Gangilonga

Today, we were driving into Tanzania. The crew has been warning us for the past few days that this would be the longest driving day of the whole trip. Patrick has been describing it as ‘the mother of all drives’!! We expected to be on the road for 12 to 14 hours, longer if the border crossing went badly!

We were up before 4am for our 5am start. Despite the early hour, Henry had made fresh doughnuts for breakfast! He had also provided all the ingredients for us to make up a packed lunch.

The first part of the drive to the border went very smoothly. We arrived at the Tanzanian immigration point by 8.30am. Laban had advised us that it was no quicker to have already applied for an e-visa online than to get a visa on entry. So, five of us hadn’t organised our visas in advance. He was right. We got through in the same time as those who already had visas. The office was very quiet, so we didn’t have to wait too long. We were all though and back on the truck within 90 minutes.

Once in Tanzania (country #61), the scenery changed. Everywhere was very lush and green. There was less evidence of deforestation than we had seen in Malawi. They are very strict about speed limits in Tanzania. For much of the drive, we were restricted to 50 kilometres per hour. It was a very long day!

We arrived at our campsite 50 kilometres from Iringa at just after 8pm. We didn’t see much of it. We put our tents up and I went straight to bed. I was too tired to eat! Mark stayed up for dinner. Henry had prepared savoury mince and rice. Mark came to bed at about 10.30pm. We have to be up again at 4am!!Read more