Hills, dirt and more hills across 'wild' south-eastern Tanzania

Okay, i've finally given-up on providing a day-by-day breakdown of the trip. As the gaps between emails becomes longer this becomes a little taxing. I've also come to realise just how difficult it is to fit such a massive variety and quantity of experiences into any kind of frame - even one as big as my own mind, never mind just a few (thousand) words. So i'll start by giving a very basic breakdown of my days and distances followed by something of a narrative.

{Mtwara-Newala (via Nanyamba): 47miles on both days
Newala-Masasi: 46miles
Masasi-Tunduru: 2days, 131miles
Tunduru-Namtumbo(via Matemanga): 40 and 90miles respectively
Namtumbo-Songea: 47miles}

Originally i had intended on cycling from Mtwara to Masasi in two days, because although the second one would entail a 124km ride the road is apparently good tar. However, i would have had to retrace 80km's back towards Lindi and when i then discovered that Masasi was on the 'Makonde Plateau' (making the chances of doing the distance plus an ascent seemingly unlikely) i decided to rather take a more leisurely route on dirt roads via Newala.

It was a good decision, as those three days were some of the best cycling i've done to date. Although the roads weren't fantastic they weren't too bad (i rarely had to push), especially taking the side-paths available to cyclists. Now, although i've taken side-paths made by local cyclists before, the ones i was alerted to soon after i left Mtwara were in a different league altogether. They were almost wide enough for two bicycles, which was just as well because there was a lot of cycle traffic (including some cheeky motorcycle taxis), and they often ran through groves of cashew nut trees. Cashews happen to be my favourite nut, but i had never actually seen a cashew tree before this trip. To appreciate why they are often quite expensive you need to actually see where they come from; each nut comes from just one 'cashew apple' which can be red or yellow in colour (or at least the fallen ones i saw were) and is at least as large as a normal apple. Anyway, it was fun cycling with the biggest dangers being other bikes and hitting my head on cashew tree branches. When the sidepath came out of the trees it passed through small villages, with the locals rather surprised to see an mzungu on a bike whizzing by their front door. Another highlight of the three days was the very good breakfast i had at the 'Country Lodge' in Newala, where they even had fresh honey (to contrast with the 2slices of stale bread and one small banana i got at the otherwise very good Lutheran Centre in Mtwara).

Masasi is indeed 'ringed by granite koppies' as it says in my guidebook, but the Makonde Plateau isn't much of a plateau in my view because in the end i didn't have to do much climbing to get there. In Masasi i was guided to a good guesthouse recommended to me by the English girl in Kilwa, but otherwise had somewhat less success with my other endeavours. Bottled water was only available in small, very expensive, quantities but after much searching i found a 'duka la dawa baridi' (basically a pharmacy) where i bought some 'Water Guard' to purify water. After managing to stuff all my supplies - which i knew i would need for the next two days to Tunduru - into my panniers, i discovered that the 9l fold-up water bottle i had been carrying for such situations had a leak... I decided to sleep on it (not the water bottle, which i strapped to my rear rack) and see how much water had been lost by the morning. It wasn't more than a litre, so i set-off. About 5hours of cycling later, seeing some spectacularly-shaped huge granite outcrops, i decided to transfer what water remained to the bottles i had been drinking out of, and managed to salvage about 3litres. Fortunately i came across a village with a water pump late in the afternoon, where i was allowed to the front of the (admittedly short) queue and managed to get another 4litres which i knew would allow me to get through the next day to Tunduru without too much discomfort.

Soon afterwards i started searching for a suitable place to pull-off the road and pitch my tent. This was complicated by there being a fair number of small villages - i didn't have the energy to go through a whole rigamarole of getting permission, etc. to camp int hese so i did what most people do and tried to avoid them - and, more to the point, a disconcerting number of small veld fires burning in various places. Finally i found a place where there weren't any fires very nearby and also seemed to have been burnt-out not too long before, and managed to pull-off the road without being observed. Initially, i camped behind a small granite outcrop that obscured me from the road, and cooked-up a basic supper of pasta boiled with a stock cube (so i could drink the water) - which was complicated slightly by discovering that my bottle of olive oil had leaked and my vitamin pills had exploded in the heat inside the pannier. (It's not a pleasant sight and i still haven't brought myself to fully deal with it).

However, in the middle of the night a strong wind blew-up and i decided (with fires lighting-up all but the northern horizon) to move-up onto the rock. As it turned out the wind blew the fires away from where i was and i woke-up in the morning not burnt to a cinder, which was a relief. Other than a few strange noises in the bushes whilst i was cooking i didn't see or hear any animals. I left a little late (cooking breakfast and packing-up is something that i've never been very fast at), surprising some men on the other side of the outcrop who had come to chop wood, which became a problem as the road deteriorated and i hit soft sand in 30C+ heat. At some point i managed to find a cold soda, and whilst drinking this and wondering if i would make it to Tunduru i met a local man who himself was about to set-off for the same place. I left first, but he passed me on the way which was very fortunate because for the next 1-2hours i was able to follow him onto various obscure sidepaths that were mostly cycleable - unlike the road. In the end we parted because i was tiring a little (okay, a lot) but only after i had ascertained that i could follow the main road all the way to Tunduru and i shared some of my remaining water (i had filled-up at another village pump earlier)with him. I eventually arrived in the 'dusty mining town' of Tunduru at just after 6pm. It wasn't a very friendly place at that time and i couldn't find the guesthouse, but as usual a local man who i stopped to ask spent 20minutes of his time helping me to find the place, get a room and even move my bike in.

