Steady progress, will do better the more he tries....

Almost exactly 80 km today and as there's an Internet Cafe bang opposite my accommodation, I'll take advantage. I know I have at least 3 regular browsers.

I was woken by the mullah again , this time at 4.40 am, which was just 45 mins too early for me...I did say a prayer though. Honest.

I left Iringa in the dark at 6 with head torch on. Lots of people out running, which surprised me; before the traffic gets going I suppose. There was the usual glorious African sun rise around 6.30. I then got a stream of "Good morning!"s from the kids going to school. Even from the little tynies about 3 foot tall, on their own and with gorgeous smiling faces. You could take 'em home with you ! I even got a couple of "Good morning, teacher !" Doh! I must still bear the marks of one.

Had a  breakfast of rice, beans, pumpkin leaves and a lump of beef around noon. No problem as I ate enough for 10 men yesterday. I had to take my Swiss army knife to the beef but it tasted fine.

Things turned sour when I "lost" my phone in the afternoon. My usually meticulous packing system had failed. I blundered badly by putting it in a rear pannier where it normally never goes. It's strictly a bar-bag item. Anyway, to  whoops of joy, it turned up 3 hours later....

The road has deteriorated from excellent to pretty crummy in the course of the day. There are also lots of road-works as this section gets improved. There's only just room for two HGVs so cyclists have to leave the road when the klaxon sounds. It's a jungle out there.

I met my first long-distance cyclist this morning, David Conroy, from BC, Canada. He's been cycling around for 3 years now and has a good thick layer of dust on him. He gave me some good tips, some local medicine and some Malawian Kwatchas (currency). He's also the proud owner of a 30 trillion dollar Zimbabwian note.

Mafinga is a fascinating dump like most Tanzanian towns. (I've completely reassessed Keighley). Seriously though, we have some 5 star, beautiful, user-friendly towns in Europe. The dust, noise, tat and chaos of African towns are to be gasped at....If you ask around though you can usually get what you want as they are so dammed helpful.

My digs on the other hand are clean, quiet and airy and I'm getting on well with the manageress. She speaks not a word of English and my Swahili is still at the "Hello" "Food" "Water" "Big" "Good" stage. But she runs a tidy guest house and at 15000 TS for a night (6 pounds) who's complaining ?

And so to supper...