The Joburg2Kili team have made it to Arusha two days ahead of schedule after three days of seriously tough cycling from Dodoma. We have decided to have one rest day here in Arusha and then we will cycle to our final destination the town of Moshi at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro on Thursday 6th October.
We spent one rest day in the capital of Tanzania, Dodoma at African Dreams Hotel who kindly let us camp on their premises. One of the highlights of Dodoma was definitely the Italian pizzeria called Pizzeria Leone l’Africano down the road from our hotel where we ended up having dinner two nights in a row as the food was excellent.
From Dodoma we had a 95km cycle to a bush camping spot marked near Mbuyuni village. We knew that from Dodoma there was a chance of having to ride along some dirt road sections as they are still busy tarring the road through to Babatie. As soon as we left Dodoma we had a dirt road section for about 20km but luckily the rest of the road was tarred and was fairly easy riding all the way to Mbunyuni Village where we needed to find a suitable bush camping spot.
We arrived ahead of Bryan who was busy in Dodoma stocking up on supplies so we found the turnoff to the local school where we planned to see if we could possible set up camp there. We struggled a bit to find someone that could speak English for us to get permission to stay at the school. Eventually we met a teacher who was able to speak some English and she indicated that we needed to visit the village office to get permission from the chief. So Warrick drove the Jeep down to the village office with the teacher to help with translating. After a bit of difficulty in terms of the language barrier, Warrick eventually managed to get the ok to camp on the school field from the chief.
We then went to setup our campsite on the soccer field and were joined by at least 100 children and adults who were very intrigued and interested in what we were doing. We were also visited by various people throughout the evening including the chief who was dropped off on a motorbike by a local called Emmanuel and his brother who spoke really good English. Emmanuel helped us to organise some firewood so we could braai and he also taught us a bit of Swahili. Warrick decided to race one of the children in a cycle race on the soccer field from one set of goal posts to the other which was lots of fun to watch and the children in the village all laughed and cheered. Gareth and Derrick were on dinner duty that night and they enjoyed teaching some of the children some English words for some of the foods they were preparing. It certainly was one of our most memorable bush camps to date and a truly authentic experience to be part of a local Tanzanian village.
From Mbunyuni Village we planned to cycle 90km to Amarula Campsite but we ended up changing up our plans during the day which ended up making this one of our toughest and longest cycle legs of the journey. About 20km into the cycle we hit a dirt road which continued for 40km through a hectic rocky and dusty mountain pass where it was particularly tough going on our steel framed, single-speed, back-brake-pedal Qhubeka Buffalo Bicycles. As soon as we hit the tar again, much to our delight, we heard from Bryan who had driven ahead to Amarula campsite that the camp was not quite what we were expecting with no electricity and only a bucket shower. As we had a lot of meat in our freezer with low battery power we needed to have electricity that night so we all decided that Bryan should rather go ahead to find a campsite or lodge in the main town Babatie which was a further 70km away. He would then have to come back to shuttle us as it was too far for us to ride before sunset but we would ride until he met up with us.
The plan did not go exactly to plan as it turned out that the road to Babatie is still under construction for 50km on a corrugated dirt road with a lot of climbing and so it took Bryan over 2 hours to get to the town and start finding a place to stay. As a result, we just had to continue cycling until Bryan was able to come back to meet us so we could load the bicycles and drive through to the town. We had some seriously tough climbs and shortly before sunset Warrick’s front tyre got a puncture. As we were replacing Warrick’s front tyre with a spare tyre, Bryan caught up with us much to everyone’s delight. We then loaded the bicycles onto the two cars and drove the mountainous pass through to Ango Lodge in Babatie where Bryan had arranged for us to camp. It ended up being our longest day on the bicycles close to 10 hours for only 126km.
The next day we packed up camp and got shuttled back to the spot where we had ended the previous day. We decided to push ahead a further 100km to get close to Lake Manyara, which would put us two days ahead of schedule. However, we had a slow start as literally 1km into the ride, Warrick’s front tyre was giving issues. We replaced the tyre and inserted a new tube and then as he rode again the tyre went flat again so we had to replace the tube once more which thankfully was a success. We had about 20km left of riding on a very corrugated dirt road and so our bicycles took a beating and by the time we hit the tar road again, Warrick’s front rim of his tyre had bent so we had to replace a spoke on his old rim and then rebuild the tyre. Thankfully the rest of the ride was relatively easy and we had no more mechanical issues. Bryan had gone ahead to arrange us a campsite. Unfortunately, the first place we had earmarked to stay on Lake Manyara wouldn’t allow us to camp so we pushed onto Zion Campsite which is on the road to Tarangire National Park. Whilst setting up our camp we noticed some heavy rainclouds building in the distance and before we knew it we had our first thunderstorm of the trip. The rain came down really hard and the boys all enjoyed having a shower in the rain.
Yesterday, we decided to push on towards Arusha for a 100km cycle. Derrick’s mom and brother had arrived the previous day and had stayed at a place on Lake Manyara for the night. Bryan went ahead to fetch them so that they could join us and follow us as we cycled towards Arusha. We had a fair amount of climbing in the first half of the ride which was hard going on our legs along with our first bit of rain whilst cycling. Bryan, Derrick’s mom and brother followed us for a while and then went ahead to Arusha to meet up with some friends of Bryan’s cousins, the Dennis Family, who have very kindly let us stay with them. We all had a wonderful dinner last night at the Arusha Coffee Lodge and we are spending one rest day here in Arusha. Derrick, his mom and brother, Gareth and Bobby have all gone on a day safari to Ngorongoro Crater whilst Warrick, Cam and Bryan relax in Arusha.
And tomorrow after cycling over 4500km from Johannesburg we will be heading through to our final destination, Moshi, at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, which is a bit surreal but very exciting for us all.