8th July Nairobi, Kenya

There are 3 ways to get from Rwanda through western Tanzania to Dar es Salaam: the southern route is rough, sandy and rarely used, the middle route to Dodoma then on to Dar was good for a while then deteriorated we were told. Most advice was to travel the northern route through Serengeti & Ngorongoro NPs to Arusha then on down to Dar. 300kms longer but better roads with only about 70kms bad.
We took their advice. What they didn’t tell us was that apart from the 70kms of bad road, the 250 kilometres that ran through the 2 national parks was literally 250 kilometres of corrugations and sharp rock as bad as that in northern Kenya. The van suffered horribly and the drain in driving cancelled any enjoyment of seeing the animals. One blown tyre, 4 shock absorbers ruined, and a leaking cv joint. Hence our return to Nairobi which was only 270 kms from Arusha instead of the 750 km drive to Dar where the VW parts might have been harder to get. The van is at present in getting the work done, the Jungle Junction has a couple of rooms they let out.
We did see animals in Serengeti; the wildebeests were congregating ready for their annual migration, giraffes, cheetahs, topis, plenty of other antelopes and the wonderful secretary birds with their snake-stamping paddened feet. Yet they didn’t make up for the punishment the van went through. On checking out of the park I vented my spleen to the authorities on the atrocious road saying it was better 33 years ago, they apologised saying if I come back in 5 years it would be better. The Tanzanians I spoke to about it afterwards all agreed it was bad. What hurts was when we entered the country we were slapped with a $6 per 100km road tax and as we had to travel over 200kms through the country it was going to be very expensive. I got them down to ½ the original amount.
The southern part of Rwanda was as hilly as the rest of the country but seemed more populated with streams of people walking along the roads. As soon as we crossed into Tanzania the country took on a barren feel with less people. This was the Masai Steppes that continued for 100s of kilometres and where the herds of cattle watched over by the herdsmen roamed.