One of the world’s oldest and largest lakes is a spectacular place to learn to take it slow
My friend Hugh Fraser and I recently drove from South Africa to Rwanda and back again – an epic 40-day, 10,000km road trip that went via Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi and Mozambique. On the 16th day, we made it to Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania.
“Welcome to Tanzania,” said a woman called Happy from Kasesya border post immigration as we crossed over from Zambia. Happy led us into a small dark room, took our temperatures, inspected our yellow fever certificates and painstakingly wrote down our passport details in a big dusty book.
“I love you, Happy,” shouted someone from another office. “I love you more,” replied Happy.
Kasesya is a tiny, quiet border post. The entry-exit record book on the counter showed that Hugh and I would be the first people to cross here in three days. Outside was the Tanzanian flag, a palm tree, a big truck and a lone rooster. “Life is a tragedy in close-up,” said Charlie Chaplin, “but a comedy in long-shot.” It took us nearly two hours to cross this little border. “Pole, pole,” as they say in Swahili. “Slowly, slowly.”
To the shoreline
There were roadworks almost as soon as we started driving (being done by Chinese construction companies, which was pretty much the case in all nine countries we visited), and the speed limit changed from 80 to 60 to 40km/h as we entered the villages and then from 40 to 60 to 80km/h as we left them. There were plenty of traffic cops and police, mostly very friendly and polite.
The style of the buildings and roofs were distinctly different in Tanzania. The road signs and shopfront signs were all in Swahili, and we started seeing many more mosques. The first big town was Sumbawanga, where we managed to get fuel, cash, a Tanzanian SIM card for Hugh (to which I tethered like a local goat), cashew nuts, deliciously spicy potato samoosas and whisky. The most readily available brand in Tanzania came with a free glass, which was very useful for happy campers.
It was a long, sweaty stretch, but by late afternoon on the 16th day of this epic road trip, we’d completely forgotten about roadworks and tiny borders and sat spellbound as the sun set over the ancient Lake Tanganyika.
One of only 20 lakes that are more than a million years old, Tanganyika is the longest freshwater lake in the world and the second deepest after Lake Baikal in Siberia. Tanganyika is so deep because it lies in the Great Rift Valley, reaching a depth of more than 600m below sea level.
The G&Ts came out and the sun turned the skies a wild orange and pink. Across the lake, we could see the faint outline of mountains in DRC. The lake is shared by Tanzania, Burundi, Zambia and DRC, and now it was sharing with us, big time.
Colour and relaxation
Lake Shore Lodge is utterly dreamy. The Funky Mango Bar and Restaurant is the heart of the place, a glass-walled open-plan building on the lake’s edge, where guests gather for drinks, meals and travel chats. Then there are a series of luxury villas set under mango trees, with bougainvillea and frangipanis that add splashes of colour.
Accommodation is in a glorious villa decorated in blues, with an open front that looks out across the water. This was the 99th country in the world that Hugh had visited and he said it was one of the loveliest places he’d ever stayed.
Lakeshore is owned and run by ex-South Africans Chris and Louise Horsfall. Louise was away, unfortunately, but Chris regaled us with colourful tales of what it took to build and run a lodge on the lake in remote Tanzania. It’s especially tricky in the rainy season!
The venue was filled with interesting guests. There was a Dutch family who we’d bump into again in Burundi, two South African lawyers on honeymoon and a couple of Belgian friends.
What a glorious few lakeside days we had. We visited the ruins of an old monastery nearby (Tanzania’s oldest inland church), and we moseyed over to Kipili village for a cold beer (Serengeti and Kilimanjaro are two great local brews) and sat at the interestingly named Flotilla Home of Discipline Pub as the local kids stared at us. We swam in the lake, lay on the beach, watched guests go off for scuba diving and kayaking and then watched them return for massages and cocktails.
“Pole, pole,” as they say in Swahili. “Slowly, slowly.”
Text and Photography | Bridget Hilton-Barber
For more information or to book a stay, go to tanzaniaparks.go.tz and lakeshoretz.com.
Bridget Hilton-Barber’s trip was sponsored by ClemenGold Gin.
