Tanzania

Russell writes, pics by Darren & Russell 6/7/11:

Well, normally, we quite enjoy crossing a border seeing the change that happens when entering into a new country, but Tanzania would soon prove to be bittersweet. Just when we were wondering where the adventure was on the east side, we found it in Tanzania, but not from anything we had expected. The first of the unexpected was being conned at the border by money changers. The trick they pull is to agree a rate, exchange the notes, change their minds and ask for the money back, then disappear. You look at your note and find they’ve switched it for a much smaller denomination and it’s too late, they’ve all gone. Trying not to feel bitter we rolled through the beautiful countryside all planted up with tea into the next unexpected turn.

Chala

Boom… a combined impact of at least 120 mph into the side of Darren’s right pannier, kicking the back of the bike out sending him into a huge wobble before eventually sliding the bike and himself 40 m up the road. I was a few meters behind as we headed round a left bend, Darren was hanging off the back of a truck trying to peak round when a Land Cruiser came by cutting the corner. I thought ‘this is going to be tight, but Darren knows what he’s doing’. Not this time and thankfully it only resulted in damage to the pannier and the shredding of his jacket and trousers. Actually the impact destroyed the pannier and sent the contents all over the road. Crashing at 60 mph has never been good for the panniers, as we found in Angola, and it shouldn’t be good for us, but in the mighty hand of grace we are protected. Dusk was upon us and we pushed on to the large town of Mbeya where we could find accommodation and possibly someone to fix the alloy pannier.  Tanzania started tough, and tough it would continue to be.

We were guided through the Mbeya dark to a friendly, cheap, church hostel by ‘James Bond’, the first of many Tanzanians characters who would come to our aid. The next morning he helped Darren find a welder to patch up his pannier and a haberdasher to patch up his trousers. We also put on our nice new tyres which meant we could finally lose the old ones from Hereford and save some weight from the back of the bike. Here we met Mhini, a sweet guy, and Muslim gentleman, who was also a guest and working in Mbeya. Meeting him was no coincidence as we made friends, went for meals, drinks, exchanged numbers and headed off towards the dirt roads and Burundi.

Leaving Mbeya we travelled 290km up the dirt road to Chala, a small village in the west of Tanzania, not too far from Lake Tanganika. By 10 am the following morning as we continued northwards – both bikes were dead!

Broken and beaten

We’d left a tiny village, with no electricity, heading for some time out in a national park that was en route. Minutes after leaving, my bike had a spasm and stalled while riding along. I pulled over to avoid the crazy busses from behind and tried to start it – nothing. I tried to do what I could, but Darren had the tools so I waited for him to realize I’d broken down. Eventually a teacher on a push bike said ‘your brother is 2km down the road pushing his motorcycle’! What was going on? Within a few minutes both bikes were completely out of action! Darren had turned round to come back to me, worried I’d crashed, but had dropped his bike. He picked it up and carried on, not realizing a stone had smashed the radiator and fan, as he sped back towards my stricken motorcycle. Minutes later he was pushing his bike! All the water had come out of the radiator, the engine overheated to the extent that the engine casing had started to melt, the piston had cracked and all the piston rings had broken. On top of that the engine valves were leaking, the ignition relay broke and the clutch adjuster snapped.

The rescue begins

Darren spent most of that day pushing motorcycles, he met up with me after 12 km and together we pushed another 6 km back to the village we’d started from. Exhausted and defeated our route north had been blocked, like someone really didn’t want us to go that way. I reached in my tank bag and got out Mhini’s number and gave him a call. The next day he’d called in a favour and got us on the back of a pick-up to go to Sumbawanga, and was instrumental in our rescue journey to Dar es Salaam where we could get help to fix the bikes and order parts.

Guess we're going to Dar then

In Sumbawaga, Julius, the human resource manager of a power companywho’s truck we’d been in, a lovely guy, helped us to arrange transport on a lorry to Dar. In the meantime Mhini contacted his colleague in Dar who would be able to assist us in fixing the bikes and look after us as we got back on our feet. The 52 hour, 1400km, journey in the cab of a Scania truck wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the truck from hell in Angola, but we were comforted by sachets of the local liquor, Konyagi, sleeping tablets and episodes of Heroes. Our driver was comforted by joints of dope, surprisingly, but thankfully they weren’t too strong and we made it safely to Dar es Salaam. This is where we met Malcolm and Loulou Doherty, our new Tanzanian BFF’s, a lovely family who are helping us in our time of need, and have been a real blessing to us.

Tanzania has been really tough; with unexpected twists and turns we’ve been brought to the end of ourselves and have had to rely on the grace of God and the blessed help of others.

Mhini and Malcolm, thank you!

From having no hope within our own abilities on dirt track miles from anywhere, to no hope in our own abilities figuring out what was wrong with one of our bikes, we have been assisted externally all the way. This we have needed and God has blessed us with the right people all along the way. My bike’s problem has now been diagnosed (thanks to Malcolm’s research and persistence) and fixed while the parts needed for Darren’s are on order from the UK. Whilst here at ‘Mamas’ (Malcolm and Loulous mum’s house), Natasha, the 10 year old daughter, wrote us a letter which has made us laugh. Quote: “The Story of Darren and Russell. One upon a time there was a man called Rusle, he had a girlfriend called Suzie. Apparently she broke up with him and there was his friend Deroen he had a girlfriend called Christina he left her. And at the end of the day they had the girls but they still lose them like a needle in a hey stack.” With thanks to Malcolm, Loulou and family, we are back on our feet, sense of humour restored, ready to face the next part of our adventure.