seriously overloaded Land Rover. The engine wouldn’t start, people came to help and push but no one got out of the pick up to ease the effort!
loading a truck, from half empty to about full. Whenever I think a vehicle is full, it is only half full. Standards definitely vary from one continent to the next.
Some pictures on the long I 95, between Bullhead (Arizona on the edge with California) going north to Las Vegas.
Karine and the rental Ford. With all our bags and photo gear and shopping goodies, this car size was a minimum to hide everything in the boot.
Harleys…the myth goes on. Nowadays, Harley trips can be organised from abroad. Rent your Harley and ride! I try to imagine a French biker meeting a group of hard core indigenous bikers haha. Over the years on US TV shows, I’ve spotted a dozen remarks towards France, usually negative. It seems the smart finger the French gave over Iraq invasion still doesn’t go down well with some people. I’m not French by the way so any attack on my opinion should keep this in sight
No there is no river there, just a funny casino on the border between Arizona and Nevada.
I must say I’m not always keen on the road signs system, a bit messy sometimes. Maybe I would just need time to get used to…
I have to fish for the close up picture of that contraption because this model is the “Serengeti” version!! I’d like to see that monster on the narrow and winding dirt roads to reach the real Serengeti through the Ngorongoro area….
many signs like this one were spread alongside highways, usually on the same theme.
The road used to be awful but has just been resurfaced last year. So the trip is now smooth, for now as cracks on the surface already appear. Thanks to Chinese quality… The scenery is pleasant but the real show happens nearby villages and towns. I always check the names on shops, bars, hotels etc. Originality and the no fear no shame concept are common. I’m sure diplomats would love this place.
Karine loves to drive herself, so I just keep my camera handy and snaps away.
The Kenyan cops could be nicknamed Starsky and Hutch...for the age of their cars. This is a picture from last week but that venerable Peugeot 504, station-wagon, has been on the roads for much longer. Kenya used to manufacture various Peugeot models under license after Peugeot stopped the by-then current model. So this one must be from 1980?
How many 20 liter containers on this cart? This man doesn’t need a gym membership.
A mentally challenged woman, she was behaving strange on that main road.
Elections in Kenya are planned for the 4th March. Let’s hope we will not witness the same violence as in 2007.
Masai man in white sneakers watching life goes by.
At the border post, Namanga, that’s where the show is. Seriously I could spend hours there just watching. Various business places, various people like Somalis, a lot of activity, bright colors hardly cover the poverty. I’ll make a special post on Namanga soon.
More names: why beehive for this highly 'hygienic' butchery? Another common scenery: those carcasses hanging on a hook. We also were so sad to miss a chance to sip a cup of tea in that lovely tea room.
We spotted 2 of these cyclist within a week, on the same road. I was a bit drooling, remembering my own bicycle trip from Arusha to Cape Town some 10 years ago. My bike looked like this one but I was not sporting the same funny outfit. The face was entirely covered too, maybe a Japanese biker, but we think it was a she. And alone on the road.
The second biker was cycling on a dirt track towards Amboseli park, very isolated so we stopped for a chat, gave him water, a newer map of East Africa, some fruit. We were heading to a nice lodge, he was planning to camp under the starry night. We could give away our reserve.
Drive just a few miles off Arusha, a half decent town, and there is the bush right away. Karine and I spent last Sunday afternoon north of Arusha just cruising around in my Land Rover which was more than happy to see some action, since I’m always using my bicycle or motorcycle in town.
Lengijave area, women (and girls) still do the water or firewood runs. Men? Well, the few we saw typically didn’t seem to do much except chatting up under the shade of a tree or in front of a shop.
Mount Meru culminating at nearly 15.000ft.
Little boys are also at work albeit an easier one: lead the herds of cows or goats.
Kids were usually more than happy to pose for us. Last time, a teacher even thanked us for visiting their remote and forgotten village. Obviously no tourist ever wander out there. Marketing is the key…
Dust! Fine dust like flour. If the wind is coming from the wrong direction, you’d better be careful otherwise a dust cloud could engulf your jeep. Tracks tend to be badly run down, Arusha municipality doesn’t pay too much attention nor anything else out there…And the next rains are not expected till November.
