tanzania: epic africa road trip

africa is big. really big. some have tried to show this by fitting other countries into it, thusly:

but its one thing to see it on a map, and another to actually experience it. for a long time, one of my lifelong dreams had been to drive through africa from cape to cairo (and really, around the world) but reality forced me to scale down my dreams a bit, thusly:

barely a scratch in the big picture of africa, but still: 7,000 kilometers of driving. 4 countries (6 counting the ones we stepped into without informing passport control.) one small car. one seriously major water fall. one change-your-underpants-afterward scary thunderstorm. one death-defying terrifying road. many wonderful people. and many good memories - which i intend to inflict on you, the reader, for my next few blogs.

so to summarize - the dream:

the reality:

We started off driving through tanzania. tanzania is huge - almost 1,000,000 square kilometers. it took us parts of 4 days to drive through, without stopping much except to sleep. we had decided to drive down fast, then back slowly. on the plus side, tanzania is stunningly beautiful, with wide empty vistas.

the view varies: wide open expanses of savanna, punctuated by an occasional masai, deep valleys, verdant hills, great plains dotted by dignified baobabs, and a huge forest that we drove through for hours. for most of this drive we passed few other vehicles and not that many people, except for traffic police who seem to outnumber regular people by about 2 to 1 (more on the police later - they deserve a post to themselves!)

because of the long stretches. our stops were quite brief. but on the last day, just before we left tanzania into malawi, we decided to stop at tukuyu because we knew there was a temporary translation team with some of our fellow bethelites working there. first we found the kingdom hall:

then a young brother led us to the temporary translation office. we hadn't told them we were coming, so we totally shocked them when we showed up unexpectedly more than a thousand kilometers from home! the translation trainers come with everything: tables, laptops, printers, even a portable fridge.

we will come back to tanzania on the way home, and then spend a bit more time getting to know it, but for now we zip through on our way to our next country: malawi. tanzania bids us farewell for now with this beautiful scene:

next stop: malawi, the 'warm heart of africa'