Tsetse flies and rock art. One morning we left Amarula camp and headed south to Kondoa where we did a bit of shopping; ginger, bananas and some fabric… somehow I’m unable to resist, I did however limit my purchase to one. We sat in a small “tea shop” beneath the now leafless Baobab at the centre of town and Elke chatted with a fellow who turned out to be a teacher, hence his relatively passable English. The town has grown, prospered even, since or during the time the Chinese were here building the highways. When they left I’ve heard, they took most of the donkeys and dogs in the vicinity, After two years there are no shortage of loose dogs scrounging around and I saw plenty of donkeys being herded by Maasai.
After Kondoa we headed west into the terrain of red dirt roads. Not far out of town we came across masses and I mean masses of plastic bags and bottles where it’s been dumped and is now being (you don’t want to hear this) burned. Thankfully we soon left that behind, passing through dry, farmland interspersed with majestic Baobabs.
Crossing a dry river bed on a bridge with schoolgirls playing some game we began to climb through Miombo bush, the leaves on many trees crisp and folded. Surprisingly (at least to me) there are numerous trees blooming at this time, beautiful purple blossoms, puffed out clusters of white and yellow on a type of Acacia along with some other shrubby looking tree coming out with tiny red flowers that I took to be fuzzy caterpillars as we hurtled along. And we were because the Tsetse flies were doing the damnedest to get inside the vehicle. Many of them. Their bite is rather vicious, I felt one through my sock. They were maintaining speed with the vehicle, landing on the windows, the hood of the Landrover and searching out all the openings we hadn’t been able to plug with tape or cardboard. Once inside they buzzed around the driver especially but I had my share. The women in the back were swatting them as they landed on us, against the windows and whenever they landed.
Today we returned to the edge of their range and drove up through a burnt landscape, the trees scorched, the grass gone and soot and ashes among the fallen leaves swirling in little whirlwinds as we picked our way towards some grand looking rocky outcrops. Earlier we had collected a Ranger from the Game Reserve office to accompany us. He carried an automatic carbine rifle for our safety inside the Swagaswaga reserve.
Eventually he directed us onto a side road then up the slope to where a few examples of Rock Art were visible on the massive boulders perched there.
Red ochre paintings of humanistic figures stretching the imagination as to why and when.
The local residents, Hyrax, apparently appreciate the spot as the ground was deeply littered with their ‘berries’. An occasional fly managed to make itself known as we made our way back to the vehicle but they were hardly a concern, until we began driving. Did they think the vehicle was an elephant? Although we were in the game reserve all we saw were a number of exotic looking birds a family of baboons, a few monkeys, and one Hyrax up on a branch as we drove by underneath.
After Kondoa we headed west into the terrain of red dirt roads. Not far out of town we came across masses and I mean masses of plastic bags and bottles where it’s been dumped and is now being (you don’t want to hear this) burned. Thankfully we soon left that behind, passing through dry, farmland interspersed with majestic Baobabs.
Today we returned to the edge of their range and drove up through a burnt landscape, the trees scorched, the grass gone and soot and ashes among the fallen leaves swirling in little whirlwinds as we picked our way towards some grand looking rocky outcrops. Earlier we had collected a Ranger from the Game Reserve office to accompany us. He carried an automatic carbine rifle for our safety inside the Swagaswaga reserve.
Red ochre paintings of humanistic figures stretching the imagination as to why and when.
The local residents, Hyrax, apparently appreciate the spot as the ground was deeply littered with their ‘berries’. An occasional fly managed to make itself known as we made our way back to the vehicle but they were hardly a concern, until we began driving. Did they think the vehicle was an elephant? Although we were in the game reserve all we saw were a number of exotic looking birds a family of baboons, a few monkeys, and one Hyrax up on a branch as we drove by underneath.
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