Day 269 / 34

Date: 6 January 2023
Sleeping location: Other lodge next to The City Lodge, Laela*, Tanzania 
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 100 / 16634 / 1797
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 800 / 143900 / 25900
Agent and host in Malawi: me
Day in three words: Ton for fun

You can’t resist that riff

I gave myself my promised relaxed morning and set off from Swanga** at 11. C&AC had set off at 10 and I suspected I would catch them whilst they were stationary - I cycle a little bit faster than them, but the main difference in our overall speed comes because they take much longer breaks than me. The weather was a bit drizzly and cooler than the previous days, with minimal wind, so progress was very easy aside from the ridiculous speed bumps. The bumps themselves aren't a problem, but they are always "announced" on both sides by three sets of four ridges that are fine for a vehicle with suspension but require me to slow right down to either sneak around the side or wobble over them without shaking Maggie to pieces. Every village has speed bumps, so every village has six of these speed killers. Tedious. 

I stopped for lunch at a village where the main industry seemed to be standing on the street and singing Mlete Mzungu. The only place to eat was on the way out of town and was a weird cafe with a bunch of young men intently watching an overdramatic Swahili soap opera. They didn't even have rice and beans so I had to settle for chapati and chai. Halfway through they switched to an episode of the aforementioned Turkish soap opera (dubbed into Swahili) in which a character had performed some kind of spell and kept being followed by a lady in white whilst sinister music played. During this a disclaimer stating "This programme is a work of fiction. This channel does not encourage belief in the supernatural, blind belief or other occult practices" moved across the middle of the screen, not once but twice. I had been considering casting a spell to get some decent food but after seeing that I decided against it, so it was back to rice and beans for my mid afternoon break. I still hadn't caught up with C&AC, or so I thought until Charles came up behind me just after my stop. It seemed I'd accidentally rolled straight past them without noticing.

We rode together for the rest of the day, during which time Charles rescued a tiny tortoise which was slowly crossing the road. Around 85km in we started looking for somewhere to wild camp, but the land was mainly fields and all extremely visible from the road, so in the end we decided to carry on to the town of Laela and find a guesthouse. Right as we pulled up my computer ticked over to 100km, achieved with minimum effort. When things are straightforward this touring business is a piece of cake. The place we'd aimed for was full but next door there was a completely acceptable alternative, which I have forgotten the name of, so we took that. As we unpacked Anne-Claire pointed out that I had a massive rip in the inner thigh of my shorts. I'd had a small hole "repaired" in Mbeya but apparently not particularly well. As this needed sorting ASAP I decided, after carefully checking that the climb and/or wind conditions weren't going to make it a slog, to cycle the 130km to Tunduma tomorrow in order to get half a day ahead of C&AC and carve out some time to fix my shorts and assess the crank situation (more of which anon).

We cooked the traditional spaghetti with avocado, albeit now tarted up with the various spices and sauces we have gathered, and tried to sort out our Malawi e-visas. This was a total pain in the arse as the website was dreadful, it asked for a load of obscure information, it was clearly not designed for overlanders (for example, the only available ports of entry were airports), and it required the upload of two letters from a "host" and an "agent" in Malawi. For the latter we opted to hand-write a letter explaining our situations, photograph it and upload it twice. When I finally completed mine, after three failed attempts, they were so excited to have received my application that they sent me six identical confirmation emails. 

**What all the cool kids are calling it

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