Three weeks in and one of the more enjoyable aspects of the trip is the simplicity of it. We now know what we need to think about and the best way to go about much of this. Daily habits and routines are now entrenched that save us stress and time when on the bike. Rather than a million things consuming us as it does in our normal lives, there are really only a handful of things that we need to or can worry about.
Do we have enough food/water? At the end of each cycle, food is a priority (particularly for Naomi) so we stock up with a late lunch, snacks and make sure we have a loaf of bread and peanut butter. The peanut butter sandwiches get made each morning, and are our morning snacks during the ride.
Where are we going? Though we have preliminarily planned much of our route, we have got into a habit of looking in more detail at the next 4-5 days, figuring out what distance to ride, what the terrain will look like (hills!), is there any accomodation in towns we are heading to and when should we rest. It only takes 30mins typically but it makes life much simpler when we know where we are heading. How are the bikes? Every second or third day, we give the bikes a once over, cleaning the chain, pumping the tires and making sure everything else is working. Invariably, there is a range of other tweaks to brakes and gears as we go along as well. Getting this all right let's us enjoy the riding much more and means we can take in all the villages, the people and the views.
The start of the week saw us arrive in the capital Dodoma. Dodoma is a relatively small city / town despite being the capital. We arrived early in the afternoon, found ourselves staying in what appeared to be a 'middle class' surbuban area which meant it was easier to be outside and enjoy the sunshine. We even found ourselves a delicious juice bar. Leaving Dodoma, we continued south towards the dauntingly named Southern Highlands. We would spend the first 3 days heading towards Iringa. This was originally going to be 4 days, with a short 60km cycle planned on the first day which turned into a 137km stretch that enabled us to bank a day to use later down the line. The next two days saw less distance but many more hills, and we were glad to arrive in Iringa where we would have a rest day after 7 days straighr in the saddle. Much needed R&R, particularly with one of us (names removed to protect identity) developing a bit of an upset stomach on arrival.
We are now on our final stretch in Tanzania, heading towards Mbeya. We have been relatively lucky to avoid most of the rainy season until now, however have been hit by constant rain the last two days. We are now looking forward to some time on the beaches of Lake Malawi.
