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Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
  • Michi, der
  • Franze Dude
  • Michi, der
  • Franze Dude

Let’s bring Sauna into Africa

South Africa to Germany – at least a try. Read more
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  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Kili is hiding ...
    ... so I shift my interest to MeruEntering region northeast of MeruDancing donkeyToilet with Kili view

    Wherever I may roam

    April 1, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    From lake Jipe I move west. My instinct calls for the savannah. Today's destination? Unclear. I just don't know! What should I make any decision for? I cannot cross any border nor do I have any certain plan for flying out to Germany. Actually, I don't even really care right now. The flights have ugly connections and/or are way too expensive. Here it's Paradise, there it's third world war (which China already won ;-). I wait for more details from the foreign office.

    So, in-between I try to find the true peace for my soul. Climbing Kili? Next time maybe. It results in pure stress with those guided tourist-bullshit-tours. In this country you are not allowed to do anything on your own! They catch you in every corner and want to squeeze money out of you. Even for shitting in the thorny bush you are obliged to pay a guide! They say, climbing Kili is 500-1000 USD and you have to pay a dude to carry your stuff. And what if I didn't want anybody to carry my dirty equipment??

    During these days I discover an improved way of travelling. Having even less of a plan than normally gives me more time for coffee stops, even time for decoration with carrot-pineapple cake (at Union Cafe in Moshi). It results in just 100-130 km per day instead of 200-400. And I tell you, 300 km here in the "wild" is already stress, rushing hectic with 12 h driving when having merely 13 h of daylight. Moshi is friendlier than expected but my car is being guarded by a friendly dude with a pump-action shotgun! I have to leave civilization. Fast!

    Anyway, this Kilimanjaro is a lie. Not to be seen anywhere. Thanks to OpenStreetMap I find some veeeery narrow, tiny, little paths through pretty farmland leading southwest around the hiding Kili. A meditational drive which gets even prettier once I enter the open pastures northeast of Mt. Meru. It's a hard cultural cut, now being dominated primarily by herding Masai whereas the region southwest of Kili was by "some mixed type of farmers" (sorry, don’t know all the different tribes with their habits yet). Today’s whole drive I unnoticedly climb around 1000 m and end up on 1500 m in the Mkuru eco camp, led by the local Masai community. The wonderful afternoon sunlight keeps me from progressing. I spend more time on top of my roof rack than behind the wheel. Finally some fresh air up here!    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Thomson'sEasy peasyIf life offers two paths, take both!Some kind of a roadDamn, down there would have been more fun!Bumper tuning

    "Keep well to the west"

    April 2, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Yeah! Via Longido up north near the Kenyan border I turn west, deeply into Maasai territory. With a detour of 20 km on dirt I deliver one hitch-hiking Maasai to the next village but this ends up in a never ending Maasai taxi because at each drop-off point there are waiting the next five guys for a lift somewhere else down the road :D After delivering the second warrior I stop this trend.

    Thanks for the detour I have to crawl through some awesome tiny paths which are usually used by motorbikes only (they’re mapped in OpenStreetMap!). The landscape gets wilder as I’m surrounded by acacia bushes and open grass patches. Surprisingly the cattle is joined by zebras and Thomson’s gazelles! Free-roaming wildlife, finally! This region here is one of the few last corridors for wildlife migrating north from Arusha National Park. I assume it intersects neatly with migration corridors coming from Serengeti and Ngorongoro areas. In all this adventure with wild paths my car gets a “natural tuning improvement” on the left side of my front bumper =)    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Coming from the east, Ol Doinyo Lengai left, Gelai right
    Mt. KitumbeineMt. KerimasiFrom Kerimasi to KitumbeineBlue wildebeests

    Waaahoooonderful!