Drivers don’t show any respect for pedestrians…
Last picture of the day, a beautiful glow on Mount Meru. It was gone within a minute.
Yes! Somebody walking in the US!!
Too funny these 2…
this guy doesn’t listen to his mother! I’m sure she has told him many times to wear a helmet or at least a hat for the sun. Seriously I can’t believe some US states don’t require the helmet for riders. In a country where one sues anybody for any moronic reason, so by now some wounded bikers would have sued some legislators because they were not told it was dangerous to ride without helmet… worse in Florida, the law was reversed under Jeb Bush and it’s not compulsory anymore. Just like his bro’ he must have been rocked too close to the wall when he was an infant….
Arushan traffic jams gives some time to observe the urban jungle out there. Here is a little bit of various scenes or fashion and colors.
typical colorful coach. Taste was optional…
Rare pigs. Many Tanzanians are Muslim but still in minority as opposed to Christians. But pigs are rare nevertheless. In swahili, a pig is kiti moto, which means hot seat. Don’t ask me why.
Japanese second hand bus. The original marking haven’t been sprayed over, not unusual. Bob Marley is still fashionable in Africa….
not like the cops always on the prowl for a bribe.
Trendy grandpa.
Posters, rugs, calendars, maps, science diagrams, religious portraits are the usual things these guys sell. What a life, spend your day with arms up….
Cool dress!
So typical….
some road sides in Arusha.
even the crappiest hand-cart, like coaches or dala dalas might show some slogan or motto. “Serengeti”…I’d like to see this guy crossing the Serengeti for sure and see what happens….
so I’m back in Tanzania after 6 weeks. Here are some random pictures of the ferry trip, I’ll be more specific in the next posts.
over the Persian gulf.
circular crops over Saudi Arabia.
A desert similar to Death Valley, still in Saudi Arabia.
Mount Sinai, Egypt.
The aeroplane to be ferried, a De Havilland Twin Otter or DHC 6, here being refuelled in Sharm El Sheikh.
Gulf of Suez, Egypt mainland on the left, the Sinai peninsula on the right. The canal is located much more to the north, we didn’t overfly that landmark.
Over Greece. Snow!
fields in Italy.
The beautiful lake of Como at the foot of the Alps, Italy.
Crossing into Switzerland.
Bad weather before landing near Zurich.
Some icing at 16.000 ft.
Snow and artistic patterns over Serbia.
one drives on the long stretches of US roads and never gets bored (well you shouldn’t in my opinion….), specially in the West.
there were Harleys all over the place and on miles and miles on the roads around. A big gathering was going on for bikers. It made the scenery quite interesting. Oatman, on route 66, is not much but on a day like this, it gets very much alive. The western movie decoration was hilarious. Some people are really good at exploring their childhood dreams.
here was a rarity, a Russian side-car. An Ural maybe?
the main street, for a second I thought these dudes were waiting for us to start a duel.
in the past, this couple would have been at risk to come in such a gathering with a Japanese bike. The Hells Angels would have trashed what they considered sissies’ motorbikes. Besides Harleys, few brands were accepted, usually Italian or English. But nowadays real Hells Angels or other tough bikers are not not alone on Harleys.
leaving Oatman on route 66 towards California.
more Bikes kept on coming.
from the coach window, just observing road side life.
sugar cane stall. No juice machine, the cane is just for chewing.
That’s a new type of contraption on these taxi motorbikes. Not the best way to ride with the pole straight in the face….
street sellers at an unofficial bus stands.
these little stalls are to be seen everywhere alongside roads, selling a bit of everything but mostly food.
A venerable Peugeot 104, still in reasonable shape I’d say, though she is having a bad day apparently. Peugeot managed to lose its grip on the African market. Toyota took over….
Mishkaki, aka shish kebab in swahili, whatever the spelling is, that’s the nickname given to such a travelling party. Mind you, it could be 4 adults on the same little motorbike.
