I guess I was in the middle of our trip to Lake Natron when it got away from me last october.
We made it to Natron. Here's Ben dipping his toe in its caustic waters:
We had passed Oldonyo Lengai (the sacred volcano of the Maasai) that morning, and the scenery was beautiful. Hard to believe it hasn't been turned into a national park yet.
After that the excellent road that we were on met up with the main tourist road, which was also unpaved but much worse in every way. We started seeing landrovers again, the whole road was covered in washboard bumps, and we also started running into tourist gates.
There is a law in Tanzania stating that communities can charge tourists for visiting sites of cultural or natural beauty in their jurisdiction. What various villages have interpreted this as is that they can put up toll gates across public highways and charge anyone who looks foreign driving past. The fees shouldn't have applied to us, since we are legal residents of Tanzania and not tourists and because we were just trying to get to the other side of these villages and were not interested in any nature or culture in their jurisdiction anyway. But the guards at the gate weren't having any of it, even when we showed them our papers and explained at length the situation. They insisted on charging us an outrageous sum to pass. So we ended up giving them 5,000/- as a bribe instead of paying $15 each, and they let us through. They also told us there was another gate on the way to Natron that would charge us again. Instead of going through that rigamarole again, we instead turned off at the closest dry riverbed and drove down that to the edge of Lake Natron.
It was alright, kind of pretty but left me wondering why people make such a big fuss about it. We did get to see some flamingos up close in a sort of tide pool though.
On the way back we realized it was going to be hard to retrace our steps. The dry riverbed had flattened into the larger mud flat on our way down, and we didn't know exactly where we had come from. Fortunately we were able to just make out our tire tracks from earlier. Unfortunately a herd of giraffes and zebras had wandered right across our path, and we looked like terrible people for driving right at them. We didn't want to disturb them; we just didn't want to get lost since we were already kind of low on water and fuel.
Anyway, we did find our way back to the road. Right before we turned onto it, we were met by a very angry man coming the other way on a little Indian motorcycle. He was gesturing wildly for me to stop. I looked back for Ben, but didn't see him behind me around the bend. I saw that the man on the little motorcycle had a machete, and I thought "no way I'm going to stop for some stranger in the middle of nowhere with a weapon." I pinned the throttle, and relied on the power and suspension advantage of the Honda to quickly leave him behind. After a while, I stopped and waited for Ben to catch up. He had also seen the man and did the exact same thing as I had. We both opened the throttle and didn't look back again. We've heard stories about bandits waylaying travelers in this part of the country.
On the way back we got an even closer look at Oldonyo Lengai, but the top was still covered in clouds.
From there we headed straight South through Engaruka to Mto wa Mbu. I don't have much to say about that part of the drive except that the road was terrible, it was very hot, and there was not much to see until we hit Mto wa Mbu. Just butt-pounding driving on the washboard bumps and unending hassle from the tourist gates. I highly recommend anyone going to or from Natron do so through Monduli. It's longer but an infinitely better drive.
We made it back to Mto wa Mbu for a cold beer (the first in days) and a hot meal. Then we zipped up the escarpment to Karatu. Just like that the trip was over. Back to work the next morning. I'm infinitely obliged to Ben for going with me. It was quite a bit of fun and definitely not the sort of thing you want to do alone.
We even forgot to do an end of trip picture, so instead here's a selfie we took upon reaching Lake Natron.
Addendum:
I lost my raincoat on this trip. I don't remember precisely where, but I suspect that Ben left it at the guest house in Kitumbeine after I lent it to him during that terrible storm. I even have photographic evidence of him wearing it there. I liked that jacket; it was a Christmas present from my sister. I hope that Ben is properly ashamed of himself.
