Off the beaten track - or the Ukerewe experience

As I wrote earlier the part of Tanzania around the Lake Victoria sees quite few tourists, as opposed to engineers and dealers working in the gold and diamond mines around the lake. To make it even more exctiting and "real" we decided to go to the island of Ukerewe in the lake Victoria (which is more like a sea, really), about three hours from the town of Mwanza, where we are staying. It was supposed to be quite "off the beaten track" and we thought an authentic experience. So we got our tickets for the local ferry and boldly boarded the vessel. Already at this point it was clear that we are going somewhere off, there was not a single white (or any other colour than black for that matter) face on the boat. The trip through the lake was quite interesting, passing a lot of islands and small dhow boats. Arriving in the town of Nansio, we headed towards some faded and collapsed signs which indicated accommodation and can you believe it, tourist information. The town looked quite wealthy (well in African terms) with some cars, a lot of bicycles, a big market and hundreds of people (so much for the remote and solitary experience we thought). We made it to the tourist office which was also a guesthouse and were greeted by a very friendly woman speaking little English and handing us out print outs of a web site which indicated the main sights on the island. One being a beach with crocodiles and the major one being a cross to commemorate the introduction of Christianity on the island. This event was marked by the local chief killing all the 100 priests and nuns that had come to preach, as he did not approve....
Well the choice of accommodation was limited: between a sterile hotel with long empty corridors, no visitors, completely soulless and the guesthouse where we were with very basic rooms, four bare and dirty walls and a tin roof ceiling which covered the whole house (this will be key later...) a window looking into the backyard where the neighbours cooked, washed, ate, sat and hung their laundry; the toilet was of course squat and the shower was nonexistent, if you don't count the bucket of water in the small room down the corridor - it does not get more "real", you practically live with the locals, the great aim of every traveller! So here we were, of course choosing authenticity over comfort (Ok, I admit it was my decision and soon I was going to regret it...) After we had a walk and dinner (chips and eggs, topped with suspiciously red ketchup) in a local beer place with Caribbean flare, loud music and fat ladies we retired to our room, it was hard to read or fall asleep as outside a party was going on somewhere and the music was blasting out loud, luckily around midnight the noise level droped and we fell asleep shortly, to be woken up soon of some strange moaning sounds. Quickly it turned out the couple in the next room was heavily engaged in love making, exchange of pleasantries (Asante! Karibu! - Thank you! You are welcome!) and other details which I do not want to indulge further in here. It was like they were in the same room, remember the roof?! and the whole house could hear EVERYTHING... this went on for some more hours and we all finally fell asleep to be woken up early in the morning by the roster for another round. So much for "living as the locals" we just fled the place as soon as we could and moved to the comfortable, clean, quiet soulless place :)

We decided to still give the island another chance, so we rented bikes and drove off the bike routes marked by the local tourist association trying to promote "green tourism" to the non-existent visitors. Peter complained about the quality of the bikes as we visited another major sight, a run down building of the German colonial administration looking like lost in the forest. All the way we were followed by children looking strangely at us and shouting Muzungu, muzungu (white). Down at the coast we met old Adolf (proud to be named after Hitler), were molested by a local crazy man who kept writing things on the ground in between our bikes, more children and increasing heat. For some unknown reason the bike trail disappeared and we were deep inbetween the villages, cows, bulls and fields of cassava. It was getting hotter and hotter and there was no real civilisation in sight and we had no more water and were extremely thirsty! Soon our hopes went up as we saw a little kiosk in one of the villages only to find that it was selling chinese underwear and soap... People stopped us and tried to communicate sth. with us, we tried to get information about the way to town out of them but none was successful... Well we somehow managed to get hot coke before we collapsed but it took another half an hour to find normal water... In addition the road got from bad to worse, my brakes completely stopped working and it was still hot.... Well we did make it safe and sound to town and out of the island but our taste for "off the beaten track", "authentic" experience has subsided...