Ben Wilhelmi

Street photography in Stonetown, Zanzibar

 

 

 

The billy boys.

 

 

 

 

 

Colorful fashionista!

 

Kids are kids everywhere...

 

Kids and young men love to show off on the beach front. Some are real performers, whether in diving exercises or on solid ground.

 

Fishing activity near Bagamoyo, Indian ocean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aerial photography, seaside, Tanzania

 

 

Workers on salt extraction fields. The glare must be painful to the yes...

Village on a tiny island next to Bwejuu island, Mafia channel.

And the reef of unnamed island.

 

Reef, Mafia island.

Fishermen at low tide.

 

A lone couple a few miles from the nearest village which is very remote.

Florida, photography

 

Crystal River near Tampa, I spent a few weeks there for a flying upgrade.

This bar was a bit…special. I heard there used to be anti French mottos on the walls, and French people were just plainly not welcome. Maybe there is a new management and new patrons because I didn’t meet any morons to challenge my French accent (though I’m Belgian).

The front place was interesting enough: A Harley next to a Japanese bike and a carriage, an elephant, a 9/11 memorial. Funny enough the American bald eagle looks very much like the Africa fish eagle. Latin names are respectively haliaeetus leucocephalus and haliaeetus vocifer. Quite a long way to fly apart for these cousins.

 

The owner was pleased that I had stopped to take a few snaps and ask some specs about the car. He said people around were not nice to him, considered him a red neck and thus avoided him. Well true Florida is a nest of retired religious right wingers but then look at the car… seen from my European point of view, this car seems indeed to belong to the redneck pool.

 

Or this one.

 

Renting a discrete RV seems mission impossible in the USA…

 

But then why would you want to be discrete in the US?

 

Florida seems flatter than Holland. I wonder where this modified SUV needs such a high wheel clearance? To drive over gators?

 

This poor girl spent hours yelling, clapping, dancing in the sun. She still made an effort to pose for me.

 

Common scenery.

fishermen, lake Eyasi, Tanzania, aerial photography

 

lake Eyasi, south of Ngorngoro, a salt lake with very little life there, except flamingoes or pelicans, and not always either. But on the southern tip runs in a river. It must be fresh water full of fish considering the dozens of fishermen camps settled alongside that river. 13 years in the country, and I’ve never seen those camps, there or anywhere else.

 

Interesting that those blue tarpaulins are so common whether in refugee camps, in Masai villages or here…

 

OK this kind of detail is common along full rivers, dug out canoes, fish nets…but on a samll scale. Nothing like this first picture and repeated along the river.

 

Drying fish in the sun, or smoked as well, as I’ve spotted some smoke along some of these racks.

ferry MV Liemba, lake Tanganyika, part 5

 

lake Tanganyika makes a border between Congo and Tanzania. Here we are on the MV Liemba between Kigoma and Kasanga, near Zambia.

most of the time, the ferry stops far from the shoreline. People then jump on the little fisherman boats and come to board the boat, or pick friends or relatives or supplies.

boarding through the ferry flanks.

 

the further we went south, the more the boat got uploaded, overloaded. The various decks were hard to cross….event the 1st class deck.

the decks are packed and moving around gets funny and interesting...

 

kids didn’t mind so much that unusual ever changing playground

 

one glorious morning on Mahale mountains.

 

so one engine got a problem and that piece of luck allowed us to disembark in the morning instead of in the middle of the night. Further on the horizon is the Congolese coast. Pirates left us alone. Not to the Somali extent but Congolese pirates used to roam the lake at night looking for fishermen and other small boats to loot. The Tanzanian navy has a gunboat on this lake and at some point did a good job at cleaning up the situation. That was in 2002 and unfortunately things have deteriorated again for the poor fishermen. Congolese pirates are the usual kind of coward people who hide behind borders aftr an attack on helpless fishermen...

we had biking for an hour or so before the ferry resumed her trip.

MV Liemba, a ferry on the Great lakes, Tanzania, part 4

 

on lake Tanganyika to be precise, western Tanzania. Some B/W pictures from 2002 while cycling between Arusha and Cape Town, obviously not in straight line. We went left and right, took 2 ferries, 2 trains….

my lovely Nikon FM2 and a 24mm lens never failed me under the sometimes hard road or track conditions of that 7 month trip

people boarding the ferry, always chaotic.

 

awfully smelly daga drying under the harsch African sun. It’s a staple food, highly prized for proteins. It resembles sardines. That’s quite unimaginable in our western cultures to pay for a 1st class ticket, to enjoy a nice view on a near empty deck and then you’ve got people spreading the crap on your feet to the point you can hardly walk across…well, it gives stories and we’re only guests…

 

Impatient people who can’t wait to go through the dedicated access doors.

It was amazing to count how many boats could come to board the Liemba at every stop nearby fishermen villages. There had been dozens of those stops including at night.

MV Liemba, lake Tanganyika, part 3

More on the ferry MV Liemba on lake Tanganyika. BBC has published on the net a little story on this vintage boat last month.

 

on one picture, we have the Isabella, a Nomad Tanzania dhow, then the Liemba and finally the Congo in the distance. In Mahale nat’l park the Isabella was used as a sundowner boat, or to transport the clients between the airstrip and the luxury camp. That boat had such a lovely and exotic touch…while travelling on the Liemba, I spotted the Mahale mountains but little did I know that I’d spend there weeks in a row (and in other various Nomad locations).

back to the trip below:

there is still some room on the deck but towards the end of the trip, all decks will be totally packed up.

