Sightings from the Road

I'm on the road again. Selous was mildly disappointing (expectations were probably too high) , got back to Dar and am getting to work. I am three days into a whirlwind tour of Tanzania, I need to visit VGIF sites (give them money: www.thegildersleeve.org/) all over the country as well as a few in Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda. I've already visited one (almost two) and it included a couple dozen women dancing and singing upon my arrival..

I am not a big fan of the actual travelling (sitting on buses, etc), but in the three days it's taken me to get from Dar es Salaam to Mbeya (South, near the Malawi border) there have been some high points. The biggest highway (if you can call it that) runs from Dar all the way to Zambia, and it has been a good re-introduction to actual travelling ( not travelling = sitting on the beach for a week before moving on to the next beach). And despite it being well paved it actually bisects Mikumi national park just 5 hours out of the capital.

I knew that the road went right through and was considering doing a little safari there later, but didn't realize the animals would come to me. While hurtling down the road in a full sized bus averaging a respectable 40 miles per hour, I saw (I eventually started keeping track):

a huge warthog
about 30 giraffes
probably 200 Impala
8 Elands
a couple troops of baboons
10ish Elephants
7 buffaloes
15 or so Zebras
a bunch of birds

I'm sure I missed at least as many animals on the other side of the bus, and who knows how much I missed simply because we were going too fast.. It was impressive. I probably saw as much as I did driving around for a whole day in Selous.

While I haven't seen much wildlife apart from the aforementioned 45minutes, the bus travel has not been as bad as dreaded, I've met some nice people, and have gotten far away from the tourist traps. While not spotting animals I have continued my quest to find the most awesome vintage t-shirt of the trip (are t-shirts more or less ironic if the person wearing it can't read what it says?). As you may be aware, much of the clothing that people don't want, ends up in Africa. But with today's crazy fashion trends, the shirts that people donated 10 years ago would actually be cool today, maybe Africa should start re-selling them back.. anyway I have seen a parade of obscure shirts that the hipsters of Oakland would die for, not to mention various Red Sox shirts that I considered making an offer for (an 1986 AL Champs shirt!!). However my favorite t-shirt, I spotted just the other day on a kid trying to sell stuff to our bus near Iringa:

Arlington Boys and Girls Club
Patriot Day Fun Run

sponsored by: Cambridge Savings Bank



as a CSB customer I felt proud. I tried to take a picture, but alas, somethings in life you can't capture in a picture anyway. And the regular occurrence of awesome t-shirts always brightens my day.

Malawi tomorrow.



(PS. I got a cell phone: +255 788 510 954)