Mbeya -> Arusha

We gobbled down the inclusive breakfast, consisting of a choice of boiled eggs, pineapple and watermelon slices and avo and toast. By 7:30 we were on the road heading for Singida, 602 km away. It was nice to see the city in daylight and we tried to orientate ourselves. The city had already come to life and the roads were jam packed with every possible method of transport. Mbeya is surprisingly big with large well-built infrastructure. It took about half an hour to get out the traffic onto the Zamtam Highway (A104). Mbeya lies in a beautiful valley surrounded by rolling hills covered in patches of hut settlements. The landscape is completely different to what we've seen so far. Everything is open and you can see far distances ahead. There are lots of hills with fields of sunflowers and subsistence farming. The roads are very good, with no potholes (so far). However, as you near a village, the speed limit is 50 km/hr but after that, there doesnt seem to be any speed regulations. There are police constantly and guest what? I (Chris speaking) got pulled over 3 times for speeding. I really thought it would be Kayla first but no, it was me. I made friendly conversation with the police officer who advised us that we are on our way to Iringa and Singida is way off the route to Arusha, we missed the turn off cutting across country. We changed our plan and decided we'd head to Arusha and see how far we get and then we'll decide where we'll sleep. Luckily I know how to speak nicely to the Po po and we got away without paying any fine.

The next thing to do while we were on the road was to sort out a sim card, and that took so long, due to the network or the "system being down" a usual thing for us in SA. After a good hour we were back on the long road towards Arusha. We entered Iringa at lunch time with hope that we'd find something to eat. We stopped at a petrol station which only after we filled up did they tell us no card, so I left Kayla in the company of Clever and went to find an ATM to draw 160 000 TSH. We were still trying to wrap our heads around this money system. The petrol stations here are not equipped for snack breaks and we drove through Iringa without finding food. We still had some banana muffins, rusks and apples left from padkos though so we rashioned ourselves.

As we left Iringa, the landscape changed dramatically from green forest to rocky, desrt-like terrain. I couldn't stop looking around and admiring the vast land which was now filled with baobabs everywhere. Initially we were not supposed to be driving on this road but it worked out well because this is the road we are cycling down on so it was nice to get a feeling of where we would be going. We have learned that we need to draw more cash, there are few petrol stations and ATMs and we need to stock up on food. There are no supermarkets anywhere. We got to Dodoma late afternoon and this was a bit of a shock for us. We thought Dodoma was a decent, fairly built up city but its not. It is rather a massive township, shacks and stalls along the road. Our accommodation on the way down is going to be interesting.

It was 5 pm and we still had 432 km to Arusha. With Kayla now behind the wheel I was left in charge of finding accommodation. The next town coming up was Babati, another place we are staying at on our cycle but as it was getting dark and still 2 hours to go to Babati, we couldnt find anything online, we decided we'd push through to Arusha, our eta was 10 pm. I found Mazzola Backpackers online and gave it a call. Innocent answered and sounded so excited for us to be staying with him. It started raining softly now and after filling up with diesel in Babati, spending all our cash, and still no sign of food, we continued to Arusha. The roads were still amazing so we were feeling comfortable.

We now had Innocent chatting to us on whatsapp and he was so friendly and accommodating. He gave us directions to his place. Little did we know of the location of the Backpackers. We got into Arusha and all was going well until a left turn into the township where there is no sense of road, rather a narrow path with water running down from the rain and potholes. There were cars, mopeds, tuk-tuks, people braaing whole chickens on the streets, local food stalls, tinned shacks - we now began to feel uncertain. Innocent was so sweet, he was so concerned about us and was calling to try find out where we were and he really was trying his best to get us to him safely. He obviously knew what we were getting ourselves into. Google maps indicated another left turn but it was so dodgy and narrow, it seemed impossible. Tension and wariness grew in the car. Eventually Innocent sent a moped to find us and direct us. We now had to turn the vehicle and trailer around in this tiny alley-way. By now it was 10 pm, raining, we'd been driving for 15 hours, hungry and people all around us looking at us like "what are you doing here".

We found the guy on the bike and he lead us through this very narrow, bumpy, dodgy passage, eventually getting to Innocent, who was so excited to see us. We now had to squeeze the trailer and the car into his tiny parking area, in the rain, cold and all patience and calm gone, until we met Innocent. He is the most friendliest, kindest person we have ever met and all he wanted to do was help us and he was concerned about our safety and getting us to him ok. Kayla describes him as being an agel the Lord sent us. He welcomed us with open arms and made us feel so comfortable and safe. We had a clean bed, a warm shower and that was all we needed after this long day. Today has defintely been the toughest so far...but we conquered.

This is the picture we could the next morning on our way out