I stayed 2 nights in Kakamega and went on my bike to the Kakamega rainforest. It was wet and dense and once you are in it, you see only plants and trees and occasionally monkeys. Then I cycled to Kisumuo at the shores of Lake Victoria. Western Kenya is home to the Luo people and their leader Raila Odinga’s headquarter is Kisumu. Raila Odinga and his father Odinga Odinga has run for president since Kenya’s independence, but never succeeded. So, the Luo are in constant opposition. Presidents of Kenya have been from Kikuyu tribe lead by the Kenyatta family and Kalenjin who represents the Nilotic people of the northwest. Still, I am met by people who claim that tribe identity has no relevance anymore. But when I ask people in western Kenya who they support, it is almost entirely Raila Odinga and when I ask people around Mt. Kenya they will usually support Kikuyu candidate Kenyatta. Kalenjin seems to get power by being successful in creating alliances. But whenever there are opposition protests in Kenya, they are usually arranged by Odinga supporters. It’s a scary development. I was told was that some politicians now promote tribalism. That has happened within Luhya tribe in Mt. Elgon area where some politicians now try to establish political power in a district based on tribal identity.
In Kisumustayed a couple of nights at a guest house near the lake. I learned that it is about 1200 hippos in Lake Victoria, but we saw none. I continued to Homa Bay, partly cycling and minibus when the traffic became unbearable. I got a very affordable room in a government hotel in a park near the lake and decided to stay 2 nights.
There is a small national park just half an hour from Homa Bay, Ruma National Park. I hired a taxi and went there next morning. The park is large enough to feel the wilderness and have a lot of giraffes, zebras, buffaloes and antelopes, but also a number of rhinos. I spotted 3 of them at a distance.
From Homa Bay I continued cycling towards Tanzania border. In the afternoon, we got heavy showers, and I ended up in an old colonial style hotel some 20 km from Tanzania border. The border crossing from Kenya to Tanzania at Isibania the next day went surprisingly smooth. It took not more than 5 minutes to check out of Kenya, get a 3 Month visa to Tanzania for 50 USD and the stamp in the passport. Well in Tanzania, found an ATM to get some cash and a Vodaphone shop to get a Tanzanian SIM card and continued cycling southwards. It was wonderful cycling through the very lush green landscape, and I ended up in the town of Tarime where I again got a very comfortable hotel for a low price. They had a big modern half outdoor bar and restaurant establishment with music, happy people, beer and good food. I had a good evening chatting with the locals.
The next day I continued cycling southwards through the hills along east shore of Lake Victoria. In spite of being the main highway connecting Kenya and Tanzania, it is not much traffic. When I was walking a long uphill slope, I met a tall guy who was asking me for money. I gave him a small note. He didn’t look too thankful but continued to walk downwards. I was near the top of the hill when I saw that he started running back towards me, but I was already on my bike and speeded up fast enough to escape. But it was scary. A couple of kilometres’ further on there was a police control. I stopped to talk about my experience and to get advice. In their opinion the area is generally safe, but I should be cautious of lonely individuals in areas without other people in sight. I continued and did about 75 km when rain started, and I jumped on a crowded minibus for the last 20 km to the Bunda town. I found a very nice backpacker place and got a nice stay in a bungalow for 2 nights. It was lots to do in the area from climbing the mountain behind to cycle down to Little Okavango delta which is a protected area along the shores of Lake Victoria and an extension of Serengeti National Park.
The lady owner told me about her father from Norway where she had stayed for a while, but she had decided to go back to run this very nice guesthouse. She also helped me to arrange for a Landcruiser and driver who could take me through Serengeti from the west to the southeast.
When we reached the Serengeti West Gate the next morning, it turned out that the driver Esekiel also picked up his wife and two-year-old baby to join us for the trip which was ok for me. I sat in the back with open roof. Serengeti was very green due to the abundance of rain this year. Even though the rainy season is not optimal for animal viewing, we saw a lot of wildlife. The highlight was when we spotted some lions a couple of hundred metres from the track. We driver took us nearer and it turned out to be about 24 lions laying around, resting. I have never seen so many lions at one spot. A few kilometres further on, we came near to two lions resting under a tree. Later, we also saw tree climbing lions. It took us most of the day to reach our night camp in central Serengeti. That is the area where most of the tourists arrives from Arusha via Ngorongoro crater. Most luxury lodges are located here. We had got a moderately priced government lodge but had dinner and breakfast in Seronera wildlife lodge. We saw many elephants and even many baby elephants in this area.
Early next morning we continued the road towards Ngorongoro crater. I was amazed that we were lucky to see the great migration from Masai Mara in the northwest to south east Serengeti. Tens of thousands of animals, mostly gnu and zebras were moving while lions and hyenas were waiting for a meal. I had seen it once before, in Masai Mara in Kenya, but it was even mightier to see them at the great plains of southern Serengeti.
When we left Serengeti, we passed Olduvai Gorge where the first humans, homo sapiens lived or rather where the oldest traces of humans have been found. The gap between Serengeti and Ngorongoro you will also see several Masai villages. The entire area and the Ngorongoro crater itself is so much greener than when I was there in 1977. At that time it was drought, but this year it has been rain in abundance (which is in line with IPCC climate report 2022 which predicts increased rain and greenery in eastern central Africa). We had seen so many animals that we never went into the crater but stopped at the Serena Lodge at the edge of the crater where I had been in 1977. Then we continued to Manyara where I dropped off.
