We have reached Tanzania

The birthday cake they had promised never arrived. What a louzy birthday for Hans...

The sky was still grey but the rain had stopped so we left Nhkata bay. The road turns in-land and climbs from lake level to an elevation of around 1300m at Mzuzu, a fairly large town probably founded as they liked to be at higher grounds because there is less chance of getting malaria here. It was quite a bit colder here. The road was very scenic again and taking us over the higher plateau for a few hundred kilometers. Close to Chiweta it went steeply down again to the lake.

Only for a short while we rode along the lake and at Mkondowe we turned left for another mission village Livingstonia. The road to Livingstonia is notoriously bad and steep. In the last bend before the top a truck loaded with passengers went off the road and dropped 30 meters vertically down this morning. It's a miracle nobody died.

The image to the right shows how the road winds up to Livingstonia. If you click on the picture our whole route loads in Google Earth.

In 10 kilometer it climbs about 700 meter and there right at the edge of the cliff you will find "The Mushroom Farm", a backpackers place run by an Australian guy Mick. This place attracts all sorts of Hippies (because of the name, but there are no magic mushrooms here) and thrill seekers that like to live life on the edge (literally).

It's not a place for sleepwalkers. Three steps outside your room (behind Hans in the hammock)the cliff drops 700 meter!

We hiked to see two waterfalls dropping 125 meters. Mick organizes abseiling along the falls, but we decided to give that a miss.

Bak at the guesthouse with Mick and the other guests we managed to create the right birthday spirit and spent the evening celebrating around the camp fire.

The next morning we left for the Tanzanian border. It was only about 2 hours from here.
Crossing the border was really easy. There was no other traffic and in less than half an hour we cleared Malawi customs and immigration and entered Tanzania. We have done 6200 kilometers, with another 1300 to go. There is not much thread left on the rear tires!

From the border the road climbs up to Mbeya over mountain pass of 2300 meter. The pass was in clouds and it was raining heavily, but as soon as we were across the rain stopped and we were dry again when we got to Mbeya. In the highlands here Tea and Coffee are grown. We chose to stay at the very nice Utengule hotel which is on a Coffee estate here. The coffee and the Internet are great here too!