Although i was feeling incredibly tired by this time - the sand having killed off my mental determination at least as much as my physical strength - i had managed to establish from a number of locals (at the guesthouse, shopkeepers, petrolstation attendants, etc) that there was a place called 'Matemanga' about 40miles away on decent road with guesthouses. I decided that it would be preferable to continue on, thereby breaking the 200km's into 3days of not more than 70km's each rather than doing two days of 100km's each after a days rest. So I left Tunduru a little later than usual after managing to find two 5l hard plastic water bottles (after finally ditching the fold-up one after it got another hole) and various other supplies, although i was feeling a little unwell as if i was coming-down with a cold. It turned-out to be a good decision as the road was good and i reached Matemanga in mid-afternoon, providing an opportunity to get some much-needed rest.

From there i was expecting a really difficult two days to Namtumbo but they never materialised. Although i started-off with 16litres of water, the road was good enough that after a while i started thinking about pushing-through to Namtumbo in one day. The scenery was fantastic, with small hills and woodland on all sides and the road was generally smooth with the exception of some huge depressions. Whilst these might trap vehicles they are actually quite fun on a bike and they didn't slow me down too much. At some point i discovered - thanks to a raodside sign - that the gentleman at the Tourist Board in Dar had slightly misinformed me: i wasn't passing through a 'control zone' of the Selous Game Reserve but the 'wildlife corridor' between Niassi in Mozambique and the Selous. Perhaps it's a matter of semantics but to me this is like the difference between a fire escape and the main corridor of a building, which can be a problem if you are trying to avoid people (or animals in this case). However, i have to dissapoint you by saying that i only saw some baboons and elephant dung, other than some strange howls at one point there was nothing to really disconcert me. By 4:30pm when i had intended to get off the road and camp i was so far along that i decided to go the full 90miles to Namtumbo in one go. Considering how loaded-down i was it was pretty amazing that i managed this, and i was pleased to have another day to play with in my timetable.

I was warned in Namtumbo that there were some 'very humungous' hills between there and Songea but i decided to carry-on (again) despite now feeling really grotty and rest in SOngea where there would be more facilities and i would have some chance of finding out about the ferry timetable. There were some very nasty hills but i managed to grind up most of them - much to the amusement and/or amazement of the locals - and the mountains i expected never materialised which was something of a relief. The scenery wa even more impressive now, on a fairly cool and overcast day with large hills and mountains spreading out like waves in all directions. A few last hills ('kilima' in Swahili i discovered) on tar road brought me to Songea where i've been since yesterday.

My first attempts at getting ferry information threw-up some rather negative feedback but a priest i met at the internet cafe yesterday (whose parish i'm supposed to stop at tomorrow for some tea) and the port authorities i finally got through to this morning seem to indicate that the ferry is running and shouldn't leave before Saturday so hopefully i'll be able to make it. Songea is a relaxed place, the people are friendly, it is well laid-out and the main road runs close to where i'm staying down towards the hills that stretch to Mbinga and Mbamba Bay on Lake Malawi (called Lake Nyasa here) where i'm headed; so in all it turned out to be a good place for a rest.

When next you hear from me i will with any luck have taken at least one and maybe two ferries into Malawi on the second of the two major landmarks i saw all those days ago (it seems like an age) when i flew to Nairobi.

At this point itmight also be apt to mention that i have seen - just before i left Mtwara - what happened in New Orleans, and the irony of people there having to worry about water-borne diseases there was not lost on me in my current context. There is a lesson here, which is that whilst what i'm doing has some risks - 'known unknowns' as Donald Rumsfeld might call them(this quote, that "there are known knowns...known unknowns...and unknown unknowns" for which he has been widely savaged, is in fact one of the most lucid things said by anyone in the Bush administration) - some of the greatest risks are unknown unknowns. So why let yourself by constrained by small risks which you can at least calculate?

At times i have thought i wouldn't miss Tanzania; when i was cycling up hills on bad roads, in boiling hot weather, with the local idiots shouting rude comments in Swahili and/or English. However, those moments are hardly representative. I'll miss the culture - especially of the coast and the Muslim influence - the cyclists (i doubt there are as many in Malawi), the chai, the chapatis, being able to speak a little of the local language. Malawi is going to be very different i suspect, and i know for a fact that Mozambique will be.

Lake Malawi here i come.

[By the way, thanks for all the emails and apologies for when i take a little long to reply but have no doubt that i will eventually so keep 'em coming]