So far, so good

Everything is going well here in lightest Africa. OK, at night it's as black as a Tanzanian charcoal burner's face but by day things couldn't be brighter. It's a relief when a few clouds blow in.

I was pleased to arrive in Iringa this lunch-time. It's 300km west of Morogoro and surrounded by rocky hills and mountains. It reminds me of Lone Ranger country: a scrubby sort of landscape littered with enormous light-coloured boulders. It's on a highish plateau, over 5000 feet according to Wikipedia.There's also a brief description of the place on Wikipedia and a photo if you want to know more.

So that's 500 kms in 9 days. Not bad for a beginner. After Morogoro the road goes through the middle of the Mikumi National Park where I went on safari, big game style, although it was completely unplanned. The town just before the park is a bit of a dump so I pushed on to the main "camp" in the middle of the park. I bumped into a lovely couple, a Kenyan lad, Mike, and  Heleen from Holland, both studying in Sweden and they v kindly invited me to join them on their guided tour of the park the next day. I was woken at about 5 am by an elephant moseying around my cabin. When I pulled back the mosi net and the curtains I could just see its tusks glowing in the dark about 10 foot from my bedroom window. They are noisy eaters and it was ripping up the grass then stuffing down a branch or two from some ragged trees that grow in the camp.

We set off on the tour at 7 am and spent a great day getting as close as you dare to elephants, giraffe, hippos, crocodiles, impalas, warthogs, buffalo and wildebeests. I also got within arm's length of the world's deadliest snake, the black mamba. "You are probably dying in 5 minutes" our guide said cheerfully. I'll just add that this was at the rather seedy Mikumi snake zoo and the snake in question was behind glass. They have jet-black tongues and  mouths, if you get the chance to look inside. The only disappointment was not seeing leopards or lions. It seems you have a 50/50 chance of seeing lions. They sit in the dry, sandy creek beds during the day digesting gristly tourists and are then active at night. Despite our guide Max's best efforts, we didn't find any.

At night we drank beer and watched the football on satellite TV.

From there the road west runs into the Uluguru mountains. This is a sparsely populated bit of Tanzania but nice to look at. The mountains rise to about 7000 feet. The road follows the powerful Ruaha River and the mountain sides are full of Baobab Trees. Once again, go to Wikipedia to admire some pictures of these splendid trees. That night I got a "bungalow" - fancy mud hut really - on the banks of the river.

The next day, yesterday, I got a shock. After lunch the road suddenly rose 3000 feet in about 5 or 6 kms. That's like cycling up Snowdon. I was completely ***** when I got to the top after about 2 hours. I did it in 5 minute sessions for fear of doing a Tommy Simpson. On the plus side the scenery was wonderful, the lorry-drivers in their crawling HGVs shouted a lot of encouragement (I think that's what it was) and the air up here on the plateau is much cooler. I stayed at The Neatness Guest house in Ilula last night. It was pretty neat too and I wore a pullover for the first time. From there it was a sunny and pretty 45 kms to Iringa this morning.

Before I sign off, thanks to friend Claude who helped me with the all important Kings Cross to Heathrow leg of my safari. You can't do better than a guide with detailed local knowledge!