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First Leg Mwanza to Musoma
At Musoma
Musoma on Lake Victoria
Written by Tina Sibley in April 2022
After my epic climb of the mighty Kilimanjaro mountain, I decided that I deserved a pretty epic reward and that I deserved a safari in the Serengeti but due to a booking error, I first ended up with 2 days relaxing at Musoma on the shores of Lake Victoria! It turned out to be a great thing.
How I ended up with 2 days in Musoma
I made a bit of a mess up when booking my safari. I was due to leave Moshi after my mountain experience on the morning of 26th February and I found a safari that began in Nairobi at 6pm on the same day. As the flight from Kilimanjaro airport to Nairobi is only an hour, I thought that would be perfect!
However - I didn't bargain on needing a full PCR test that would be needed within 48 hours of travelling and that would take 2 days for the results. As I was up a rather large mountain, I couldn't get this done in time to make the flight to Nairobi.
The only answer was to skip the Kenya part of the safari, stay in Tanzania and join the safari tour when they crossed into Tanzania at Musoma, Lake Victoria on Day 3.
So I arranged to fly from Kilimanjaro to Mwanza airport (on the South East side of Lake Victoria) and then got a taxi ride from Mwanza to Musoma. The flight from Kilimanjaro to Mwanza was in a cute plane with Precision Air and the airport at Mwanza has to be the tiniest I´ve ever seen. Literally just about big enough to hold a luggage conveyor belt and not much else!
The taxi ride was about 4.5 hours and very interesting, skirting on the edge of the Serengeti national park. On this stretch, I saw wilderbeast and zebra in the distance and, on the road itself, there were a couple of baboons and a wild pig.
I also saw my first presidential cavalcade! At one point, the local police directed us off the main road onto a little side road in one of the villages. Apparently the President of Zanzbiar was due to go past on the way to Mwanza airport.
Sure enough, after a while, an enormous procession of very big and very fast cars zoomed past. It was a lot of cars for one VIP.
Resting on the Shores of Lake Victoria
Musoma is a town on the shoes of Lake Victoria. It has around 103,500 inhabitants and is a ferry port and a fishing town.
When the driver got to the hotel, at first I thought he must have got the wrong place. It looked like an unfinished building site! But, sure enough, it was the right place - I learned that they don't worry too much about how buildings look from the outside. Inside was finished enough and my room was basic but clean and comfortable.
It was nice to actually crash out and spend some alone time with my thoughts. I had a lot to think about following my time on the mountain.
I was so very tired, so after a small walk to check out the area, and access the wifi, I returned to my room and got an early night.
The following day, I spent most of my time on a beach lounger, looking out over the lake, drinking coffee and pineapple Fanta, and catching up on social media. It was SO nice to just be very lazy. I loved looking at the birds that were flying around - there were some really pretty birds that had bright blue wings when they flew. There was also a heron-type bird strolling along the shore of the lake.
It was a very pretty spot to chill out, recover and wait for the rest of the safari group to arrive.
Fortunately, my tummy started to settle down a bit and my apetite began to return a little as well.
Preparing for the Safari
In the end, my couple of unexpected days doing nothing at Musoma turned out to be a very good thing! Instead of spending hours in a jeep travelling from Nairobi, I had the opportunity to not only rest up and recover, but to get myself prepared for the safari.
For one thing, all my clothes needed washing and I was able to get this all done in Musoma.
Then I needed to sort out what I needed and load it into my duffle bag and backpack and put the stuff that wasn't required into my suitcase for storing. It was lovely having the opportunity to do this in my room, and taking my time.
Joined by the others
After a couple of days being by myself, I was looking forward to the arrival of the others. They arrived mid to late afternoon and their arrival was heralded by the sight of an enormous, truck type bus that pulled into the area outside my window.
I went out to greet them and met up with Laban, the group leader, and Tanya who was my roomie for the rest of the trip. Tanya had a cold and passed it on to me, which wasn't great since I was recovering from my tummy bug!
The group was HUGE. There were 17 travellers as well as Laban plus Sam, our driver and Simon, our chef.
As the others had all made friends and formed their little sub groups, I felt very much the outsider and most of the time was sitting by myself on the bus. That was fine though, as I had the extra space and was able to lose myself in my thoughts.
There was a guy from Plymouth (I can't believe I've forgotten his name) and we had some lovely chats. He was 83 and was very pleasant to chat with.
It was lovely to have dinner cooked by a chef and to eat with others again, after a couple of days eating my own supplies and on my own. We spent a pleasant evening chatting and then went for a few drinks in the bar. A couple of the locals, including the barman got very drunk and it was quite hilarious.
