Ageing Rock Artists

Lonely Planet describes Central Tanzania as "Well off". That's not the impression you've given us, I hear you cry. Keep reading: "Well off most tourist itineraries..." This weekend Jan and I hit the tourist trail and visited the Kondoa Kolo Unesco World Heritage Rock Paintings. Listed as "Around Dodoma" in the Tanzania Footprint Guide, they are in fact 200 km up the Great North Road (Capetown to Cairo)."Great"in length only. The tarmac gives out on the outskirts of Dodoma and long sections of it are only suitable for 4 x 4's. Therefore, sadly, not suitable for the Mrisho Investment bus which juddered away from Dodoma bus stand at five past noon on Friday. (Warning Readers. Do not invest in this bus.) Elaine and Jan were fairly comfortably installed in the front row, a bit short of leg room owing to the big tool box pushed under the seat. An hour later the reason for the tool box's accessibility became clear. A hideous graunching crunch from the engine was swiftly followed by a whooshing sound of fluid being released from somewhere and an exchange of worried comments between the driver and the guys variously standing and sitting in the doorway, on the steps and up at the windscreen. We clattered to a halt, all the passengers immediately piled off as if it were a scheduled comfort stop and headed off into the bush or sat under the shade of the nearest baobab tree, chatting away happily. Meanwhile the bus driver and the bus "fundi" watched by the customary circle of interested blokes, squatted down in the road and carefully fashioned a gasket or something out of an old Konyagi carton. An hour and a half later and we were on our way, and looking forward to a nice cold Safari beer in Kondoa when the bus lost all power going up a hill and it was everybody out again. In short, which the journey wasn't, we ended up getting out and walking up two more hills and waiting while they fixed the bus. The four hour journey stretched to eight but we finally reached a dark and dusty Kondoa. Not to worry - our Swahili got some practice - and we found rooms OK at the New Geneva Hotel in Kondoa (always some Swiss connection when Jan is around). The Geneva had a very lengthy registration form which included "Tribe". I put "Angles", which I wasn't that happy with. Suggestions for next time please, Readers. Next morning we negociated a taxi for the day (130,000/-) drove the 20km to Kolo where we looked round the little museum and picked up a lady

guide(30,000/-), and then headed for the hills. It was beautiful weather of course and each site involved parking up and climbing the last bit. Those cavemen certainly picked some nice spots and the views were gorgeous. The rock art was pretty good too; red spindly humanoids and realistic, recognisable animals in Kolo sites B1, B2 and B3 and black and white abstract trance dance geometric shapes at nearby Pahi.

Apart from one "pancha" our taxi coped well, bumping its way along tracks (aka the Great North Road) and across dry river beds, and our bus on Sunday morning got us back to Dodoma in an impressive 3 hours 45 minutes.