"Dr Livingston, I presume?" Words immortalised as much for their meaning as for their smugness. Dr David Livingston - arguably Africas greatest explorer wearing inarguably its greatest moustache - was sent into Africas heart one final time to solve a riddle apparently very important to the tea-swillers of nineteenth century England: where was the source of the Nile? He didnt find it. What he did find was malaria. And dysentery. So he holed up with a motley crew of Arab slavers in the town of Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, taken for dead by most of the outside world. The editor of the New York Herald sniffed a great story and sent a new and cock-sure journalist to try find him in the off chance of landing an exclusive - possibly even one with a punchy catch-phrase. This journalist was Henry Morton Stanley. He wound his way across the wild interior of modern day Tanzania, found Livingston and no doubt botched the delivery of his most famous line. Or maybe even made it up later, as an after thought.
Our journey across Tanzania followed the reverse footsteps of Stanleys famous journey. With only a few small differences. While those haughty gentlemen favoured this method of transport:
We were forced into other less romantic kinds:
Sea ferry which has spent more time under the sea than Sebastian the Crab.
Train with all the breathing space of a Turkish sauna.
Ninety nine year old steamboat. It has sunk twice and seems on the cusp of a third.
Lake taxi where the only thing in shorter supply than life-jackets was horse-power.
Land taxis where the only thing in greater supply than the people riding inside were the people riding
outside.
And our end-point, while it probably wont coin its own catch-phrase, was still no less enticing...
Stanley, Shmanley.
No comments:
Post a Comment