I heard the CIA had been testing LSD on unaware people for studies. I sometimes wonder if some designers were not on the project. I mean, look at this Cadillac with for example fins like a shark…to think of that is one thing, to dare to submit that to your colleagues is another thing…
I spent a few weeks in Crystal River near Tampa last year. Between studies or flights I’d walk (yes, walk in the US!) or jog around looking for details. The main things that attracted my eyes were: hardly no pedestrians, no surprise, and a lot of Harley Davidsons, no surprise either.
Manatees were unfortunately on holidays, I wish I had spotted them in the nearby creek, a renowned worldwide place. (en fr. il s’agit de lamantins)
Palm trees often look like the highest landmarks in a Floridian landscape.
Chevrolet Corvette.
some interesting facts in the US: safety helmets are not always compulsory. Worse, in Florida, it used to be mandatory to wear them. Then some genius of a governor decided to repel that law!
typical US highway. No house but shops and business offices.
to continue the yesterday post. 11h34 for the picture below, I passed the red salted zone. Now the lake towards the north looks normal but is still heavily salted and acid, Ph close to 10!
notice the dust devil on the horizon, a small column of dust looking like a tiny tornado.
extinct volcano Shombole.
near vertical views.
looking back at Pininyi the airstrip we had just left which is here visible on the right side of the forest. The salts start here very close to the shoreline.
western cliffs with the peak Oldonyo Sambu, 4500 ft higher than the lake surface. 11h38, last shot for this selection.
B/W film, Leica M6.
Steve Mc Queen's Ford Mustang in "Bullit". What a beast, huh? Paris got a few hills but nothing to match San Francisco.
more of the Ralph Lauren's collection. A Ferrari above and 2 Alfa Romeos below if I remember well. And I remember well that pictures were forbidden...a concept I just can't stand in exhibition places.
and a Jaguar below. What a profile...
a Citroen 2CV, a myth! The big competitor of the Beetle, well at least in Europe since the USA refused to let them in for some obscure safety reasons. On the other hand, and I love America for its numerous paradoxes, no problem for junk and OGM food or free guns for all (especially for the unspotted retarded...)
Starting in the 40's the last French 2 CV was built in 1989 but Chile kept on assembling them for a while under licence. Like the Beetle the general shape hardly changed, no need to change a winning team. I used to have a bright red one and loved it so much I wish I had one here. The conditions would be perfect as over the decades those cars were notorious for handling world trips without problems. I saw one the Kenyan roads.
a bit older, here are a bunch whose drivers stopped by for a take away at Fauchon restaurant, here is the Fauchon doorman.
again only references in East Africa, stickers, paintings, clothes… I never saw any bad references about Obama. I don’t remember any reference to Bush. Only one about Clinton some years back in Arusha. And it was a daladala (public transport in Tanzania) labelled with a simple “ Monica Lewinski”. I heard that bus was forbidden of driving whenever one Clinton was visiting. Urban legend maybe…
Monik, lake Natron, Tanzania.
On a dreaded “matatu” (public transport in Kenya), Nairobi, Kenya. Not sure what the artist had in mind: mixing Obama with the Balkan mess…
Arusha, Tanzania.
Lira, Uganda.
Kwa Iddi, Tanzania. “Mgahawa” means cheap restaurant or coffe. It makes me think of “caoua”, slang French for coffee, Arabic origin. The Swahili language picked up a few Arabic words too.
Nairobi.
Near Nyeri, Kenya. Not exactly an Obama reference but a US flag is pretty rare out there and I thought it was related to this post.
I grew up nearby Köln. It was a cool place to roam when I became teenager and even more later with my first camera (Mom’s gift, did I mention that already?). So Köln, or Cologne, became my photographic playground, the place to polish my skills in street photography on Saturdays usually, way before it came back into fashion these days.
this beautiful mime girl was a regular. I gave her some pictures.
street artists have been numerous in that city. A lot more, usually musicians and highly qualified, flocked in after the Berlin Wall fell down in 1989.
