Sunday 20 June Chitemba to Iringa

We arrived at the border and sailed through the Malawian side. No problems. The Tanzanian immigration and customs people were also great. Everyone was great. The unpleasant part of the experience was the huge number of hustlers and beggars. One has to buy the obligatory Third Party insurance and different companies tout their product.Then there are the monychangers. We have learnt that it's good to change some money iwth these guys as they give quuite a good deal and we've used them successfully up to now. On the Tanzanian border the modus opperandi is to crowd the customer and try to confuse him. We have learnt not to hand over our dollars until we have counted out our bundles of notes and laid them on the dashboard. The guy yesterday tried to change the exchange rate after we had settled on a rate.

Mark had to get quite firm and  say, "Take it or leave it". We got out of there glad to have made it without any serious altercation but for a while we felt very vulnerable. Interestingly just before that I had been reading Psalm 43 whilst waiting in the car. I prayed the first few verses for Mark whilst he was sorting out the Third Party insurance and I could see the moneychangers waiting for him like vultures.

From the border we we climbed steeply upwards past lush vegetation including many banana plants and vegetable fields. One of the first plantations we saw was a tea estate so we knew we were in the right place for tea. We soon left the high country and descended into bushveld as we joined the Tanzam highway. The roads are good in places but in others there are potholes and one has to drive with care. Then of course there are the police roadblocks! Most of them just waved us through but as I was driving through one settlement I was caught going 60kmh in a 50 zone. Eish! It's so hard to drive at 50 and besides I had missed the sign. At least I wasn't too far over the limit and we paid up. This is the second fine of the trip and the score is one all to Mark and I.

We reached Iringa and looked for the Riverside Camp Mark had found in our Bradt guide. It is a really pleasant surprise. The surrounding area is dusty bushveld but the campsite 1.5km off the main road is a beautiful green, secure site. It was wonderful to pitch our tent on a lush green lawn and have electrical points to recharge the laptop battery. Unfortunately although the boiler had been fired we didn't get any hot water for showering because of a broken tap that leaked all the hot water down the drain. We only found out about this too late. I was very brave and showered and even washed my hair in cold water. Ah to have clean hair again!


Here we are spilling out of our Jeep as we set up tent and do some laundry. It really was a wonderful surprise to find this lovely spot in the middle of the bushveld. 

We expect to reach Moshi on Tuesday. Let the adventure continue.....