11/04/19-17/04/19
Country: Tanzania
Distance: 180 km / 112 mi
Elevation: 1,639 m / 5,377 ft
Animals spotted: giraffe, ostrich, wild ass.
Rather than start this week’s blog post with what we have seen this week, let’s start with what we haven’t seen. Because, why not? When planning our ideal Tanzania route, we read about Olduvai Gorge and Laotoli Footprints, which are some of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world, as they help us understand early human evolution (paleoanthropological is a branch of archaeology with a human focus).
Olduvai Gorge, which is found on the Serengeti Plains, was home to homo habilis around 1.9 million years ago. Who are homo habilisi? Only the first human species ever (probably). To put that into context, our species – homo sapiens – are estimated to have only emerged 300,000 years ago and occupied the same site a mere 17,000 years ago. At Olduvai Gorge archeologists have discovered fossil remains of more than sixty homo habilis, as well as the longest known archaeological record of the development of stone-tool industries, which helps us understand how these archaic humans lived. More impressive than that, it’s lead experts to conclude that humans evolved in Africa. Leotoli Footprints, which are located about 45 km south of Olduvai Gorge, are 3.6-million-year-old early human footprints, preserved in volcanic ash. 3.6 MILLION. Think about that number for a moment. We, despite other religions and world events, record recent time from the birth of Jesus – 2,019 years ago. Yet these guys were living their best life 3,597,981 years before he was. The Leotoli Footprints are said to be one of the earliest signs of humans on this planet. How bloody awesome!
This leads me nicely onto an ever so slight tangent, which I heard about on a podcast recently – I promise I’ll get onto stuff we actually did this week in a sec… Have you heard of the Out Of Africa Theory? This theory suggests that homo sapiens (us) evolved first in Africa before spreading around the world between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, superseding all other ‘human’ species. This means that all modern humans are ultimately of African descent. Nigel Farage would love that, I’m sure. Of course this is just one of a few theories of how early humans evolved and moved around the world. But still. How bloody awesome!
Sadly we never got to visit either of these fascinating sites, as it was just too pricey. Everything in Tanzania costs money. It was $70 per person to enter the Ngorongoro National Park, where the attractions live. Then $35 per person to visit the gorge and museum, where a replica of the footprints live. That’s right, a replica! Turns out Laotoli Footprints is a closed archeological site — you can’t actually see the real footprints. It’s such a shame it’s so expensive. But we had our expensive treat in Kenya on safari, so we passed on them and instead headed straight to Mount Kitumbeine.
Now here’s the stuff we did see this week. First: pizza. We’re not embarrassed to admit that of the three nights we spent in Arusha, we ate at Pizza Hut three nights on the trot. On the second night we did make a fatal mistake, however. We ordered Hawaiian to mix things up a bit. But Tanzanian Hawaiian is apparently chicken and pineapple, which are two things that do not go together. We still ate it, mind you, but on night three, we reverted back to classic pepperoni. Also, we really hope their claim of delivering pizza to the summit of Kilimanjaro is true.
From Monduli, we descended 900 m onto the savanna, you can see below.
To reach Mount Kitumbeine, we descended 900 m onto the hot, sparse savanna. There are no big towns or tarmac roads around these parts. And even though the chances of seeing a big cat are slim – mainly because we weren’t near a national park – it was still a worry. We did cycle past a hyena in Kenya, if you remember? Rightly so, we were extra cautious when planning this route.
We usually use Map Out or Komoot to plot routes, and we use Google Maps to search for shops, towns and guest houses etc. On the default Google Maps (below left), there wasn’t anything around where we planned to cycle. Nothing. Nada. Empty. Yet when we switched it to satellite view (below right), it unlocked stacks more information. We could see plenty of Maasai settlements that weren’t marked on the default map. So we went along our route and saved each location, as where there’s a settlement, there’s people. And where there’s people, there’s help if we run into a big cat. Also we didn’t fancy wild camping on the savanna, just in case. We planned to ask if we could camp close to a settlements, yano, as back-up.
