Tuesday, 24th April 2007

To: Songwe (Tanzanian Border)

Made some good riding progress today. Was very easy riding, almost completely flat, and, once again, beautiful. MALAWI IS BEAUTIFUL, north to south!

Almost only made it to yet another beautiful beachside resort, just 5 km past Karonga, today. Stopped there for a soda break and almost stayed, just like yesterday. However, after 2 hours of beauty and bliss, plus a nice chambo lunch, decided to move on.

Just as I was nearing the Tanzanian Border, it started to rain. Rain? What's that? It occurred to me how lucky I've been. Have not gotten seriously wet yet, on this entire trip. Managed to escape wetness today as well. It drizzled for about 10 minutes, then, when I was *almost there!* (maybe 500 meters to go), it started raining a bit more heavily, but within 2 minutes, I had zipped into my guesthouse-by-the-border for the night and put my bike under shelter. Phew! Avoided the rain again!

Enjoyed a wonderful evening of pool playing and chatting with my old friends of a month ago. I had stopped at this exact same place when arriving in Malawi with the TDA gang a month ago. I recognized some of the young fellows who were there, and they all asked me, "How was Malawi? How was Lilongwe? How was Thyolo?" because they'd remembered that I'd said I was going to those places. Also, the time before when I'd stopped there, I'd been in such a jubilant mood for reaching Malawi, that I'd bought a big plate of roasted meat and shared it around with everybody. They couldn't forget that. (I didn't repeat the same this time, but that's o.k.)

At one point, however, I got hungry and the little guest house where I was staying didn't have a restaurant, so somebody took me to the market to find food. When he suggested taking me to the market, I said, "What market?" He pointed toward the border, but I remembered coming through there with the gang a month ago, and there was no market there. He said, "It's behind."

Guess what?! There is a HUGE market, off to the right, as you pass through the border, coming from Tanzania toward Malawi. I mean HUGE! Completely hidden, you'd never know it was there if somebody didn't show you. Furthermore, once you go in there, border crossing is completely free and people are walking back and forth from Tanzania to Malawi, unimpeded. When my companion and I got close to going "behind" to where the market is, however, an official stopped us and asked about me. My companion told him that we were just going to the market. So he waved us through. At that point, I could have just slipped easily into Tanzania, no hassles. But I didn't. The next morning, I went through all the right channels, bought my visa, etc. Felt like a goodie-two-shoes.

Fun evening, revisiting with these young fellows whom I'd sort of "celebrated" with when I first entered Malawi.

------------------ TODAY -------------- TOTAL
Cycled ----------- 89 km (55 mi) -------- 4,668 km (2,923 mi)
Lift --------------- 0 --------------------- 2,660 km (1,768 mi)
Total ------------- 89 km (55 mi) -------- 7,328 km (4,691 mi)
In Saddle --------- 5 hours 31 min ------- 310 hours 41 min
Ascended --------- 543 feet -------------- 82,102 feet