Collected Emails No 5.

Collected Emails No 5.

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This was possibly the most luxurious
place I stayed on the trip, with beautiful "tents" over looking the riverbed,
which is often visited by passing Elephant and baboons. Everything is made of beautiful
natural materials, and water, heated by fire, is carried to a tank on the roof twice
a day for long hot showers. Although not a real paying guest, I was allowed to go
on game drives, where I saw some of the most amazing animals, and got my first taste
of the weird world of bird watching, which I think must be an acquired taste, because
established "birders" are fanatical about it, shouting to stop the car every
ten feet, to look through binoculars and tick off their list, every seemingly unremarkable
and distant sparrow, roller and weaver.

Luckily there were plenty of more sizable animals too. On one drive we saw over
200 elephant, a couple of which did mock charges at our vehicle. Scary but great!
On another, we watched 17 lions stalking, surrounding and attacking a group of zebra.
Also incredible, was seeing a large Eland, an antelope as big and heavy as a cow,
suddenly jump 9 feet in the air, and over 40 feet in distance!

After three days of this other, much more comfortable and beautiful "Safari"
Africa, it was time for me to get back on the old busses and head south again. Luckily
I got a free ride back to Iringa in a supplies Land Rover. I booked a bus to Malawi,
but it was three hours late, and then didn't even stop at the station! I was thrown
into a taxi, and we chased the bus and forced it to pull over. Despite my booking,
the bus was full. I was offered to sit on the engine cover for the 17 hour trip,
but I declined and demanded my money back from the liars who sold me the ticket.
There was only one more bus that day, and it was going to Mbeya in the south of
Tanzania. I wanted to keep moving. This was my first trip on the famous Scandinavia
busses, which are the closest thing to luxury and safety available in East Africa.
It was a nice change not to be fearing for one's life.

In Mbeya, I went hiking up a very steep 2000 ft mountain, and fell asleep on the
summit. It was amazing to lose time and wake up with a breathtaking view over the
African landscape. On the way down the mountain, I passed numerous Christian shrines,
all of which had been smashed with sledgehammers. A local I asked about this said
Al-Qaeda was responsible. Seems a little dramatic and unlikely to me.

One of the aspects of East African life is the Islamic call to prayer at five every
morning. In some towns it is beautiful and others just a sleep disturbance. Mbeya
has the nastiest, angriest, and longest call to prayer. It lasts a full hour, and
the guy just shouts in a very violent and repetitive way. Lying in bed with my pillow
over my head, I wondered if he was the shrine-smashing Muslim of the mountain!
On the second morning of barely surviving the psychological warfare, I resolved
to go and meet the person responsible.

After asking around, and receiving much humorous encouragement from locals, I was
led to the imam of the mosque, with whom I had a very nice meeting. I explained
that I had grown up in a Muslim country, that I had great respect for Islam, etc.
but what the fuck is that guy's problem? The imam was impressed that I had taken
the trouble to visit him, and explained that it was simply a question of personal
style, which had become a quirky tradition in the town. When I explained that I
was leaving because of the disturbance, I even had my bags with me at the meeting
for dramatic effect, he decided that they would have a meeting about the call to
prayer, and about their relationship, as a minority group, with the local non-Muslim
community.

The next day I started heading for Malawi again. Again I was lied to by similar
bus agents, which pissed me off. So I was happy to meet the head of a convoy of
16 army trucks (a weird present from India, for the Malawi government)! They were
going my way, and agreed to take me along, for a small fee. I got in the leading
truck, which had a round hatch in the roof for standing up and looking out. I was
looking forward to this unusual transportation, but then we didn't move for several
hours! When the original Malawi bus drove past, I flagged it down and was happy
to find it half empty this time. I grabbed my bags and thanked the convoy leader.
As I sat down on the bus, I realized it was the very same bus I had taken from Morogoro
to Iringa, and sure enough, we soon hit a speed bump, and I hit the roof again!!!
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