Day 57 – A night in Bagamoyo
We left Morogoro to start our month-long journey around Northern Tanzania, looking forward to seeing beaches, mountains and the world-famous national parks. We headed towards Bagamoyo as there were meant to be nice beaches there. We did a day trip to the ruins there some years ago. The place didnt impress me much then, so i thought it would be worth another visit to have a better look around as maybe i had judged it too harshly. We arrived in town around mid-afternoon, and its quite a tired scruffy-looking place. On opening the windows to get some fresh air in we had to close them pretty sharpish. There was on overpowering stench of rotting fish, rather like the fish market in Stone Town on Zanzibar. Being a Brummie, Im not partial to fish at the best of times.
We were looking for a campsite; the first one had a bad report on iOverlander: there was said to be a loud bar nearby blasting music all night. As it was a Saturday, we decided to head further out of town to avoid the noise.
We found a decent beachside campsite, with a pitch not far from the beach. The beach was a bit dirty, there were bits of rubbish floating in the water and plastic above the high tide mark. It was a bit windy, so the sunken firepit at the campsite was useful. The music and MC at the local night-club started pumping out noise fairly early, and continued until just before the hundreds of Mosques started noisily calling people to morning prayer. Soon after the Muslims quietened down, the Christians got their hands on the nightclub sound system and a preacher began loudly ranting all morning (being a sunday). So Bagamoyo is noisy, dirty and smelly. It seems my first impressions years ago were spot on.
Days 58 – 60: Pangani beaches
We decided that one night in Bagamoyo was plenty, so moved north towards a fairly remote stretch of beaches near Pangani. An old white Zimbabwean I had chatted to that morning in the campsite had said it is very nice south of Pangani. Getting there was a circuitous route around the Sadaani National Park. It is quite a unique national park in that it is coastal – you have the chance to spot wildlife coming onto unspoilt white sandy beaches. Sadaani is not highly rated amongst fellow travellers nor Tanzanians, so a drive through there was deemed not worth the expense. It is a fairly new park, and the wildlife numbers are not great yet. We would be paying hundreds of USD to look at a nice beach.
We drove to Pangani down a 30km stretch of gravel road, sampling by far the most delicious Pineapples I have ever tried before turning off the tar road from Bagamoyo. Its worth the drive just to sample these extraordinarily sweet pineapples. Getting to the campsites south of the Pangani River is via car ferry, and we got a bit lost going through Sisal plantations. There is a new coastal road being built and the diversions are a bit confusing.
We arrived at Beach Crab resort mid afternoon, and they had an amazing pitch right next to the beach. The place is very run-down. It looks like a typhoon came through there and ripped apart half the buildings. Its a bit like an abandoned Oceanside camp from the AMC Series The Walking Dead. Its a real shame as it looks to have been fantastic in its heyday. The German owners are absent and have been for some years, leaving a drunkard in charge, with his hard-working mistress (who is an excellent cook and would make a far better manager). More on this later…
Since we are mostly self-sufficient we decided to stay on this lovely beach pitch in the middle of a badly run-down campsite for 3 nights. And we really enjoyed it. The toilets & showers worked fine, although there was a persistent floater in one of the toilets (not one of ours I must add). It may still be there to this day.
We did a boat trip to Maziwe Nature Reserve, a small tidal sand island surrounded by a coral reef which is achingly beautiful. It was an amazing day in a stunning place. I got sunburned as I forgot to reapply the factor 50 after playing around in the surf with the kids. I got to teach Reece how to snorkel, and we spent about an hour and a half exploring the coral reef. The reef itself isnt that great, but it was far nicer than the Zanzibar reef i had seen on a previous trip. We shared this paradise with only one other group in another boat.
Day 61 – Zebra campsite on the Pangani River
Keen to continue our adventure northwards, we reluctantly left the beach and headed north. We stopped off at Amboni Caves in Tanga, which was quite nice. Its nothing compared to the Ardeche Caves we visited in France, but it was filled with bats. It was a pretty awesome sight to see and hear a cave-full of bats. They are noisier and smellier than you’d think. It was like being in Batmans Batcave. We then drove on to Zebra campsite on the Pangani river on the way towards Moshi. It was a nice riverside pitch, very cheap and with basic facilities. Perfect for a stop-over. The nearby town had basic street-food type restaurants. We stopped and had a local Tanzanian delicacy – ‘Chipsi-mayai,’ which is an odd dish made from chips mixed with a couple of eggs. A bit like a chippy omelette. The advantage being that they make them fresh and they are cooked hot, so chipsi-mayai is quite safe to eat in places of questionable hygeine standards.
Day 62 – Moshi stopover campsite
We arrived in Moshi needing to stock up on food and booze, so we headed to a supermarket and then stopped for food at a restaurant opposite. We got chatting with a really cool and interesting retired Dutch bloke, we invited him to eat with us so we could continue speaking to him. He suggested we headed up the hill to Maisha Khalisi campsite. When we got there the price was a bit steep – they wanted $60 USD for 1 night so we left. After a bit of driving around trying to find somewhere with decent prices we finally found Nyange Farm campsite. It was cheap, clean and very nice, with good ablutions. A great place to stay for the night.
Day 63 – Tarangire – Wild Palm Campsite
This locally-owned campsite is not far from the main tar road and dirt road access to Tarangire National Park, so is a perfect budget-friendly base to explore Tarangire. Its also not far from Lake Manyara too, although we didnt visit there. We had the campsite to ourselves for the first night, and the owners arranged a safari vehicle for us for a night drive, then a full-day drive the next day. We negotiated a price of $400 USD for the 2 game drives for 4 of us. We also had to pay park entry fees on top of this too, pay extra for a night game drive (this is a ‘special activity’) and also some extra for an armed ranger to accompany us.
The game-drive vehicle arrived, and it was not quite what we were expecting. All game drive vehicles in this area are modified Land Cruisers with glass windows (to keep out the dust). Our vehicle was an ancient open-sided Suzuki Jimny, but the Indian Maruti version. It was in terrible shape, and it had lived a long, hard life. Everything rattled, even on minor corrugations the sound was deafening. The starter motor was almost dead, and the clutch/gearbox was knackered too – the car engine needed to be switched of to change into and out of reverse.
This did make me chuckle somewhat when we were later surrounded by lions, with the almost lifeless starter motor slowly cranking the engine over.
The night drive was fantastic; we took our ‘midnight sun’ torch out with us so we had 2 searchlights to help us spot wildlife. Reece had a great time spotting animals’ eyes lurking out there in the darkness. We saw some Genets, Bush Babies, and had several lion encounters. There were very few other vehicles out in the park during the night, so we were mostly alone.
