Back at Camp

4^th Jan – Back to the grind. The journey back from kigoma was quite adventurous as well. Largely due to the fact that the car was already at camp. So me and Simon (who met me in Kigoma) did the food shop for the month and then got a taxi to dump as outside the town on the right road. Here we waited with our optimistic thumbs well up. Lots of cars passed us by. Being white i thought we'd have no problem. I was quite wrong, maybe it was the mountain of food behind us.. who knows. Anyway, we finally got a ride out of town which dropped us at the next cross roads. From here we were lucky to get a pick up truck to take us to the next village. I sat in the back with all the food. Fun stuff. Then from the next village we got another pick up truck to Uvinza. The only complication was it was rammed with alot of other people. Every bump threatened someone falling off the side. Luckily i was wedged between the rice and the flour. Characteristically for Africa, this was not enough and decided to throw in another variable. We started towing another car. Quite a bizzare site im sure. A pick up truck full of people towing a small van. Needless to say progress was very slow. Eventually made it to uvinza though but too late to get another ride to camp. Instead we found a guy who says hes going in our direction but at 5:30am. He's happy to give us a ride. For a fee for sure. 

We wake up bright and early and we (with the help of some other passengers) brought all our stuff to the road to load onto the car. Only its not a car, its a lorry. Wait no its not a lorry either, its a cattle truck! So for the next for hours there we are bumping along in a cattle truck with all our stuff. quite a fun ride actually. 

Me on 2nd pick up at Kasalamimba village

Simon on Cattle truck

Me on cattle truck providing entertainment for other passengers

Me on 1st pick up

Oh yeh

I discover that some of the guys found a monstrous dead 3m long rock python. Knowing my passion for these kinds of things they do the right thing and take some pictures then lop its head off as a gift to me. This probably seems like a pretty sadistic ‘gift’ to give someone – a python head… Its eyes glazed, its teeth poking out from sloughing gums and offcourse the smell.. Quite the contrary, It was a great gift – I have since turned the head into a skull (which needs to be glued due to two miss placed machete blows in the severing of the head) but the teeth are impressive. Long, sharp and numerous they line the jaws and are angled towards the throat preventing potential prey from escaping its jaws of death. It should also be noted that a python of 3m could quite comfortably take a small person as a meal. 

Rock Python head