Day 262 / 27

Date: 30 December 2022
Sleeping location: Unnamed guesthouse, Katuma, Tanzania 
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 86 / 16187 / 1350
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 1100 / 140200 / 22200
Mudguards: cement traps
Day in three words: Mud is pain

A load of large bright green worms enlivened the morning pack up, which was of course carried out in a light drizzle. With 160km still remaining until Mpanda it was on with the soaking clothes and away we go. Or didn’t go, because immediately the road was just a big pile of sticky mud and I couldn’t even push. Things were looking bleak until I realised that it was actually easier to push (or sometimes even ride, when Maggie’s chain isn’t jamming) in the grass at the side of the road. Away we go, again.
 
After 5km a village appeared, which was probably the word that the woman from the previous evening had said. Here I saw a water pump and resolved to try and clean and unstick poor Maggie, especially all the mud under her mudguards which had built up and was now fouling the wheels. A random woman saw me doing this (badly) and came over to help; whilst cleaning she started singing the Lete Mzungu song under her breath and I made her laugh by joining in. A nice moment all round. After her clean I lubed Maggie’s chain, resolving the jamming problem. All was looking up, so of course we know where this is going. 

After 10km of relatively easy stuff came a section so steep and muddy that it took all my efforts just to push. This was not just gravity; Maggie’s wheels were totally gummed up, particularly the front, as the mudguards had become mudtraps for the incredibly sticky mud. Cleaning them out got me another ten metres before they stuck again. I paused to reflect (on my life choices) and decided that the front mudguard had to come off and the rear had to be set as far away from the wheel as possible. After this adjustment the next steep section of pushing was merely very hard. At the top of the big climb I arrived in a strange village as a shell of a man, but a big plate of rice and beans and a milky sweet chai was very welcome. I left lunch just after 1, at which point I'd been going five hours and had travelled 23km. 

Thankfully the next 30km or so was in good condition and dry and I made good progress, but because this is not allowed to be easy it then started to rain at the same time as the road surface degraded and everything got muddy again. My speed slowed right down and Maggie’s chain started jamming again. This mud is awful stuff for a bike. To add to the misery my cleat came off in the pedal again. Fuck this road. I struggled on and late afternoon I reached the largest “town” in the last 200km, which had a basic guest house and a bike shop with an Allen key long enough to fix Maggie’s brake lever. I had a chai and some absolutely rubbish doughnut things whilst I checked the map and reattached my cleat, then resolved to push on to the next village 15km away and hope it has a guest house too. Happily it did, which was reward for my pushing on and making the last day into Mpanda much more manageable.

My lodgings were just a bed and a bin in a tiny room but it was less than £2. There were buckets of water outside so I gave myself a cold bucket shower, then the guesthouse lady said something about water that I didn't understand and went off. Post shower I was dry and dressed when a knock on the door came - it’s her with a bucket of hot water. She showed me to a private shower room where I can use the hot water, which I no longer need, but it's such a nice gesture that I feel I have to take the second shower. To be fair it is very pleasant. Tanzanians are quite shy but often very nice when you get to know them a bit. See also the bike cleaning lady. 

Dinner was rice and beans, again, although this one came with additional mystery broth with mystery meat in it. They couldn't even spice it up with some of the local (excellent) avocado? Actually perhaps not because this is an avocado and banana free town - the fruit and veg on sale seems totally random from one village to the next. Back in my room I realised that there were two boxes of 100x unused condoms in the bin. A mystery worth of Nancy Drew-rex.

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