During the weekend me and Heidi went exploring a bit in the neighborhood. There was some beautiful drives to and from Worcester where we stayed over nigh at The Golden Valley and watched the Champions League final. It was a great match between the two best teams in Europe at the moment and Barcelona was worthy champions. As my birthday is soon coming up Heidi decided to bake me a lovely cake, there is apparently still hidden talents to discover about that 'young' lady :-)
During my short visit in Iringa I tried to encourage a team at Tumaini University to start a kids' club at Ukombozi primary school. The team members seemed excited as well as the headmaster of the primary school, so hoping to hear news about implementation of the club soon :)
Was invited for Neema and Pankaj engagement party. Pankaj is a student from University of Eastern Finland that came to Tumaini on an exchange program last year and fell in love with the Tumaini student Neema. The young love couple are now planning a life in togetherness and they are brave enough to go against the will of their families. Some cultural clashes are to be expected but they decided to follow their hearts and give love a chance. I have raised some warning flags but respect and support their decision and dedication. The engagement came however with a condition - That Pankaj organizes five cows within a week!
The Zambian border crossing was again a bit of a pain but it was nice once we finally managed to enter Tanzania and it felt a bit like coming home. We stopped for a late lunch at Stockholm hotel in Mbeya before continuing to Iringa. Halfways to Iringa the sun already started to set and it was getting dark. We had managed to avoid driving during night throughout the trip and had hoped to keep it that way but at least I am familiar to the road so I thought we could proceed. An hour before Iringa a lorry had turned over and completely blocked the road and there were kilometers of trucks queuing. We managed to bypass the trucks and get in front to see the scene of the accident. We prepared ourselves for a night in the car as this would obviously take time. Two hours later they had however managed to move the truck enough so that we could proceed to Iringa where we spent the night at Sai Villa hotel. Before continuing to Dar we had the jerricans and the extra spare wheel on the roof offloaded, I also took the car to the garage as there were some minor things to sort out. We stopped for a lunch in Mikumi and reached Dar just before sun set. We had decided to continue to a beach south of Dar. Due to the heavy rains in Dar one of the roads had been washed away and we ended up spending more than 3 hours in terrible queues just to pass the 500m of damaged road. Eventually however we made it to the beach and could celebrate a successful trip through Africa. We had a nice morning on the beach before it was time to take Heidi to the airport. Except for some minor challenges such as an exploding tire, painful border crossings, fuel shortages and potholes (Zambia) it has been an amazing and extremely memorable trip. Thanks Matti for giving us the chance to drive your car back to Tanzania and thanks Heidi for joining me on this adventure and for being the best possible travel companion!
We had to rush through Zambia in order for Heidi to be able to catch a flight back from Dar es Salaam in time for signing in at work on 9th. The long drive from Lusaka to the border got even longer as road was full of potholes. As northern Zambia is scarcely populated we were worried about finding a decent place to stay. In our guide book we managed to find only one place that seemed somehow interesting and decided to check it out despite the fact that it was 30 km of the main road. To our surprise Kapishya hot springs lodge turned out to be an amazing oasis out in the middle of nowhere. After a long and exhausting drive we could refresh our batteries by having a swim in the crystal clear waters in the hot spring next to the lodge. We joined in for a nice three course dinner with the “family” running the place. After dinner we had a long and nice talk over a drink with Mark the owner of the place. He gave us a lot of insight into the challenges of running business in rural parts of Zambia.
