Road Trip To Dodoma

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Last week I was at the beach. This week, I was on the road to Dodoma!

Each year, at this time, VSO holds its Annual Volunteer Conference for volunteers in Tanzania. There are approximatey 90 of us.

Last year it was held in Dar es Salaam. This year, they decided to hold it in the capital city of Dodoma.... This means I had to do an eight hour road trip to attend the event. I am not complaining, others had to travel for 2 days to get there (and then 2 days to return home).

Traveling around Tanzania is not easy. The bus is probably the most popular form of transportation. There are trains, but they are slow and unreliable. What could start out as a one day train ride could turn into a 3-4 day adventure, with breakdowns, etc.

Airplanes fly to certain cities but not to all. Flying to Dodoma was not an option since no one flies there. Personally, I think it says a lot about a country when no airlines flies into or out of its capital city.

Anyway, I traveled to Dodoma by vehicle. My friend, Tessa owns truck and was driving to the conference. She had an empty seat so I tagged along. It gave Tessa and I a chance to cath-up with each other.

What they lack in convenience here, they make up for with scenery. The majority of the drive is what you see in the pictures. I took all these pictures as we were driving on Wednesday at an average speed of 50 miles an hour.

The clouds in Tanzania are quite spectacular. They are huge and layered. I never get tired of looking at them. Their "whiteness" is a great contrast to the landscape of browns, and greens.

More about the Volunteer Conference in the next blog....

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Photos

Approaching Morogoro
Morogoro is approximately 3 and a half hours from Dar es Salaam. This is where the mountains start to appear.

A Christmas Tree In The Field
The orange tree in the distance is called a Christmas Tree because it blooms at this time of year. The colour is brilliant in the bright sun.

A Sisal Farm
Sisal farming is huge is Tanzania. It is used to make twine, yarns, ropes, bags, carpets, pulp and paper. The plants look like pineapple plants. Newcomers often get them mixed up.

Driving Away From The Mountains
Here we say good-bye to the mountains and start seeing how the landscape becomes more barren.

A Couple of Trees...
But not much else

A Farmer's Field Is Plowed
It is amazing to see little plots of land ready for planting in these dry, arid regions.

A Stubborn Tree
While the top part refuse to bloom, the two lowers parts continue to show that there is life out there.

Just One Example of The Tanzanian Landscape
This is what most of us envision when we think of Africa. But, this is just one example of what you will find here when you visit.

The Challenging Landscape
I can't imagine being a farmer in this region, trying to feed my family in a surrounding like this. While it's beautiful to look at, the reality of living here is quite bleak.

Comments

[Thomas Hasek]

Dar-Dodoma road
I worked in Tanzania in the early 1980s on the building of the highway from Dar to Dodoma and really enjoyed your comments on your trip on the hopefully still navigable highway. We lived in a housing complex built especially for us near Morogoro & I can remember having to go there to make a phone call to Brazil. I'm sure there have been many many changes over the past 30 years. But the landscape remains beautiful. All the best.