Day 8 (Dec 08/846km) Suicide Mission

This was yet another day of just pure hard riding. With 900km ahead of us, we were determined to reach Dar es Salaam on this day. So we rode as hard as we could only stopping to refuel and do some quick stretches on the way. The road was marvelous all the way except for a few odd potholes and sharp bends. We might just add here that of the 3600 odd km’s we rode, only about 5% of the roads are bad. As for drivers in Tanzania, truck drivers and especially bus drivers drive like maniacs. There are plenty of Louis Hamilton’s and Schumachers here. Truckers drive their big machines as if these were private cars, overtaking facing on-coming traffic, speeding down hill and just plainly being reckless. At one point we were riding at about 140km/hr when one of the famous Abood bus overtook us on a slightly uphill road. We just could not believe it.

We also found some amusement on the road. A young man on his bicycle decided that peddling along a long uphill road was just too much and he held his hand onto a truck going slowly up the mountain allowing the truck to tow him while he relaxed along the way. 

Finally we get to refuel at a proper filling station.

 

We stopped in Morogoro for petrol, the place which hosted the ANC and its famous Somafco school during exile. We both laughed without saying a word to each other when we saw two ladies who had striking resemblance to South Africans. We both thought to ourselves, some ANC cadres had clearly left some seeds in this village and there must be plenty of them in the little town.

We had about 200 km left to reach Dar and it was already 16H00. Little did we realise that Tanzania being on the far east of Africa falls under a different time zone, an hour ahead of SA. So we thought we had another 2 hours of sun and with our eagerness to reach Dar, we were heading for a suicide mission! When the sun sets in Tanzania, trucks and buses really come alive , they actually breathe and live!100km into the ride it got really dark and Thendo was literally pushed off the road and Tumi was squeezed between 2 trucks IT WAS WILD!!!! So we decided to find the nearest shanty and we put up there 70km away from Dar! We have never prayed so hard we promised God never to ride in the dark again. We found Jesus!