African Train Safari Destinations

The railway line passes through typical African savannah. Great forests of Baobabs alternate with clumps of flat-topped thorn trees. In between, low bushes abound of many different varieties. As the line drops from the terrace to the coastal flatland, so it enters a belt of spectacular, dense, dark green jungle. Great gnarled creepers climb parasitically over tall matted trees in chaotic yet majestic beauty.

The jungle is truly impenetrable. It should be recalled that until 1928 Dar-Es-Salaam had no road communication with the interior. Low-lying mangrove swamps through the sandy coastal strip of palms and bananas interrupt the final twenty kilometres of the approach to Dar es Salaam. The heat and humidity increase and human settlements become more frequent.

Dar es Salaam was founded in 1862 by the sultan of Zanzibar on the site of the village of Mzizima. It remained only a small port until the German East Africa Company established a station there in 1887. The starting point (1907) for the Central Line railroad, it served as the capital of German East Africa (1891-1916), Tanganyika (1961-64), and Tanzania (1964-74). In 1974 Dodoma was designated Tanzania's national capital. Pending completion of the transfer of official functions to Dodoma, however, Dar es Salaam remains the seat of most government administration.

Buildings in Dar es Salaam often reflect the city's colonial past and display a rich mix of architectural styles, incorporating Swahili, British, German, and Asian traditions. Post World War II modernization and expansion brought contemporary multi-story buildings, including a hospital complex, a technical institute, and a high court. Educational facilities include the University of Dar es Salaam (1961), several libraries and research institutes, and the National Museum. Dar es Salaam's natural, nearly landlocked harbour is the outlet for most of mainland Tanzania's agricultural and mineral exports and is also a transit port for the Congo River, whose navigable tributary, the Lualaba, can be reached by rail. The city is the terminus of a rail line west to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika, north to Mwanza on Lake Victoria south to Zambia. Dar-Es-Salaam is, in common with most African cities, more romantic to the imagination than to the senses. The road from the station, which is remote from the city centre, lies through a crowded sprawl of pavement stalls and shacks selling, inter alia, mosquito nets at a bargain prices. Tanzania is a stable African state, save for the refugee problems caused by Rwanda's genocide and the Congolese civil war. There has also been a rise in demand for greater autonomy for Zanzibar, possibly leading to separation and independence.

One hundred kilometres across the strait lies the coral island of Zanzibar, half Arab and half African. Founded by the sultans of Muscat and Oman on the Persian Gulf (the Strait of Hormuz), in 1844 it became the permanent seat of the sultan. The great slave emporium until 1873, Livingstone stayed there, as did Stanley, Speke, and Burton etc. Proclaimed a British protectorate in 1890, it continued to fly the red flag of the sultan until a bloody revolution in January 1964, after which it became a Soviet satellite. In order to prevent the emergence of a second Cuba, President Nyerere of Tanganyika engineered a condominium whereby the name changed to Tanzania. The unique aspects of Zanzibar however, remain.

Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam

The Selous Game Reserve, the largest game park in Africa, is named after Frederick Courtney Selous, a naturalist, explorer and soldier of the nineteenth century who led Rhodes' pioneer column into Mashonaland in 1890. During the First World War in which German East Africa was a theatre of battle for four years, he was accidentally shot and buried in the park, which is now named after him. It covers an area of about 54 600 square kilometres and bestrides a complex of rivers including the Kilombero, Ruaha, and Rufiji. Its vegetation is woodland, with patches of dense hardwood forest and some of the finest virgin bush left in Africa. The reserve, established in 1922, holds one of the largest remaining concentrations of big-tusked elephants and large-maned lions, as well as such other mammals as buffalo, leopard, rhinoceros, zebra, and various antelope. This virtually inaccessible reserve was opened to visitors in 1963 when hunting tracks were constructed. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982 due to the diversity of its wildlife and undisturbed nature.

Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam

Mbeya is the first large urban settlement encountered after leaving the border post towns of Nkonde and Tunduma. Following the 1905 gold rush, Mbeya was founded as a gold mining town in the 1920s and was administered by the British until 1961.

The TAZARA railway later attracted farming migrants and small entrepreneurs to the area.

The area around Mbeya has been called the "Scotland of Africa" with good reason. It is situated at an altitude of 1 700ms and sprawls through a narrow highland valley surrounded by a bowl of high mountains.

