Sumbawanga to Iringa, July 2023

We are entering our first ever East African country – Tanzania! After spending a few days by waterfalls and Lake Tanganyika on the Zambian side, we are ready to explore the wildlife, coast, plains and highlands of East Africa.

At the smallest border crossing we have ever used, we cross over to Tanzania on a dirt road beyond the small Zambian village of Zombe. There is a small building on the Zambian side of the border. Two people, a lady and a man, sit under a tree in the morning shade chatting. They appear to be waiting for the border control office to open. We smile and wave a greeting to them which appears to please them. After about ten minutes, the lady stands up, walks over to the small two room building and unlocks the two doors. She then beckons us over to her small room. The lady turns out to be the Zambian immigration official and the man is the customs officer. Perhaps due to our friendly respect on greeting, we are stamped and documented through in little time. We open the border gate, two long metal farm gates held together by a chain, and wend our way up the dirt track to Tanzania.

The Tanzania border control has a more official looking set of buildings, but is also small. This border control is also far from habitation and the border officials’ homes can be seen just behind the offices with laundry drying on the carousel racks.

We meet a retired Tanzanian revenue official later on our travels and he tells us a story of how the chief customs official of Tanzania once visited a distant and remote border post. He found the border post locked up and was told the customs official was out tending his fields. After that, customs officials were rotated more regularly.

Immigration and health passes are simple and quick. Customs is a little tedious with a ram-rod straight customs official with thick rimmed glasses on his face. Every detail is meticulously checked by the customs officer and we have to walk up the road a few hundred metres to pay for road tax via cellphone money at a small local shop. Tanzanian customs office has removed the option to pay by cash to lessen admin burden and increase auditability, and there is no card facility available for similiar reasons. Cellphone money is King in Africa. I take the opportunity to thank the shop lady for the service by buying a few local beers, aptly named Kilimanjaro and Safari.

The customs officer officiously prints off our foreign vehicle documents and officially hands them over to us lesser unofficial beings. It turns out that he officiously mistyped our chassis number into the system and, with bad humour, he bangs an official inked stamp onto the penned correction. There is no recourse to amendment in the computerised system.

During the hour long customs procedure, I have been able to download an e-sim onto my iPhone so we have Tanzania cell signal. Map directions tell us to head north towards the city of Sumbawanga where we plan to rest for the night. For some reason all of my iPhone browser adverts are now in Hebrew. Guess it must be an Israeli e-sim company.

Sumbawanga & A Cultural Melting Pot

On to Sumbawanga, the capital city of the Rukwa region. Sumbawanga reportedly translates to “throw away your witchcraft” which explains our future conversation with the ex revenue official who instantly started talking about witchcraft when we mentioned we had been in the city.

Sumbawanga turns out to be a useful stop-over for drawing Tanzanian shillings from an ATM as well as finding cheap crates of drinks. We are staying at the Holland Hotel. On all of the accommodation review sites, Holland Hotel comes in at a firm 3.5 out of 5.

Sumbawanga, discounting the reference to witchcraft, has a lot of Christian churches as well as a fair number of mosques. From Catholicism to Islam on to the seventh day adventist, Morovian and assemblies of god. There is an organised religion for most tastes in the centre of the Rukwa region.

Our tastes however, take us to the famous ZamZam Bakery where we enjoy our first East African samoosa’s. A good spice factor with an effective crunch. I work the samoosa’s off later in the day with a jog around Sumbawanga central while Kirsty has an afternoon nap. My run takes me past ladies in hijab, nuns from the convents and other ladies wearing more local traditional African dress. Sumbawanga most definitely has a sense of cultures living side by side.

Adventurers, rather than tourists, are looking for only a few necessities in roofed accommodation. A secure room which can be locked; secure parking for the overlanding vehicle; an absence of bed bugs; access to a decent and reasonably priced meal; and access to some cold beers. Holland Hotel has all of the above including the generations long concierge/watchman who will wash your vehicle for you overnight. In the evening we sit in the restaurant enjoying a few beers and our very first tastes of East African curry. Both are cheap and excellent. We sleep well that night and awake to a clean Hilux.

We have been debating on whether to turn left at Sumbawanga and continue on the western side of Tanzania or whether we should turn right and head up to Ruaha National Park and the coast. It isn’t possible to head North from here to Lake Rukwa, a salt water lake, because of a mountain range and lack of roads.

Western Tanzania will take us further up and along Lake Tanganyika towards the primate forests and Lake Victoria. Eastern Tanzania will however take us through some decent wildlife areas and towards the Swahili coast. Budget ends up being the deciding factor. We don’t want to blow the entire budget on chimpanzees right at the beginning of the travels and so we turn East.

