Voi to Moshi - Day 345

Date: July 29th, 2010
Distance: 55km (Plus cheating by truck.)
Country: Tanzania
Song of the Day: Wayward Son - Kansas

Started the day, and the wind had turned against me. Traitorous bastard. The road was also terrible. It was paved, but more like a patchwork of potholes paved over and stitched together. It was a bumpy ride, and slow going too. After only 15 km I hitched a ride on a truck. Glad I did, never would have made it otherwise. The road only gets worse from there.

I did want to ride to Tsavo Park. Everyone said there were lots of wild animals, but that doesn't bother me that much. Animals are pretty low on my list of things to be worried about. The road through the park was supposed to be paved though. When I saw that it was just a washboarded dirt road, I didn't feel too bad. I did see a herd of pachyderms as well. So that was good.

The truck dropped me at Teveta, which is on the Kenyan side of the border. The actual boarder was two more kilometers across more bad roads. Getting checked back into Tanzania was pretty easy, and I was welcomed with nice tarmac in front of me.

From here I just flew down the road into Moshi. The wind was once again behind me and I was having a great time. The only thing slowing me down was the speed bumps.

Each country I have biked through has had its share of speed bumps here and there. Tanzania is the worst though. You can find them on all the main roads outside hospitals, schools, intersections, villages, bus stops, bridges, cow crossings, on up-hills, down-hills and for no reason at all. Plus each large speed bump is preceded and followed by a series of corduroy bumps. The large ones I can go over without too much trouble. The smaller ones seemed designed to rattle my bike apart. Cars don't fare much better over them either. Quite frustrating.

There was one other thing that was a bit disappointing. I couldn't see Kilimanjaro. How do you hide a 20,000 foot mountain? Apparently the answer is clouds. Oh well, life is full of disappointments.

-Dravis