I always wondered if she was blind colored. But then I was told I understood nothing in fashion….
survivor punkette.
would-be McGyver.
the girl in red was Karen, an American au pair, she asked for some pictures to send home, we stayed pen friends for a while…
as much as I love B/W photography, it is sometimes hard to resist colors in America…
Monument valley. The rocks are called ‘3 sisters’. Many wild west movies were shot here.
on the Kenyan road, me shooting while Karine was driving.
a typical example of an East African decorated coach.
a more sober one, or more likely it is not finished yet.
5 crates and more! Better be gentle on the gas handle or a wheel up is likely to occur.
shoe market.
lady waiting for the bus with a lot of supplies.
near the Tana river, fish sellers.
Pineapple sellers.
typical brightly painted shop. “Senator” and “ Delta Pyb”…? The mysteries of logos in Africa are sometimes puzzling.
typical and awful police roadblock. These spikes are just lying across the road, hard to see and rarely announced ahead. In the sometimes hectic traffic, it might easy to miss them…
after shopping and visiting Nairobi nat’l park and the Sheldrick trust, we left towards Nanyuki. Karine was driving and I shot the roadside life. Fascinating activity, road driving doesn’t look so boring anymore if one pays attention to details.
nice pink Tshirt. These people are waiting for the matatus. Notice the guy waiting with the truck shaft. I don’t know how that metal thing is going to fit in the bus between the passengers. Or on the roff attached with a piece of string.…I admit the Kenyan matatus are less overloaded than the Tanzanian daladalas. Some bills were passed some years ago, with driver strikes along of course, to have one person per seat in any vehicle. Quite a progress.
here is a matatu driver with some sense of humor. Client …
and Pilot! Friendly guy though. An extreme rare feat among those guys.
tree nursery, similar to Tanzania.
roadside stall.
this headgear is not rare in Kenya, unseen in Tanzania though. I don’t know the meaning…
pineapple sellers.
colorful school bus.
Coca Cola is all over the place in Kenya and in Tanzania but the ads are not the same, except the bright red color.
being a keen amateur photographer while driving on any US roads requires some iron-discipline otherwise the temptation to stop every mile or so will hit big time. Still nothing prevents some shooting while the car is moving. Karine and I did that a lot, like below on route 66, Arizona section.
graphic pictures, it’s about time the same kind of warnings are set on cigarette packs… fucking lobbyists and greedy coward politicians!
then we left the route 66 at Bullhead on the Californian border towards Las Vegas.
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.
Masai man leaving after the market.
this man was extremely serious while buying a cow bell. Each bell seemed to have its own tune and he was listening carefully to each bell before making his choice, like a musician choosing his instrument. The tunes must be important indeed if you are to herds on long distances, better have a sound you like. Also to retrieve lost animals…
it seems there were 2 painters, one sober and the second one drunk …
dreaming of better days and a new jeep…
We had just left Bullhead City, Arizona, on route 66 going north towards Las Vegas. The road follows the California state line for a bit, overlooking on the Californian landscape, here Mojave nat’l reserve. Karine was driving, I was shooting. The American Way, the myth... still kept alive by many.
another woman really in love of her biker. Her saddle look like postal stamp size type, there is nothing to support her back, and she has to beware the guy’s helmet spikes!! I really wonder what are his secrets….
campers? I was quite disappointed to realise most of the riders had no luggage showing camping activities. Sleeping bags were extremely rare…. the myth of the wild riders is taking the flak? We had even spotted a group of European riders with a broom van!!
WW II Wehrmacht’s helmets are still fashionable.
this guy I had just met while we were refuelling was in fact really friendly, he absolutely wanted us to show up at a big Harley gathering (though we were driving a regular Sedan and my motorbike here in Arusha is Japanese make). The myth of the aggressive Hell’s Angels is dwindling….
that big gathering was happening in Oatman, a few miles away on route 66. For hours we saw Harleys on the road, 1000’s, every kind of them, and mostly every kind of riders.
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.
those pictures are quite old by now, and since then I’ve shot some videos while flying. If interested have a look at my Vimeo account, link on the left side. Welcome to discover some beautiful part of Tanzania like lake Natron and Rift Valley at very low level.
