struggling and then came up with a new one that she was sure to catch us out… show me fire extinguisher! (smugly thinking she had just landed her meal ticket!)… she was devastated when I produced one from under the seat!

We drove on joking they will next want to check safety compliance dates on the extinguisher…and guess what they checked at the next stop!

We are currently fitting smoke alarms and escape slides in a desperate attempt to keep ahead!

Malawi - the warm heart of Africa

Well we have made it to country number 4 – Malawi and it is definately the warm heart of Africa. The people are friendly, the sun shining and the stunning waters of Lake Malawi warm.

We have spent the last few days on the southern shores of Lake Malawi at Cape Maclear and it is picture postcard beautiful. Lake Malawi is fresh water and stretches for as far as the eye can see and is apparently up to 100 metres deep.

Today we spent snorkelling around one of the islands – it was like swimming in an aquarium with hundreds of colourful fish which you feed by hand. I have never seen such vivid colours – blue, yellow, red – in freshwater fish. It did however get a little much once the bread was finished and they started nibbling on me (evidenced by my quick exit from this photo).

On the trip back we fed the local sea eagles which Dave managed to capture in all its beauty – this did however take a number of takes – which the sea eagle was happy to oblige given he was getting an easy feed.

A photo of Dave - wildlife photographer extrodinaire - is also included for those wondering if he is actually on the trip given the lack of photos on the blog.

We are going to track the lake up most of Malawi – I think it is going to be hard to convince me to leave.

Gorongosa-Elephnants never forget!

We have driven 6,000km into the heart of Africa, and are currently near the Capital of Malawi. The last week has seen us leave the sun soaked islands in the southern archipelligo off the coast of Vilinkolous and struggle into the only game reserve in Mozambique.

I could say many wonderful things about the islands in the archapelligo, but a picture says a thousand words....most likey 'sux to be you all at work!'







Our drive north to the reserve was a bit of a drama. We were travelling quite fast on a good road, when out of nowhere there was a perfectly square cut hole in the road about 2ft square and 1ft deep. We hit it doing at least 80km/hr....it was a quality show stopper (damaged sump, tie rod, etc) After a bodgy road side repair we had to drive 40km on the worst corregations I have ever been on. At low speed it was simply not possible..and would have taken 4+ hours. I recalled the 'Mythbusters' episode where they found driving at speed (reaching the same frequency as the corregations) smooths the ride out.

We went for it!

The myth turns out to be mostly true...it is smoother, just stopping and steering become 'challenging'. I spent a day fixing all that was damaged and Larry is whole again for those deeply concerned for his welfare.

At the park we did a community walk for three hours in the stinking heat...clearly Tanya's idea.








We were warned that the older elephants in the park survived the war of independence and then the civil war..which finished in 1994. Apparently the soldiers were quite cruel to the herds, nearly wiping them out. The good news is we saw one herd that had 83 elephants in it...the bad news is they HATE man.

As we approached the herd, they all drew into a huge circle with the calves in the midle, then all of them put their trunks up to catch our sent.... once confirmed, one would charge. I got one of the charges on video, which is amazing ( the highlight being two African girls hiding under the back seat)

This is the photo just before the charge.






Our next blog will be from the beaches of Lake Malawi.