Kolo is a small village along the 'highway from Arusha to Dodoma (Capital of Tanzania) The road is very bad although they say the Chinese will be paving the road in the next couple of years (2016?)

It takes about 3 hours to get to Kolo from Arusha by 4 wheel drive (224km) and another 3 hours to get from Kolo to Dodoma (180km).

There are 185 sites with rock paintings in the Kondoa region but only a few are accessible for tourists unless you intend to hike out in the bush. Mary Leakey began documenting these rock paintings in the 1950s and when she was done, the conclusion are that these were the second most extensive rock painting sites in Africa next to Tassili N'Ajjer in Algeria. There is now a small museum in Kolo right at the only junction in town. It has a couple of rooms with some stone tools and artifacts and pictures of some of the the rock paintings.

The problem is that the most popular site (B1, B2 and B3) is 9 km out of Kolo. It is also very bad road to the site and requires a 4 wheel. You pick up a guide at the museum to go with you. There is a bus that runs between Arusha and Dodoma and can drop you at Kolo. The problem is that there is no transportation to the site. I was told you can try to get a motorcycle taxi to get you out there or some people walk and it takes 3 hours each way.

Once you get to the B sites, there is a sign pointing to a path up the hill. Its a steep climb and the circuit takes about two hours, so bring water. We started with the B2, then B3 at the top of the hill and finally B1 at the bottom.

All the paintings here are dated to about 5-10,000 years ago and are done with red ochre by ancestors of today's Sandawe people. The paintings are painted on the rock walls under a deep overhang rock. The B2 site is still used for local rituals. There are low walls built around the sites and I am not sure to protect it from. We used the walls as seats to admire the paintings.

The other sites that get visited are called Pahi sites but its across the valley and visiting both sites takes a whole day. The problem is that the roads are unsafe at night to drive and so you have to stay the night in Kondoa. The facilities are very basic in Kondoa and so if you want a decent hotel room, you need to get back to Arusha or Dodoma. As such we decided to skip the Pahi sites and head on to Dodoma. Besides I read that the Pahi sites were done in white clay and were painted as recent as 600 years ago.

A long day but probably worth it.