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!
this one was the most ridiculous contraption we saw on our trip.
isn’t that love ? That too tall girl is clinging on her dude like a backpack. But check the seat! There is hardly any seat, it looks she s sitting on the mudguard. Karine had looked at me with that kind of ‘not even in your dream’ look.
a pink helmet on a Harley….?
Look at the jacket…
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.
a healthy vintage Corvette.
old Ford Model A, I guess.
a motel with interesting murals.
Chevrolet Impala…
back of a Chevrolet Bel Air, station wagon.
huh, this one brand will stay a mystery, not enough parts left over to recognise….
this old tramp, not a beggar, lies on a daily basis on that old dirty mattress with his little belongings scattered around. He seems to suffer from some genital disease: the shiny thing between his legs is indeed one his balls, tennis ball size…
he doesn’t seem to beg or talk to people. Here he is getting ready for the night…
mototaxi and Masai passenger.
tall boy shop….? Notice the 'effort' put by the owner took to paint his motto…
Masai women shopping before heading home in the bush.
derelict yard.
typical shop front walls painted in bright colors. It had already struck me in 1999.
this is Loliondo, a village near the Kenyan border and Serengeti.
not a fashionable hat but a sack of grain or rice maybe.
typical toy around, some wheels made of flipflop soles, a plastic bottle or jerrycan, a string or a stick and you’ve got a little vehicle. Some are more elaborate than this one, with trailer, steerable wheels….
colors! Very hippy 70’s no? I kind of remember that sort of design when I was a child….
the door was locked but I’ll enquire one day. Some women’s club? Must be tough case in local culture, Masai or else.
that old blue Land Rover was already there, in that color, in 1999.
warriors shopping!
colorful coach, as always. Those drivers or owners, as in many places in the world, love to decorate their coaches for the worst or the best, usually the worst.
these girls didn’t want their pictures taken.
well cool to be used as a broad meaning. This kind of car is not for my taste but still funny to watch (and hear coming). We're in Sante Fe and its great adobe houses.
each town or county in the States seem to have its own color scheme for police cars.
One of the few vintage cars we saw that looked restored as the original.
long road across Utah near Arches nat’l park.
Austrian travellers on their long range modified VW Combi, Arches NP.
Telluride Colorado, a pretty sky resort but quite sleepy at this time of the year, April. Most shops were closed for the low season.
this Toyota Land Cruiser BJ is quite a rarity. Quite common on the Tanzanian roads though.
Quite a rarity in such a macho group: a purple truck… a snowy landscape in Colorado.
“my” Land Rover Defender. Equally rare, I hardly spotted any in the States…Silverton and its colorful houses, Utah.
Monument Valley, always admired under a bright blue sky, showing off bright ochre colours…
…like this. The clouds seem never to burst into rain.
then the sky got obscured, the visibility dropped quite suddenly.
luckily we had finished our visit by the end of the afternoon.
outside the valley, dust kept on spreading for miles.
isn’t the same very old model, without modifications, of the Fall Guy?
a small Indian homestead.
nothing compared with the serious dust storms Arizona experienced a few weeks ago but for a European couple, even though living in Tanzania, this was a bit of a novelty.
between 2 airstrips on lake Natron, where Flying Medical Service operates on a regular basis.
there is a spring nearby an extinct volcano, one of the very few springs around the lake, and is really prized by local people and their herds.
here is a chunk of that volcano, Shombole, on the Kenyan border.
a Masai homestead.
the Ngorongoro-Serengeti road, respectively linking conservation area and nat’l park, unfortunately open to public transportation.
typical imported Korean truck. Any color you like providing it is blue. Over the years they get repainted at various level.
overloaded pick-up. When such a pick up crashes, a disaster looms. I remember one accident some years ago: a tyre had burst and the 'speeding' Peugeot pick up 404 went in the ditch. There were 27 people on board or hanging! 10 died on the spot, the 17 others were seriously wounded, and some of these died later in the good care of the hospital (no joke here).
and the bottles can be full!
