by Jaston Kenan Kalagho, 25 June 2006 - 07:14:04
Though I was not too worried about the rain, what worried me most was when I couldn’t make it on Saturday but rather on Sunday and wondered whether Sunday was a good day for a tourist to visit the old historical natural limestone caves of Amboni, located some 400 kilometers from the Tanzania capital Dar es Salaam.
The historical limestone caves were created by the movement of the earth’s crust, penetrated by rain water containing carbon dioxide and the acid solution slowly dissolved the limestone to form a network of underground caverns estimated to extend over a 500 kilometre area.
A five-hour non-stop drive from Dar es Salaam leads you to Tanga, one of the oldest townships since colonial period. It was a surprise for me to find a group of 20 foreign tourists with about 12 nationals at 9 am already at the site, more especially bearing in mind that this was a Sunday morning.
The group was waiting for the tour guide to lead them through the exciting caves of Amboni located about eight kilometers off Tanga township.
“Here there is a secret of God,” explained Tabu Mtelekezo, a tour guide at the historical caves who, as I discovered later, is well acquainted with a number of different paths one comes across inside the ever dark caves and are the most extensive limestone caves in East Africa.
“It is only with a torch that you can navigate through these caves otherwise you will never find the way out,” he said.
There are about 14 caves with fascinating chambers inside the Amboni cave, all of which are natural underground limestone caves formed during the natural Jurassic period age some 150 million years ago, Tabu explained as we made our first stop at the Mzimuni Chamber inside the huge Amboni cave that took us almost an hour to tour.
Mzimuni, which literally means spirit in the local dialect, is a holly place for sacrifice and worship inside the cave, Tabu explained, pointing towards the cave full of traditional local tools believed to be offerings from local residents.
The cave is believed to house various spirits and holds a great religious significance for many of the local tribes. During our tour, we saw a ceremonial cavern at Mzimuni filled with offerings like obsidian, coins, blades and pottery. Mzimuni is also used as a place of fertility offerings for barren couples.
These different tribes who come here for worship, according to Tabu, include the Ndigo, Bodei, Sambaa and Segeju. Their practices originate from their forefathers since the 16th century and are still being practised today.
It is also believed that during the colonial German occupation in Tanzania, Europeans used to come to this place for their celebration ceremonies, where they could even spend nights.
From here, we were led into a tiny 12 metre concentrated crawling path leading us into one of the hiding places of the famous historical colonial fighters Paul Hamisi of Tanzania and Osale Otangu of Kenya, who fought the Mau Mau revolution which led to Kenya’s independence in 1963.
It is said that the two men, believed to be of Jaluo and Sambaa tribes respectively, made Amboni cave their hiding place during the independence revolution. The white administration during the colonial period announced a US$10 bounty on their heads in early 1956.
As we navigated further inside the caves, Tabu was eager to tell and show us every extraordinary, fascinating natural crystal formation features found inside the caves, which are a result of rock disintegration due to water forces some 200 millions years ago.
Inside the caves we saw an elephant rock shaped feature, a human-like shaped footprint, shape of fingerprints, a chair-shaped rock, a hoof shape, a rock shaped like an East African and African map.
“This is a holy place for most Moslems who visit the caves, usually they bow down on their knees and pray here,” said Tabu while advancing to point to a Quaranic shape and Arabic writings which are all natural.
“No human being has ever been involved in shaping these features,” added Tabu, while showing us the Bible-shaped rock and the shape of the Virgin Mary at a height of some 30 metres.
In our expedition, we also came to another chamber formed by the physical process and at one point winged bats could be seen circling the Madonna-like statue while the replica of the famous New York city Statue of Liberty is clearly seen at another point.
We also visited passages which, if followed Tabu claimed, would lead to Mount Kilimanjaro in Moshi region bordering Kenya to the north, a distance of about 500 kilometres and another leading to Mombasa in Kenya. All are natural underground paths.
I personally still do not believe this story even after seeing both hallowed paths, though there have been some reports of fatal accidents when people made the tour unguided. It is believed that in 1941, a white man accompanied by his wife and a dog who had refused a guide from traditional people residing around the area, got lost having followed a path leading to Kilimanjaro mountain.
The path, which is first connected to an entrance of 51 metres deep, is believed to have an underground molten magma. It is said that nobody has ever heard of the couple’s whereabouts, but few months later a dog was spotted dead outside a cave some 500 kilometers near Kilimanjaro Mountains. This is how people came to believe about the link of the path to the mountain of Kilimanjaro.
The Amboni caves were found as early as 1892 by Amboni Company Limited, which was carrying out sisal plantations in the region. It was then reported to the Tanzania government in 1922 but it was not until 1963 when it was given a status of a reserve by the government.
The Amboni caves are worth a visit while in Tanzania.
—Feedback: jaston25@yahoo.com
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