The mountains are clad in heather and bracken but botanically they are more dosely related to the Fynbos (fine bush) of South Africa's Western Cape Province than the Highlands of Scotland. The nearest mountain to Mbeya is Loleza Mountain which rises over the town. Mount Rungwe is the highest mountain in the wider Mbeya region and it dominates the skyline for several kilometres around. It is composed of ten or more dormant volcanic craters and domes. Rising above the small town of Tukuyu at 2 960ms Rungwe is southern Tanzania's highest peak, and is third in Tanzania after Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru in the north. Mount Rungwe is surrounded by the catchments forest reserve that was gazetted in 1949. This forest reserve incorporates montane forest, upper montane forest and montane grassland with lesser amounts of bushland and heath at the upper elevations, found in low bushes along streams and at the edges of montane forest. The forest is home to a variety of significant forest flora and fauna, including the threatened Abbot's Duiker. The forest is regarded as important bird area with the most notable creatures being the Rungwe Buzh Viper and Colobus monkeys.

Also ecologically important are the Poroto Mountains south-east of Mbeya. In 2005, a completely new species of large monkey was discovered living in the southern highlands to the south-west of Mbeya. The Mbeya region has not yet been dosely studied by scientists, and doubtless there are also many new species of plants to be discovered there, and perhaps even new animals.

Forests in the area, even in the reserves, continue to be encroached upon and degraded. However, there has also been extensive tree and forest planting, which ensures the local firewood supply. There is a small illicit trade in orchid bulbs, which is thought to be endangering the survival of some species.

The landscape between the Zambian frontier and Mbeya is superb. The railway winds and twists slowly down the side of the escarpment from where views of the Rift Valley cutting its way southwards are revealed. Gradually the smudge of volcanic outcrops of the Mbeya range of mountains dominated by Mount Mbeya defines itself. Mbeya is heavily mineralised and gold is mined here. It is still high and cool. The Mbozi meteorite, the third largest in the world (25 tons), lies 64kms to the west.

Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam

Known as German East Africa between 1890 and 1920, Tanzania then changed its name to Tanganyika, deriving the name from the lake and plateau of that name. Lake Tanganyika is the largest of the Rift Valley lakes. It is 769ms above sea level and stretches 720kms from north to south with an average breadth of 48 to 72kms .It touches Tanzania, Zambia, Zaire and Burundi. It is the second deepest freshwater lake in the world after Lake Baikal in Russia. Soundings of 972ms - the Height of Table Mountain - have been obtained. The temperature of the first 49ms is uniformly 25 Celsius. Of the 402 local species of animal life resident in the lake, 293 are unique to it. This is proof that it has been separated from Lake Malawi, which is the second largest Rift Valley lake and lies to the south-east, for many millions of years. Burton and Speke were the first white people to visit the lake in 1858, followed by Livingstone in 1869.

The countryside rises towards the frontier with Tanzania where it then drops towards the Great Rift Valley, one of the most interesting geological areas in the world. The gash of the Great Rift Valley zigzags 4 500kms southwards from Jordan, through the Red Sea, cutting through Ethiopia and the Danikil Depression. The valley then splits into western and eastern branches. The dry, volcanic eastern branch cuts through Kenya and Tanzania eventually disappearing into the southern Tanzanian plains. The western branch continues down to form the natural boundary for nine nations from the Sudan to Mozambique. This is where Africa's Great Lakes are situated of which Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi are the two largest.

A rift valley occurs when the Earth's crust bubbles up to breaking point. The crust thins and splits and a narrow sliver of rock slips downward. This sets up volcanic pressures and fresh lava flows form new crust in the centre of this slowly widening rift. This is termed 'sea-floor spreading1 because it usually happens along the 74 000 kilometre Mid-Ocean Ridge that circles the Earth through all its oceans.

Although the African Rift is opening much slower than the undersea rifts - about one millimetre per year -it is easier and cheaper to observe. Geologists theorise that in 50 million years time or so the widening Rift will have broken off the north eastern bit of Africa to form a new island like Madagascar did when it broke off from the Kenya Embayment. With the new weight of water now pressing on the earth's crust, dense basaltic lava will extrude to form a new seafloor.

Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam

Mpika, once a major stopover for London to Cape Town flights, but now a small country town is an administrative centre and lies near Lwitikila Falls and Nachikufu Cave which features rock art from the Neolithic age. It is a major crossroad for the Great North Road with Lake Tanganyika to the north and the Tanzanian border to the east.

