Today

TRUCKS  AND  BOATS  TODAY

 Wherever man settles, congestion follows.

Even in a village, local vehicles gather

Along the beaches of the Indian Ocean, 

boats accumulate.

Waiting for high tide and good fishing.

Children play games amongst the stranded boats

Between the villages and the waterways, transport of goods has greatly improved.

This is a mattress truck.

An oil truck does its best

As happens world-wide, this logging truck is careening along the road, dust flying, on its way to the log-sorting yard!

(And - YES - that's a Canadian flag flying attached to our vehicle - our intrepid leader brought it in her suitcase and attached it to our vehicle)

 

 Road-building creates scars across the landscape, and the quarries, too, where gravel and sand are scraped from the surface, are left  and can be viewed from Space.

This is a quarry abandoned when local roadways were finished - only a couple of years ago - mounds already rounded by several rainy seasons of pounding rainfall.

As we approached major centres, city traffic began to pile up - and slow down.

The noise intensified as every driver honked his horn all the time.

Traffic jammed, and finally came to a full stop.

Vendors cruised these jams, trying to sell their wares.

One fellow ran by and reached inside our vehicle and tried to snatch a camera.

 Some of our group bought handicrafts which were not for sale in stores.

Making the best of it all, these stoppages developed into social events.

Traffic blockages were often due to the meeting of a narrow street and a not-so-narrow vehicle

This driver just got across the bridge, but we had to wait a while..  There was concern his load might be too heavy for the bridge . .

The speediest way to travel around is by plane.

This is a Police Plane

And these UN planes dot the small airports across the landscape.

No-one knew why they were there, when they had come, when they would leave, who was travelling on them.

But it was good to see them there, all the same.

To see Africa from a plane, watch again the movie Out Of Africa 

There is some great footage in there.

But I always prefer the countryside, so I'll leave you with the following photo - taken away from the hustle and bustle of modern-day living.

 And next time: we go back to BEFORE the time of our Dr. Dillon - to prepare for thoughts about what he encountered, as described in the book.

THANK  YOU  FOR  READING  ALONG.

And thank-you to everyone writing comments - I love them all!!

Landmarks

LANDMARK  ROCKS

    We can be quite certain that rocks sitting on the plains on Tanzania today, were in the very same places in the 1870s.

This is exciting as it means these rocks were standing there when 

our Dr. Dillon passed by.

     The only transport for Dillon and the Expedition was with donkeys, as shown below.

And Dillon would have travelled along the main route westwards. This would have been a dust track.  These animals were not and are not shod with shoes of any type, so moving over the dust track is easier on their feet than going along the packed down roads, or the paved roads. 

We drove along the packed road shown here. 

More modern paved roads are raised up to allow water run-off during the rainy seasons.

 

 A cart being pulled along by two cows travels along the track beside the paved road which is built to allow rain run-off.

The road pavement would have torn away at the cows' hooves

Parts of the plains of Tanzania, between the Indian Ocean and Lake Tanganyika, are littered with landmarks on all sides along the way.

These landmarks are rocks, either now in piles or groups, or very large rocks standing out on their own.

Each rock pile looks different.  To those travelling past, they seem to cheer you on your way.

I was always interested in the rocks, on the look-out for the rocks sketched in Cameron's book "Across Africa."

Here are copies of the two main sketches:

These sketches show 2 campsites set up by members of the Expedition.

These giant rocks are what my geological adviser tells me are erratics.

They were carried to their present location by some massive force - either moved by a glacier, or by a glacial flood - where the back end of a glacier melts faster than the front end, forming a lake which bursts out through the front dam of ice at some point and sweeps all before it across the plains in a spectacular surge of power.

And then - 

I was CERTAIN I had found this rock sketched on the left.  I was CERTAIN I had touched where Dr. Dillon, his friend Lt. Cameron and their supporters had camped for a few days' respite.

Long-distance view

 There were no other erratics that we saw that even remotely resembled this shape.

 

Closer

Right there!

Perhaps it was THE ROCK, but when I got home and checked all the pics again, I wasn't so sure!

