700km!!! We made it to Singida. 

A bigger town, a bit similar to Dodoma. Big Rocks are all around the town…they look beautiful in the sunset light in between the sandy earth, some Mango and palm trees. Here we have a rest day again. We got ice cream and chocolate!!!, which we don’t get anywhere in the small towns where we cycle through. We treated ourselves with the chocolates and a few beers and today we could sleep in and got Spanish Omelet for breakfast. We all seem to really need this rest day after the last 4 days cycling. We had a few hills here and there and had a big day of 120km (we didn’t really plan on it and in the end it was counterproductive because we were too tired to keep going the next day). This day started easy with downhill and then cycling on the flat, so we felt strong to keep going. We had a long stretch without town and we had not enough water and food for camping, so we decided to keep going to the next town (that was after we did already about 100km or more)…but then a big hill came and the midday sun was on us, it must have been one of the hottest days. I was not feeling well all of the sudden, it might have been the heat, the exercise or both together…after a bottle of cold water over my head I felt a bit better. We somehow made it to a guesthouse in the town which was not on the road, like our map said, but 3km along a side road that was just sand. The guesthouse we found then was the most basic place we stayed in. No shower or running water, a communal toilet, a bucket of water that we could use for washing ourselves. The bed was too small for Danny and me together, the mosquito net useless because of many holes, no fan and it was very hot.

On top of that we all had stomach problems and diarrhea from something we ate. Luckily we still had some toilet paper with us. After the worst nights sleep, feeling mentally and physically exhausted and sick, the next day we made it slowly to the next town which was 20km away and found a decent guesthouse with a shower and stayed there. I think at that time both me and Dylan felt so horrible we would have gladly taken the plane to fly home.

After a little sleep and a shower, resting my belly (which was in cramps all morning) I felt better though and the next day we were fresh on the bike, maybe not a 100% with a little sore muscles but the cycling now seemed easy and we stopped after 82km, feeling tired but not dead, that good feeling of tiredness after a day of activity. My stomach was fine again and the next day was only a 40km cycle into Singida, where we are now. 

It now feels kind of normal to be here in Africa, the daily routine of cycling, being the only white people, being in a hot climate in a vast landscape with small villages, markets and many children screaming excited “mzungu mzungu” waving and running after your bicycle etc…Everything that seemed so strange and new in the beginning.

Our next destination is Mwanza at the Lake Victoria…in about a week we plan to be there and stay for a few days and visit one of the islands on the lake that has elephants and giraffes.

Pictures are coming later…

We are now in Dodoma in Central Tanzania. In 4 days we cycled here from Morogoro...We had a lot of uphill (and most of it in 1 day) but then also a lot downhill the next day (on that day we did almost 100km, i think it was 98km). In total we did around 450 km in 7 days of cycling. We are slowly getting into our rhythms and routines... and yet everyday is different. The Landscape changed a lot since Morogoro...we came from the more tropical landscape, hilly, then flat and then mountainous in Morogoro into a much dryer landscape, different mountains again, vast, open, desert like, sandy, with single baobab trees standing majestically in the vastness...We saw so called "dustdevils", they look like little tornados that you find in deserts and open dry landscapes.
A few locals invited us to have a few beers and dinner with them in one of the villages we stayed in. We sat outside on a table with chicken and goats running around us. Two of the men spoke good English and the others sat around with us anyway. One of them brought his half chinese, half african daughter, who spoke a little English as well. A few Massai were there as well and we were soon in the middle of a vibrant village life. One drunk guy came to argue with people and everyone laughed at him. He seemed to be aware of the fact that he was playing the clown here though and somehow enjoyed the role. The Massai laughed the loudest. The Massai men have more than one wife each (one of them had 4 wifes), we never saw any of them though. The other locals we talked to were strong christian believers.
Now we are taking a rest day in a lodge just outside of Dodoma. It is nice and quiet here...time to write and read and recharge a little...

So, now it is time to write a little about our adventures in Africa...

We, that is Danny, Dylan and me are cycling through East Africa for 3 months. We started in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, are going through central Tanzania to the Lake Victoria. From there may go to Burundi (we are still trying to find out whether it is safe now to go), through Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya and back into Tanzania to Dar es Salaam, where we started. So we basically make a loop around Lake Victoria. 

It's been 2 weeks tomorrow since we left Ireland. A few days in Dar es Salaam and then we started our journey towards Morogoro, the first bigger town after Dar es Salaam.
Palm, Mango and Banana trees, monkeys crossing the road, small villages of mud huts....Children and many locals are waving at us and scream "mzungu" (white person), "Mambo"(hello, how are you), "Sister", "hi, how are you? I am fine". We are the only white people here and therefore quite an attraction. We haven't been camping yet, because there are small, cheap and yet clean guesthouses in almost every town. Most evenings we get "Chicken and Chips", thats what the locals eat here. Pepsi and Fanta keep us going along the road (every little village sells them) as well as Bananas, Mangos, Oranges, cakes or bread, that we buy on the markets in the villages.