Where & what infographic of our time in Uganda

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were inspired to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Uganda! Our time in Uganda was filled with gorilla trekking, pool competitions, traffic, reunions, gardens near the Nile and breath-taking scenery. We'd strongly recommend a visit - especially during one of the Uganda Wildlife Authority's gorilla permit sales, when they're available at half price! 

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)

Where & what infographic of our time in Rwanda

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were inspired to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Rwanda! Check out the others here. Our time in Rwanda was way too short but in those few days we packed an amazing amount of experiences, met people who will be friends for life and more than anything were in awe of this country's rise from the ashes. We can't wait to go back!

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)

Where & what infographic of our time in Malawi

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were motivated to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Malawi!

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)

Where & what infographic of our time in Zambia

Inspired by the way Jeff & Kerryn-lee (Pass the Map) documented their 2012 expedition through Southern Africa with infographics, we were motivated to do the same. So each Tuesday we will be posting a summary infographic, in the order of our route, and today's one is for Zambia!

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)

Where & what infographic of our time in Namibia

Jeff and Kerryn-lee, in 2012, embarked on a 22,500 km journey over 150 days, through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. This trip became the beginning of a much larger journey for them as global travelers and bloggers, and you can follow their exploits at http://www.passthemap.com/

They created some incredible infographics summarising their stay in each country: 

We LOVE them! Don't you think it's a fantastic way to create something frameable that gives much more detail in the same space than a photo would? So we were inspired to do something similar...
After checking with Jeff and Kerryn-lee we did and each Tuesday we'll be posting our infographics in order of our route. Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed Jeff and Kerryn-lee's!

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)

Missing Mountains & Magic Moments in Moshi

There’s absolutely no doubt that Tanzania offers some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife viewing opportunities in the world. The country has pristine white sanded and blue watered beaches, clichéd but very much real island paradises, baobabs in open savannahs, the annual Wildebeest migration, the continent’s largest mountain and two lakes so big they have inland beaches. Yet Tanzania is so much more than just these natural wonders. We spent a night in Moshi that illustrated this perfectly…

 We’d been to Tanzania four times before and not seen Kilimanjaro, except from the airplane, and decided we just couldn’t go for a fifth time and not at least briefly cast an eye on her. So from our stop at Mkoma Bay on the east coast at Pangani we headed inland to Moshi to see the famous mountain. We were lucky enough to make friends with another guest at Mkoma Bay who lives in Moshi and not only offered to lead the 380km from Pangani to Moshi but also a spot to camp for the night! We gladly followed Musi and Marie through the never ending roadworks (by now the same road must be in tip top condition) with our sense of excitement growing as we got closer, metre by metre, to Kilimanjaro. From a 100km outside of Moshi we started looking out for Africa’s largest mountain and were more than a little confused that the world’s largest free standing mountain was by now not immediately evident! It turns out this fact is true but made difficult to see by the fact that the area around Kilimanjaro is covered with mountain ranges, it’s just that none of these actually connect to Kilimanjaro itself. 

It didn’t help that is was a very rainy and cloudy day but as we drove into Moshi we could at last see at least the bottom of the world famous Kilimanjaro! As the locals say, we just needed to wait for her to lift her skirt and reveal herself in all her splendid glory.  Musi led us through Moshi to our camping spot for the night and after setting and cleaning ourselves up we headed out to catch some Moshi nightlife. We all piled into Musi’s car and headed to Glacier Bar, a massive house converted into several bars, restaurants and even fashion booths with a big open area in the middle where the party happens. As luck would have it the big event on at Glacier’s that night was the Redds Fashion Unibash. The fashion show is aimed at show-casing young designers from the country’s universities and offers cash prizes to those judged as having the best designs on the night. In between the fashion, all modelled by the Miss and Mr Tanzania contestants, the massive crowd was entertained by Joh Makini live in action.

Photo by Issa Michuzi

After an excellent dinner of nyama choma (grilled meat) we grabbed a drink and headed straight into the thriving mass of people surrounding the stage. The all-Tanzanian live line-up busted out Bongo Flava beats that kept the crowd literally jumping. And that included us! Bearing in mind that we’re old now and thumping club scenes are not really our bag anymore, the music has to be quite something for us to keep going – but that it certainly was. So much so we were almost disappointed when it stopped so the fashion show could start. That feeling passed the second the incredibly energetic MC stepped on stage with the phrase ‘Nice, nice, nice’, one we would hear countless more times that night. All the designs were modern, fashion forward and unmistakably African, but our favourites were most definitely the brightly coloured formal men’s wear. 

