I was woken up by two G's that are both very loud during the hours of the morning, geese and Germans. The Germans that I met yesterday went for a quick ride back to the National Park on their motorbikes and i met them an hour later having breakfast. They had seen a lion just 15ft from the road! I told my mum last night that the lions don't come close to the road, HA! I was wrong.
I ended up giving Nigel an impromptu clean this morning which resulted in a late start leaving the camp site. I was recommended a campsite about 60km away called crocodile camp which I thought was too close but due my late start and late breakfast, the short ride may come in handy. After a good hearty breakfast of rice, beans and meat stew I was ready for another decent days ride on one of Tanzania's beautiful roads.
It didn't take long before the scenery absolutely blew me away. It was like I was cycling in a wallpaper from windows 95.' The colour saturation was at 100%, bright green hills in front of a pure blue sky, simply stunning. My music was playing up so I spent the day with just the noises of nature.
For the most part of the ride I was kept company by monkeys. There were hundreds of them on the roadside and I even busted one stealing corn from the nearby field. I saw him looking around as he had one hand on the cob, he didn't hear me coming and I shouted "MONKEY!!!!" at him and he leapt about 3ft in the air, I found this very funny and laughed on multiple occasions throughout today's ride.
As time went on I made the decision to stop at the Crocodile Camp, if I had a short day today then I would just wake up early tomorrow to put in a big one, no biggy. I arrived at the Crocodile Camp in no time at all, it wasn't kitted out as well as Tan-Swiss but it had a good location, right on the river. I was the only one staying there so I pitch my tent on the river by a cabin and used the external plug and cabin furniture to relax and watch the flow past.
The manager on duty, Lambert, was a pretty cool guy and I had a decent chat with him. He told me to let him know when I wanted food and he would get it sorted straight away. For the first couple of hours I just sat and watched the world go by. Lambert said the other side of the river was a National Park and sometimes they've seen Elephants walk down to the river so I sat and staked out the wildlife but didn't really see much.
At 3pm I was starting to get hungry so I went and told Lambert that I would like some food now so he could tell the cook etc. "you want it now for 4 o'clock?" He said. "No, I want it now, as soon as its ready" I replied. They provided a starter of soup and a dessert of fruit with every main meal ordered so it was really good value for money. I ordered my meal at 3 and got my soup at 3:45, the main came at 5:30 and my dessert (pear) came at 6. I didn't have the pear, it was crunchy and dry, I was pretty sure it wasn't a pear so I ended up having my meal across 3 hours. I guess its my fault I ordered at a time that is inbetween the designated meal times of lunch or dinner!
By the time I finished eating it was starting to get dark and the mozzys were assembling for war against boney body parts. Time for Trousers on and tucked into socks, long sleeve tshirt on I still was not completely bite proof but I sat under the cabin light so i could at least see them before they swooped down and bit me. I had a helper in the form of a bat that would do his best to catch them but unfortunately his sonar was a little bit too highly tuned and even though he never hit me, I felt a few too many wafts of air from his wings to enjoy an uninterrupted evening so I retreated to my tent.
The wonderful array of bugs I have seen on my ride has been quite extraordinary but I try my best to not share a sleeping bag with them. After a quick jump into my cocoon of a tent I have a quick look around, kill anything flying and flick out anything crawling. After that its time for bed but tonight was ridiculous, the tent was worse than a sauna and I laid there absolutely dripping with sweat. With no wind, the tent can be unbearable and tonight was one of those nights, all I could do was lay completely still and hope I fell asleep.
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