03:23.06S 36:43.13E

The ride towards Arusha, with the impressive Pare Mountains on my right, and the expectation of seeing Mt Kilimanjaro as I approached Moshe, all made for a great ride. Sadly I never saw ‘the big mountain’, but my stop in Moshe was full of rewards as I had breakfast in a lodge, and ended up chatting to the late 20’s American women, who were here to climb Kilimanjaro the next day.  Well our conversation headed into all the motives for doing this, where their careers fit into earning  financial independence etc…. In all we chatted for 2hrs, and in saying goodbye, they both said that this was the most inspiring and thought provoking interaction they had ever had……  I benefitted from getting an insight into how they think, and what does motivate them to do this climb…. All scary stuff as we broke it all down, and they admitted they were doing it because one of their friends said it was a ‘cool idea’….…

Then on to Arusha, and the start of the traffic said to me that I should prepare for an Arusha that is a lot bigger and busier than the one of 2007.

I decided to saty at the same place I’d stayed in 2007, Masai Camp…. It was all a bit of a cocktail of emotions as I connected back…. It took me right back to how I was feeling on the bicycle then, how fit I was, how focused and living ‘Simply Adventure’ I was, and now I felt this slight feeling f being a traitor to myself, being here on a motorcycle….    I knew I was going to have to deal with the total different experience of being on a motorcycle vs a bicycle, and although motorcyclists will find this hard to understand, for me the bicycle experience stands head and shoulders above doing it by motorcycle… It’s more spiritual, more at one with nature, one has closer and more frequent interactions with the locals / villagers, and nature, and then finally the physical side is incomparable, and how alive and healthy one feels….

I met this South African guy, I think he was 63, with his own Landrover exploring Western Tanzania with primarily a bird watching focus. Derrick was his name, and this guy was hyper and had a serious attention disorder. But as we spoke we both agreed we had many similar traits, philosophies and outlook on life. He had a local Tanzanian with him, who he met in Mpanda, and had been his lifesaving mechanic. Derrick was either a guy who attracted problems, or he was doing serious adventure that put him in situations where we broke his vehicle, had run ins with the police etc….. I must say after hearing his stories about the Western Tanzania roads near Lake Tanganyika, made me wonder if they really were going to be the worst of the worst, or that this guy was just a drama queen!  It was a bit unsettling though, particularly when he kept stressing that I was totally mad doing this on my own….  !!  Hey, belief in oneself and the ability to manage the unknown whatever it is, hey!

Anyway, I enjoyed my two days in Arusha, other than I had a HUGE internal fight going on because what lay head was a route that I’d already done by bicycle, and I didn’t really want to go to Nairobi again, and then I knew I was heading all this way North, just to head south again….. Add to this my hollowness inside from having to walk away from the game lodge / ranger / working with animals dream, made this very challenging times for the goal driven HF! I was verging on a major internal crisis, and really had to force myself to leave the Masai Camp.  This stuff on a solo adventure is where the struggle eventually converts to personal growth and understanding, but it can be very disturbing, and draining……

26 and 27^th September