Iringa to Tukuyu – Tuesday August 21st

Ok this blog entry is going to be short on detail and photographs.

Having had a truly awful night I just wanted to get this day over with. I had booked a place to stay in Tukuyu, close to the Malawi border and I packed as much water as I could and started off on the circa four hundred kilometre journey.

The only thing of note during the day was once, when I was stopped at a police checkpoint, I realised that my insurance disc was missing. It must have been nicked out of my handlebar bag the night before. My own stupidity for leaving it there.

The policeman was pushy enough and got a bit confused when I handed him the ownership document, Form RF101. He got a bit irritated and when I then handed him my driver’s license and I changed the subject to the distance to Tukuyu. He wanted to demonstrate his expertise about the roads in this part of the country and started to lecture me about the best road to take – there actually only is one.

I let him go on for as long as he wanted, thanked him for being so helpful and said that the Tanzanian tourism chief should be proud to have such knowledgeable police officers. He had already given me back my license when I said that I really should get going because I still had a long way to travel. He saluted and wished me a safe journey. When I was a couple of kilometres further on I pulled over and searched everywhere for the disc. It was gone and I would need to be careful until I crossed into Malawi.

I got to the hotel, bought three bottles of 7Up, went straight to my room, showered, took some Imodium and Dioralyte, got into bed and slept through for thirteen hours….