(click on a photo to enlarge)
From Tanga I traveled to the Spice Islands of Pemba and Zanzibar by boat. I found Zanzibar to be just as wonderful as all the guidebooks make it out to be. Walking around Stone Town, the main city on the island, you can see all kinds of forts and palaces left over from past occupants such as the Portuguese and the Omanis. And walking through Stone Town's narrow alleyways is an experience in itself. I then cycled across the island to the east coast, which is a continuous strech of virtually empty white-sand beach. The weather, the water and the sand are all perfect, and this is the type of place that would be absolutely packed with people if it was anywhere else in the world, but I had the place mostly to myself. Even the locals from the villages on the coast don't come down to the beach unless they have something specific to do, like fishing. On the east coast I split my time between a European resort where my friend Rob was on vacation with his family and a quiet bungalow-style place at the end of the road where there were only two other people besides the boys who were working there.
Returning to the mainland at Dar es Salaam, my goal was to get out of that city as quickly as possible. As far as I could tell, there is absolutely nothing interesting about Dar. Fortunately it was Sunday morning when I passed through, so I was able to get out into the countryside quickly and safely, nothing like the experience of riding through Nairobi! The next two days were hot and boring, but the third day was fantastic. I started the day by cycling through Mikumi National Park. The scenery in Mikumi is nothing special, but I was able to see elephants, baboons, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest and impalas, all from the comfort of my own...bike! The main east-west highway that bisects the country also bisects the park, which meant that I could access it easily, which isn't true for many of Tanzania's parks. However, it also meant that there were a fair number of big trucks on the road - obviously a few protected species can't stop the wheels of commerce in Tanzania! After Mikumi I rode through Ruaha Gorge. It was nice to finally see a big river carrying lots of water, as most of the rivers are completely dry at this time of year in East Africa.
After leaving the Ruaha River a priest named Father Michael invited me to stay at his house. He lives on a compound in a rural setting with a chapel, a school, farmland and lots of room for guests. A Dutch cyclist who is going all the way from Cape Town to Cairo was there the same night, so we compared notes from what we had done so far. It was the first time I had met another long-distance cyclist on the road (thousands of local cyclists though!), and it must have been quite a coincidence for Father Michael to have the two of us there at the same time. Since I had done 80+ miles each of the last three days, I decided to spend an extra day there. This proved to be a very good decision, as I had to climb a killer hill on the way to Iringa the next day.
The Southern Highlands between Mbeya and the border with Malawi are stunning. It's a very lush area where large tea estates are interspersed with subsistence plots of bananas or cassava and tiny goat pastures. Behind all this is an untouched mountain wilderness area. Since this was all downhill for me, I got to take it in while gliding by at about 20 miles per hour on my bike.
I wish that I had had more time to spend here, but another cash crunch (I seem to be very good at spending all my local currency well before I leave a country) forced me to hustle to the Malawian border.
On the way out of Tanzania and into Malawi, I had to replace my rear tire, which had worn all the way through the rubber. This wasn't too surprising, since I've ridden about 1200 miles and virtually all of the weight of myself plus my gear rests on the back wheel while I'm riding. All of my other gear has been working perfectly except for my speedometer/odometer, which works only sporadically. At times it gets annoying not being able to tell how fast and how far I'm going, but after spending a month cycling through two countries I feel like I'm in a good rhythm and this isn't a major setback. On a typical day I look on the map for a town about 70-75 miles from my starting point and plan on arriving there for dinner, then cycling a few miles out of town and camping in the bush. When I pass through a city (about once every 4 days) I usually stay in some kind of hotel, and I take at least one rest day per week.
