19/03/17, stage 40, Arusha to Babati

Today is the 17th, meaning that we left Cairo exactly two months ago and that we’re expected to reach Cape Town in less than two months (12th of May). The tour is more or less halfway. I’m not sure what the sentiments about that are in the group, but personally i’m quite pleased with the way things are going so far, although I must say that I’m developping some minor aches and pains. I hope I’ll make it all the way through! Luckily there are a lot of remaining incentives to keep on cycling: Lake Malawi, Victoria Falls, the Okavango Delta, the Namibian desert...

That being said, we started a challenging 7 day stretch towards Mbeya today, with long daily distances and fair amounts of climbing. Today we rode 172k and had about 1150 meters of elevation gain, meaning almost 7 hours of saddle time, averaging about 25k an hour. I made it through today’s ride without any trouble though. Lets hope the legs and bum are up for it tomorrow as well :-) 

Furthermore we were told that we now entered the rainy season, which will last until we reach Namibia. Today it actually rained a bit when I reached camp. Until now we’ve been quite lucky when it comes to rain. We had one wet night in Ethiopia and a bit of rain at arrival in Arusha. From now one we should take into account that we might have days on which the rain - besides headwinds, heat, distance and elevation gain - will pose a new kind of challenge...

We’re leaving the arid bushy landscapes behind and get to see more lush and tropical vegetation...

Life and activity gathers around the waterhole...

Nice and green. If the wind falls away its still pretty hot though. Temperatures are in the mid 30ies

Despite that there is water in this river! We havn’t seen that it a while!

But then again, it is the rainy season now...