One of Africa's Great Journeys, Part 2

Monday, August 18

Monday we took a bus to the second town, Tukuyu, a really pretty rural town. We stayed in another “guest house” that, for $10 per room, was quite luxurious compared to our other hotels. We spent the day walking around the town and the market, and found an extremely legit tour company for a hike the following day. That night we hung out in th hotel bar and played the card game “spoons” with the hotel staff. Quite hilarious. We also got to watch some Olympics, which was exciting.

Tuesday, August 19

Tuesday after breakfast we met up with our tour company to go to a place called Kaporogwe Falls. We took an INSANE van ride down to the falls…it was about one hour of the bumpiest road I have ever been on in my life. Then we had lunch in the cave behind the falls and went down to the pool below to go swimming. So, I have learned since I have been here that as a rule, Tanzanians don’t know how to swim. It makes sense, since going to swimming lessons or something is clearly a luxury. Anyway, one of our drivers decided to come in the water with us (and I guess stay on the edge) but basically started drowning and grabbed onto Julie to try to stay afloat. Tony pulled Julie away from him, and them him out of the water. It was pretty scary, but Tony was a hero for sure! After that excitement, we went back to the hotel, and the hotel staff was really disappointed when we were too tired for hanging out at the bar again.

Wednesday, August 20

We headed on another bus to Kyela, the “biggest” town in the area. We were pretty excited when we found a decent hotel for $3.50 per room per night. The guidebook said that Kyela was “nobody’s favorite,” but it wasn’t too bad…until evening. We should’ve realized that for $3.50 it was going to be the hangout for prostitutes and other hooligans, who had little sense of quiet hours. The night was rather unpleasant, to say the least. On a positive note, Julie and I did get a chance to walk around and made some friends and got some cool portraits of locals (see below). FYI the creepy looking girl actually has really bad cataracts.

Thursday, August 21

So, the guidebook had essentially raved about a possible ferry ride from Itungi port (near Kyela) to Mbamba Bay on Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi), calling it “One of Africa’s Great Journeys”. We had gotten really excited about this, since the book had made it sound like the first class cabins were nice and the views were amazing. We also somehow had begun to quote the book as saying “Africa’s Greatest Journey.” Anyway, we took a ride to the “port” down a dirt road, and when we got there, realized that this “ferry” was basically just a large fishing boat with some rooms on the top with bunks for sleeping. I have some pictures below (note the chickens). In our adventurous state, we decided to take the 22-hour ferry anyway. Oy. We stayed in the first class “cabins” on the top of the boat, and the poor locals stayed in the bottom of the ship in a big room with benches. It made us feel a bit guilty, but we certainly weren’t willing to stay down there. (Our tickets were $22, the 3rd class tickets were $7) In the first 15 minutes, we all realized that we had overlooked the level of rocky waves that can exist on a lake. The girls went to sleep, and I tried to stay awake with Tony, leading to me vomiting 3 times. In the end, Julie and Conner slept for 23 hours, Megan for 17 and me for 14. In the process, we did see some amazing scenery, especially the towns were we stopped along the way that basically cannot be reached by other means. It appeared that the entire town came onto the beach to greet the ship.