A relaxing day in Manyara and then I cycled towards Arusha. This is Masai land, and I passed several Masai villages. They tried to make some commerce on tourism and there are many ongoing projects to improve their life. It has been quite much publicity about conflict between cattle herders and national parks where foreign (mostly European and American) activist groups protest Tanzanian governments efforts to resettle Masais. The problem is that the number of Masais has 4 doubled the last 50 years, so this conflict is real. It is impossible to accommodate all the new Masais to the traditional style of living without destroying the national parks that are so vital to the environment of Africa. During my journey I asked Masais several times why they had given up cattle breeding. Most Masais are very realistic people, and the answer I got was: “We have become too many”. As usual, the activist groups portray this as a conflict between the victims and the ugly, where the government is seen as supporting luxury tourism at the expense of the Masais. But the green lungs of the national parks are so vital to the life of all Tanzanian people. As elsewhere in the world, it is unavoidable that the way of life must change and develop when people become to many on a planet with limited resources.
When I reached the trans African highway between Arusha and Dodoma, the traffic was too dangerous, and I jumped on a bus to Arusha. I got a call, from my always helpful friend Christian in Sweden. He was running a special travel company, Les och Res (Read and Travel) for decades and he put me in contact with their travel guide in Tanzania who happened to pass Arusha the same evening. It was raining and while enjoying a dinner with travel guide Hamisi, he proposed that I could come and stay at his farm in Babati, the regional capital of Manyara Region.
Babati is located along the highway from Arusha to Dodoma where Hamisi rent a house. I had a very interesting stay his house the next 5 days. He took me to the nearby lake where it used to be many hippos. He told me that they could come running along the highway and several people got killed. This is far from the national parks, so they decided to reduce the number by hunting. We went to Hamisi’s farm the next day. I met his father, and I participated in the planting of corn together with 3 young men from the village. Hamisi has the ambition to develop the farm with scientific methods. I learned that most farmers used sub quality seeds and had not funds to buy proper fertilizer. When I checked FAO webpage, I learned that there is a huge potential to increase the agricultural production in Tanzania. Currently, they are constructing a fertiliser factory north of Babati which hopefully will reduce the cost of fertilizer that grew very high due to the war in Ukraine. There are many signs that Africa tries to reduce its dependence on supply from other continents.
The next day Hamisi took me to his new farmland further away, far from any paved road. His ambition is to buy more land and develop a big modern farm. We also engaged in a small aid project since I had bought footballs for school children and biscuits to be distributed.
We went for a full day to Tarangire National Park which main gate is about 30 km north of Babati. It was a day full of rewards in the spectacular landscape, especially because we saw lions on the ground as well as the tree climbing lions.
After 5 days I decided to continue towards the south from Babati and Hamisi was kind enough to drive me to Kondoa Rock Painting Park almost halfway to Dodoma. We did the trekking in Kondoa mountains to see the stone age rock paintings and got a spectacular view of Tanzanian landscape.
Dodoma is located in the dryest part of Tanzania and was decided to be Tanzania’s new capital during Julius Nyerere’s reign in the mid 1970ties. It is still a small city with the new Parliament building in the outskirts. They are now trying to develop a new administrative centre in the middle of nowhere some 12 km from town centre. I am afraid that it will not be popular among government employees to move from Dar es Salaam. I am afraid it will be a sterile new planned artificial capital. I cycled towards Dar es Salaam but had to give up when I reached the new administrative centre and turned back. It was far too much traffic. No space for bicycles and too much pollution from old trucks. I decided to use public transport all the way to the ferry to Mafia Island some 100 km south of Dar es Salaam.
The ferry departs from a small settlement in a dense mangrove forest, and it takes 4 hrs on the overcrowded ferry. We docked in Mafia at 10 pm. I unfolded my bike and cycled until I found a decent hotel. The next day I cycled to a very nice backpacker bungalow hotel at the beach. In the evening, I felt great pain in my right stomach region. It became worse and lasted the whole night. Intense pain made it almost impossible to sleep. I called my daughter in the morning to discuss options for what to do. Suddenly the pain disappeared, and I thought it just had been food poisoning of some kind. I stayed for 2 weeks in Mafia and cycled to the national park at the other side of the island. I joined groups to swim with whale sharks twice. I thought it would be scary, but it was a mind-blowing calming experience to swim near those huge fishes, some more than 15 metres long.
Well back in a traveller’s hotel at the beach south of Dar es Salaam I got the stomach pain again and another painful sleepless night. I went to see the Aga Khan Medical Centre. After some tests and ultrasound investigation it turned out that I had 3 big kidney stones at my right side. I was sent to Aga Khan Hospital where I got excellent service. After green light from my insurance company, I got lacer treatment 2 days later and they crushed 2 stones in the canal from the kidney. It was 1 stone left that should be treated 2 weeks later. In the meantime, I took the ferry to Zanzibar and went to the northern tip for New Year celebration. Then I cycled along the east coast of Zanzibar and back to Zanzibar city and ferry to Dar for my second treatment at Aga Khan Hospital. It went well. I eventually had to go back to Sweden for post treatment at the end of January.
Dag's travels 
So, you’re back in Sweden! It would be great to meet for a coffee or beer and talk about bike adventures!
LikeLike
Thanks for the analysis of the relations between tribe an politics in Kenya. Also for the masai land dilemma. And for the Dodoma dilemma. Nyereres time turned out to be disastrous. But it attacted lot´s of money from Sweden.
Technical problems are more scary than lions and hippos on the street. Hope you solve it!
LikeLiked by 1 person