Travel adventures continued ...

Following our rewarding morning with Kandora.... With a patched tire.. We were 'on the road again' preparing mentally for the road ahead.. After about an hour it showed it's ugly face.. Right in front of my bumper .. 'here we go' this 65 k section of road from dar to lindi has been under contructiom for years.. Recent Promised completion dates have been august 2010, Jan 2011, April 2011, and now june 2011, however I leaned yesterday that the contractors have stopped work becsuse the government has not paid rhwm yet..so progress has come to a hault.. And the rains are deteriorating much of the work that has been completed so far.. The results.. Pot holes, huge orators in the road .. Some filled with water and some filled with mud... Large sections of road we call a mud bog in the us.. The mud boggers of the bush of Vermont would be in there glory.. But this lady from VT isn't loving it.. So needless to say this 65 k took me 5.5 hours to get through .. And man..the tension from cringing as I approached each section of terrain with anticipation of bottoming out or sinking like quicksand into this unknown crevice, river( literally sections were just like passing through a river), or series of potholes.. Never have I dreaded moving forward in a vehicle like this experience ... FINALLY the moment I had been praying for.. The end of construction and onto clear, smooth paved road... I soon realized that the Noah was on empty .. And NO gas stations in sight .. We kept driving hoping and praying that gas would be around the next bend... But nothing but mud huts and deserted land.. The moment I had been dreading came .. The car began to hestitate and the Noah finally came to a halt. So now the only tohing to do was for Salim to do was to flag someone down and hitch a ride into the nesrest town with the 10 liter plastic water jug we happened to have in the car.. Get some gas and hitch another ride back to the Noah and I ! The first truck that came by kindly gave Salim a ride.. My instructions were to stay in the car with the doors locked.. But I had to pee so bad .. So I disobeyed orders and got out in the pouring rain and went into the bushes.. Just as Salim was returning with news of the gas situation... Hey when you gotta go you gotta go! so there was no gas in the next town but the guy he received a ride from called another guy in snother town with a pikipiki.. Motorcycle .. And he agreed to bring us gas..about 20 minutes, $40 and 1/4 of a tank later we were rescued and back on the road..Now... We are only a few hours from my village of Mnangole.. Or so I thought.. Just a few more miles down the road the saying 'bad things happen in 3's ' Came true for us... another flat tire .. Yes... It's true...more waiting for rescue ... As we couldn't find the jack to replace it with the spare tire... Let's just say it was very dark and late when we finally made it to lindi.. The city an hour south of Mnang'ole... Slept in lindi that night ... The lanterns were to arrive that night in lindi as well buuuutttt.. This IS africa... They had notceven left Dar Es Salaam .. They would leave dar the next day ... Ha! That was wishful thinking... 1 day turned into 4 days... The good thing is it have us an excuse to visit Mtwara ... A Major town in the south.. With some life and energy... Mainly because there is a small airport amd a few colleges.. We visited the port for some major importing and exporting... The main export out of Mtwara is cashew nuts... They ships numerous containers of raw cashews from here headed to India to be processed (roasted shelled and packaged)..a friend of Salims explained how unfortunate it is that Tanzanians dont take advantage of the opportunities to gain big profits from their own resources.. They grow the cashews here but the big bucks comes from the processing and distribution ... I hear over amd over again how Tanzanians dont know how to use their resources... Miles and miles of beach up and down rhe coast with no hotel, restaurant, or resort... And even the locals dont use this beautiful indian ocean for their own pleasure... So anyway...the lanterns finally arrived... New tire... Mattress for girls... And the back full of lanterns, water.. Detol to clean our water for showers... and FINALLY... Off to Mnang'ole... Challenged by 19 kilometers equivelent to an hour of rough road.. Arrived at my final destination at 3 pm.... Home Sweet Home!!!