Blog Kilimanjaro: Riding with Ross Methven: day 15

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Riding with Ross Methven: day 15

In the next few posts, I will wrap up my bicycle ride with Ross Methven. He is riding through Zambia now. I now resume my posts from day 15.

Ross Methven is riding a bicycle from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Cape Town, South Africa. He is currently cycling through Tanzania and I am accompanying him on part of the Tanzanian leg. My Mt. Kilimanjaro guide, Yahoo, says cycling is one of the best training options for climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

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Monday 19 August 2013

This was supposed to be a 50 kilometre day, but it stretched out to 67 kilometres. At some point during the day when asking for route advice we were told that Issuna, our intended destination, was 30 kilometres away but our experience had taught us that most of the advice we received was inaccurate and we decided the remaining distance to Issuna was much closer. It was not. Throw in a powerful headwind and no lunch and this became one of our toughest days on the road to Cape Town.

Before midday, Dodoma was only 234 kilometres away.

At Issuna I found Ross seated outside a small shop with a bottle of a coveted lager in one hand. He informed me that Issuna had no guest houses but someone - Edwin - had offered us camping space in front of his oil processing plant. Edwin also made arrangements for our dinner and - if we chose - had offered to make arrangements for us to bathe. We both declined, perhaps because we had to cross a busy road for the wash. More likely, we were just too tired.