We left Kisolonza with mixed feelings sad to leave what had become home and a mini routine for 5 days and excited about moving on. The plan was to get as far as we could – at least get to Singida and Stanley Motel Annex or further.
The road to Iringa was an easy 60km. We stopped at the Absa ATM on the main route through Iringa met Geoff (from Kenya also staying at Kisolanza ) who was bringing his car in for a Toyota service – a quick sidewalk chat and then moved on. Garmin decided we needed to go off the main route – oh dear – so we reluctantly drove into narrower roads until we decided to follow our instincts – ignored the route provided by Garmin and did a u turn in Iringa University much to the concern of the security guards and moved back to the route. The settings were clearly going for a shortest route rather than stay on main roads or similar.
We stuck to the main roads (T5 then T3 then T8) and double checked the paper map against Garmin and arrived in Singida without a hitch. It was getting the next trick was to find the Stanley Motel Annex – (It was recommended by Nicky from Kisolanza and i-overlander) recommendations are good. We could see from the Garmin that is was close to Lake Singida and as we got closer to our destination the directions were insisting on taking us almost into the lake – once again we u- turned and entered the hotel from a road rather than the lake.
We decided to take a room instead of camping in the field next door as we would have had to pay for a shower ina room anyway and the overall difference in costs was not that great. We had supper in their restaurant – which took a little while in coming – (Barry was starting to get frustrated) it was all hand prepared even the potato chips – so lovingly done and tasty – well worth the wait.
The scenery along the way indicated it was getting into grasslands and dry countryside
By the way did you notice that there is an Amazon in the Dodoma- Singida area – just have another look at the featured image
And we encountered the first big group of Masaai
The normal wares were on sale on the sides of the road – Basketwork
Vegetables
and pedestrian movement
The route from Iringa to Dodoma is all tarmac and has one tricky mountain pass – the truck traffic is a lot less than the road to Morogoro (and then Dar es Salaam). From Dodoma we took the less travelled road towards Singida and there were less trucks and buses. The sped through all towns being 50km. We had found out there is no limit between the 50 zones so we pushed up to 120km on these stretches.
The terrain had moved from the Southern Highlands in to savanna grasslands – It was interesting to loom at the terrain and overlay our trip so far on a topographical map (Route is inserted roughly in both maps below)
And it is interesting to note that are 31 administrative regions in Tanzania – we had been in 5 of these regions to date
From Singida we headed to Mwanza on Lake Victoria