    April 2, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    Squeezing between Mt. Kitumbeine and old volcano Gelai I slowly descend into the East African Rift Valley where the Ngorongoro caldera builds up in front of me with the face of Ol Doinyo Lengai, the holy Maasai mountain! This active volcano is the world’s only producing natrocarbonatite lava. Don’t know what this means (Wikipedia knows) but it sounds pretty scientific and in some way I am part of it! :-P Grey soil is dominating the landscape due to the unique volcanic mineral structure. A small Maasai village pops up, surrounded by thorny branches as protection against lions and white invaders. The bushy vegetation vanishes and gives space to more of this thick, juicy grass and lower shrubs. Hazy hills – all having been small volcanos once – appear behind the next elevation and this is how I ride into the dusk. No human beings around for hours.

    I turned south by now, paralleling the caldera and the further I progress the more mysterious the scenery gets! Black dots appear in far distance on the endless grassscape. I come closer. Wildebeests! Zebras! Giraffes! Thomson’s gazelles! All around the place! Whaaaat the heck? Whoever told you that you have to enter Serengeti National Park to see some of the famous wildlife migration didn’t tell you that, obviously, some of these beasts will probably migrate out of the national park at one point. Here we are. I find a hideout for the night under an acacia tree between the gravel road and a dry river bed, just under Mt. Kerimasi. My inner self is pretty satisfied, let’s call it “the turn of the tide”.    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa

    Destiny never sleeps ...

    April 4, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    ... and it always knows what’s good for you.
    At the village of Magara I find an informal community campsite near their small waterfall. No infrastructure at all, just some beautiful trees. Locals are bathing and washing in the river. Very calm atmosphere. The next morning I take my time doing some computer stuff when around noon an old, thin man appears out of the bush and – without saying any word – brings some firewood. He keeps bringing more and more as I sit there and while I start packing my things to leave I think “Oh no, I don’t need any firewood. Doesn’t he see that I’m about to leave?” I say goodbye and leave.

    Nobody charged me anything for the night so I decide to search for the village’s chairman to donate something. I wait for an hour and talk to some locals. Another hour later I finish my lunch. Another hour later this chairman appears. Another hour later we’re done. So, this Saturday’s planned episode on the road is no more because it approaches 4 pm already. I decide to stay another night.

    Back at the riverbed under those huge trees with the afternoon sun I grind some Kilimanjaro coffee beans and just enjoy. The old man appears again and continues bringing firewood while I fix some things around the car and skype home.

    In the evening I have a big pile of wood near my fireplace. The old man makes some gestures to start the fire and there we go. I give him my second chair. We are friends now. He builds the fire and I prepare our dinner. At 9 p.m. he lies down next to the fire and sleeps. I give him Wurstdaniel’s yellow Air Namibia blanket.

    At 5 a.m. it starts raining heavily and as I wake up two hours later, the old man is standing under my awning. Hmm. We have breakfast with a lot of coffee. After the rain I go for the road but still this place does not want me to leave! I get stuck on the steep, now muddy track back to the main road. Huge wet stones with massive wet roots are not easy to manage after the rain. Wahooooo. Luckily, with some inspection of the environment and some more tries I manage to reverse and succeed climbing the hill with a little more momentum.    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Alamayani with wife and one daughter
    100 yo granny!Medic, chopping valuable woods and rootsMaasai riderPapaBrosPastures

    Of cows and shoats

    April 6, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 21 °C

    The whole idea of getting here is to visit my personal Maasai warrior Alamayani in his village Lembapuli. I get introduced to the huge family and offered to sleep in a Maasai hut :-D The chairman takes his time to welcome me and I even meet Alamayani's 100 years old grandma! It is a pretty awesome privilege to be here in this natural environment without any touristic setting. I did not expect them to be Christians as they start to pray in the evening for my well-being and the success of my travels. Woah!

    Alamayani has three daughters and two boys, his dad two wifes. All members are interleaving amazingly in their every-day habits of caring about the kids, the cattle and the household. They prepare meals in their simple, lightless huts over open fires without any chimney. The smoke just accumulates inside and exits through the entrance gap. This is also the place where we sleep and all my stuff smells like bacon the next morning :-D
    In the morning and evening we have herbal tee based on fresh milk and simple ugali or rice. Though, on my arrival a chicken has to leave its soul to the gods of the holy frying pan ...

