Wednesday 30 June - Dar es Salaam to Iringa

When we got back to the hostel last night we both fell into bed. I didn't stir until 4:30am when I woke up bathed in sweat. The humidity in Dar is worse than Durban - and this is supposed to be the cooler time of year. We packed up and left the city before the rush hour traffic began. Of course we had to say goodbye to Brock as he flies to Canada tonight. So we are once again without our interpreter.

We discovered that rush hour begins shortly after 5am in Dar. We passed many trucks and small buses on the road and it's quite tricky watching out for pedestrians in the dark. About an hour and a half after we left Dar Mark overtook three vehicles going up a hill. We heard a pop sound and a few minutes later Mark started to pull off the road when he realised we had a puncture. It was a very dangerous place to pull over because the verge was narrow and there was quite a dip to the left. We decided to limp a further 100 metres up the hill because we could see a driveway. We were very grateful to discover it was a service station and we had a flat area to change the tire.

The puncture was caused by a plug that blew out. We had had a slow leak repaired in Moshi a few days ago and this was the plug blowing out. We had to unpack a whole lot of stuff and I put the box containing our compressor onto the roof rack whilst I moved other stuff out of the way so we could get the jack out. Sadly I forgot to put the compressor back in the car and now it has a new owner who no doubt picked it up along the road between there and here. :-(

The trip to Iringa was interesting as we traveled back through the Rift Valley. We had one very scary event when a bus came at full speed around a corner coming towards us. He suddenly started drifting towards us side on - we had nowhere to go. There was a cliff face to our left. For a few minutes it was like staring death in the face but thankfully he managed to right himself and we lived to tell the tale.  We were already a bit spooked by all the speeding buses who had passed up in dangerous places and we'd seen two overturned trucks.

We drove into Iringa town and found a delightful information centre with some lovely helpful people. We were able to phone ahead to our campsite and book in for the night. The camp is excellently run by the local community, just outside the park gate. We have met up with an interesting couple here. They have been on the road over two months, doing a similar thing to us. She runs a Backpackers in Oudtshoorn and he is a Dane. We are sharing the small campsite tonight. They are heading towards Dar tomorrow so we were able to share tips and experiences.

This photo was taken just outside the gates to the Park. It's a very remote area and I had just said to Mark I wondered if the people even knew there is a World Cup on. We came around the corner and saw this dish outside a very humble home. We're quite sure they know all about the World Cup and they haven't missed a game!

Tomorrow we will spend the day in the Ruaha National Park. We have heard only good things about the Park so it's really something to look forward to. Lots of photos........