Mikumi is the second largest game reserve in Tanzania. It is the size of a small country.
It rained like Noah's flood the night we were to leave. We got up at 5am. It was still pouring with rain.
Twenty kilometres from the start along the dirt road to the junction with the main road to Dar es Salaam it was clear that there were sounds from the Toyota’s drive train that suggested some mechanical discomfort. The big Landcruiser was literally limping and at the junction with the tarred road, the duty policeman told us without saying a word that one wheel was splayed outwards: he raised both hands, one straight up and the other at an angle.
Hammad, the driver, took us across the road, made some inquiries and stopped in flat bit of the bus stop on the tarred road, then jacked the car up.
It took four hours to dismantle and reassemble the left front axle: wheel, end caps, retaining rings, hub and then the stub shaft, which was broken and shattered looking. The call for a replacement went to the Toyota dealer in Dodoma, about fifteen kilometres away. The boss’s phone, in Morogoro, paid by M-Pesa for the part. A contact in Dodoma went to fetch the part, but Toyota insisted on seeing the original. A motorbike (a budda-budda, the universal short distance taxi) was dispatched with the broken part, and finally the replacement arrived with oil seals, grease, new bearings and everything.
Five people had appeared from nowhere, and a small, almost invisible cafe had supplied food for all of us. Chapati, boiled eggs, bites. The cost was for the part. The labour was because Tanzanians work for each other as much as for themselves.
We drove off, late, and had late supper at our hotel.
Later the Toyota Landcruiser broke its oil cooler and flooded the engine with cooling water, so we had a ride home in one of those taxis I had a moan about: very different, because this was a private car in very good condition. Really quiet, like a limo. Air conditioning, electric windows, three rows of seats. Not punchy performance wise, because average speeds in Tanzania are very low. There may be a few turbochargers in the cities, on the cars that stay on the tar.
Mikumi is a huge flat savannah with river beds and swamps, surrounded by low mountains. The main road from Dar es Salaam to Zambia and countries south west runs through the middle of the reserve. Speed is very restricted. We met elephants on the road the first morning we were out. It is like a huge sigh of relief, but don’t breath too deeply or you’ll swallow a mosquito.
We saw most things worth seeing. Lions, elephants, bishop birds, storks, vultures, giraffes, buffalo, wildebeest, hippos, impala, duiker, starlings, sunbirds, owls, eagle owls, butterflies, weaver birds, jackal, monitor lizard, soldier ants, colobus monkeys, hornbills, black mamba, house snake, warthog, also saw trees in huge variety, some for timber, some for medicine, some not to be touched because they make you sick, and we heard a massive chorus of frogs. The frogs had had a good night and were singing out.
We climbed a bit of a mountain: 750m only, but the whole climb was like a slalom up the side of the rain forest. That is quite a special thing for us townies - real, old, like this for thousands of years, peopled by monkeys on a steep escarpment face, exploited by humans since they could exploit, and really part of the Garden of Eden. We so much fancy our Stonehenge and ancient cathedrals - they are nothing compared to the oldness of the forest. Except the soldier ants. "Mind the soldier ants" said the guide, and an hour later we were still beating ourselves where an ant had found its way up our trousers to get revenge on our mere presence in their domain. One of them took revenge on a particular part of my domain as well.
The black mamba was a baby. They can kill you even when they are just hatched. Only about eight people have ever survived a black mamba bite.
Stayed in local hotels. One was OK, the next was seriously neglected, the next was good and had air conditioning that was quiet so we slept with a thin blanket for the first time.
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