Well girls and boys, after slothing in Kenya for far to long we are making up for lost time. Blink and you would have missed our journey through Tanzania (East Africa’s largest country) as we have now arrived in Malawi where we are soaking up a few rays at a selection of fine campsites on the beach.

            Before I continue about how much of a paradise the lake Malawi shoreline is I feel it is my duty to inform you that we have taken part in some extreme off roading and have escaped in tact. Having entered Tanzania and started to head for the town of Arusha, we decided to take the scenic route and head West into uncharted territory. With nothing more than our GPS pointer to tell us which way was South, East, North or West and a Tanzanian map that proved to lack detail in this area, we set off into the bush. We had met up again with Dan and Amy again for this Tanzanian adventure and had promised them we knew what we were doing...which was a slight bending of the truth.

            The first few hours of driving proved reasonable with a track to follow, although the dust was the worst we had ever experienced and our dust proofing proved unable to stand the test. At about lunch time the track led us to a dry water trough and set of wells with plenty of goat tracks, cow tracks and Masai tracks, but no vehicle track. Deciding the track must be somewhere we headed East hoping to run into it, but in vain. All we found was heavy bush, volcanic rock and many dry river beds to cross. We therefore tried heading West in search of the allusive track, but alas we experienced the same problem. Rather than taking the sensible option, which would have been to head back along the track we had been on and try to find a turning, instead we continued our route South pointing our  GPS arrow at Arusha some 80km away.

            We spent the next few hours weaving through dense bush trying to pick the route which wasn’t completely impenetrable all the while bumping up and down on the lava rocks and listening to the fingernails on blackboard style screeching of acacia thorns on metallic paint. Patience was wearing thin and we almost bailed out when we managed to briefly lose Dan and Amy (although they were actually only about 30 metres away) such was the thickness of the bush. Whilst looking for them we found some giraffe and zebra that looked as surprised to see a car as we were to see them.

            Eventually we bumped our way out of trouble and found wide enough animal tracks to make the going easier and at last we found a Masai village with a vehicle track departing from the other side. As the sun started to disappear we pulled off the road and made camp in order to survey the damage. We had scratched about 2000 pounds worth of value from the car, we had broken one of the wing mirrors and there was a lovely big tear in the roof tent cover. Worse of all we appeared to have knocked the fuel filter and diesel was pouring out. Luckily we had a spare one so quickly replaced it before all our fuel disappeared into the Tanzanian dust.

            The next day proved even more adventurous. Just as we had experienced the day before, a perfectly good track suddenly disappeared and left us completely stranded in the middle of nowhere. The only difference was that rather than having small river beds to cross, we had a series of gorges to traverse. Covering about 3km in three hours and having crossed three sections of gorge, we finally came to one gorge to many and neither upriver or downriver could we find a way over. After much deliberation we were left with the unenviable task of retracing our steps back to the last Masai village we had gone past (about 3hours before) and ask them if they knew about any tracks in the area.

            We got very lucky and found a school teacher that was headed to Arusha. He was about to set off on a 5 hour walk there and was therefore more than happy to hitch a ride and show us the way. Half an hour later we were back to the main road and soon found a campsite outside Arusha. We had a very testing two days braving the Tanzanian bush and were happy to find a bar to relax in. The campsite also had a snake farm (see photos), which although quite touristy it was interesting to see all the snakes we could have been bitten/eaten by while camping in the bush.

            After Arusha we once again headed across country towards Kitavi National Park in the South West of the country. En route we were attacked by tsetse flies which swarmed around the windows and forced us to swelter inside not daring to let in a breeze laden with the damned things. For those that don’t know, tsetse flies are about the size of house flies and look pretty similar. The difference lies in the fact that they are aggressive little b*****s with a nasty sting (similar but worse than a horse fly) and they are attracted to moving vehicles and bright colours. What makes them really nasty is the fact that they carry sleeping sickness, which kills you, and therefore it wasn’t much fun!

            The road was terrible to Kitavi as we drove through acres and acres of scrubby forest, and in the end it got the better of us and we had to abort our mission to Kitavi instead heading straight for the town of Mbeya near the border with Malawi and back on the main road.

            So that was the highlights of our Tanzanian adventure and now we are in Malawi having set a new border crossing record of 1 hour and zero charges – result. We have just left Chitimba Beach Campsite having thoroughly disgraced ourselves with one two many G+T’s and are stopping briefly to say hello to all at home in Mzuzu before heading for a further two nights in Nkhata Bay. Then we are off to Zambia to return to our new spiritual home – the bush. Malawi is amazing, the lake has fantastic beaches all along the shoreline and the water is clear and warm and not salty. It is like being in the Caribbean but without Bob Marley and Salt. We feel that it is a bit too easy and therefore while the rest is nice we owe it to our loyal fans to go back to making life hard for ourselves with water and fuel shortages and living off nothing but bread.

            Anyway keep checking our progress as now we hope to update more regularly, but that’s all for now as we need to get to our camp in time for a sundowners.

Over and Out