Crossing the border to Tanzania

Sunday 28.04

Again we woke up in the clouds and rain. After a quick breakfast we carefully drove back down the zigzag road in the first gear. Back on the main road we continued another 50 km to a beach lodge with campsite to spend our last night in Malawi before entering Tanzania.

Monday 29.04:

Our favorite shorts and pants were not in the best condition anymore after our long journey through Africa. For this reason  we stopped at the open tailor shop in the last village before the Tanzanian border . For less than a euro he mended all holes for us. Now we were ready to set foot into Tanzania.

After our bad experiences we had at the Zambian border we were afraid that the custom officers would give us a hard time again. To our relief we had no problems at all. We even paid much less for the car import permit than expected (25 $ instead of 100 $). 

We had no clue where we would stop for the night. It became dark and we did not find any camping spot along the road that gradually ascended up to a 2000 m pass. On top we saw the city lights of Mbyea. It was an unusual sight after the poor Malawian villages without any electricity. It is the third largest city of Tanzania at an elevation of 1800 m. Therefore we had to put on our warm sweaters. We found shelter on the property of the evangelical church where we could set up our roof top tent. The guard showed us a local restaurant next door where we had lot of food for a few Tanzanian Schillings.

Tuesday 30.04:

For a day excursion we drove back up the pass we came from last night to hike up to the Ngosi Crater Lake. It is an extinct volcano which last erupted around 2 million years ago. Through thick rain forest we were led up to the crater rim by a local boy.

 We  returned to Mbeya and decided to stay another night on the parking lot of the evangelical church.