25/04/19-01/05/19
Country: Tanzania
Distance: 288 km / 179 mi
Elevation: 1,343 / 4,406 ft
This week, as you know, we cycled around the North Pare Mountains. Surprisingly, it was some of the flattest riding we’ve done in East Africa. Tanzania’s landscape is funny like that — it’s so ridiculously flat that you can see for hundreds of kilometres, then they’ll be a huge, random mountain with no foothills whatsoever.
The ride around the North Pare was much nicer than Kilimanjaro, so if you’re heading this way and are short of time, we’d definitely recommend the Pares over Kili (there’s a south range, too). Mostly smooth dirt road, we were forever towered over by the jagged mountains – and again, there were some epic views of the Kenyan plains. It’s funny to think we actually started in Nairobi, which isn’t far from the Pares at all. We just took the scenic route, through Uganda and Rwanda first.
Since it was so flat and smooth, we planned to push on to 65 km and stay in Butu, where we’d heard there was a lodge. But we spotted a campsite just outside of town and decided instead to stay there. It was super basic, but for £3.30, it was fine for the night. Plus they did food, so we ordered omelette and chapati each (we so miss Ugandan Rolex, we try and order them everywhere we go now). It was meant to be a quick snack, but didn’t arrive until nightfall. That was fine though, we (Dan) built a campfire and chilled out with a cuppa tea and bowl of ramen to fill a hole.
It was the son who’d checked us in when we’ve arrived at 3.30pm. When Dad came home he came to say hello. In fact he popped back several times, to chat, make sure we had enough firewood, and to chat again. Then, once it was dark, Dad came back again— this time with some bad news...
Turns out his son hadn’t charged us the correct amount. It was supposed to be $10 per person per night. Extortion. We would never have stayed had we of been told that price. This ‘campsite’ was essentially the muddy driveway to their house. There was no running water, no shower, no western toilet. It was literally just a muddy camp spot. It was not worth $20 per night.
We should have known he’d be an over-charger when he explained that he was a doctor… “What kind of doctor?”, I asked, expecting to hear paediatrician or oncologists or something. “An alternative doctor”, he replied, “I heal people with leaves.” I could feel Dan’s eye burning into me as I tried my hardest not to laugh in his face. On realising he was an over-charger (read: con artist), we queried the price of our omelette and chapati — which still hadn’t arrived four hours later. Wait for it…
$5.
Each!
Dan, whose pet peeve is being ripped off, got into loggerheads with Dad. Dan tried to explain that it was rather unfair to try and charge us for his son’s mistake, several hours after we had checked in. Also, $10 for some chapati and omelette is daylight robbery. It’s not a meal; it’s a snack. Dad, after asking where we were from, said he knew “about the English economy” and that “we had money” and “$10 wasn’t a lot for us”.
This has been a frustration in Asia and Africa. People assuming we have money to burn. We’re on a cycle tour, living on £15 per day. We’re choosing to visit countries that are cheaper than the UK, so we can afford to travel for longer. Also when you stay in a country for long enough, you get to know the price of things. In Tanzania a hotel (not in tourist town) with running water and a western toilet is £5-6 per night. A chapati is £0.16. An avocado is £0.16. Four tomatoes are £0.33. A local beer is £0.49. Dad’s muddy ‘campsite’ was not worth $20 (£15.20). And his chapatis and omelettes certainly weren’t worth $10 (£7.60).
Sometimes you do get ripped off. It happens at home and it’s happened on our trip. More often than not you just have to pay it. But the point Dan was trying to making — by torchlight at this point — was that trying to charge us now for their afternoon mistake was very unfair, as we couldn’t just pack up and move on. Eventually we agreed to pay 10,000 Tanzania shilling (£3.30) for the food, which is still crazy expensive, and no more for camping. ‘Dinner’ arrived at 8pm – 4.5 hours after ordering. We ate it, before grumbling and mumbling into bed.
The second half of the week got better…
On Friday, after completing the ride around the North Pare, we found ourselves boozing in a bar in the small town of Same. The closer we get to our break on Zanzibar, the more we seem to be relaxing and boozing – I don’t know if you’ve noticed? Anyway six rounds in of £0.49 local beer, we had an idea for a charity ride: To ride 100 miles. Miles not kilometres. We actually had the idea back in Uganda, but thought it would be too tough, so forgot about it. Yet with a few beers in us, the idea popped back on the table and we felt like we could do anything. Totally Dutch courage. Still under the influence, we eluded to the ride on Instagram, so there were so backsies when we were sober. And as if fate stepped in *eyeroll* the next big town we were heading to was exactly 100 miles away.
We were too hungover on the Saturday to even walk to the shop, never mind cycle 100 miles, so we spent the day being bums. Then on Sunday we prepped, making sandwiches, animations, filtering water and the other essentials for a big ride. On Monday, we got to it. We documented The Century Race on our instagram Story, so if you missed it, you can watch it below (it’s 6 minutes long FYI).
We only bloody did it!
Not only did we smash 100 miles, we hit our £1,500 target. We are chuffed to bits and can’t thank you guys enough for your generous donations and lovely messages. As you know we’re raising money for East Africa Children’s Project, who fund school projects in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – a couple of which we had the pleasure of meeting. And since they’re a charity run by volunteers, every penny you threw in the pot will literally make a difference to kids’ lives. High fives all around. Even though we’re back to averaging just 33 miles per day, we’ll be making one last push for donations until we leave Tanzania on 4 June. Link at the bottom of this page to donate, if you haven’t already.
Before I move on, I just wanted to point out the elevation of the ride. That graph looks like we just rolled down a hill for 100 miles. We did cycle, we promise. Although we admit, we were at a slight advantage, gradually descending from 874 m to 320 m – but there was headwind!
Naturally, we had two days’ rest after the 100 miler. One day to recover from the celebratory beers, then a day to catch up with boring life admin. We finally sorted our baggage issue with Air Asia, only having to pay the £11.60 difference of a suitcase v bike. Dan continued his battle with The Student Loans Company to prove he’s still not working, therefore not able to make repayments. We started planning our New Zealand tour. I fannied on my iPotato as my iMessages stopped working about a week ago (Dan thinks I need to factory reset my phone, but I’m not giving in so easily). And Dan ploughed on with his personal website ready for that ‘j’ word.
The final stretch of East Africa is here. With just over two weeks and 600-ish km standing between us and a holiday with Dan’s family, on we ride through the valley of our last mountain range in Africa: the Usambaras.
East Africa Children’s Project
If you missed the chance to donate during The Century Race, don’t worry, now’s your chance! Targets are there to be smashed to pieces. So let’s see how far we can go beyond £1,500. Lines close 4th June.