    The next morning I get a tour around the village where the brotherhood shows me some 10-20 medicinal herbs in the bush. I taste all of them and feel a bit funny after this episode. It is truly amazing how they integrate in their surrounding nature. Every piece of bush and land has its purpose. The less important shrubs they cut for tooth brushes :-P    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa

    Pushing rains uphill

    April 8, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 18 °C

    Again I climb into the Usambara mountains and join two other overlanding Germans, Jutta and Gerd, in Lushoto at the Paradise Eco Lodge where we are hosted by Uwe from Germany who is living here with his Tanzanian wife, 3 kids and his mom. With me I bring rain for the next three days.

    Jutta and Gerd are travelling in their mobile home, an old Bundeswehr Kategorie-1 4x4 truck (13-litre air-cooled V8 diesel), through the world without any time schedule and within the last 4-5 years they managed to get from Germany around the Arabic peninsula not further than down to here. Wonderful! :-D They tell me many valuable things about the coming countries up north on my planned route and also motivate me to think about Oman. I enjoy family breakfasts, lunches and dinners and finally continue "back home" to Mambo View Point over Easter.

    Check out Jutta's and Gerd's website: https://im-kat-zuhause.jimdofree.com    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa

    The decision has been made

    April 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌙 23 °C

    "Tits, or destiny?!" his apostle asked as they united again. "Tits!!" Cheesus cheered, still feeling a bit dizzy from his short trip through hell. And off they went to teach mankind all the different ways of Metal we worship today.

    In a similar way my adventure could have continued under different circumstances but history's random function is just about to introduce a yet untold episode into the current testament and, as usual, a project's milestone has to be postponed.

    After three weeks of struggling I see little perspective in holding my position here. All borders northwards are closed and no visas are being issued. Further, April's emerald season reveals more and more of its wet and muddy face wherever I try to escape. Moving around inside of Tanzania becomes uncomfortable. Shipping my car out from here would kill the rest of my budget and is hardly possible at all right now. The flights out of Tanzania have been reduced to one company and rumors are that also these will be stopped soon due to lack of passengers. Waiting longer I will risk to get stuck indefinitely which would lead to a deadlock because there would be no possibility to get me and the car back home in time. I rather try to "rescue" my remaining two months and return later with a perspective to continue.

    This lazy day ends with Coq au Vin and Polish buraczki, yum yum!    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Caught in the cloud

    Pierogi party

    April 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 18 °C

    Polish Easter on the hill top. Dagmara made her own cheese for the filling! Together with a German-Polish volunteer and four other guests we have it cozy here.

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Press release today :-\1The last would have been on 9th!

    The decision has been unmade

    April 14, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 27 °C

    Booked a flight back home for April 16th on 10th. On 11th the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) locked down the airspace for commercial civil flights which was not well communicated through the media. First public notifications on that appeared on 12th. On 13th in the morning Ethiopian (I booked through their partner Lufthansa) still listed my flight as bookable and its status as "green". So I quickly descended from Mambo into Dar in a 10-hours cruise. Even on 13th in the afternoon I was still able to prepone my flight from the 16th on the 14th on the telephone, just to increase the chance of catching a flight. And now, on 14th in the morning, all the world seems to know that all flights are suspended since 11th, except for Lufthansa. I phoned them again to tell them "Yeah, boys, look, your flight is no more.". "Oh, thanks for the info Mr. Michael.". They checked in some kind of "2nd system" and there they found that it is not scheduled any more. Surprise. Can anyone tell me why this information flow is so damn difficult in our digital era and why I as a customer have to hassle with it myself?

    I have to admit that last week the German embassy pushed very clearly to get on the soonest flight possible. As if they knew of the coming lockdown. There will be no further repatriation flights because we had the possibility to hop on a regular Ethiopian flight for several weeks until now. I can follow that but still would have expected some announced deadlines. Next time I know better ;-)

    I will wait 1-2 more days here at Eckhard's place where I would have left the car. Then I probably will be ascending back into Usambara mountains to move into a cozy cottage with Kilimanjaro view. Eckhard moved to Dar 40 years ago and was running a truck workshop until 4 years ago. And bet what? He is from Brauni-Braunschweig. An epic facial expression he had when he read my number plate yesterday :-D    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Credits to Dagmara!14Kili unhiding 190 km away!View north into KenyaCasuarina equisetifoliaOur cozy dining room

