As I packed my things away an Englishman who was helping to run the campsite, approached me. He was a cycle tourer also and had been to the camp a few times. When he was in England he asked if they needed a hand on the campsite so he could get away from the rat race and just flew out for a few weeks. "Shame I wasn't working yesterday, I would've definately given you a discount" he said. Don't get me wrong, i manage to get some sweet deals in life, but I always seem to get the day earlier or day later speech aswell!
We had a good chat and he was a really nice guy, shame I couldn't afford to stay longer as I might of stayed an extra night. Instead, I pushed on to my next magical mystery place of Makambako. Firstly I had to walk my aching legs out of the campsite and down the rocky pathway back to the road. I started slowly, the legs took time to wake up and the long inclines weren't really helping but the first hour seemed to absolutely fly by.
I had breakfast and continued with my steady pace, up and down the rolling hills. Today I was just happy to plod along and not say much, I hardly spoke to myself. Sometimes when the legs are burning, its best to plod and get the job done. It takes longer than normal, its not as interesting as it could be, but its progress. The hills were beautiful but I have already taken that as a given, green and blue is all I've seen the past few days.
My day was going the way of a rare, no nonsense day of transit until I hit a mediocre bump and heard that oh so common noise that doesn't anger me to tears, it just delays me and forces a tut. Like when you're just about to leave and you're all sat in the car but someone forgets their keys or the card/present. Ping!! The first spoke in my new wheel went. I was 40 miles from my destination, do I sit it out? I looked down and the wheel wasn't wobbling too much but I didn't know the terrain, if it continued the way the first 40 had gone then I could be bumping up and down for the next 4-5 hours.
I decided to stop and change it. I took advantage of having to take apart the back wheel and gave the whole lot a real good clean and oil. I was happy, I just didn't want another one to go straight away so I only slightly tightened the others. It was typical how I was just talking about the spokes to the Englishman (can you tell that I don't know his name) in the morning which prompted me to tighten one only slightly, thankfully it wasn't the one that broke, otherwise I would've let out not quite a tut but more of a arrrghh.
The whole process took about an hour as I took it steady but this meant I had to shake off tired legs for the second time today. I sadly saw the demise of my cycle section and within an hour I had already experienced 3 very close shaves. I cycled past a coach stuck in a ditch with all the passengers on the roadside. The windscreen was completely smashed up yet trucks were still flying past. The two best things you can do in Africa to help save lives is castration and limit all vehicles to 20mph. I really don't understand how Kenyans and Tanzanians can move so slowly they collect dust when they're performing any sort of public service but as soon as they get behind a wheel, they turn into thickheaded kamikaze pilots.
Anyway, I arrived in Makambako before the sun went down and enjoyed the coldest shower known to man. I say shower, I enjoyed the coldest bucket of water known to man. Cold buckets of water have featured quite a lot recently but this was like an ice bath. Good for the muscles I suppose but the heart takes a shock!
I really tried to stick to my £10 budget today which prompted a bit more of a walk to find some dinner. The hotel restaurant was charging 4500tsh for something that I've been paying 2000 everywhere since Dar es Salaam. Normally I would just be lazy and pay it but the cold water had shocked me into a bargain hunter (cheapskate). Around the corner was even worse, 6000. Things weren't looking until I spotted a little old lady further off the road towards the residential area. She was sitting alone and had two steaming pots next to her. My senses told me that those pots were cooking, and they were most probably cooking rice and beef stew! Bingo! They were, and I got my dinner and a nice conversation with the old lady and a man that lived next door for 1500tsh! I was happy, and I told her I would be back for breakfast. (I actually said, "Toota o'nana kaysho" which is a terrible phonetic way of saying "see you tomorrow" in Swahili)
I retuned back to the room, full, and happy. Even the legs felt ok which was good because tomorrow held promise for being another biggy if I felt like it.
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