American Life In The Summertime #10 - Tanzania

23 March 2008

Now I am not one for broad generalizations, but Tanzanians are without doubt the worst drivers in the world. We got spoiled initially in Kenya: our tour guide, driver and cook are all Kenyan and during the game drives in the Kenyan safari parks they displayed almost telepathic understanding as we would slowly crawl up to an animal in the big blue truck, cut the engine a respectable distance away and roll to a stop perfectly in front of the creature, whereupon we could then contemplate each other it in a calm and reflective manner. After the group had taken all the photos they wanted, our driver would then roll the truck slowly away and start the engine some distance off before proceeding on our way, to the enjoyment of all. However due to some minor neighbour spat, Kenyans are not allowed to work in Tanzania without specific permits, and none of the overland truck companies bother getting their guides certified for all the countries they visit along the way. Tanzania specifically refuses to turn a blind eye to Kenyan guides "working" in their country, and so all the Tanzanian game park segments are farmed off to a local Tanzanian safari company, while our Kenyan guides hang out at the campsite in Arusha for 3 days drinking beer and playing pool.

Tanzanians drive as if they figure they may as well run over the animal before anyone else does. On the way to the parks, a drive of some 4 hours, it was a little disconcerting to be on a 2 lane country road racing another vehicle in the oncoming lane trying to overtake us, as well as another on the dirt shoulder of the road on our side and another on the opposite shoulder, all trying to stay in front of each other up a hill on a blind corner. Speed humps (of which there are many in Tanzania) are viewed as an obstacle to be driven around at speed (suggesting that the naming of them should perhaps have been given more thought) and lead to many a surprised local leaping out of the way while only moments before going about their business on the footpath in the same calm reflective manner of the Kenyan game parks. At least twice in the Serengeti our driver was traversing up the road sideways himself, another time he had to intentionally ditch into the embankment to avoid colliding with an oncoming vehicle, and once we rounded another blind corner at a goodly pace to find an LPG tanker approaching us sideways, a-la Terminator 2. Fortunately the tanker driver was able to recover before it was hasta la vista baby, and proceed past us in a more sober fashion. On another occasion we happened across another vehicle almost on its side in the ditch at the side of the road, and after only the briefest stopping and exchange of Swahili our driver simply handed the unfortunate other driver a bottle of water before speeding off.

In contrast to the Kenyan parks, in Tanzania we would generally skid from many metres away to an abrupt halt in front of the startled beast, blanketing the immediate area in a cloud of dust and obscuring vision for about the next 4 minutes. Birds are rendered unable to fly for the remainder of the day due to a thick coating of fertile African soil on their wings. Approximately 0.4 seconds after the dust has begun to clear and you are finally reaching for your camera the driver abruptly skids off again, leading to a fine collection of photographs of blurry animals' arses to add to the crisp ones you have from Kenya. On our final drive on the way out of the Serengeti we came upon a large truck coating the road in a new layer of mud, as they must have decided there was a shortage (although I saw no evidence of this). Our driver considered this a personal insult to have someone else on the road, and so the 2 vehicles approached each other at ever-slowing speeds until finally they were literally corner to corner, touching bumpers. It was the world's most avoidable accident. Neither was willing to move even half a foot off the road onto the less prestigious shoulder. We were, I remind you, driving an off-road vehicle. There followed another long stream of several minutes' worth of abusive Swahili, translating to, at a guess, "I wish there was a shorter word for 'Dickhead'". Then each started up again with about 2 millimetres clearance and negotiated this delicate passing at speeds approximating a jetliner at takeoff, and we were back on our way.

Tanzania also takes the prize for most enthusiastic and creative bribery. Bribery is a fact of life in Africa, with the public, especially mzungu, routinely being stopped by officials in uniform for infractions such as "incorrect tyre pressure". The "fine" of course is paid directly to the official, although people have now become wise to this and have started to insist on being taken to a police station to pay the fine, and receiving a receipt. This immediately leads to a reduction in the fine to be let off with a "warning", as long as the reduced payment, again, is made directly to the official. So with enough patience & time to waste, you can call their bluff & wait it out & insist on being taken to a police station until they decide you're not going to crack and wave you on your way, but if you have a plane to catch or somewhere to be, it's often easier to pay them to be let go. One of the girls on our tour was telling us about a guy on her previous tour who was fined for wearing camouflage cargo shorts in the vicinity of troops wearing same. I should point out that you cannot move 5 feet in Africa without encountering some form of armed official in uniform: police, military, security guards, kindergarten teachers etc. No matter that the officials were merely guarding the entrance to a game park, this was a serious breach of national security and money would have to change hands in penance. Given that the tour had to get to the campsite before dark, the poor guy had no choice but to pay to allow the group to move on. I should also mention that the poor guy's luggage had been lost on arrival and he did not receive it for the entire duration of his tour, and had been getting by with borrowed gear from the rest of his group, so it was actually someone else's borrowed shorts that he was fined for wearing, which is the part I liked very much.

In the Serengeti our campsite had an enclosed cage with a lockable door housing all the cooking facilities etc to protect it from animals, and upon arrival our professional Tanzanian guides and drivers immediately proceeded to set up their own tents in the cage, leaving us to set up in the open wilds of Africa. In the Serengeti campsites, this is truly wild: at one of the bars I was speaking to a girl whose group had woken up one morning in the same Serengeti campsite to find 9 lions in the campsite. One of the guys woke up with a lion snuggled up against him on the outside of the tent wall. I woke up to find the tree under which I had pitched my tent with fresh claw marks on it, which were solemnly identified as leopard but looked suspiciously like 4 parallel pocket knife cuts (I suspect the guides rather like to beef up the supposed danger of the sites). We didn't have any lions but so far in our campsites we have had elephants, buffalo and I'm claiming leopard: a few lions and a black rhino and we'll have the Big 5 in camp, which I think would be a rather unique achievement.

The cage is useful however for protection from the biggest pests in the campsites, baboons. Baboons will steal your food and raid your tent and jump into your truck and bite you and give you rabies. In the Maasai Mara we had a large family of baboons living in a huge tree above our site over the river, and it must also be said that baboons do like to make a racket. Quite often as the sun went down you would hear them burst into some minor argument and chase each other around the branches, whereupon eventually some common ground would be achieved and they would all settle down to apologise and have a nice group shag to make up. I can't say I fault their logic. Then the noise would start up again soon after with them all screaming at each other - I'm no expert in Baboon but at a rough guess the majority of the argument appeared to be something approximating "Dude cut it out, that's my sister" and "Dude it's OK, she's my sister too". We would often gather to watch and hope to see one of the baboons finally make a misstep and fall off into the river, but for all the energetic chasing and arguments they were amazingly agile and never once slipped. Then, on the last night, just as it got fully dark, the tree erupted in absolute bedlam with every member of the family screaming, jumping and running around the branches. After some minutes the noise abruptly ceased completely - total silence - followed a half-second later by the sound of a baboon-sized object hitting the water, which was greeted by many cheers from the fed-up campers. It takes a lot to amuse us on safari.

After Tanzania the plan was to head to Uganda, but once again the stone-age internet connections will see me home before I finish this update, so as the great Jerry Springer says: 'till next time, take care of yourselves.....and each other.