Iringa to South of Dar es Salaam, August 2023

We are now at a fork in the road. We can either head straight up towards Kilimanjaro via Dodoma and Lake Manyara or we can head for the Kiswahili Coast below and above Dar es Salaam. I wanted to do the coast from Malindi in Kenya all the way down on the return journey but one of the people at Kisolanza suggested doing the coast now for better weather and less tourists. We listen to the local’s advice and turn towards Dar es Salaam instead of Arusha.

Udzungwa Mountains, Aging Hotels & Bats

If you ever want to find a long and winding road then the A7 from Iringa to Morogoro is the road you are looking for. There is some significant weather to get through at the beginning with heavy rain clouds only just higher than the impending mountains as we enter our first deep valley. The sights are amazing however, and the land is incredibly green and lush as we cross through and over the Udzungwa Mountains. Kirsty excitedly shouts about colobus monkeys on one of the passes. I miss the entire troupe as I’m driving which is disappointing as I’ve never seen a wild colobus before. They might even have been the endemic Udzungwa red colobus.

The Udzungwa Mountains form part of the Eastern Arc Mountains. Starting from just south east of Kilimanjaro, the Eastern Arc stretches  in a long and broken arc down past Iringa. The mountains are known to be many millions of years old with the most recent fault uplift having restarted 30 million years ago. The flourishing tropical forests of the Arc’s higher mountain areas were separated ecologically from one another by savannah during a shift in the climate. This created tropical forest islands separated from one another to such a large degree that there are many species of plant and animal completely endemic to each mountain region.

We wind through the valleys of the Udzungwa listening to podcasts and overtaking slower trucks and bus’s on the inclines arriving eventually in Morogoro.

Morogoro is a city on the foothills of the Uluguru Mountains, also part of the Eastern Arc Mountains. It is a significant agricultural center and sits alongside a major water catchment area. The water catchment feeds the liquid life line of Dar es Salaam 200 kilometres away, the Ruvu River. The area is warm and tropical year round.

We arrive at our hotel destination in Morogoro after a few missed turns down sand-track alleyways. The hotel is a budget option. The courtyard is old and weathered with cracked and fading pastel sunrise walls. A few very large trees with tropical lianas add to the age and feeling of the place. The rooms are all in a line with a long red and rusted portico providing a walkway to them all.

We choose the room in the middle as it is closest to the vehicle. This way we can make a dash for the Hilux if need be and are also close enough to hear if anything happens to it in the courtyard. The room is very generous considering first impressions. The bed is soft with copious pillows as well as an all important mosquito net. A large and old heavy wooded cupboard presents itself before the entrance to the ensuite with shower. Budget hotels are often a pleasant respite from many nights camping, particularly after long hours on the road.

We busy ourselves by unloading a few bags and toiletries from the hilux in the beginning of twilight. Thousands of fruit bats begin to fly over us. They are all leaving their roosts, including the large trees in the courtyard in search of their evening meals. The sights, sounds and smells of the evening are unexpected and memorable. We sit in the outside restaurant and enjoy a beer in the dusk surrounded by the insects of the Tanzanian garden and the life of the city on the outside of the pastel sunset walls.

The inclusive budget hotel breakfast in the morning is simple fare as always with a few slices of bread, a very indeterminate type of margerine spread and some tinned jam. We’re offered some cooked eggs which I’m sceptical of accepting. The resulting omelette is one of the best we’ve had on our travels and we savour the meal in the secret city garden with the large trees, the tropical lianas and the bevy of local Tanzanian ladies chattering to one another near the kitchen. The kitchen is a work place but also a gathering place for the older ladies to chat while the daughter or other family member works.

We draw some cash from an ATM down the road and finally find a petrol station which will accept international credit card. Topped up and ready to go, we dodge the many tuks tuks of Morogoro rush to head out for our first stop south of Dar es Salaam.

South of Dar es Salaam

We are planning to be in Tanzania for 30 days and then Kenya for 30 days (the entry visa term limit for Kenya) and then probably return via Tanzania. We want to do a quick foray south of Dar es Salaam along the coast to see what is there. We’re not going to go far south at all but want to see if there are any low tourist coastal areas we may be able to discover. Visions of untouched white sand beaches with palm trees and an absence of the Zanzibar crowd are what we’re looking for.

It is also Kirsty’s birthday! So we’re going to book into a slightly less budget accommodation for two days of rest and relaxation while we explore the local area.

The route takes us along the side of Dar es Salaam and very close to the warehousing and container movement of the Dar es Salaam port south of the city so we spend some time jostling amongst numerous big trucks. We cross over the massive and obviously named Nyerere Bridge with three lanes each side to choose from. The bridge was completed recently within the last decade and links Dar es Salaam to the Kigamboni area across the Kurasini estuary. Before the bridge came into being, all traffic had to cross the estuary by ferry or take a detour taking many hours more.

