Tanzania

We took a few days to meander up from Nkhata Bay to the border with Tanzania. Crossing over was a breeze with particularly nice officials on the Tanzanian side, but also with the regular assortment of shady characters asking to change your money or offering transport. We were hoofing it away from the border when a large white 4wd pulled up behind us. Just as I was about to offer up my best 'no thanks', I looked up and saw a white guy behind the wheel offering to take us away from the border, always a tempting offer. We hopped in and ended up catching a lift with Andreas (a wonderful German guy who now lives in Melbourne) all the way to Iringa.

Well, actually about 40 km short of Iringa to be precise - to one of those heavenly stops you remember for years to come. Since Andreas was driving around, he had all of his camping gear and we made it to The Old Farm Guesthouse which had both camping facilities as well as great little chalets. And the food! We rolled into the camp just on dusk and asked about food. They said that we could have it, but it would be best to go in right away. We'd been eating at a lot of 'local' places (ie. fried chicken and rice) for days and were expecting to enter a hall, get a plate slopped in front of us and chow back in record time under the fluorescent lights. How wrong we were. We were escorted to a fashionably decapitated mud-bricked house, drummed in the door, taken to our candle-lit table, and presented with the wine list (a wine list!!). We were presented with three courses, each more delicious than the last. We even had roast beef - real roast beef- and gravy. It was amazing, and no doubt more amazing because it was the last thing we were expecting. In fact, it was so good that we stayed another night just for the food, though we did take a day trip to the nearby Isimila sandstone pillars which were great.