But - doesn't really matter if not perfectly correct!

And, how do modern-day Tanzanians travel around these plains?

They are excellent cyclists. 

And they use their bicycles for transport of personal goods

But the most frequent method of travel or transport is by walking

These women are carrying loads of wood for fuel.  

They were singing as they walked along, to encourage each other to keep going.

Here men are carrying wood along a road, with a modern truck driving up behind.

The old and the new.

Next time - modern vehicles in a vanishing world.

 Thank you for reading along.

News on book publication when I hear from publisher.

Villages

VISITING  VILLAGES

Remembering this blog is about Dr. Dillon.

 Many of the villages shown below have changed only slightly since Dr. Dillon strode through them.

 The differences today would be the electric wires and supporting poles, and the corrugated roofs.

In Dr. Dillon's time there would have been no wires, no poles, and rush-thatched roofs.

One other difference is today's inhabitants are fully clothed.

 This view shows tire tracks in the dust, 

and corrugated roofs and 

some stone walls.  

Also note the poles and the wires.

It was this photo, along with some others, that brought the following comment from a friend, who used to travel widely throughout Africa.  She said, "I am so impressed at how the villages of Tanzania have progressed into this century.  They are indeed doing very well.

  I congratulate them."

Perhaps this charming view down a village street, with a mountain rising up behind, was the same in Dr. Dillon's time, but the walls would not have been so permanent, and the roofs would have been thatched.

 In the distance from where we were, and in amongst the trees, is what I would call a village compound.  In other words, a collection of homes, built close together for protection from the outside world.

In the '60s in North America, this would have been called a commune.  But these did not survive - here in Tanzania, the concept continues to flourish. 

Closer to the compound above,

with some residents in front.

A sunny afternoon - lots to see here - electrical transformer, bicycles, vehicles in the distance, socializing in the shade.

All the women are somewhere else, working, or taking care of the children, at home.

A more modern scene - pavements, electricity poles, metal roofs, white car, and solid buildings.

.

The produce was usually displayed "outside" but under covered stalls, always remembering the rainy seasons swamp everything.

 A modern Tanzanian scene.

Because it is "modern" 

there are advertisements and vehicles.

Notice the trees well established and planted where a vehicle could park in the shade.

How many times have we been in a vehicle in a "modern" North American parking lot, unable to find any shade from the midday sun?

The line down the centre of this photo is the half-open window of our land rover.  We did not want to intrude into people's lives!

Here is an established supply centre for the surrounding area.

The ads and the goods are definitely different to what Dr. Dillon would have seen, and there would not have been bicycles, but the concept of a general store managing to supply the demands of a region, would have been similar.

And next door is the local "photocopying centre."

 

One of the cousins on our tour was a member of the "younger set."

He found this of interest!

And this one, too.

Local Artwork and Thank God!  Coca Cola!

But the further we got from larger centres, the more there was on display for local sale.


Here is a very common, and very vivid example of
materials for sale.

Do you want to purchase a mattress?

This is the place to go.

A very well-developed village stall offering for sale: nuts and seeds for consumption, and all kinds of spices and dried herbs.

Do you need a cable network?

Perhaps a hair cut?

If you own a vehicle, maybe you

should have a tune-up?

 If you need meat, here is a stall offering
fresh cuts you could buy.

Always an issue in hot climates: how to keep meat fresh.

The animals would have been slaughtered
that day, and the meat was being assaulted by flies.

If you had purchased this meat, you would have had to cook it all the same day . .

And, of course, wherever man gathers,

and for whatever reason,

he leaves his mark,

polluting his environment.

And Africa So Beautiful

surrounds the traveller

on all sides.

This Jacaranda tree,

planted by

Who-Knows-Who

stood tall and strong,

a gorgeous sight,

in central Tanzania!

 For more on the Jacaranda Tree, click on this link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacaranda#Gallery

We are approaching the end of this Trail

Next post:

How transport has changed in Tanzania.

 Thank you for reading along!

It is thrilling how this blog is read around the World!