Kolo needs a new bridge.

The road gets hillier north of Kondoa and, after 15k of pretty good gravel, the surface gets terrible. At noon we took a side trip to see the Kolo rock art paintings. A German couple serendipitously offered to give us a lift in their 4 x 4, and we accepted since we only have to go 75k to go today. Some figures were made 6,000 years ago (and some 800) by the Sandawe hunter-gatherers. Dr. Mary Leakey and her husband were the first to research these in 1935. We had 45 km to get to the next town when we got back on our bikes at 2:30. We did not make it. Only halfway there by 5 pm we inquired about lodging at Bukulu. Mr. Faraja introduced us to his friend Mr. Vincent who had some new accomodations available. But since they were somewhat unfinished he invited us to stay in his home on a farm 3 km away, free of charge. After arriving we had tea and futari (mashed sweet potatoes and corn). The table was moved out of the room so a dozen kids could sit on the floor, and together with a dozen adults on chairs we watched the evening news (“Obama supports the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero”). After the news we ate again, this time ugali (stiff maize porridge) with eggs and vegetables.

Rock art paintings in ancient abode near Kolo.

Two men fighting over a woman.

3 Bushmen wearing headdresses.

Peekaboo in Bukulu.

Julie helping Umi set up a yahoo email account.

After another long hard day on bad roads, hopes of finding a nice hotel dwindled as we entered the city of Kondoa and saw no paved streets or large buildings. However, there are six nice new guest houses; but none have room for us. So we stayed in more basic quarters and the next day moved to the 7 Green Roofing Hotel (I think that 7 Green Gables would sound better). We met 17-year-old Umi while checking-in and she wanted to spend the day with us to practice her English. Julie helped her set up an email account (her first!). Send a greeting to kuluthumum (at) yahoo dot com.

Visually impaired Hamasi Ramadan (70).

Market day in Kondoa.

Cattle drive on the bike path.

The road doesn’t seem as bad today, though we’ve gotten several flats from thorns we picked up while cycling off-road.  In Haneti we met Mr. Mtoro who owns a nearby gem mine.  At first we were sceptical when he offered to give us samples to take back to the US;  but could not refuse when Julie saw that one is an opal, the same as in her wedding ring.

Outdoor bath & toilet.

A chrysoprase gem (top) & opal green.

Cycling off-road through a Baobab forest.

We diverged from the rocky highway on a smooth path through a Baobob forest.  My Cruzbike is more suitable on rough roads (with suspension and wider tires) than Julie’s “normal” touring bike.  She is also tired from sleeping poorly last night.  We considered stopping halfway at 2 pm if we’d seen a nice guest-house.  We did pass a guest-house at 3:30 with only 30k to go (on a 103k day) but Julie, though tired, wanted to keep pushing on.  We stopped for the night at the first guest-house on the edge of Dodoma, capital of Tanzania.  Most city streets are unpaved.  Tomorrow we’ll move downtown to the nicer (and cheaper) Cana Lodge; where we met three cyclists from Barcelona on a 30-day tour from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi.  We enjoyed pleasant conversation over a meal at the lodge’s restaurant, with terrible Tanzanian wine made in Dodoma from local grapes.  I think we are too near the equator (6° S latitude) to produce good wine.

Cycling off-road on a smoother path alongside the highway.

We follow smooth bike trails that sometimes veer off the rocky road through the bush, but not as often as we’d like.  Black and white Hornbills with red and yellow bills engage in some ritual behavior, rubbing their bills on branches and hopping around on the ground.  Crossing over Mtera Dam, a hydroelectric project, we see no water passing over the dam.  Most rivers are dry in this area.  A sign says that photos are not permitted near the dam (as a checkpoint guard also informs me).  Chipogolo has a nicer than expected guesthouse and the manager, Ernest, (who is also village chief)  arranges dinner for us from two separate roadside shops as we eat out under the stars in our second night in a town without electricity.

Dragging a dead monkey home for dinner.

Under the village Baobab tree in Mtera Dam.

Being serenaded upon arrival in Chipogolo by a visually impaired musician.

Unpaved national highway A104

We expected Africa to have bad roads, and today we cycled on one (though we could have taken an all-paved route through Tanzania).  Traffic was much lighter than expected on the unpaved national highway A104 from Iringa to Dodoma, Tanzania’s capital.  An hour might pass between vehicles passing us, and they passed slowly due to the bone-jarring washboard surface.  I should have suspected how bad it was when people referred to it as “the shortcut”;  implying that driving more than twice as far on paved roads is the preferable way to go.  Though the road descended gradually from 1600m to 800m we rarely exceeded 15 kph, a speed we could have tripled had the road been paved.  At 5 pm we arrived tired and thirsty at Izazi, the first village in 35 km just as I got my third flat tire of the day.  Julie and I are sleeping on thin mattresses in separate rooms with dusty mosquito nets that I hope will protect me from the many spiders on the walls.   The next day we realized that only 12 km further we could have stayed in a larger town with electricity and a choice of three nicer-looking guest houses.

Karashi is a Masai cyclist.

Cyclists hauling big loads near Iringa.

“Isimila Stone Age Site” read the sign on the road 16k from Iringa. Since we had extra time and it’s only one kilometer off the highway we decided to check it out.  Daniel guided us through a canyon like the Badlands, where erosion has exposed many stone age tools and weapons. Archeologists from Illinois discovered it in 1957 and it was visited by Dr. Leakey (from the more famous Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania).  We are staying in a third floor room with a balcony in the best hotel in this bluff-top town for $15 a night (including breakfast for one of us). The internet cafe is not yet operational in this new hotel, but we can pick up a city-wide WiFi signal. The signal is too slow during the day, when more people are online, so I’m staying up all night to update this blog.  Now the pre-dawn muezzin’s call to prayer does not wake me up; as it did yesterday from a nearby mosque.

Eroded towers at Isimila.

Stone age spearhead from 100,000 BC.

Young men brought a bucket of water to help me find the leak.

Crowds that gather around my bike often take interest in the map in my handlebar case. Road maps must be uncommon, as they seem excited to read placenames they recognize in the vicinity. A policeman stopped us to wait for a convoy of VIPs, after it drove through a town blaring malaria propoganda from one vehicle’s PA system. We then had the road to ourselves as we followed them through a managed forest, with occasional clear-cut sections.

A homemade "Fred Flintstone" scooter.

We saw a stick walking across the road.

I register at Tanzania hotels with my birthplace (France), nationality (USA), and tribe (Irish). We hoped we’d find internet at a Makambako hotel and saw “internet” on the sign for the Ama Ever Green Guest House, and stayed even though a storm has blown out their modem.  Andrew, the owner, was interested to find out that we chose his place just because we wanted internet; and after conversations he now realizes the value of that to many of us.   Barrack Obama’s name and image appear on shirts, pants, trucks, buses and bikes.  I wonder if he gets royalties from Magic Obama bubblegum (including images of the wife and kids), or the belt buckle with double (holographic) images.

Magic Obama bubblegum.