When we were just about ready to call it a day – 45 km off-roading is about our limit – we consulted our Google Maps with all the saved locations and saw that there was indeed a settlement in a couple of kilometres.
The Maasai village was a few hundred metres off the road. We didn’t want to camped inside the village, just nearer enough that if a big cat came to visit during the night, someone would hear our screams. We went to ask if that was okay. The old lady we spoke to didn’t speak a word of English and we didn’t speak a word of Swahili (minus hello and thanks). Since we kept saying Mount Kitumbeine, she appeared to keep giving us directions. Unable to communicate what we wanted, we retreated back to the road to make a cup of tea — so British — and hatch a plan, as we didn’t want to camp there without permission.
Rather than just leave us to it, the old lady strapped the baby she was minding to her back and came out to make sure we were okay. In that time, Dan had managed to get enough Internet to google ‘sleep’ in Swahili. We tried again to get permission to camp in the area. She disappeared and came back with the rest of the women from the village (all the men were out herding). No one spoke English still, but we did manage to get our message across. Not only did they say it was okay to camp next door, they ushered us closer to their village gate, which was a lovely gesture.
We began setting up camp with an ever-growing audience of Maasai women and children. The tent and stove caused quite a stir — and Dan’s beard. The small children were actually terrified of him and the Maasai adults indicated it was because of the beard. Speaking of the beard…
Dan’s facial hair, wherever we go, attracts attention. Even at home, other men (usually fellow bearded ones) would compliment it before they’d both engage in a deep conversation about grooming and maintenance. Throughout the trip men have still commented. However they’ve usually assumed the beard was for religious reasons and that he was a Muslim. In Tanzania, the attention has spiked. So many more people have commented on it, with some people asking if he’s From Israel (Jewish) as well as being Muslim. Controversially someone even called him Osama. As a beardless bystander, it’s always interesting to watching these hairy interactions, but it’s been extra interesting to see what a beard symbolises in different countries.
Over the course of the afternoon, the women and children — minus the ones who were scared of Dan’s beard — popped back and forth. Conversation was limited, but we still managed to communicate. We told them our route before and after their village. We shared some biscuits we were carrying. They taught us some Swahili words. And I took part in a dance off with the teenage girls. The more well-known Maasai dance involves jumping, keeping your body narrow and increasing in height. Hands down the girls won and my knees lost a terrible defeat.
That evening when the men came home, they swung by our tent to say hello. They too were intrigued by Dan’s beard and spoke a little English to ask some more in-depth questions about us and the bikes. When the sun disappeared, we bid them goodnight and slept well knowing that if a hyena did come by, our friendly neighbours where only metres away.
The following morning the teenage girls came back while we were getting ready and we had a bit of a pamper session. They noticed our moisturiser and all had big blob. Then, when I was brushing my hair, they wanted a go themselves. First on their heads, then on mine. They burst out laughing when Dan brushed his beard after us. Then they all had a nosey in the wash bag vanity mirror. Preened and cleaned, we finished packing and were ready to go.
Everyone came to say goodbye — even some of the men, as not all of them had left for work yet. There must have been at least twenty-five people, all wearing the incredibly colourful Maasai dress. We regret not taking a photo, but we tend to forget when we’re wrapped up in the moment like that. It’s always an afterthought. We waved, they waved and on we went to Mount Kitumbeine.
After a day’s rest in the Maasai town of Kitumbeine, which is nestled in the shadows of the mountain, we ended the week with possibly the toughest road we’ve rode on yet. It wasn’t steep — far from it. The 400 m climb, despite looking steep on the map, was actually over 18 km and averaged 2.5%. We barely felt like we were climbing. No, what was tough about it was that the whole road was a washboard. Relentless, brutal, body-bashing ripples in the dirt, which shook us constantly for 50 km. We’re hoping the ripples haven’t found the route to Kilimanjaro, as that’s where next week takes us.