no fear, nothing impossible to local taxi drivers. I'm even surprised there is nobody sitting in the couch.
car owners in the States have a wide range of freedom to express themselves via their car plates. In Belgium, we can barely choose at high price the letters and digits order. Nothing about color or additions.
historic vehicle plate and the state nickname which is very common. Here Arizona aka Grand canyon state.
positions in armed forces are quite common too. My flight instructor last year, a Korean war navy pilot veteran had is plate labelled NAV8TOR.
backgrounds can be quite colorful, showing full landscapes, sometimes sunsets.
historic characters…
and as if plates didn’t allow enough freedom of expression, a dedicated frame can be added.
not sure what Taylor refer to: the driver’s job or a famous character….
Karine and I loved to cruise on route 66, here in Arizona, without specific plans. We would stop whenever shapes and colors and unusual subjects would call. Well, unusual, that is for a European point of view.
a bit of a Corvette, just before sunset.
bit of a Mercury.
a GMC pick up.
Chevrolet…
Chevrolet Bel Air, station wagon. Numerous souvenirs shops dot the route 66, not always painted and decorated with the best taste…
Ford.
Dodge.
open 24/7, only in the US?
flying formation is an exercise I really enjoy…since I was the only pilot on board, I had to fly myself and while taking the pictures, I’d keep some distance. Otherwise we were much closer.
above the vast empty African expanses…the airplane is a great Cessna C206, a workhorse. Notice the Maasai homesteads in the high right corner, just next to the airstrip, Olpirikata. There is even a smallerl strip but that’s only the taxiway, a rarity in the bush.
this one is a Czech airplane, a Let 410. This plane was flying faster than me, just overtaking me. We wouldn’t be allowed to come that close to each other in the West. Well here neither normally but …
this Let 410 made a belly landing, that is the landing gear was not put down. The pilots, 2 of them, forgot…they must have been picking their nose before landing or what? Since it happened a few times within a year or so, all aircraft involving the same notorious company, the beliefs were that it was a scam to the insurance…specially that they never replaced these aircraft by the same models but by bigger planes…
this idiot running towards me was a self proclaimed ‘chief in charge’ trying to seize my pictures. He couldn’t even tell me his position or job on the airport. The janitor probably… that was my first ‘fuck you’ in Tanzania. And I still own the pictures….
waste of time but how can I refuse a poor smiling kid to pose in the driver’s seat…
this Cessna 206 had been delivered to us across the Atlantic Ocean. Extra fuel tank is required for the 16h flight in one go! Poor pilots, it must be boring and inconvenient. The 500 lt tank is seen here being removed from the inside of the aircraft.
a mini twister called here dust devils. They can be way higher than this one. Harmless but they can rock the airplane and surprise the pilot, me for instance, on take off.
notice the little ravine behind the airstrip. Better be concentrated on landing.
another bush fix: the oleo strut was flat, oil leakage, no more shock absorber. So to keep going without damaging the metal parts, we had put these pieces of rubber on the chrome part to avoid friction and metal contacts. The nose is tilted up for the time being fixed. Once lowered, the chrome part will be hidden.
some scenes in Arusha….
condom ad showing a healthy and rich couple…facing a destitute man.
some years, the decision was made, and budget found, to paint Arusha in bright colors. Not only once and then wait for decay but painting is remade on a regular basis. Good decision as the buildings used to be Stalinist-era grey, very dull and depressing. One might not like peach or raspberry or yellow colors but it really gives a sunshine touch to the streets. And the numerous (too numerous) ads concur in that color mode.
foreign city or country names are really popular amongst pub owners…misspellings are popular too.
unfortunately the paint quality is crap and it peels off quickly…
isn’t that depressing? One hires a watchman and what does he do beside sleeping? Bring his friends around and chat up, AND sits with his back towards the street, as we all know the best way to spot potential danger….
one of the 2 international schools, proudly showing off its US style school buses.
nothing oriental in those carpets: they’re made of plastic thread or beads.
taxi drivers having fun. I'm getting some experience at driving and shooting at the same time.
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