Tuesday 22 June - Morogoro to Moshi

This was quite a long haul. The roads were okay most of the way with a few pot-holed sections but nothing too serious. One of the really fascinating sections for me was passing through the junction at Chilinze. This is where one turns north off the main Tanzam highway. There is a cluster of shops and a busy market. The fun part is the dozens of mobile tradesmen (hawkers) who dodge between the cars and buses selling fruit, mielies, bread, samoosas, chicken... you name it. I even saw one guy with toiletries and combs neatly arranged in a shallow box. I was so fascinated with the sights and sounds I forgot to take a photo. It was really hectic as there were easily ten buses parked off and the vendors dodged around amongst the traffic. It was quite a relief to get away without hitting a pedestrian.

On the road up to Moshi we passed a large overland vehicle was and ND number plate. There was much joyful waving and hooting between us. When one is so far away from home seeing a familiar number plate is really exciting.

The greatest problem for us on the roads in Tanzania has been the speed restrictions. Every few kilometers one passes through a village or settlement and the speed limit drops to 50kph and even 30kph in some places. The traffic cops are everywhere and they're very quick to trap with their hand held radar machine - especially when they see a foreign vehicle. Mark was trapped doing 65 and we had to pay another spot fine. This time there were two cars pulled off the road simultaneously. Mark swore he was doing 50 and asked the cop how he could tell which vehicle was travelling at 65. Of course the cop couldn't answer that but we had to pay up. We were powerless to argue our case. How annoying!

So now the speed fine score is two to Mark and one to Brenda. We have learnt to be very vigilant and both watch for speed restrictions and warn whoever is driving. I had one funny incident when we came upon a 30kph sign. I quickly slowed right down to the required speed and as I went around a bend there was a cop in the road. She immediately raised her hand to stop me. A cop with a radar machine was on the verge on the right and he had to shout to her that I wasn't speeding and she waved me on. They obviously expect to catch lots of people in that spot. I smiled and waved as I crawled past them.

And so at an average speed of about 70kph for the day we finally made it to Moshi and found Brock at an arranged meeting place. We only then discovered that we were now one hour ahead of SA and it really was time for tea in Tanzania. We were also just in time to watch Bafana Bafana beat France 2-1 but sadly they didn't make it into the next round of the World Cup. We are still very proud of them.

Mt Kilimanjaro looms over Moshi but unfortunately there was too much cloud cover. Perhaps tomorrow....