The dilemma of direction

I needed to get some Tanzanian shillings and the recommended Vodacom sim before heading off today. I was awake early and the time zone meant it was actually an hour earlier anyway when at 6am , 5am Malawi time, I wandered out of the lodge to find breakfast and the atm. The only thing moving on the street was me and the shopkeepers heading to work. Then a few moto taxis started arriving. But it wasn't till 7.30 that the town started to wake up properly. Of course it had started to rain heavily as well. So I'd ducked into the next door restaurant to shelter and grab some breakfast, which wasn't ready for another 30 minutes. First thing that morning I'd changed some US into Shillings in the event the reportedly unreliable atm wasn't playing ball. It didn't. However the next door mobile version did. I bargained the sim crooks down to reasonable 3000 ($2) for a sim and was back in business by 8.30 and chasing Mingi up the road. The lushness of the region was immediately obvious with very little unused land which was planted mainly in tea or banana trees. By coincidence Mingi and I had stopped in the same village for lunch so i was able to join him and reveal I'd been behind rather than in front as he expected, with my earlier departure from the lodge. At just over 60km we rolled into Kiwira and the selected lodge with its bike friendly approach. Beer and dinner followed by a walk around the busy T junction to the bigger town of Mbeya, and it's train service to Dar es Salaam. Following tomorrow's leg I would need to settle on heading West to Rwanda or further east leaving Rwanda and Uganda for another day. Mode of travel was also in play. I could train to Dar or join up with Mingi and ride.Read more