From Moshi

The streets of Dar are wet and muddy the day I arrive and my torn clothes are covered in dirt by the time I wheel my bike up to the gates of Bob and Judy’s house. The security guard looks curiously at me, and hesitates, before checking if I should be allowed in. There is a Canadian flag blowing reassuringly on a tall white pole at the end of the lawn and a few hundred yards behind, Tanzania’s eastern shores meet the Indian Ocean. The family, whom I had never met, invites me to stay for as long as I like. There is a golden retriever lying quietly in the hallway and Western newspapers are laid out neatly on a coffee table. I stay here for the weekend and sleep in a double bed and eat family meals with a napkin on my lap. On the Saturday I go with them to the yacht club and on Sunday to a charity sale where I say hello to the same smiling faces I saw at the club the day before.

Since the first day of the ride, almost three months ago, when I found a pack of sandwiches and a note from the guesthouse owner, resting on my saddlebag, I have been met with the kindness of strangers. In villages in Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia I have been given food and water and a place to sleep. Along the roads people have stopped to give me cold drinks. And here in Dar I am welcomed by strangers as if I am an old friend.

After a few days rest the road beckons and I head north along the coast to Bagamoyo. It is a short ride and I arrive in the little seafront town early in the day. The tide is out and beached dhows rest on the sand amongst torn nets and bright plastic bags that billow across the cluttered shore. Fires are smouldering beneath rickety corrugated shelters in the little market off the beach. Women stoop over pans of spitting oil and the smell of dried fish clings to the humid air. An ancient carpenter chips at a block of dark wood in a shaded corner. He is very thin and his brown skin clings tightly to the lean fibres of his tensed arm as he brings the axe down onto the wood. I buy a woolly hat from an old woman; it will be cold when I ride into the northern mountains around Kilimanjaro.

From Bagamoyo the tar stops and I ride a dirt track 70 km to Msata. The rains have washed much of the earth away and my bicycle clatters painfully over the exposed rocks that jut out of the dust. Where the road dips, deep pools of water have collected and I must get off and wade with my bike, muddy water swilling around my ankles. The sun is strong and the going slow. It takes six hours to reach Msata, where I get a big plate of goat and rice and a cold Coke. From Msata I ride north on the highway to Mbwewe. There is a guesthouse here and I spend a couple of hours fixing my bike beside the bed in the dark room.

Later I sit in the bar, where people stare at me sullenly over bottles of warm beer. The barman pulls a chair up next to me. He tells me his name is William and that he grew up in Tabora, in Western Tanzania. He has a cropped head of short wiry hair that recedes from his gaunt face and he smiles placidly as he talks. He tells me that he went to primary school till he was seven. That his parents were very poor and so died when he was young. That he came here to make a business. He used to sell charcoal here, for ten years: “Now I must work here, at the bar. Yes. It is because I am weak, you see. Too weak to work on my business. I am a victim, am victim of HIV, you see. Yes.” He nods meekly and I am silent. “Tanzania government, they have not enough money to help us, the victims. To bring us the foods and the drugs. But NGOs, you understand, NGOs from Europe, they want to help us. Yes.” He is speaking very softly and smiles when he looks up. “They want to bring us the monies so we can have the foods and the drugs. Yes. But they do not bring straight to us, the victims. They bring to the district leaders, you understand, to give to us. The NGOs they want the foods and the drugs to come to us. Yes. But the district leaders, they are a thief. They keep the monies and they are rich. We, the victims, do not get the foods and the drugs.” We are sitting side by side on plastic chairs as dusk falls on the little bar. I stare ahead and ask him when he found out he was sick. He says three months ago. We both go quiet and he jumps up to bring a drink to a guy shouting at him from the table opposite.

From Mbwewe I take three days to ride the 400 km to Moshi. I pull out of the guesthouse while the air is grey and I can see the shimmering glow of the first fires of the day being lit across the surrounding hills. For a couple of hours it is cool and a thin mist hangs over the road. In the east the dusky forms of the Usambara Mountains hide the rising sun; a pale yellow light filters through the cloud above them bathing the craggy hilltops in an angelic glow, as if plumes of stardust were drifting from the rocks towards the sky.

Between the road and the hills the land is lush and green and women are working in the fields. The road is full of potholes and coaches speed past forcing me onto the grassy verge. At Segera I am stopped at a roadblock and the policeman asks me how I find the condition of Tanzania. He beams when I tell him it is great. The roads good. The people friendly. National pride wells up in him and spreads across his plump face in a broad grin. I sleep at Korogwe and ride 160 km to Same the next day. The land dries up as I go further north; the fields of yellow-faced sunflowers and healthy maize give way to vast plains of dusty red earth. There are deep groves running through the dying soil, the scars of heavy rains that remain etched in the burning land. It is very flat and a battered sign warns of strong winds. I pass by row upon row of cotton plants and speed across the flats with a rushing wind behind me. I stay at Same and ride 100 km, past the Pare Mountains, to Moshi the next morning.

