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.