After a good night's rest in a comfortable bed, we thanked Robert and left the Harvey Home to find an open supermarket to buy some supplies. In Tanzania, time is calculated in Swahili time. Sunrise (which is always at 6am) is 12 o'clock and so when someone tells you to meet him at 3:30, he actually means 9:30am.
Here the shops opened at 2:30 so we were too early. Instead we ate egg and chicken sandwiches at a local fast food joint, got some more cash out at the ATM and went on our way, hoping to pick up supplies en route.
After passing through Korogwe town, there was visibly less traffic which also meant less speeding buses careening down the other lane at insane speeds. We stopped for lunch (leftovers from last night's Indian meal) on the side of the road by some maize fields. While we ate and Foxy rested, a man on a bicycle passed us at a leisurely pace, singing out loud to no one in particular. Who needs a radio or MP3 player when you can carry your own tune?
Seeing as it was still early in the day, we decided to carry onwards to Moshi, a bustling town at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, home to the Chagga people and one of Tanzania's major coffee-growing regions.
Just as we turned west onto the A23 highway towards Moshi, there was a police roadblock. One of the police officer (all of them are dressed in starch-white uniforms, so bright it's almost blinding) swaggered over with his speed camera, which looks deceptively like a hair-drier, and showed us immediately that we had been speeding. There was no fussing around, he asked that we pay the 20,000 Shillings fine, told us we would get an official receipt and we could be off again.
There was a slightly exaggerated pause after that, which we later wondered whether or not he was waiting for us to offer him a bribe in exchange of letting us go. But there was no way, with such strong sense of justice in both of us, that we would pay a bribe in any form, even if it was one tenth the price of the speeding ticket. With all the formalities completed, we were off again.
Arriving just outside Moshi town, and after a very unnecessary detour through narrow alleyways in some farmer's field, we arrived at the Honey Badger Campsite. Initiated a couple of decades ago, it is now an educational centre, a cultural centre, a campsite and lodge, as well as a well-managed restaurant. Another local success story!
That night we were given a sticker of the Honey Badger Campsite which we proudly put on Foxy's front passenger door. Check out www.hbc-campsites.com for more details.
We had hoped to see Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa at 5896m, this evening but even after our shower and evening meal, the clouds were too thick and low and you couldn't even tell where the mountain stood. I'm told by the friendly guys working here that mornings are better for viewing Kili, as it is adoringly called.
Dinner was a scrumptious buffet spread of rice, potatoes, ugali, vegetables, stew, chicken and beef (made especially for us). Joining us were other guests staying at the Honey Badger, one being a Congolese doctor, Dr. Lobo, who was here helping with Bible translation. As the conversation carried throughout the night, we found out that Dr. Lobo knew Dr. Joe Lusi (Lynn's husband), who we were going to meet in a week's time or so in Goma, DRC!
The heavy clouds that threatened rain finally came and we went to sleep to the sound of water pummelling down on our tent and the incredibly loud barks of what sounded like a hundred dogs just in the next compound.
Start: Harvey Home, Morogoro, TAN. 9:30
End: Honey Badger Lodge, Moshi, TAN. 17:30
Distance Traveled: est. 536 km (speedometer broke today and we didn't realize until too late. Either we get it repaired or I'll be judging distance travelled by GPS and/or maps.)
Road Conditions: very nice, so nice in fact that it encourages the big long distance buses to speed outrageously.
Temperature: rain in the morning, cloudy for the rest of the day, rain at night.
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