Day 85: Wildcamp – Kigoma (Lakeside Beach)

After covering 374 km yesterday, only 173 remain for today. The gravel road remains good, the scenery is magical, only the dust is a bit heavy. We're considering calling ourselves "Red Snot Travels" :-))

From the T8 onto the T18, we find tarmac and densely populated areas, but we arrive in Kigoma around 12:30 local time (11:30 German summer time) and go for something to eat. Fish, vegetables, rice, cola, 32,000 TSh (about 11 euros).

Finding LakeSide Beach is difficult. We wander around because neither the Garmin nor Google leads us to acceptable routes, and if we didn't know the camp existed, we would give up.

Brigitte has to make several U-turns on narrow streets with deep, washed-out ruts, garbage, children, mopeds, tuk-tuks, and the interested gaze of everyone who has nothing to do. And there are many. It's funny, though, to make eye contact with women, shrug your shoulders, and laugh – and you get a big laugh back.

We finally contact Aiden, the operator, via WhatsApp – and the access remains an essentially unacceptable one. Brigitte starts to sweat a little.

The place is bizarre. Five already renovated cottages, and a few dilapidated ones. An attempt of a small garden, the lake. Gravel and trash in the access area, a makeshift cottage for Maasai, who is one of them and is called that, and who is our "security." Next door is a shipyard where welding and grinding are taking place. We'll know in a few days whether the boat will be dismantled or restored...

We agree with Aiden that we'll pay full price for today and tomorrow, and the night of June 26th to 27th, and our car can stay here for – of course – half price for the night we'll be in Gombe Park. And please hand over the money right away. Hmm.

But we have a working bathroom, electricity, and a Vodacom signal in the little house that's open for us. Jacobsen Beach, the only alternative, wouldn't have had it.