Home » Zambia » Day 7. Fri 27th September Mpulungu

Today we drive the short distance from Mbala to Mpulungu at the bottom tip of Lake Tanganyika, where we will board the MV Liemba for our ferry trip up the lake. We arrive in good time and have an opportunity to look around the busy market place on the shore of Lake Tanganyika.

Day 7. Fri 27th September Mpulungu

DaveMidgley
2005-10-22 12:08:47

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Today we drive the short distance from Mbala to Mpulungu at the bottom tip of Lake Tanganyika, where we will board the MV Liemba for our ferry trip up the lake. We arrive in good time and have an opportunity to look around the busy market place on the shore of Lake Tanganyika.

While we are waiting for Ken to sort out the paperwork we befriend a bunch of soldiers who have been on duty all night and are just about to go home.

We are also crossing the border from Zambia into Tanzania at this point, so we not only have to sort out tickets for the boat but also pass through customs and immigration. However Ken brooks no nonsense from the officials and we are soon through, and get our first sight of the boat that is to be our home for the next two days.

During WW1 the Germans sent the 1300 ton steamship "Graf von Goetzen" in pieces by train from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma. She was assembled there, but sunk in Lake Tanganyika by the Germans themselves as defeat became apparent. She was salvaged by the British in 1924, renamed the "Liemba" and (allegedly) starred as the German destroyer in the film "The African Queen" before taking up service as the ferry up Lake Tanganyika. She now sails from Mpulungu to Kigoma and back once a week.

Ken is visibly relieved when all the luggage has finally been rummaged through by customs, the passports have all been stamped, we have said farewell to Peter and Auxies, who will drive the Land Rovers to Kigoma, and are all safely on board and our first class cabins have been allocated. We discover later that the cabins were booked in advance, but the booking was recorded simply as "8 wazungu" (plural of "mzungu") so any group of "white men" could have taken them.

First class is pretty basic - a cabin on deck level with two bunks and a wash basin, and 1 loo per sex which are supposed to be for 1st class passengers only, but in fact are used by pretty much the whole ship. She is designed to carry 500, but, we are warned, will probably have nearer 1000 on board by the time we reach Kigoma. (2nd class is four to a cabin below decks right next door to the engine room. 3rd class passengers have no cabins, they just sleep on deck).

We set sail about 15:00 and Ken takes us on a guided tour of the ship, introduces us to the Captain and 1st officer, and makes an arrangement whereby we may use the Officers' loos if we can find the 1st officer and get the key off him. Getting up for a pee in the night is obviously going to be an adventure.

Although the border runs up the middle of Lake Tanganyika we are now officially in Tanzania, and must swap our Zambian Kwacha for Tanzanian Shillings. Tanganyika achieved independance in 1961, and Zanzibar in 1963. In 1964 President Julius Nyrere united the two into the United Republic of Tanzania, a union which is resented by many Zanzibaris to this day. The national language of Tanzania is Swahili, so we can expect to find much less English spoken on this leg of the trip.

As first class passengers we also get to use the restaurant and bar, and by virtue of Ken's special relationship with the Captain we are also allowed onto the lifeboat deck (which has no rail). After a meal of beef and rice we enjoy sundowners on the lifeboat deck. The lake is only about 50kM wide and the shore of Tanzania can be clearly seen to starboard. To port the Congo is further way and shrouded in mist. The news reports that the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been cooling off over the last few days, but Ken says that the flashes of gunfire have often been visible acros the Lake.

We retire to our cabins, but it is intolerably hot and the cabins are virtually unventilated. Some of us try to bed down on the deck with the other passengers, and Chris even curls up on the lifeboat deck, but eventually we all give up and go to bed and sweat and try to sleep.