From Dar Es Salaam

When I first arrived in Tanzania I had planned to take the western road to Rwanda, along the shore of Lake Tanganyika, via Kigoma. But the rains have come late this year and the road is closed; impassable with thick mud and impromptu rivers. So I had ridden east to Iringa, planning to head north to Dodoma and then to cut back on myself and head north west to Rwanda, across the Wembere Swamps and the dusty north-western plains past Nzega. I am in a little café in Iringa staring at the map. It is a long detour. A huge > across the heart of Tanzania and the road will be desolate. I must stock up with food and water here.

A young guy pulls up a chair next to me and looks down at the map, which is splayed out beneath a mug of black tea on the wobbly table. I show him where I will go and he shakes his head solemnly and tells me I must not go this way. When I tell him I am on a bicycle, alone, he becomes more animated. He says there are bad men with guns on the north western road. Bandits from Rwanda. It is already late afternoon and I had planned to leave early the next morning. I ask him how he knows this and he says he is from Nzega. He knows the road well. I walk into a little tour company across the street and ask the travel agent about the route. He says the same. The road is dangerous. I must carry on east and reach Rwanda via Uganda.

I think back to when I met Jean-Claude in Livingstone, Zambia. He was scrawny and weathered with skin like burnished leather and thin grey hair. He told me how when he couldn’t get a visa to ride through Angola he had bicycled 2000 km across western Congo. He would not have been put off by the hearsay of a couple of local guys. By the remote prospect of trouble. I tell myself I will go on as planned and then change my mind. I know in daylight, riding, the warnings will fade in the sunshine. I know when I am camping on the dark roadside the spectre of trouble will rise out of the shadows and make me lonely and scared. I look at the map again and draw a line east to Dar Es Salaam. 400 km of main highway; of guesthouses and passing trucks and occasional road-trippers waving from battered Land Rovers. I will go to Dar and then north to Kenya, and across Uganda to Rwanda.

The next morning I rejoin the Tanzam highway and set off towards the eastern shoreline. It is a beautiful day. The wind flows lightly on my back while the sun climbs quickly above the receding bank of eastern cloud. After a long winding descent the road stretches out through the flat Tanzanian prairies, across miles of Khaki grasses and wide topped acacias, which spread out across the horizon in every direction, broken only by the occasional hump of a freestanding green hill that protrudes gently out of the bush. Soon the foothills of the Udzunga Mountains flank the road to the south and I am passing through a great valley filled with thousands of baobab trees. Those nearest the road loom powerfully out of the dust, casting tangled patches of shade on the flat tar. The upper branches flow from the stout trunks like locks of frozen hair, towering above the dried mud shacks that are dotted through the forest. I camp in the valley on the bank of the Ruaha River. In the moonlight the trees grow larger, their silhouettes bearing down from the starry sky, shrouding the valley floor in ghostly shadows.

I take two days to ride the 190 km to Morogoro across the Uluguru Hills and on through Mikumi National Park. On the roadside lime green cactuses and half built brick houses are interspersed amongst the bright fields of sunflowers and endless maize. Maasai in red and purple robes, with gapping round holes in their ear lobes, lead small herds of cattle through the scrub with tall staffs. Shortly after leaving Mikumi I ride past a sign marking the entrance to the Park. The bustle of passing bicycles and droning scooters and running children has stopped and the road feels very empty. I quicken my pace and scour the grasses for signs of animals. After 20 km I reach a small hut and am stopped by a warden. He tells me cycling in the Park is strictly prohibited, but, in this instance, as I have got this far, as my bicycle is strong, I may go on. As I pedal off he shouts that he will pray I do not encounter any lion or buffalo. The grasses are high and little pools of stagnant water sit in muddy enclaves off the road. The noise of the chain whirring as I ride startles a warthog who bursts from the grass towards the bush. A small herd of buffalo are sitting beneath a tree to my left. My eyes are fixed on them as I pass but they take no notice. After 50 km I make it out of the Park and reach Morogoro by lunchtime.

I leave Morogoro heading for Chimala, from where I will ride to Dar. There is a tall escarpment running parallel to the south. Frail trees are perched on its narrow ridge above a thick band of light cloud. The road is busier as I head east and it starts to rain. Lorries trundle past whipping up dark highway water from under their heavy wheels. It is muggy in Chimala and the rain has churned the verge into a thick brown paste. I sit down in a truckers bar and watch cradle shaped pens full of chickens being loaded onto a bus. The bar girls pull up chairs and sit staring at me while I write. I slowly list the countries I have passed through and they laugh and poke my legs and point at the bicycle behind. The sit with me for hours saying words I cannot understand and laughing with instinctive friendliness. When I come back later to eat, they are watching a trashy American sitcom called ‘Shades of Sin’ although none of them speak a word of English.

The next day I reach Dar Es Salaam in the late morning and dart through the chaos of the city’s choking roads. Combi’s cut me up and I swerve and brake and swear my head off and the driver looks perplexed and hits the side of the van through the window and honks his horn and then a gap in the traffic opens up and we both potter off into the smog. Swirls of dust rise from the wake of the rushing cars and I squint in the grime, dripping with sweat. Outside a Pepsi stand a guy strangles a dog with both hands; yelps and howls carry desperately across the roaring traffic and while I watch the man giggling I ride into a deep pothole and nearly come off. After hours of muddling my way through the city I arrive at the calm leafy driveway of the house I will stay at for the weekend.