Mbeya & A Mad Driver

It quickly becomes apparent to us that driving in Tanzania is vastly different from down south for the simple reason that the speed restrictions are much lower in Tanzania. The speed limit on open roads is 80 km/h. Any road, including the national routes, which goes through or near any built up areas is 60 km/h. To be honest, I think we appreciated the slower pace. Most of our fellow road farers followed the speed limits also because of the threat of spot traffic fines. As tourists of East Africa, we’re not really going anywhere quickly and so relax while listening to some music and podcasts.

The exception to the rule on Tanzanian roads is the bus. Buses alone appear to be given free reign in Tanzania to travel at rocket speed. Tanzanian buses are like something out of a Steven King nightmare. We can see there is something different about the bus even way up the road as it moves towards us. The forces pinioning the motion of the bus make the nightmare sway incredibly slowly and at ridiculous angles. This is what first draws your attention to the impossibility of what is coming towards you. Only the forward motion of the juggernaut can be keeping it from spilling over to the side.

Very quickly, you realise that the monster coming towards you, no matter how ridiculous it may seem, is taking the centre of the road. Certain death is the only possibility if you don’t hug the side of the road. My traveling companion develops a quick hate for the hurtling buses and endeavours to flash the lights and make the Hilux as huffy as possible whenever a bus rips a scream from our lips. Even the big trucks know better than to directly take on Tanzianian buses.

We drive, slowly, through Tunduma, a sprawling border city at the crossover of the Zambian Great North Road into Tanzania. The border we would have used if we hadn’t discovered the useful Zombe route. We take a wrong turn and quickly turn around when we realise we’re heading into a maze of houses stretched out on the surrounding hills. On leaving Tunduma we find a small shop at a petrol station with cheap cake. All of the other commercially manufactured products are 50% more expensive than Zambia a few kilometres back down the road.

On iOverlander, we found a useful looking stop. The owner is a UK gentleman who has settled down in Mbeya. He has a nice house and garden where he sells meat products from a small butchery on the premises. He also offers accommodation and we had WhatsApped him from Sumbawanga to see if we can camp in his garden as others have done. He answered quickly and said “not a worry”. Because of the speed restrictions we arrive around 5pm. It turns out some haggling might be required on price as this wasn’t fixed in previous comm’s. The gentleman is adept. Very adept at negotiations. We however, as overlanders, have all the time in the world to haggle and the ability to head to a hotel room at only a fraction the price more than he is offering. We settle on a sum well below original beginnings but as we were offered the same price for a room as camping at the beginning, we don’t feel too much guilt.

We wake early with the sunrise, as does the neighbour who hops into his mercedes. I assume the neighbour is off to morning prayers at the masjid. I convince Kirsty that coffee is not required at this time of the morning but rather a jog. I have heard tales of a supposedly excellent bakery with fresh coffee called “Royal Oven”. At this point of our travels, the term “cappuccino” is far behind us and so Kirsty puts on her running shoes while eyeing me suspiciously.

We head out on our jog. The route is planned to take us down the hill and then back around to the bakery. It is early in the morning but already small children in cute red uniforms are slowly filing towards the nearby primary school. I am running ahead of Kirsty by about 5 metres. Suddenly, right in front of me I hear a roaring noise. We are running single file on the left hand side of the suburban road having recently passed another small child walking to school and more recently a man in shirt and tie. An old Pajero? An out of place car with huge after-market tyres and a ridiculous steel bull bar is speeding past a sedan in front of us. I automatically move a little off of the road. My eyes widen as I realise that the revving car is still heading towards me. I leap to the side. I assume my position must be the maximum that the car would have veered off course but it turns out there is a madman behind the wheel. He doesn’t even acknowledge my presence and keeps on going straight at Kirsty. My heart sinks but he misses her by inches. The man in the suit and tie is next and an image of the suited man jumping into the air like a Charlie Chaplin hop and skip is imprinted on my mind. Another lucky survivor. We stop and listen for the crash and death of a small child in a cute uniform but again, luckily, tragedy is avoided.

We are both supremely rattled by the incident. We wave to the suited survivor and keep well away from the road on the way down. I spot the tanked up Pajero again and point at the man. He points back and laughs like a bad Netflix warlord before speeding away. I don’t get the license plate and couldn’t swear it was a pajero.

Royal Oven turns into a hasty affair, without coffee for some reason I can’t remember, where we grab some pastries and more savoury baked goods before running back the campsite. Kirsty makes some “real coffee” in the plunger. We leave quickly as the next leg to Iringa apparently takes a long time.

On the way out, we find a “no fee” ATM and load up on shillings. I part with some of the shilling for a full case of bottled Safari beer. Buying bottled beer without empty beer bottles in exchange is a difficult task in these parts and I am justifiably pleased with myself in having achieved one of the 12 impossible tasks of East Africa.

