Ben Wilhelmi

Scenes in the bush, Tanzania

 

 

Maasai girl plastering the hut with mud.

 

 

 

Laundry time, lake Natron, Rift valley.

 

Maasai warriors greeting 2 elders.

 

Maasai women gathering.

 

Fishermen spreading sardines to fry out in the sun, lake Tanganyika.

 

Aerials of sea, lakes and rivers, Tanzania

 

Tanga town on the Indian ocean.

 

Ruaha river and residents in the Ruaha national park.

 

 

 

Selous reserve, some side lake and river near the Rufiji river. They were created some decades ago by massive floods. The dead white trees show the waters haven’t receded to this day.

 

 

 

Mahale village, lake Tanganyika. The red spot is a giant fishing net being repaired.

 

 

 

Mafia island at low tide.

 

On the Indian Ocean between Mafia island and the main land, one can observe that sharp separation in the waters. Those sediments (well I guess) seem to come from the island.

 

 

Fishermen village in the Rufiji river delta.

Tanzania, aerial photography

 

Footprints on a salt lake bed, lake Balangida. Of humans, cows and goats I presume.

 

Hippos are having a hard time in the Katavi. They squeeze in the last remnants of muddy pools.

 

Last week a massive bush fire started on Katasunga plain, Katavi park. 80% of that vast plain was black at the time of the picture. The rangers were clueless or lying about the origin of the fire.

 

Mahale, lake Tanganyika, life on the beach. I guess the fishermen have laid out that massive net for fixing the damages.

 

A detail of the Indian ocean near mafia island. It looks like a channel at the shallow bottom.

 

A bit of the shoreline in Pemba island, my favorite island to overfly so far.

 

Siwandu, Selous reserve.

 

Near Mufindi, patchwork of fields.

 

Near Kipili bay, southern part of lake Tanganyika.

Chimpanzees, Mahale, film photography

 

I’ve said it before but Mahale on lake Tanganyika, western Tanzanian, is the best park to view the chimpanzees in the wild but in excellent conditions. Nomad Safari is the best company for lodging in the park (and I'm not on their payroll anymore). The pictures below were shot with a 135mm lens max. On slide film, the hard way as opposed to digital.

 

Having a rest…

and sneezing! Flu is a killer within great apes by the way. You’re asked to decline the visit if you’re sick.

 

 

 

Nearby the researchers’ camp…

 

this container is quite often (enough to force the guys to abandon it)hammered by a male chimp to assert his message. The power in those limbs is enough to damage the metal wall.

“I got your attention??”

 

Chimpanzees, B/W film photography

 

Mahale Nat’l Park, western Tanzania, probably the best place in the world to view the chimpanzees. It’s not only the quality of the sighting but the surroundings, that is mountains, lake and various activities.

So here are some old pictures shot over the many weeks I had spent over there, all on good old B/W films, even some Kodak Tmax 3200 like this one. For the youngsters, they can’t understand that prehistoric way to do pictures.

 

We were supposed to keep a minimum distance but the chimps didn’t know that so we got to be really close, where a 50 or 105 mm lens would be enough.

 

Mahale is a tropical forest, so once in a while the stars would stay in thick foliage but that shouldn’t deter anyone to keep on shooting.

 

 

Not having oral pleasure but tick removal session. Well I think…

 

 

 

These guys are artists at staying at ease on thin ropes.

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, 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.