The large bustling town of Kasama (1 332ms) is the capital and supply centre of the Northern Province. The Germans sacked Kasama in November 1918. Shortly afterwards, the great German guerrilla leader, General Von Lettow Vorbeck, first received word of the Armistice in Europe, after capturing a British despatch rider.

Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam

About 50 kilometres before Serenje, and approximately five kilometres from the furthest south eastern corner of the Shaba/Katanga pedicle, is the frontier with the DRC (ex-Zaire). About 100kms north of Serenje (1 585ms) is the place where David Livingstone gave his heart to Africa.

It was at Chitambo's kraal that the great Scotsman was found dead kneeling in prayer at the side of his camp bed in May 1873. His devoted servants buried his heart and then carried his embalmed body, disguised as trade goods, across 1800kms of wildest Africa to the coast at Bagamoyo and Zanzibar. Hundreds of slaves came to pay their last respects to the man who did so much to expunge slavery for Africa. Finally, after the greatest funeral of the nineteenth century, he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey under a stone, which reads: 'Brought by faithful hands over land and sea, here rests David Livingstone'.

The countryside, although high, is thick with Miomba woodland and Raffia palms. It is bushveld, not unlike the Kruger National Park and Botswana, but only more so. A constant interplay between open plain and closed bush takes place. Along the Chozi River, the dark green and red fronds of the Raffia palms shimmer in the light.

Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam

Kabwe, at an elevation of 1 182ms, is an important transportation and mining centre north of Lusaka on the Great North Road. Previously known as Broken Hill it was named after a mine in Australia to which its geology bears a resemblance. The Rhodesian Broken Hill Development Company (formed 1903) was instrumental in opening the region to foreign mining interests. After the mine was sunk for extraction of the high-grade zinc, vanadium, and lead ores the first railway in the country was built, extending north eastward from Victoria Falls. The need for power led to the opening in 1924 of one of Africa's early hydroelectric power stations, on the Mulungushi River 51kms southeast. Kabwe is the headquarters of Zambia Railways. Maize (corn) and tobacco are cultivated in the surrounding area. This is where 'Rhodesian Man' (Homo sapiens rhodesiensis), a primeval ancestor of modern man was discovered in the thirties, but whose significance has faded with the discovery of older skulls in Tanzania.

The railway system dates back to the pre-World War I German-built Central Railway Line, which bisects the country between Dar es Salaam, Kigoma, and the Tanga-to-Moshi railway. Today there is also a branch between these two lines, and another line connects Mwanza with Tabora on the Central Line.

In 1968, the People's Republic of China wished to erect a more concrete and permanent manifestation of its leadership of the Non-Aligned movement and solidarity with the Third World. The project selected for this testimonial was the TAZARA or UHURU or ‘Freedom’ railway line. Landlocked Zambia was then surrounded by the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique and White Rhodesia to the south. The Vietnam War sustained an insatiable demand for Zambian copper and the TAZARA line would break Zambia's dependence on Portuguese-controlled Lobito and Beira and Durban and East London. So the great irony of African history presented itself: Cecil Rhodes' project was carried forward by Communist China under Mao Zhe Dong.

25 000 Chinese and 50 000 African workers toiled for five years to lay 310 000 tons of steel rails and to build 300 bridges and 23 tunnels. 147 stations were constructed over 1858 kilometers from Dar-Es-Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi. The price came to US$230 million and, in 1975; the line was completed, ahead of schedule. At Kapiri it was connected to the old colonial line having the same Cape gauge of 3 foot 6 inches (1 067mm).

No sooner was the last bolt in place than the Portuguese Empire joined those of Babylon and Rome in history's distant memory. In 1975, the Americans fled from Saigon and Zambia's copper boom collapsed, never to rise again.

After South Africa started its long road to re-joining the World after 1990, the prospects of restoring links between South Africa and Tanzania waxed stronger. It was left to Rohan Vos to blow upon the dormant ember of Rhodes' dream and to re-ignite the heroic idea of an epic train journey tying Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam, the terminus of the Cape gauge. After being arrested at Dar Es Salaam airport for sixteen hours gradually, trust was established. Now the TAZARA railway can develop a tourist dimension, which had been singularly lacking since its inception.

Labels: Cape Town to Dar Es Salaam