    Caught in the mist

    April 23, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 18 °C

    A week ago I arrived back home in Mambo where I moved into a tiny cottage. Every day I wake up at 0630 to glimpse in the direction of Kili but Kili is hiding most of the time and I fall asleep again. The night guard fires up the water oven after 0700 and I can enjoy a hot shower some 30 mins later. Most of the time I am covered in clouds and it is quite fresh (below 20 Celsius) with full air humidity which makes all bed sheet and things moist. Rainy season at its high tide, there is no escaping. One sunny day I had where I planted a small pine tree next to the main building.

    On sunday I was put on the waiting list of a Dutch repatriation flight to Amsterdam which is leaving today. I obviously did not get a seat and also I was very disappointed with the communication flow because the notifications have been sent yesterday where I would not have been able to get back to Dar in time anyway. Told this to the embassies on Tuesday already ...

    Two times I was asked to pull Philipp out of the mud as he got stuck with the organisation's car. That was fun! My Toyota is a tank and simply does not care about clumsy terrain. Philipp is a German volunteer working for the local NGO JamiiSawa in establishing a water board for the whole Usambara mountain region because the current situation is pretty chaotic (fucked up I would name it). He is surveying data about water sources in the forest, pipelines and about reservoirs and pumps near the villages. As destiny calles for me, I help him to bring all the geodata together in QGIS and will make another GIS warrior out of him. He did not realise yet but he is very motivated in working on his new profession :-D He studied industrial engineering in Braunschweig (lol) and is subscribed to an online master's of environmental systems in Berlin now. I am slowly soaked into the activities of JamiiSawa as well.

    We made pierogi twice and today we are working on the third badge, this time with cabbage. For lunch there is barszcz ukrainski and the next days gołąbki will complete our menu. There is no way to stop Dagmara in her business. I just got freshly baked cinnamon rolls served =)    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    *meow*
    Infested caterpillarCoconut bowl production facilityGołąbki!!!Pasta time, credits to DagmaraGerman bikersBed office

    Strange creatures everywhere

    May 2, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Days pass by like pieces of a bar of chocolate. I didn’t have good chocolate for months though! Two weeks since I returned here and in a few days I have to extend my visa again. I can spend a whole day chasing the dogs or petting the cat, watching the clouds or letting a chameleon climb from my sleeve through the beard on my head. Strange creatures everywhere. Lizards eating spiders half of their own size, for example. In the invasive black wattle trees I found a caterpillar carrying several tiny, vertical cocoons on its back. Nobody knew what that was. I did some research. It turns out to be a caterpillar which has been blessed by a parasitoid wasp of the Braconidae family. Theses wasps lay eggs under the skin of caterpillars. The larvae then feed on the caterpillar’s juices while the caterpillar keeps marching on and harvesting the plants of his desire. Finally, the larvae exit his body and build their cocoons on his outside while he continues his daily business. Here we go. I put the caterpillar in a box and made him my experiment. His name is Donald.

    Meanwhile I planted a few more trees and enjoy the extraordinary food. Eggs on home-made bread, tomatoes and cheese, tons of bush avocado, local orange marmalade, fresh juices and cereals with yoghurt for breakfast. Spinach pies, Polish gołąbki, self-made pasta or potato salads and rich soups for lunch and/or dinner. Banana or guava bread with coffee and chai masala in between.

    One day Jutta and Markus on two German KTM motorbikes came for a coffee. They travel "from north to south", stay in Lushoto right now and were on a day trip around the mountains. As it gets colder Philipp and I spend the evenings at the fire and I regularly use my oven in the cottage. I like to sit in my bed and do crappy stuff on the computer, like writing this blog post, while listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve 'n' Seagulls, Snarky Puppy or Slagsmålsklubben ;-) Now and then I support the local organisation with geodata expertise and empower the people with QGIS. Preferably also from my bed office. On Monday I will restart working remotely in Germany in far-from-home-office style. Exciting!    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Drum beats on dog headsGPXReward

    Cave hike

    May 3, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    This Sunday is hiking day and we explore some caves north of Mambo. Far more impressive are the great views we get from the rocks above the caves!

