Cycle Tanzania Part 2 (Arusha to Ngorongoro)

To speed up loading times with all the photos, I made a separate post for the first 5 days, which was the section leaving Moshi and circumnavigating Kilimanjro https://www.ascendandwander.ca/2020/01/cycle-tanzania-part-1-kilimanjaro.html

Day 6. Olpopongi to Arusha

Leaving Kilimanjaro behind was bitter sweet. I had been in Africa for about 2 weeks to this point and the majority of my time had been spent in the vicinity of the National Park or the surrounding communities. I was stoked to explore more of Tanzania. Our objective today was planned to end just outside the big city of Arusha.

The Ngasurai plains serve as a migratory path for wildlife moving to and from Amboseli National Park in Kenya. We were fortunate to see giraffes and gazelles up close, in addition to zebras and ostriches from a distance. The wildlife corridor was incredible and if I could do one section over again it would definitely be the west Kilimanjaro plains. Google maps isn’t reliable for this section of the bike tour as many of the dirt roads were overgrown and aren’t appearing online; therefore I can’t retrace our exact route, but our general direction was southwest passing through very small villages including Africa Amini (coordinates 3°06'01.1"S 36°55'21.4"E) before connecting with the main tarmac road that leads into Arusha somewhere near the Ngare Nanyuki junction. Mount Mero dominated today’s view. It is significantly less popular than Kilimnajro but would be a great objective to avoid the crowds yet still get exposed to the high altitude.

As we joined the main tarmac road on our final stretch into Arusha, the rain starting coming down then turned into a monsoon. Luckily we didn’t have to deal with any mud this time but a long distance low angle descent is a terrible time to get caught in a rainstorm. Imagine being completely drenched head to toe almost instantaneously then continually getting soaked from the rear tires spray. A headwind is blowing at you, chilling your core temperature, but you also don’t want to layer up and get additional clothes soaked. Pedaling hard can’t warm you up since the bike isn’t working against any resistance while descending at a fast speed. For this reason, I probably would have preferred anything except a low downhill (never thought I would be saying that). We did finally find shelter at a bus stop and waited out the storm. Hopefully this little story portrays the real experience of this trip (despite the photos, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows)!

Getting lost on the overgrown roads

Seeing my first wild giraffe was EPIC

Looking closely you can see a few gazelle rushing to cross the road in front of us. Equally as EPIC as seeing the giraffe 40 minutes prior

Passing through some small villages consisting of only a few buildings

Removing a dead snake off the road. Tracks just uphill suggest a dirt biker squished this snake then slammed on the brakes and wiped out a few metres later

Day 7. Arusha to Tarangire National Park

Nothing but 100+ kilometres of highway between Arusha and Tarangure National Park. What would take 2 hours of driving, took us the whole day. It nice seeing the country side from the discomfort of a bike saddle. Ernest Hemingway’s famous quote of “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them” was on my mind throughout the day. A consistent tail wind also helped us more cover ground than usual. Then George got an unrepairable flat tire which resulted in a long walk of shame until our next checkpoint.

We stopped at the park entrance, which was packed with safari jeeps. Tarangire is home the largest concentration of elephants in Tanzania. We were camping at the Roika Tented Lodge which is right on the National Park boundary. Seeing wild elephants was incredible and unnerving at the same time. I was standing there awestruck while they would pick up entire thorn bushes with their trunks and eat them whole. Clearly our bike tires weren’t as tough as the elephant’s skin; combined we had a total of 6 flat tires in the span of 2 hours.

The Tanzanian countryside from the highway

George getting an unrepairable flat which resulted in a long walk of shame to our next checkpoint

Tarangire National Park

During the dry season, the Tarangire River is northern Tanzania's primary fresh water source for animals of the African Rift Valley

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Footprints and trampled vegetation

Another daily dose of rain. This time we were already under the tents

Day 8. Tarangire to Lake Manyara National Park

Tarangire and Lake Manyara are rather close in proximity to one another as the crow flies, but our route approaches the the lake along the northern tip. To access Lake Manyara, we backtracked the park service road (seeing another elephant in the morning!) to reconnect with the main highway I had grown accustomed to since yesterday. Our support car carrying all the food and camping gear got stuck trying to cross a stream that looked more like a river. I remember noticing that the same location was barely flowing the day prior. It's crazy how much the weather and topography can change the layout of the land in such a short period of time. We chilled in the little village of Kwa Kuchinia while figuring things out. It was one of our hottest days thus far with temperatures upwards of 30 degrees. The road diverting off to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and Ngorongoro crater was a great ride with views of the Greater Rift Valley. Some sections were washed out and another storm passed overhead but we were used to that already. When the baboons started to litter the sides of the roads, that meant we were approaching the busy town Mto Wa Mbu. A steep walk-a-bike climb just outside the Lake Manyara National Park gate brought us to Migombani Camp.

Yesterday's rain event creating challenges for our support vehicle while leaving Tarangire. No problem for bikes though! I remember riding over this stream the day prior and it was barely flowing. Crazy how much the weather and topography can change access in the short term

Cooling off in Kwa Kuchinia. Today's temps were upwards of 30 degrees (86 F)

Back at the major highway junction

Roadside baboons in Mto Wa Mbu

A steep climb to finish the day at Migombani Camp outside Lake Manyara

Day 9. Lake Manyara to Ngorongoro Crater

A series of uphills will finish the entire bike ride. We left the gate that would have taken us to the “Home of the tree climbing lions,” AKA, Lake Manyara National Park, early in the morning to start the uphill with cool temperatures. The whole day we were constantly getting past by hundreds of tourists in jeeps, it was soul destroying to say the least . As we slowly ascended the winding road up the Greater Rift Valley, the views of Lake Manyara continued to get better as we gained elevation. Karatu is the last town before the conservation areas. From here we continued to the Ngorongoro Crater gate. This is where the Cycle Tanzania trip ends. Park rangers were not allowing bikes through with the current situation of too many roadside buffalo.