Our destination is booked through our rarely used Agoda booking app. We used the Agoda booking app all the time in SE Asia but have not found it as useful since either because Africa bookings competition is better or Agoda is losing the quality they used to have. We have found booking.com, which I think now owns Agoda, much better for use in Africa.

We are going to base ourselves at an affordable guest house near Kimbiji. The plan is to explore the coastline and see if we can find a perfect spot to base ourselves for a few weeks on the return journey. The road we are taking travels along the Tanzanian coast line to just past a place called Buuni Village.

On arrival at the guest house, Joleen Safari Park, we are met by a polite and earnest staff member who opens the gigantic metal gate to let us into the courtyard. We settle into the premium bedding and enjoy the air-conditioning before venturing outside in the evening for a few beers at sunset.

The owner of the guest house appears and tells us his name is Kambarage. When the host realises we don’t get the allusion he grows most worried. We learn that the name Kambarage comes from the middle name of the founding father of the Tanzanian nation. The name Kambarage is derived from a term for a female rain spirit. Mr Nyerere’s name was changed to Kambarage by a spiritual advisor to his family when he was quite young. We dutifully learn the name and names of Mwalimu and enjoy a before dinner chat with our host Kambarage while his wife makes the evening meal.

As I thought, there appears to be some hopes in this area for a significant increase in tourism. With the new bridge spanning the estuary south of Dar es Salaam, there are high hopes of many tourists making their way down towards these beach towns and villages. The road from Dar es Salaam ends a few kilometres south of us from here just past Buuni Village and if someone from Dar es Salaam wants to go any further south, they need to take another road on a long detour completely missing this area. In other words, these are now the most accessible beach spots south of Dar es Salaam.

Our host is a retired senior Tanzanian revenue official. We enjoy listening to his stories ranging from crossing the corrugated Serengetti road at night to customs officials in the back-ends of Tanzania.

We tell our host that we crossed at a small border point between Tanzania and Zambia just above Sumbawanga. He tells us a story about a senior customs official who visited a remote border crossing some years ago. When the senior official arrived, the customs officer was nowhere to be seen. A search party was quickly put together and eventually, a sweating and puffing junior customs official was found. He had been out tending to his fields. The border was so remote and unused that the customs official had turned to farming to bide his time. The story apparently became legend in the ranks of the revenue agency and all junior customs officials are now rotated on a regular basis to keep them from the farming life.

Our philosophy of travel currently is to be overlanders without taking more risk than needed. We could have taken a right at Mbeya and headed for the coast near the bottom of  Tanzania but there is an insurgency just across the border in Mozambique and it is thousands of kilometers to travel. By not taking the route, we are missing out on one of the best parts of the Swahili Coast, Kilwa Kiswani and the new Nyerere NP. Taking the route we did through Mbeya however allowed us to see Ruaha NP as well as Isimila stone age site. There is still the entire Kiswahili coastline up to Malindi in Kenya to explore also.

A slow drive down the coast line from Kumbiji gives us views of fishing and agricultural communities making a life in the fine coastal sands. Palm trees rise above concrete guest houses with concrete walls and wrought iron gates. The palm trees also rise above the less affluent corrugated metal dwellings. We take a turn or two towards the beach along the way. Most of the time the end point is a dwelling rather than the beach behind.

Passing through Buuni Village, there are fresh fish for sale hanging by palm cords; dried fish on bamboo racks; goat live and goat freshly butchered; coconuts; and a variety of vegetables grown in the local plots.

We near the end of the road which literally ends at the high water mark of the Indian Ocean. We park a few metres away from the end and walk around the beach enjoying the sights of the mangroves, the sand banks and a huge baobab tree sunning itself on the edge of the fine sands. A good find for sightseeing but not the best spot for snorkelling unfortunately. We head off after a good look around.

Back near Kumbiji, we try to find our own little beach with no need for day fees but struggle to get past the dwellings and more upmarket beach resorts hidden and nestled on the coastline. We know that we could have asked our host for a tuk-tuk chaperone but that would be a cost in itself and plus, a tour guide is always a hit and miss thing when it comes to personal preferences. We take comfort in the fact that we have explored and won a little in knowledge. There are indeed good options in this area of the coastline but they are unfortunately, mostly, more costly than our budget traveler needs allow for.

We head back to base and our host for a few more beers and some relax time in the garden out of the wind. We have been going for runs from our host’s guest house. The jog shows us the plots of land owned by what we assume are Dar es Salaam families who have brought a little bit of the big city savings to this area. Everyone’s dream to have a little place in the countryside. Getting back to roots.