Day 266 / 31

Date: 3 January 2023
Sleeping location: Ngwanayesu Guesthouse, Manga, Tanzania 
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 79 / 16376 / 1539
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 300 / 141200 / 23200
Game: big
Day in three words: Bump, rump, hefalump

I had a leisurely breakfast and pack-up session with C&AC, then donned my tsetse fly protection outfit of baggy grey trousers and a cream jumper. Today I was riding through Katavi national park; it has a reputation for tsetse and the recommended protective clothing is baggy, long-sleeved and not blue or black, which is basically the opposite of my usual riding garb. There were two roads through the park and I elected to take the smaller one as both seemed to be dirt and apparently more animals hung out away from the main road.

It was bumpy almost from the off, and fairly uncomfortable, but quiet. The road skirted the edge of the NP through sparse trees and bush for 20km then dove in. Nothing much changed except now there were tsetse flies, albeit not too many. A got a few bites here and there but generally it seemed like my outfit was working…except on my bum, which was not protected by baggy clothing like elsewhere* and incurred frequent sharp and mysterious pains. I was only going to be in the park for about 45km and for 20km I saw nothing interesting, just a few big birds flying away and a couple of monkeys in the distance. It was woodland rather than open savannah and the vegetation was too thick to see far, and nearby animals were probably being scared off by the occasional vehicles going through. At 20km was Hippo Bridge, with plenty of the big bastards in the water below, but I’d been hanging out with them for the last 36 hours. I was hot and uncomfortable from the bumpy road and the whole thing was beginning to feel like a big disappointment. 

A little bit further on I spotted some grey shapes off to the left. There was a small track in that direction so on a whim I decided to take it, and as I got closer the grey resolved itself into black and white stripes and I realised I was looking at five zebra. I then noticed a herd of deer things to the right and about ten more zebra. They could see me and when I got too close they all started to trot away. Then I saw a tall orange shape to the left and realised it was my long-limbed kindred spirit the giraffe. I went to check him out but as I got closer he also became spooked and started to trot away, employing a running style where all his limbs apparently moved in random directions. I heard a clomping sound from back where the zebras had been and there were two more giraffes lollopping around. All of the bumps and fly bites were immediately worth it. 

There was more to come. About half an hour later I stopped for a nibble and a drink and about 100m up the road suddenly saw a dangling grey shape emerge from the bush. Slowly an elephant emerged and crossed the road, then stopped on the other side so I could just see its bum and tail. Then I heard some rustling noises in the bush to the right and ahead. If there were more elephants crossing the road I didn't want to be there when they came out, in case I startled them, but equally I didn't want to approach the one ahead whilst it was by the side of the road. Eventually its bum and tail disappeared and I started to cycle very slowly and carefully forward past the rustling sounds. As I passed I briefly saw an elephant in the bush around 30m away, but it didn't see me and I kept rolling towards where the other one had been. About 20m away I suddenly realised it was still there, right next to the road.

I stopped and very carefully took a photo (priorities) then stood still, watching it. It was pulling up grass and eating it, but then it noticed me, stopped eating and started looking straight at me. At one point it flapped its ears to get the dust off, which I thought might be a warning, but then it decided I wasn't much to worry about and started pulling up more grass and eating it, whilst still staring at me.  It knew I was a thing but didn't seem to know what I was, so it just kept looking. With the elephant in Uganda it felt like we were staring at each other for minutes but it was actually seconds; this situation did last for minutes, him curious, me with my heart racing, thinking about strategy and scenarios and potential escape routes. Eventually I decided I had to do something, and there was no way I was going to do anything dramatic or ride towards him, so I very carefully turned my bike around and started cycling slowly back the other way, checking over my shoulder constantly. This had exactly the desired effect as he then seemed to realise that I was a thing to be wary of, but not an immediate danger, and he turned and went off into the bush. I looped back round and quickly cycled on up the track. What an experience. 

Towards the end of the national park I saw another elephant, but this one had apparently heard me coming and was moving away from the road into the bush. This gave me some reassurance that the other one was unlikely to have attacked, I think it just stood its ground because it didn't know what I was and because I was stationary. They seem to dislike all moving vehicles, even piddly little ones like me. 

Outside the park the road remained bumpy as hell but the wonderment decreased markedly and it was a grind until the road unexpectedly turned into tarmac. This bodes well for the big climb early tomorrow. I went to a village guesthouse which was billed as "new and clean" on ioverlander but appeared to have been taken over by new management - a colony of ants - since then. The guy tried to massively overcharge me and I had to work hard to get it down to a price that was probably still too high. This kind of thing has been very rare in Tanzania. Dinner was steak tartare followed by a nice fillet of hake with samphire and a raspberry pavlova, lol no of course it wasn't it was rice and beans. A shop in the village had such an unexpectedly good fridge that I bought two big ginger beers and a bottle of water, just to feel that once familiar sense of cool refreshment. Back in the room by 6.30, I combined one of the ginger beers with some of the Conyagi, which turned out to be a sort of gin-flavoured alcohol-based drink, and had a little party (aka typed up my blog and watched a film).

*Obviously my bum was covered, by two layers in fact, but the bent forward cycling position pulls the fabric tight and apparently provides a juicy target for hungry flies