I have now been in Tanzania for almost a week. Heidi came over from South Africa for a visit and timed her flight to land at the same time as I landed. Was nice with company for the long bus trip to Iringa and this time the 8 hours travel felt quite short. It was nice to come home to my apartment after 2 months of traveling. After first night in apartment electricity was switched of as bills had not been paid while I was away. I went to sort out the payment and was promised to get the electricity back within 2 hours... which did not happen and evening had to be spent in candle light.
On Saturday we went to Ruaha national park as Heidi had booked a flight back from there as there is no regular flights from Iringa. We spent the night at the governmental bandas which is a simple accommodation with no service but at a nice location just by the great Ruaha river. In evening as we were sitting by the fire we heard some noise and sounded like something was coming towards us. Since it was dark we could not see the hippo until it was just 5-7m away from us. Quite scary and I think Heidi almost shit her pants :) Otherwise we did not see that much wildlife but we did on the other hand not spend too much time driving around as car was giving some problems. For instance it did not want to start and we had to push start it a couple of times.
On Sunday Heidi got on her flight and I had to drive back by myself. On my way back on the washing board road and in the middle of nowhere one of my tires exploded. I switched of the engine and had a look at the damage and soon realized the reason for the terrible noise... Now I had double trouble on my hands as I did the mistake of switching of the engine on a car that does not want to start. Once I started to change the tire masai kids came out of the bushes and I got surprised that there would be anyone around as had not seen a house in last hour of driving. Suddenly I was all surrounded of curious kids that found the whole event quite amusing. One took the chance to touch my hair has I was sitting down, another kid tried to get into the car, a third tried to help me and the rest were just giggling a bit.
Finally I managed to get the spare tire in place and was ready to leave hoping that the car would start... Then two older masai ladies came by and wanted their photo taken, I though "great!" as it could do for a good memory... However this was an excuse to get some money out of me but then I thought "why not?" and still had the photo taken. I was glad there was some people around so that I could get some pushing help but for a change the car actually started and I continued to Iringa at a very slow and safe speed and was very happy when I finally got back home. Today I went to buy a new tire, never thought they were that expensive! Feel good to be back in Tanzania and feel welcomed by adventure and unexpected challenges.
