Although Africa presents opportunities to soak up its breathtaking beauty, travelling overland can be a tough occupation, as Team Tane discovered when they reached a river that was impassable.
Here is what they posted on Facebook:
Day 26, 4974km; Wild Camp near Mlowezi to Kigoma
Yesterday was hectic. It started fairly normally; drinking coffee, packing up and doing exercises with numerous hippo about 40m away but went a bit AWOL from there. The mishaps started with our gas bottle rattled free of its mount as we were overtaking a truck on a narrow dirt road, thankfully it just missed a cyclist going the other way. Note to self, MAKE SURE YOU PUT THE LOCK ON! It progressed fairly normally from there, the road getting narrower and narrower until we were most of the way to our destination. When about 2/3 of the way there, about 102km down dodgey dirt and rocky roads, we came across a very much unfinished concrete bridge with no safe way around it. We drove around for about 30 minutes trying to find a way around and asking locals, most who spoke not a word of English, till a local who could speak English told us there was definitively no way for cars to get around. For anyone who is wondering, this explains the out and back on our Tracks4Africa Live map on www.teamtane.com (see pic below).
Welcome to the #RealAfrica where roads are actually made for feet, bicycles and the occasional motorbike not cars. With that we grudgingly made a detour all the way back to the “main road,” i.e. a slightly less dodgy dirt road. Fortunately our luck then changed and as the sun began to set we found the perfect spot for wild camping in a borrow pit hidden from the road in the middle of nowhere. With heads ringing and backs aching from nearly 9 hours in Badger on bad roads we were happy to be “home.” We are now on the way to Kigoma for a well needed relax next to Lake Tanganyika for a few days.
#WayOfLife #SuzukiAfricaSkyHigh #Adventure