day 13 – Mueda to Dar es Salaam 895km

Originally this day should have taken us to Lindi in Tanzania but after checking out Lipstick we realised that. new shock absorbers were urgently required. We therefor decided to take the long route straight through to Dar es Salaam which would mean 895km away.

From our Quarry bush camp we continued on rough gravel roads through a lot of bends and many small African villages with Lipstick jumping around like a mad donkey. Andre and Willy were holding their breath hoping that the springs would hold despite the shocks already badly worn.

The transfer from Mocambique to Tanzania was relatively fast and after about 1.5 hours we were through some of the typical African bureaucracy to which by know we had become accustomed to.

Team Lipstick went ahead with the other teams sticking to the originl stay over in Lindi. The idea was that Lipstick would then be able to use the next morning for the repairs of the shocks and be ready again by the time the other teams would arrive in Dar es Salaam.

Andre and Willy estimated that after having started the journey at 6 am that they would reach Dar es Salaam at about 4 pm.
However 1 hour was spent alone in the Tanzanian town of Masasi – the first town after entering the country. The reason was that Tanzanian law compels foreign vehicles to obtain a 3rd party insurance for the duration of their stay in Tanzania. Team lipstick can assure all out there that this is a mission by itself but eventually they located an insurance office hidden behind some containers at the local bus station. In order to make it easier for the teams behind this information was send by sms to the teams behind.

The worst part of the day started some 280km outside Dar es Salaam when a deviation required us to leave the pleasant tar route and continue on what hardly resembles any road . Every dirt road before was remembered now to have been very pleasant when comparing it to this 62km of dust , sand , stones and mud piece of earth which is not supposed to be named road , path or anything close by.

What made matters worse of course is the fact that Lipsticks Shock Absorbers were now also as absent as any few meters of level road. Average speed had to be reduced to some 25km/h.

As Lipstick was thrown from left to right at undeterminable intervals Andre avoid the risk of being thrown onto some innocently approaching bonnet. Without boring the readers about the type of foul language being used inside the car or the fact that 25km outside Dar es Salaam Lipstick could only proceed with the spare kennels of Diesel from its roof top as there was no petrol station in sight for routine refuelling- it might be worth mentioning that team Lipstick arrived in Dar es Salaam at 9.30 pm having driven some 15 hours of unwanted experience.