 

people come from the shoreline villages to board or get supplies.

 

It was sometimes dangerous for young mothers to climb on board with babies strapped around. In one case, some people got violent and pushed each other, one mother got caught in the brawl and fell in the water. Some other passengers behaved and rescued the team amongst screams and insults.

 

 

Leaving Mahale mountains.

 

 

all shot on my good old faithful Nikon FM2 and 24mm 2.8 and 105mm 2.5 lenses. That's what I had used for the 7 month bicycle trip from Arusha to Cape Town. Strong and sturdy team!

 

MV Liemba, lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, part II

 

continuing our little resting time on the venerable Liemba, born in WW1 and still running. We had been lucky: one engine got problems and our trip was extended so we got an extra sunrise and we wouldn’t have to disembark at night.

business mama.

 

the Liemba had been refurbished some years before. Obviously not the cabin from 1925.

 

boarding at night. The ferry would stop in the dark night and people would come from the shoreline on small boats.

 

a morning on the Mahale mountains.

 

while docking somewhere alongside the shoreline. If the village was big enough and had a jetty, the ferry would dock properly.

 

 

and 2 years later, while I was flying a bit and relaxing a lot for Nomad Tanzania, I’d spot the Liemba from the Mahale park beach. Tthe landscape far away is Congo, 40 km away from Nomad’s luxury tented tents (or styled artistic wooden constructions).

…or a view from the airplane.

MV Liemba, a ferry on lake Tanganyika, western Tanzania, part 1

 

last week I read an article on BBC about this old ferry on lake Tanganyika. I used to see it quite often when I flew and stayed in Mahale nat’l park some years ago, sometimes for weeks in a row. And then during a bicycle trip between Arusha and Cape Town, we took this Liemba from Kigoma to Kapalagulu, the last Tanzanian port before Zambia. A lovely 2 or 3 day (Africa time) experience that I recommend. It was a great resting time after heavy sandy or dirt track biking around Kigoma and Burundi.

this is Africa so anything can be considered loading and overloading on board, as the recent Zanzibar accident just reminded us all. Even if it has never been meant to, like this jeep. And the owner couldn’t coplain for the new scratches and dents the car received in this operation. It is common knowledge that nearly all boat accidents happening in Africa have a safety issue like overcrowding to look at. In Kigoma, the boat was still reasonably empty but as we proceeded down south, more supplies kept on piling up. Colorful and fascinating spectacle. This ferry is a precious lifeline on the lake. We were a bit concerned for our safety but then this very ferry has been running on the lake since 1925 about without sinking…there might have been some close calls but nobody would say…

the boat was initially a German war boat during WWI. Built in Germany, brought here in bits, reassembled in Kigoma, but quickly sunk voluntarily but carefully by the Kaiser’s troops so it wouldn’t fall to the closing Belgian or British hands. Some years after the war, a salvage team brought the ship up, cleaned it a bit, put the engines back on with minimal work (aah German quality…) and the ferry business started a long life.

the Liemba will stop at every small village on the Tanzania shoreline. As I said it represents the unique lifeline for the residents. The Congolese, living just on the opposite shore, are not so lucky. People come at whatever time the boat shows up, with the usual delays. At night and without lights theses fisherman boats will literally assault the Liemba..

slowly the deck will be packed up and it’ll get increasingly difficult to walk on the bridge, and the line between 1st class and the 2 or 3 class will have disappeared. Don’t get me wrong, 1st class is just barely acceptable to western standards. I tried to visit 3rd class but it was so packed, so overcrowded, so dark, so hot and filthy…I thought I’d prefer to travel in a cattle wagon or stay on deck like many of the travelers.

we even had troubles in the morning to open our cabin door because of people sleeping across.

this man was our temporary enemy. Mr No fear No Shame here was spreading his awful loads of stinking sardine fish to dry out all across the 1st class deck. Nobody seemed to mind but the Wazungus (white people). We were chasing the wind to skip the rotten whiff.

 

people boarding the boat was always show time. No order, no consideration for the weak or the young. We saw one woman with her child on the back being pushed overboard. Luckily other people, not so obnoxious as the pushers, pulled them out.

either passengers embark or disembark, or supplies change hands.

 

the Liemba was used in the “African Queen” novel for inspiration. But the war boat Hepburn and Bogart sink in the eponymous movie cruised on lake Victoria.

Let me fish other pictures to show the Liemba in full. Wikipedia is of course more complete on the subject.

transport in Tanzania

 

safari car in Ndutu area during the wildebeest migration ( la migration des gnous).

 

home made anti theft on a truck rim.

 

incredible the variety and weight of goodies that can ferried on the back of a bicycle!

Arusha on a Sunday. Shops are closed and street traders have found good use of the gridlocked shops.

 

ferry in Dar es Salaam. as opposed to many other places in the world like Congo and Asia, naval accidents are pretty unheard of here.

 

an old Land Rover that deserve some rest by now.

 

my Land facing the volcano Lengai on a cold lava flow.

 

another Land, a bit overloaded. I say a bit because there is room for potential passengers on the outside of the frame.

 

the Clock Tower, Arusha city center.

 

youths hanging on a wreck that probably won’t ride again. There are still some parts to salvage though, Loliondo village.