Tues 7th. Short walk to the Naekana stage from Sunway htl. I had pre booked my ticket, so no stress there. Unfortunately the 06:45 departure turned into an 08:15 departure. All in all a tediously long nearly 7 and a half hours to Taveta via Voi. No wild animals in the Tsavo Park section.
Have spent the last 3 and a weeks in Taveta managing to keep very busy as usual. There’s been the usual catching up with friends; mixing up the places where I eat my dinner; going to Rockland, my Bar of choice at the moment because it has a nice garden area and good WiFi. I arranged for a call from the Bank in the UK which holds my mortgage, to discuss and agree my interest rate switch as the current agreement runs out at the end of April. That was a successful hour long process that now takes my mortgage to June ’24, but it’s costing me an extra 100gbp per month.
I’ve had a few forays into Tanzania. Firstly on the 9th to get a new Tz 3 month visa for 50usd. I took the opportunity to go to Mamka’s for kiti moto, but not before I had a mbege . Joseph came across the border to join me. On the 10th I went with Mercy to Mamka’s to have a belated Dad birthday kiting moto.
Mon 13th. I went to Moshi to sort out my Tz Airtel phone line which had expired at the end of Feb in line with my original 3 month visa. I decided a big city store would be better to go to , and they reregisterd the line, although it took a few hours to actually connect. The trip to Moshi was quite eventful. About half way we ran out of petrol. The dala dala was bump started and pushed to the petrol station…only a couple of hundred meters away. The guy next to me didn’t get out do I didn’t either !! I was sitting in the front and noticed the guage was permanently on “empty’…so in other words it was broken !! The fuel consumption was based on guesswork. I like Moshi anyway, but I needed to check availability at the Buffalo Hotel for when I meet up with Mark. And I negotiated the larger single rooms for 25,000tsh instead of 30,000tsh. And as an extra bonus I had the most superb tandoori chicken at Kaka’s for dinner. Was concerned when I heard the chef who I knew had moved on, but if anything the new chef is better. Oh, I visited the Police Mess first for a cheaper beer.
Quite a nice breakfast the next morning. There were 6 Germans and 2 French at breakfast. Took my time getting to the Holili stage as it’s only about a 10 minute walk. I let the first vehicle go as I would have been crammed in. The second was empty and I got a front seat. Had to change vehicles in Himo, but that was ok.
Sat 25th . I walked up to the border and across for mbege and kiti moto…only 45 mins…plus the 10 minutes on the other side. Friend Ernest happened to be in Holili at the same time so we met up at Mamka’s. While all these activities were taking place I had a major disaster. Going home from the pub I bent over at the gate to my room to select the padlock key and stumbled forward and didn’t notice my nice phone had fallen out of my shirt pocket. By the time I realised in the early hours and went to look for it, it had gone. I was devastated. I reported it to the police who said they would put a trace on it. Hmm…let’s see if anything comes of that. So, at the start of this week I bought another Samsung for about 280gbp. The weaker ksh against the gbp probably saved me about 20gbp. I’ve got a nice phone but at a cost to a big dent in my travel fund.
Fri 31st. The only other significant thing to happen was that yesterday I borrowed a bicycle from a girl at Challa htl and I cycled to Chala village to check on Dad’s grave. 25 mind into the cycle I started developing a bad stomach ache and put it down to needing to raise the seat. It did the trick. There was a big rainstorm ahead on the way back so I went up to the Lake Chala volcanic crater rim just to enjoy the view. Then I stopped at Martina’s curio shop for a chat. It was her apartment in Malindi where I stayed in January.
I handed over 200ksh when I returned the bike , as a thank you. Although I did complain that there were literally zero brakes . She said she did tell me; I’m sure she did and I just forgot. But there was a fairly hair raising 45 seconds on one slope on rough terrain when I could do absolutely nothing to slow myself down as I was wearing flip flops and I just wondered how bruised and scratched I would be when I fell off the bike. I somehow managed to control it and heaved a huge sigh of relief.
I was absolutely exhausted yesterday. Showered. Had dinner. Went to the pub but was too tired to drink any alcohol !!! I was there nearly 2 and half hours and drank 1.5 ltrs of cool water. There was a short rain shower. We’ve had a few showers over the last couple of weeks. Heavy but not prolonged. Anyway, must prepare to leave for Marangu this morning.