From Iringa

I rest up in Tukuyu for a couple of days after leaving hospital. In the mornings I go with Luka to the little market at Kibisi village to buy food for the day. Chickens run across the dusty path and young guys with dreadlocks and massive sunglasses come up and ask if I’m feeling better. We stop at a little stall selling vegetables and dried fish. An old woman, wearing a bright sarong printed with Barack Obama’s face amidst a sea of Stars and Stripes, sits behind the low wooden table and we pick out tomatoes, peas, and potatoes from little wicker bowls. Off the main path kids run around in the dirt sucking on sugar cane and chasing crickets, which they pick up with tiny hands and stuff into little plastic bottles.

After two days here I ride north through the Mbeya Mountains. A dense grey fog clings to the hilltops, smothering the forest in cloud, and leaving tiny water droplets on the hairs of my arms and legs. The cloud thickens as I get higher and a chilly mountain breeze flows swiftly against me on the steep ascent. The road descends dramatically out of the mist and after a few minutes free-wheeling the air is clear and the sun bathes the rolling valley fields before me in bright light.

I check into a motel in Mbeya and have a hot shower for the first time in weeks. A call to prayer from the nearby mosque makes its way across the little motel courtyard as I head into town to get some food. I sit outside a little Indian cafe and order some rice. While I eat a shadow falls on the white plastic table in front of me and I look up at a tall white guy with a neat brown moustache, smiling down on me. He is wearing a faded denim shirt and jeans and there is a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He grins and asks me what I am doing here in a thick American accent and I think I see him twitch slightly. He nods knowingly when I tell him and laughs and lights a second cigarette with the dying end of the last. He is standing with one hand resting on a chair and starts to talk, as if addressing a large crowd:

“Me, well, I started in South America. Went to twelve countries. Yes! Didn’t visit the other four: cause there’s nothing fucking there.” He hits the table with a flat palm and laughs and his head jerks back awkwardly. “Well, everybody tells me: Paul, you gonna have trouble Paul. Watch your back Paul. It’s not like home Paul! – I ain’t had so much a sniff a trouble. Only this one time, down in Panama, you know. Guys tried to jump me. Little Bastards! Nothing to me though – I’m a federal marine. Yes! Showed em where to go. You bet.” He jumps around like a jack-in-the-box and his moustache jerks involuntarily to the left. “You know South America’s great for a good time. And I like to have a good time me. Paul sure likes to have a gooooood time. Yes! The cocaine – you know?” He bends over and presses his forefinger against his nostril and snorts elaborately just above the table, before jolting back to an upright position. “Well, where was I? Oh yeah. I got bit by a spider the other day. You see here?” He points to a mark on his neck. “Blew up like a fucking balloon. So I go to the local doc. He tells me a fly bit an infected cow, the spider ate the fly, and then bit me, and I got the cow infection. Yes! I tore my room apart when I got back, found three of the little bastards. Squashed em all. Yes!” He slams the table again and I laugh and he starts laughing and sways slightly. My food is cold now and I get up to leave, wondering if there are other guys washed up in dusty end-of the-world towns all over, living off military pensions in empty motels.

I leave very early the next morning and ride 190km to Makambako. It heats up as I come down from the highlands and the thick green forests thin; the trees fading gradually into swaying yellow grasses and the lush green leaves browning as I ride into the stumpy autumnal scrub of the lowland slopes. There is a faint breeze and when I stop I can hear the light orange leaves crinkle softly under the deep blue sky.

From Makambako I ride over rounded hills to a small farm just past Mafinga. The wind blows heavily towards me, whipping rain into my face and weighing me down as I churn the pedals through the swirling air. Ahead a cluster of black crows peck at an enormous python that lies severed on the wet asphalt. They scatter as I ride past, clumsily beating their wings as they hop awkwardly into flight. I get a room at the farm and Mark, who runs the place, gives me a huge chicken curry for lunch. He tells me he used to work on the railways in Buckinghamshire, but has been here for ten years now. He speaks softly about his life in Tanzania and his eyes sparkle gently when I tell him about my ride. As we talk his past journeys gradually unfold. He tells me quietly about the time he walked coast to coast across Canada, the length of New Zealand a few years later, and from Norway to Gibraltar. He tells me he plans to walk the coast of Great Britain next year. He says he has lost touch with England. How last time he was back it was all Jade Goody and X Factor. He says he needs to reconnect with home. He says England is there somewhere. It has to be. He knows he’ll find it: in the little fishing villages and the windy Cumbrian hillsides.

After supper Mark asks if I want to watch the football. It is the Champions League final and it’s good to watch the game on a sofa with a cold beer, huddled between some of the guesthouse workers. I have a cooked breakfast with a pot of tea when I get up and enjoy the short ride to Iringa in the morning sunshine.