Doing it the old fashioned way

When I was but a wee nubbin there were two old missionaries we knew who had come to Zambia "down the Nile". Each of them had been in Zambia 50 years. In the days before commercial air travel missionaries traveled to their field by steam ship. Once you got there you tended to stay. There was none of this 4 year term nonsense we have now (You were dedicated-Harrumph, harrumph). Letters took forever to get out. Zambia was one of the more remote places you could go. Either you came in via South Africa or took a boat to Egypt and came up the Nile river. From the Nile it was a ferry to the south end of lake Victoria and an overland trek to lake Tanganyika. My understanding of those overland treks was that the men would go first thing in the morning on bicycles and in early afternoon would try to shoot some game. After dressing the game they would establish camp, hopefully near water. The women and children would follow in hammocks carried by 2 porters each. The porters would sing cadence that would tell about the path and pass comment on to the persons they carried. By late afternoon the porters would arrive where the men made camp. This whole region is hilly. At some point you cross the spine of Africa and rivers go from flowing north and east to west and then south. Once at lake Tanganyika it was once again water passage to Zambia. Today the boat has been converted from steam to diesel and takes just under 2 days travel which includes a good many stops to take on people. From there once again travel would be by porter.

Dan had taken the ship, as had Micheal Palin in his show Pole to pole, so it seemed like the thing to do since I was in the area.  If you read the link to Wiki then you know how old it is and that it was the basis for, but not really, the ship that was sunk in  the movie Africa Queen. So all in all a piece of living history-not easy to find in Africa-and not to be missed.






The ship only goes to Zambia twice a month although it does apparently go other places like Congo, which are even less advertised. To say it was not well advertised is an understatement. It is not in a real way advertised at all. Oh sure a Zambian website mentions it but it doesn't give anything helpful like the rates or when it sails. For that you have to consult lonely planet and read forums. From the forums I was able to guess that she would sail on the third. I was by no means sure of that and arranged to arrive a week early.

Me, Martin, George

During the week stay I met two of the other four passengers, George* and Kathy, who were not traveling as part of a couple. Angel met George the morning of departure and we had brunch together, and finally Martin I met on ship and we shared a cabin. Angel and George were traveling on a tight budget and opted to travel third class and slept on the deck or, in George's case, in the life boat the second night.  The ship was due to sail at 4pm. I was packed and out of my room by 10. I did spend time on the Internet and there was that brunch which, truth be told we stretched into lunch. Still Kigoma is a small town and I'd been there a week so I boarded the ship with hardly any afternoon used up.

third class

The ship had a small main deck with a raised fore deck (my nautical jargon is only slightly better than George's and his mother tongue is German-sorry Travis if you read this) from which stairs led up to the first class deck aft. On the first class deck were our rooms, a good sized dining room and bar and a lounge area. Above the first class deck was the control room...?bridge? with the captain's, mate's, and helms men's rooms as well as super first class. The lifeboats and a small lounge were also up there as well as the smoke stacks. Second class had their rooms under first class on the main deck and third class slept in the halls outside. Third class also had the open deck and that raised fore deck I mentioned previously. Third class' bathroom as well as a small room was under the fore deck. The crew allowed women with small children and the other European foreigners up on the first class deck.


The only Americans were myself and two snow bums from Vail on vacation. European teachers on summer break and volunteers for non-profits were the other light skinned foreigners. The first class passengers were allowed to board early. George and Angel were allowed to board because everyone assumed they were first class. Being white (Mzungu).


They sell it as first class but in reality it is second or third class accommodations. The mattresses are covered in rubber and have a sheet that is barley bigger than it. The sheet tends to end up mostly off. When thinking about the mattress recall to mind a gym mat and you will come pretty close, only a gym mat may be thicker. There were no top sheet, blanket or towel supplied. I slept in my clothes. The bathroom(6) head was communal with the men on the starboard and women port.(<==huh Trav, ship words) At no point during the journey did the bathroom head ever appear clean. The toilets are the squat variety but are at sitting height with little head room to stand and nowhere dry to put your paper (bring your own). The showers are cold and slimy and with nowhere to put anything. How you can have two engines which are water cooled and not have hot water is beyond me. Just saying. I used my dirty shirt as a towel. The one saving grace is the toilets are flushed by lake water, which is utterly clean and runs constantly.

the competent fish loaders

During the night we made numerous stops, during the third I woke. It was at about 3:30. We put off two Dutch couples whom I never met. We also put off and took on numerous Tanzanians as well as a cargo of beans. We rested at anchor about half a mile from shore and were met by boats that come out from small beach communities. Each boat competed for passengers and the whole thing was quite a fiasco. The ship had four places where passengers could be loaded, two of which could also handle cargo. One little boat came up once there was only one boat left unloading cargo. Instead of going to any of the other places on the ship it squeezed in between. Now instead of the crane being able to reach they had to pull the beans out at an angle and ripped a big hole in the corner. Shouting Cursing all round (these were sailors after all) I'm sure. The whole thing set us back fifteen minutes no doubt...TIA. This was pretty much SOP on every stop but one, in which the loaders were competent. From here on the beans were replaced with 2" dried fish.

In the morning I was allowed into the bridge as we were leaving some stop or other. There is nothing very complex about this ship but they have three people running it. No doubt at some level there are things to be aware of but all in all it looked like a 'make work' situation to me. One thing I did learn was that we were keeping about 1 1/2 miles from the eastern (Tanzanian) shore. The tour did liven up a small part of the day between breakfast and lunch. Throughout the day I hung out with mainly George, Martin or Kathy. We usually sat with one or another of the teacher couples and specialized on long meals. It was rather serene watching the hills pass (the Coloradans agreed to call them mountains only if it came to climbing them since they were very steep). The view for the person on the other side of the table of the lake passing was also pleasant but somewhat less interesting.

Mpulungu seemed to be a very bustling town for being so far from anywhere. It has a good (relatively) blacktop road and buses to places you would want to go. The bus leaves at 11am since they want to be on the busy roads at night where it is presumably safer (which I doubt). We separated into various lodging places based on our perceived budgets and willingness to rough it. Strange as it is to say the hotels all seemed to have a problem with running water. How you manage that next to one of the biggest lakes around well...TIA. By unhappy coincidence I got a different bus from the others since mine left earlier and they wanted to get to Lusaka later than 4am. I got to Mkushi at midnight. The staff at the council (city owned) guest house in Mkushi were drunk.  After I checked in I inquired about a church. The supervisor changed the subject by asking me to buy him a beer. It was interesting to watch him try to do the mental footwork necessary to convince me he only wanted a tonic water once his brain caught up. The bathroom (8 sort of) had only hot water and no sink.

*'Names are changed to protect the innocent' is the usual line here. They're merely misspelled because I'm telling this story and didn't necessarily get all the details. Don't like it, tell your own story. There were no innocents or, we all were depending on your point of view.