The Road is Long

Our friendly and appreciated Brit in Mbeya warned us the night before that the road from Mbeya to Iringa is notorious for the amount of time it takes. In fact, we’re advised to stop at a comfortable campsite before Iringa called Kisolanza, a well laid out campsite on a large farm. It is only 300 kilometres to the campsite but the advice given is spot on. The Tanzanian traffic police are apparently notorious for on-the-spot fines and many an overlander has protested innocence. We take it easy then and diligently slow down to 60km/h from 80km/h at the outside of every small village and town along the way. There are so many urban areas that we find ourselves driving at 60km/h for a large part of the journey.

Finally, just as we think we’ve left the last village behind us, a man in traffic police uniform steps onto the road and directs us to stop on the side. I wind the window down.

“Half.” Says the traffic officer.

“Excuse me?” Say I.

“You wait tirti.”

“I have to wait?”

The traffic officer sees that I am new to this.

“The trucks go now. You go later. Tirti.”

The traffic officer then waves us to a not insignificant number of cars waiting on the side of the road behind a large metal drum.

We wait for around 15 minutes and at the half hour on the hour there is a sudden rush for the vehicles and engines starting. All of us, all 20 vehicles worth of us, sans trucks, start our engines and start up the national route again. With our amazing intuitive powers, we postulate that the cars and trucks are separated so that bottle necks don’t occur behind the slower moving vehicles. Considering the fact that the max speed is already 80km/h and we are currently moving in a slightly precarious bottle-neck of 20 vehicles, we are uncertain of the logic here. Soon enough we’re back in the mix with all those large trucks again.

We are now nearing our destination in the mid afternoon. The road has indeed taken a long time and the podcasts, music and audiobooks have been appreciated. We pass through a slightly larger town called Mafinga which gives me a couple of hours of fun, drumming up ridiculous linguistic concoctions to include mention of ‘ma finger’.

We’re under an hour away when another traffic officer steps on to the road and directs us behind a small queue of 3 vehicles.

“How long please?” We ask.

“Tirti.” Is the reply.

It is now five past the hour. We spend the almost half hour watching the road community around us and listening to some music. Vendors with various fruits, nuts, popcorn and cooldrinks look for quick sales. For each product there are generally three vendors but no obscene hussle when someone shows interest.

The road so far has been fairly uneventful, although punctuated by an endless number of big trucks. We are most definitely in a new part of the African continent and we can see and feel the differences. Tanzania so far is a land of undulating hills with a distant horizon. Small buildings of brick or corrugated metal are the norm. High roofs, sometimes unbelievably high, dominate in the south. Small communities dot the lands along the national route with larger towns and villages every twenty to thirty kilometres. The grasslands look or at least seem to be tinged with blue. The people so far appear to be serenely confident in their bearing and their smiles ever present. Tree plantations are noticeable as we pass through and from the southern highlands.

From some reading, I understand that Swahili is the main language of the country but I’m uncertain how accepted this lingua franca actually is amongst the people. We are new to the world of Swahili and have found that English, for good or bad, has worked quite well so far. After a few discreet questions with locals along the way it appears that Swahili is accepted as a means of communication but not everyone loves having to use it.

Swahili became the mode of instruction when Julius Kambarage Nyerere became leader of this East African area. Mr Nyerere was not a fan of the British habit of imposing “divide and conquer” tactics amongst the various ethnic groups and so imposed some surprisingly strict rules on language usage throughout the country. Even radio and television had to be in the official language of Swahili. This ensured that no majority nor minority ethnic languages were able to dominate within the culture and politics of Tanzania as the country was eventually called. Tanganykia, originally a German colonial land until ceded to the UK after WW1 achieved independence under Nyerere in the early 60’s. Zanzibar merged shortly after, resulting in the land of Tanzania. President Nyerere was willing to delay Tanganyikan independence to create a federation of East Africa with Kenya, Uganda, etc but this dream, his most self-acknowledged failure, was never realised. The delay nor federation never happened.

Interesting fact: Julius Kambarage Nyerere’s name evolved over the course of his life time. The father of Mr Nyerere was named Nyerere Burito. Nyerere means caterpillar in the Zanaki language and was given to the respected father because of a plague of caterpillars around the time of Julius’s father’s birth. Julius was given the name Mugendi at birth but was changed to Kambarage (a female rain spirit) early on due to a conversation with a spiritual adviser. The future president later became a Catholic in his teenage years and chose Julius as his first name at the baptism ceremony. The leader later received the Swahili accolade “Mwalimu” (Teacher) in later life.

Julius Kambarage Nyerere is also a famous alumni of the University of Edinburgh. In his first years as president of Tanganyika, Mr Nyerere strongly sought the position of rector of the university but was unsuccessful. The fact that he was running a major African country at the time might have had something to do with this loss.

The drive from Mbeya to our campsite south of Iringa takes the entire day. We are racing the sun to arrive before dark. We complete the 240 kilometres in a time of 7 hours. A record-breaking speed of 35km/h on average. One of the iOverlander posts commenting on the route calls this stretch of road the “Highway to Hell”. They averaged 40km/h so we feel that our time is at least within the standard experience.