Not only is the 'Cana Lodge' hotel the best place we have stayed in Africa, it also does the best breakfast. Although heaven knows what the green fruit juice we had was, guava? Having eaten, we headed back to the bus station to get our tickets for our onward journey to Iringa. This time the ticket man was there and we managed to get ourselves booked on for tomorrow. There was some confusion however when we enquired about the bikes. As he didn't seem to understand, I showed him our bicycle ticket we had been given from the last bus company. Seeing a different price on the ticket, he took it to mean that I was questioning the price of the tickets for the bus. Shouting for a translator, another guy arrived and started telling me that the price was the price and they weren't overcharging us. All the time I was trying to explain that we knew they weren't overcharging us, I just wanted to know how much taking the bikes was going to cost. Eventually we got it sorted and I think they accepted that I wasn't accusing them of anything. Unable to issue a ticket for the bikes, we were told we would have to sort it out tomorrow morning. It shouldn't be a problem, but it would have been nice to be all paid up before tomorrow.
For anyone wondering why we are taking the bus once again, perhaps we should have read and listened to this excerpt from www.ibike.org:
'If the line that stretches across the map from Arusha to Dodoma and Iringa intrigues you; you'll want to think about it at least twice. The northern quarter is paved. Also recommended is the northern section between Babati, Bereko and Kolo. It is beautiful. But between Kondoa, Irangi and Iringa it is mostly flat, bone jarring and has little of interest'.
By luck it seems we rode the beautiful part, but that was bone jarring enough!
Leaving the bus station we walked back into the town and had a stroll round the shops/stalls buying some supplies along the way. Finding shower gel, in Dodoma at least, is a tricky and quite expensive affair. It seems that the locals just use ordinary soap and western brands are fairly dear. From now on I will be smelling 'sweet as the cotton candy, sunny and Mediterranean as the mandarin' or at least so the bottle says! Stopping at a chemists we also purchased some water purification tablets; we probably should have had some from the start, but better late than never. Our shopping trip was rounded off with a cup of coffee and milk tea at 'Rose's' café.
Back at the hotel we grabbed the netbook, maps and guide book for Malawi and Zambia and went to do some forward planning. From what we can see it looks like we are really going to like Malawi. Having planned our route for a while, we returned to Rose's café and had a nice lunch of beef curry and rice for 3000TZS each (£1:20). Getting a decent meal has seldom been a problem in Tanzania.
Not much to report for the rest of the afternoon. We made a few phone calls to our nearest and dearest and enjoyed a few beers in the restaurant. We have another long bus ride ahead of ourselves tomorrow, which will hopefully go without a hitch. The road ahead looks great and we are eager to get back on the bikes. We should have the luxury of a sealed if not smooth road all the way to the Malawi border.
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