The Finish!

The next morning we left Utengule in the wrong direction. Some 50 kilometers from Mbeya they have found a large Meteorite. It seems to be the 8th largest in the world. As we both never have seen a meteorite before, we were quite curious and that's why we were now riding towards it.

We got to an enormous traffic jam. Two container trucks had collided  blocking the road completely. We were lucky that on the bikes we could just get past, but all other traffic sat there and waited for hours. It is unbelievable the kind of accidents Tanzanian drivers can create. We stopped taking pictures of all trucks and busses that rolled off the road. There were just too many. While traffic in Malawi and Mozambique was OK, here in Tanzania it is just dangerous. You have to be 100% alert all the time.

To get to the meteorite you have to follow a dirt road for some 12 kilometers. There was no sign or anything, luckily we had the coordinates in the GPS. Only when you get to the Meteorite site there was a sign high up in a tree says "Meteorite 91.4 m". Why 91.4 meter?? Probably the sign in the past must have been "Meteorite 100 yards" and 100 yards of course is 91.4m.

The meteorite looked just like what you see in Science Fiction movies shooting through space. It apparently weighs 10 ton. Imagine the impact this must have had.

On the way back the container trucks were still blocking the road and the chaos even bigger. 

In the distance we saw Utengule covered in a big grey cloud and it must have been raining heavily. On the other side in the distance it was raining too, but fortunately the road ahead of us was dry and stayed that way all the way to Kisolanza farm, close to Iringa. Just beyond there the weather was unbelievable. Thunder, lighting, we were glad that we didn't have to go there.

The only other guests on Kisolanza was a Dutch couple in  Landrover. They had been on the road for 5 months from Holland and on their way to South Africa. We heard that over the last couple of weeks it had been very busy here but now the season seems to have ended. 

The food was excellent and the wooden chalet comfortable and warm. It's about 1600m high here and gets quite cold at night.

The next morning the bad weather had disappeared and we got on the road early again. We planned to have a short right just to Morogoro and stay at the Acropole hotel. The hotel looked completely empty, but when we asked for a room they said they were fully booked. Was that true, or was it our filthy bikers look?

Nicky in Kisolanza told us about a Bed and Breakfast just past Morogore, so we thought to check that one out instead. We continued in that direction, but after some 30 kilometers we realised we had missed it. As it was now only 160km to Dar es Salaam, we decided to continue. The traffic got even crazier, but the road improved (no more potholes) so we got to Dar es Salaam safe and quickly. Hans had planned to stop at the sign "Dar es Salaam" to take a picture. Guess what, there wasn't a sign! (And this is the only major road into the city).

We went straight to the Yacht club for some cold beer and saw lots of friends.

The journey is over now. We have done 7400 kilometers and our GPS tells us we have been riding for 106 hours over 16 days. We must have been through at least 100 police checkpoints, but only got fined once (in Mozambique). The bikes have done extremely well. The rear tires are worn out completely, but we didn't have a single puncture! The bikes didn't use any oil and we adjusted the chains only once. What a great bikes! 

We travelled very light. All our stuff was carried in an Ortlieb Touratech bag tied to our buddy seats. In addition Hans had a Triumph Tank bag with some tools and puncture repair kit. We fitted Becker carrier racks on which we each carried a 10L jerry can. This gave us more than 400km range, which was more than enough.

We were riding in jeans, Meindle hiking boots and a Triumph Sympatex Speed Jacket and very comfortable Arai helmets.

The jackets were  100% water proof and could be nicely ventilated so they were never too hot. When it rained we put on our rain pants and stayed completely dry.

We carried an Asus EEE PC to update the blog. For navigation we used a Garmin Zumo GPS which could be linked to the Asus to read and post the track log. For emergency we carried an Iridium satellite phone, but 99% of the time we had normal GSM phone coverage, so next time we wouldn't bother carrying it.