    Unfortunately during the hike one of the dogs tries to snack a sheep and we are forced to buy it from the owner. At the lodge it gets treatment and joins Dolly, the other sheep which has been attacked by a dog before. Two days later while trying to perform in home officing I will be going to witness sheep legs, a sheep's head and sheep ribs being carried through our premises. Dolly is alone again.Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    The snorkel!! :-D

    Bday

    May 16, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Means breakfast day! I get surprised in the morning with my beloved avocado eggs having two candles on top, with bean upgrade and coriander, guava juice and coffee! Everything is well cat-proof due to homeopathic doses of chili powder. All morning staff and the dogs join the visit and I start the day with sun in my face, yay!

    Meanwhile my folks far at home gathered around video conferencing tools to sing nightly Geburtstagsständchen and a warm-hearted friend of the Scotch Schölling family even composed a bagpipe song for me. Awesomeness! =)

    For lunch Jutta and Gerd from Lushoto join us. They arrived with Uwe and two Italian cyclist who also travel around the world for 6 years already. We have pizza with cheese crust and some beers in the sun. Dinner preparation is defined by a huge pierogi manufacturing chain. Yum, what a tasty day! From Dagmara I get a nice wooden carving of my Land Cruiser :-D    Read more

  • Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
    Morning workout in front of Kili (dim snow peak in top centre)
    Examining a wood mushroomoha

    *meow*

    May 19, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Oh this cat! Around a month ago she was brought here from the other manager's home in order to catch some mice around the administration building, although being advanced in pregnancy. But directly in the beginning she disappeared and gave birth to her cubs in some hidden place. Not surprising considering the two to seven dogs strolling permanently around our premises.
    A few days after she reappeared but nobody was able to tell where the kittens were hiding. For many days we even didn't know if she still was feeding them because in our understanding she spent way too much time around the main cottage begging for food and just sleeping on a pillow. And she seemed to keep her milk. Later she got quite annoying and scavenged for days and days around the main cottage, peeked in every corner, under every part of the straw roof, meowing desperately as if in search for her babies. She also got more attached to us, demanding love and cuddles.
    We suspected that she stopped producing milk as her teats appeared to be empty. She had a favourite place under the roof where she constantly went during her searches and where I managed to crawl once but I did not find any traces of offsprings. Finally, we decided that her little ones must have been looted or that she rejected them.
    She calmed down and somehow decided to hang out most of her time with me now. Wherever I walk around the lodge, she follows me like a dog and keeps dancing between my legs so that I have to take care not to step on her or to kick her around occasionally. She likes to fall back and then, full of energy, she speeds like a cheetah, rushes up a tree next to me just to jump down again and meow at me.
    For a few days now she follows me into my cottage in the evenings and, after cleaning her coat and also licking my fur, she curls up into a warm ball of cosiness on my pillow, just between my shoulder and my ear, having no problem to stay there for 12 hours.
    Once she brought me a tick as a present and I burned it satisfyingly until it released a delightful "pff". We like each other. Apart from souvenirs from the bush she is very clean and good-smelling! She chases off any single dog or other cat and tries to disturb my telephone conferences in every manner by purring into the mic. During her most affectionate greetings she looks straight into my eyes, puts her ears to the side, her paws around my neck and attacks me by chewing and ripping on my beard and gently biting into my chin. Or is she actually trying to kill me? What a wonderful, delicate, mysterious, tiny, little creature! But, our claw-free adventure might soon be interrupted by some interesting news from the embassy ...

    Meanwhile I read some pages in "Born Free" by Joy Adamson where she describes episodes of a lioness being released into Kenya's wilderness and producing cubs there. In Joy's detailed narrations the lioness behaves quite similarly to my cat at hand - also seeming not to produce any milk during the early weeks while spending a lot of time in camp - and I have the feeling that our kitty still might be hiding her little monsters somewhere and that she's just a professional in deceiving all of us.    Read more

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