Photo by Issa Michuzi

Photo by Issa Michuzi

Despite slightly sore heads we awoke bright and early the next morning and jumped out from under our mosquito nets hoping to at last see Kilimanjaro in all her glory. Alas she was still hiding and for all we know there could have been a golf course or an ocean under all those clouds. After as many delays as possible, all aimed at giving the clouds time to disappear, we eventually headed to our next destination without having laid eyes on her. There was no sense of disappointment though since Moshi had delivered so many unexpected and unique experiences, more than making up for its hiding mountain.  

The entire Moshi encounter, from our generous host and now friend, to the slick and home-grown fashion event, is a great metaphor for Tanzania today: a vibrant, energetic, colourful, modern and cutting edge society that has so much more to offer than just safaris. 

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)

Where & what infographic of our time in South Africa

Meet Jeff and Kerryn-lee who, in 2012, embarked on a 22,500 km journey over 150 days, through  South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. This trip became the beginning of a much larger journey for them as global travelers and bloggers, and you can follow their exploits at http://www.passthemap.com/

To remember the journey that started it all they created some incredible infographics summarising their stay in each country. 

And they inspired us to do the same! We think it's a fantastic way to create something frameable that gives much more detail in the same space that a photo would.  

So each Tuesday we'll be posting our per country summary infographics in order of our route. Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed Jeff and Kerryn-lee's!

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)

Skipping the Serengeti and finding Singida instead

Our planned route through Northern Tanzania was to head from Ngorongoro to Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria via the Serengeti, but that plan was forced to change when we discovered the ludicrous park fees for the Serengeti. We were aware that we’d have to pay $60 a day per person to get into the Serengeti National Park, fees we felt were high but would be worth it, but were not aware that in addition to this we’d also be required to pay a whopping $200 a day for our car to be in the park. The issue of park fees and their size is a matter for a whole other blog but the ethics of the matter were moot since our budget did not allow for such an expense, especially since camping, food etc.  were not included.

We still needed to get to Mwanza though, since that’s where the next school food garden we were part of co-creating was scheduled, and so we worked out a new route around the park. This route meant heading south again before picking up the Dodoma-Mwanza Highway. The new route was approximately 800km compared to the 350km we would have traveled through the park. However after doing the maths we established it was still a much cheaper option than heading through the park and so we hit the road! We soon discovered we were completely off the beaten track and (I might add) were thrilled about this.

The road was in perfect condition and climbed and climbed closer to the clouds, to a point when we started to find it a little difficult to breathe and the car began to struggle. The highest point we climbed to in our trusty Nissan X-trail was just over 3000m and as you can imagine the views from up there were spectacular.  Before long we found ourselves in a town called Singida situated on a salt lake of the same name and surrounded by huge boulders. Best of all this lake, listed as an Important Bird Area, even has flamingos in it! We headed towards a bar, always our first port of call if we don’t know a place, so we could get some advice from locals on where to stay and what to do. We ended up at the KBH Hotel bar right on the lake shore and asked the owner if he knew of any camping facilities in town. He laughed and replied that Mzungus (white people in Swahili) don’t really come here and only Mzungus camp (so no) but did say we could camp on the hotel grounds. However the difference in price for a room in the hotel versus the campsite in the parking lot was so small it made more sense to just get a room – especially considering the room rate included Wi-Fi, breakfast and spectacular views over Lake Singida. We soon settled in our room and then went for a wander on the lake shore.

The beauty of spending time in Singida is that you can just relax and enjoy small town life in Tanzania – afternoon soccer training, the daily homeward migration of cattle and their herders, the bustle of traders unaffected by tourists and an incredible sunset. This sunset though was nothing on the sunrise we were treated to the next morning, which was without doubt the best of our entire journey so far! The white deposits of salt around the lake enhanced the orange of the rising sun, contrasting beautifully with the green coloured water of the lake all finished off with a seemingly never-ending jumble of boulders and a sprinkling of flamingos which made just this moment well worth an 800km detour.  

If you’re looking for more than just a few days absorbing your surroundings Singida does have more to offer like the Singida museum out past the J-Four Motel, plenty of bouldering opportunities (provided you have your own equipment), sunflower plantation tours, some excellent basket shopping – something the town is known for,  tours of the 113 year old town Mosque (including its clock tower which visitors can climb for spectacular views of the town) and even some rock paintings 35km south of Singida at Mjukhuda or 50km north near Lambi Village. I have to admit we didn’t do any of these activities because we were stuck by the lake, entranced by the view, the birdlife and enjoying the company of new found friends.

Posted by Tracy Angus-Hammond (@T2T_Trace)