Day 76 – 77: Iringa to Hondo Hondo

Since this was the most expensive hotel we stayed in so far, we expected the breakfast to also be the best and it didn’t fail to deliver. Beside the usual offerings they also had delicious Samosas (called Sambusa in Tanzania) and the eggs was served as a omelette. There was also a fruit platter with pineapple and watermelon.
We left the hotel at 09:20 and went to the Toyota Garage that we spotted yesterday. It looked like some grease came out of the left CV boot, so I wanted too check it out. They suggested to just put on a new clamp and so they did. They charged 30 000 shillings, which isn’t too bad in itself, but compared to Highland motors in Mbeya it is 20 times more expensive for the time it took. While Hugo waited with the MonkeyMobile, Caro went to Neema crafts for a coffee and then bought three reed baskets, which Hugo doesn’t know where she wants to fit it.

We left Iringa at 10:30, but then still had to fill up at Puma. We got to Mikumi at 14:40 and went to the TanSwiss Lodge to ask about the road to Hondo Hondo. We misread Stan’s blog and thought they took almost 5 hours from Mikumi to Hondo Hondo (but actually it took that long from Iringa to Hondo Hondo). At TanSwiss they told us it is just 50km of which 30km is tar, so we went for it.

We got to the Hondo Hondo campsite at 16:40, with the last 20km gravel that took us a full hour. The road definitely hasn’t seen a bulldozer since Stan and Anne visited it almost two year’s ago.

We set up camp and went for a walk on the Nature Trial, but it was already getting dark. We stopped at the bar and Bella the donkey came running to us. She followed us back to the MonkeyMobile. For dinner Caro made spaghetti with our last tin of corned meat. We are getting low on supplies as we haven’t found a single shop worth shopping at in Tanzania. We set up our mosquito net underneath the tent and sat there for a while until it started to rain and we had to quickly pack up and go to bed.

Day 77 Hondo Hondo

Caro got up at 08:00 and wanted to do the nature walk again, but Hugo was still sleepy. She went alone. Hugo made himself breakfast and then started to sort out some things in the car. At 11:00 Caro came back with some lovely photos. She saw red colobus monkeys, yellow baboons, lot’s of butterflies, birds and flowers.

We asked Godfrey the camp manager about the $5 guide Emanual that used to show people around, but he just said all the information is in the information sheet. There is no sign of Emanual and they now charge $20 per person for a visit to the Magombero Forest and that’s without transport there. Surprisingly none of our maps really shows the Magombero Forest. Finally we found Magombero Village on T4A and decided to go and check it out tomorrow.

For the rest of the day we just relaxed and enjoyed the scenery, some yellow baboons who stole corn came to eat it in front of us. In the afternoon we went for a hike through the local village. The people were mostly friendly with just a few children shouting Mzungu, but they didn’t even come close to us.

Back at camp we made delicious pancakes. For mains we had a tuna mayonnaise filling and for dessert cinnamon sugar, maple syrup, date syrup and bananas and then Aromat Chilli Beef on the last one.

We sat under the mosquito net again and took out the laptops to sift through photos and to work on the blog, but again it started to rain and we had to pack up.