Journey from Nayakanazi to Mwanza

It was another very early start and the Muslim call to prayer could be heard evocatively outside my mosquito screened, metal barred, window at 5.30am. Tanzania is a predominantly Muslim country but also with a large Christian population as we witnessed yesterday on our journey with a Christian wedding and families going to Sunday church. We set off in the pitch dark with the black silhouettes of acacia trees slowly appearing in their multitudes in the pre-dawn gloom by the roadside. We had reached where the new road is being laid, so were able to make quicker progress than we did on yesterday's appalling road surfaces. The colourless palour of the night gave way to the pale greens of the seemingly endless trees and scrublands in the milky dawn light. Occasional, internally lit, humble, mud brick farm-steads served as small beacons along our way. The red ochres of the rich Africn soils lifted out of the receding darkness beneath the grey, leaden skies of a rain filled night. Tall, thin, black figures in brightly patterned, warming, shawls could be seen walking along the roadside on their way to a long hard day's work in the fields. Herders tapped their long-horned cattle encouragingly with gnarly sticks and others chased their goats fom the roadside. Suddenly, through a slither in the cloud cover, the blazing orange fire of an African sunrise could be seen glowing like an ember from an overnight camp fire. I hovered between wakefulness and sleep and mused dreamily about what new experiences this day would bring as we rattled our way towards the sandy beaches on the southern shores of the great Lake Victoria. Soon the trickle of people on the roadside became a flood, with many cycling on old, but well maintained, bicycles and others carrying hoes and other farming implements over their shoulders as the activities of the Tanzanian morning came into their full, energetic, swing.
We stopped in a small town for some breakfast and found some sweet chai tea in a street stall which was warmly reviving. We then ordered some capattis for breakfast. One of our fellow travellers, Gabby, helped the woman on the street stall make the capattis which gathered an audience of fascinated, cute, local children wearing skirts, shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, and some with patterned shawls wrapped about their heads like their mothers. We were far from the tourist trail, so this was a very authentic experience of an African town, where the people rarely see white westerners and were charging non-tourist prices of a few cents for food and drinks. A four foot high marabou stork prowled the streets with it's long, stick-like, gangly legs, large beak and 'old man's' head, looking to scavenge any leftovers from the food stalls. A man tried to shoe it away, but the large stork gave back as good as it got and snapped back with it's long beak. Chickens and ducks more successfully took tit-bits from the used pots and pans. A young girl with her two younger siblings said 'hello, how are you?' to me and was keen to practice the English she was learning in school. She was gratified that I complimented her English speaking and crossed the road, siblings in tow, to continue her day and her life. We got on the bus, waved goodbye to the attendant children, and headed back into the African scrublands with high hills growing in the distance. As we approached Lake Victoria, unusual rounded rock formations thrust up through the greenery and more traditional roundhouses appeared in the landscape, with waving children running after the truck. We arrived at a small terminal where the ferry would take us across a weed filled bay in the lake. The storm clouds gathered over the lake as we waited for the ferry to cross, but fortunately the rain didn't start until we debarked on the other side. I had a Tanzanian street food staple called 'chips mayai' which is fried chips with added eggs to form a kind of messy omelette - it wasn't the tastiest meal but it filled a lunch sized hole.
We arrived in Mwanza just as the Tanzanian president, dubiously re-elected without opposition two weeks ago, was giving a speech in the town stadium. The traffic was therefore held up and the streets were thronging with people of all kinds including many women in richly coloured, patterned dresses and some cool looking rastafarians. We eventually got to our destination, Tunza Beach Resort, and camped right by the lake beach where the waves were rolling in. Lake Victoria is so big that it's like an inland sea, so it felt like camping by the sea. I put up my tent, ordered a 'catch of the day' (Nile Perch) fish dinner (putting my veganism on hold), put my swim shorts on and went for an evening swim. The sea was fairly warm, which made for a lovely dip. A kite (bird of prey) flew above me curiously and descended to just a few feet above my head, looking me right in the eye with a piercing look. Large pied kingfishers also hovered above looking for fish below the water's glassy surface. The evening sun was shining brightly with only wispy clouds, making for a bit of a Tanzanian paradise. Later, I walked up to a local high street with fellow traveller, Steph, where I managed to buy my first African sim card for the princely sum of a thousand shillings which is equivalent to 50p sterling - However, I couldn't get it to work in my phone. I then spent the evening on the beach, watching the waves rolling in and the sun slowly going down, the horizon going golden and the shadows lengthening. Crabs scuttled across the sands and a long canoe like fishing boat crossed the bay. Small song birds skipped through the trees eating from their large seed pods. After dinner, I played pool with my fellow travellers, then retired to my tent under starry skies and listened to the rhythm of the waves on the shore to help me fall into sleep and dreams of Africa.Read more