Kerehe to Kahama – Thursday August 16th

Well so much for thinking that this would be an easy day of 325 kilometres. It didn’t quite turn out that way.

The day started when I woke up to discover that I had been joined during the night by an army of bedbugs. They must have enjoyed a good feed judging my the bites all over my body. “TMI” maybe but I’m trying to share everything with you.

Anyway, after a good dollop of Fucibet I took off for the border crossing. It was only about fifteen minutes before I reached the newly constructed ‘one stop’ border. It’s a new concept and makes crossing between Rwanda and Tanzania, and vice versa, so much easier. You go into one single building which houses both Immigration and Customs from the two countries and it even has an ATM. So there is no need for either the ‘official’ agents or money exchangers.

The counter assistant dealing with a particular matter is always from the relevant country. So there are personnel of both nationalities working side by side in a flow system that functions really well. The only short delay was when I was asked to take a seat while they considered my Tanzanian Visa application. I utilised that time by seeking out one of a small number of currency exchange touts who I had noticed earlier hanging around outside. One of them haggled over a switch of whatever Rwanda Francs I had left into Tanzanian Schillings and that job was done.

I stopped on the bridge over the river which borders the two countries to take a couple of photos.

There is a spectacular waterfall but it was hard to get a good angle for a photo. However it was opportune that I stopped because I bumped into a guy from Manchester who was traveling with his Ugandan wife. He advised me not to cut south from Dodoma to Iringa but to take the longer route by Morogoro. Looks like another day forfeited but that would be preferable to getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway we parted ways and I had just one job to do which wasn’t possible at the one stop border crossing. I gave a boda boda guy a dollar to guide me to the nearest insurance office.

He duly obliged and brought me to Mr. Peter who got me sorted for €12 which was far better than what I had to pay in Uganda and Rwanda.

I rode off and soon after the torture started in earnest. I still had over 300 kilometres to go and it was already well past noon as there was now a one hour time difference working against me once I crossed into Tanzania. Within a couple of kilometres potholes started to appear, occasionally at first, but soon they were a constant. It’s hard to describe how bad they became but a lot of the riding involved competing with huge lorries as we would often both negotiate the wrong side of the road to try and find the easiest path.

Speed dropped to about 15 or 20 kph and for lorries it was even slower. Trying to overtake them invoked a lot of ‘Kaylee options’ and after a couple of hours I was getting concerned about making Kahama before dark.

The situation became worse when the dreaded roadworks started cropping up. These would go on for miles with diversions through bush villages and along rolled out dirt tracks.

It wasn’t possible to capture a decent photo of how bad it was and the above shot is of a very easy stretch. If I had stopped anywhere else I could well have been ploughed over because the dust being thrown up by lorries traveling in both directions reduced visibility to zero. At times I could not even see out of my visor.

Throw in on top of that the sandy and subsiding surface that I was trying to negotiate and it would be an understatement to describe these conditions as challenging. I needed to get some miles behind me so on occasion I elected to ride on the road being constructed. I got some good results out of this, only once or twice having to u-turn back which was somewhat disheartening.

Anyway, after about another three hours of this, some beautiful tar appeared underfoot and, whenever possible, I belted on.

I have not yet once on this trip stopped for a policeman’s waving hand but soon I was to come across a road blockade which could have been a much more difficult situation. I had read on blogs before traveling about pockets in this remote part of western Tanzania, which is very close to lawless Burundi, that are controlled by warlords and gangs. I was traveling away from this region but would not be clear of it for a day or so.

So at least I was mentally prepared for the situation as I rode up to a rudimentary barrier manned (boyed!!) by a bunch of kids who seemed high as kites. This was no army or police checkpoint and they were ordering the passengers to get off a bus stopped just in front of me. I glided slowly past the bus right up to the barrier, keeping both my visor and inner sun visor down because my eyes might give a clue to the brick that I was shitting.

As two young bucks were shouting at me in Swahili, I turned my head towards a serious looking guy at the other end of the barrier. He was a real bad looking dude straight out of a Hollywood movie. He had the shades, the dangling gold chains and all. Thankfully he was too far away from me to speak, although he wouldn’t have heard me anyway with the two babbling hyenas shooting their mouths off. Even though neither of us could see each other’s eyes, we held a stare for about ten seconds (which felt like ten minutes). He nodded, which I returned, and then said something in a very authoritative manner. Instantly, although I know reluctantly, the barrier was pulled back. Simba barely waited for me to apply the throttle and we took off out of there as quickly as possible.

The whole incident only lasted a few minutes but I’m not now going to be all macho and bravado about it, it unnerved me. I honestly didn’t expect to be let through, although I had previously decided that worst likely outcome of an incident like this would be that it would only cost me whatever cash and valuables that I was carrying. And I do have a reserve secreted away on the bike.

As shadows were lengthening, it was with a combination of both fatigue and relief that I eventually found this road in Kahama leading up to my digs for the night, the peculiarly named Submarine Motel….