Tanzania, the second and brief visit

What to tell? Not much! We were officially 'in transit'. The journey from Kigali to the border was easy on a good road as we had come to expect from Rwanda. The border crossing a mere formality. The Rwandan side quick and easy, the Tanzanian easy but slow. It took us a while to convince the immigration official that we needed a 10 day transit visa, his starting gambit was to only give us 4 days to get all the way thru to Malawi! The transit visa was only $30 compared to a full visa for $50, so a few pennies saved. Our planned route down thru the country was a non stop express with perhaps a few days chill out in Iringa.
Our first day was a haul of 458km and despite the good tarmac it was a slow journey. Endless villages with 50km speed limits, we obey the locals don't, and speed bumps for enforcement. Mufasa was getting harder to push and when worked too hard just stumbled and puffed white smoke, a bit worrying. I knew it was a combustion problem but easily fixed or not I wasn't so sure. We made Kahama that night and managed to locate a place to stay, the Comfort Hotel (S3 50.048 E32 36.987). It was clean and had secure parking and was well priced. The place next door where we ventured for a drink and something to eat was not so clean and was ridden with flies all coming from the kitchen! We had a quick beer while fighting off the pesky insects and went back to the hotel where Sue cooked some simple pasta and then we managed to watch the rest of our movie as the laptop was again working! Did I fix it, don't know, perhaps all the speed bumps had restored some order to it!
Our second day was another long one, 571km, to Dodoma. Whilst driving I had a moment of sheer inspiration! We stopped for lunch just short of Singida and I applied my 'magic' touch to Mufasa. He has two fuel filters, one of which I replaced back in Ethiopia as required, the other I left. Now as to why he has two I am not sure, but I had decided that the small unchanged one was causing the problem so I bypassed it, and success. Mufasa was now snarling like a trooper! With power restored we ploughed on to Dodoma. I will seek a replacement filter as soon as possible, but as far as I am concerned running on one is no issue. We had a crap stretch of about 100km before Dodoma where the road was being rebuilt and the diversions were bumpy crappy dirt tracks but apart from that it was good smooth tar. After a long hard drive we decided to treat ourselves to a room at the New Dodoma Hotel (S6 11.063 E35 44.911). Nice hotel and not too pricey, about £30 for a double with breakfast. We ate dinner in the hotel's Chinese restaurant, was fab! Can you believe that the hotel has a wireless internet network but you have to pay extra for it! Everywhere we went in Rwanda had FREE internet access! Anyway, we had a nice night and were fully refreshed for the next leg.
Our third day was a shorter haul, 346km, but a bit slower. The road to Iringa is dirt but good dirt and the drive was very nice indeed, especially with Mufasa back to full health. We had a proposed location to stay at but had no clue as the where it was, but we managed to get some directions and as luck would have it the Old Farm House (S8 08.747 E35 24.762) was 50km south of Iringa on the road to Mbeya and on the route to Malawi. What a great site the farm is! It has been kept very 'bush' and in the 'small vehicles area' where we are there is nobody else. There is another area for the big overland trucks but you would never know they were there. They grow flowers on the farm and would you believe export them to Holland!A very pleasant 4 nights we had on the farm, beers, choc brownies, muffins, t-bone steaks (not the best we have had), oh and I got the mechanic at their flower project to change Mufasa's oil for £6 labour. So all in all a good result. Then it was off to Malawi and a new adventure. As usual we were trying to dispatch our remaining local money and managed all but Tsh700 (about 70p) which we later passed on to a guy venturing north from Malawi. The crossing of the border, a synch, and again no visas for either of us so couldn't be better. As for Malawi, we shall see.