Speed Limits
“Slow and steady wins the race.” — Aesop
What is a road-trip? It is a drive, on the road. And on this day, we really were going to be on the road. Waking up well rested in Mbeya, we were determined to break both of our road-trip’s rules: No driving beyond 650km in a day, and no driving at night. We were 815km from Dar es Salaam, and because we know how the TANZAM (Tanzania-Zambia) Highway can be — it is narrow, has some few bad tarmac patches, and has a lot of 50km/h speed limits — we knew for a fact we would have to drive at night for a significant portion of the drive back home.
There was one thing we had not foreseen: new police and immigration check-points in every district you enter. By the time we arrived in Dar, we had been stopped a total of 9 times, and asked random questions from the usual driver’s license, to immigration officers speaking us in Swahili to see ‘how Tanzanian’ we are (or at least that’s what I thought when I ignored one and he got serious talking me up just to hear my Swahili accent). Was this a result of what happened during and after the 2025 General Election? I could not tell. But stopped we were, 10 minutes here, 15 there, 8 over there. And slowly, all these add up to how tired you all become.
I got a part of my morning routine done, got ready, and took my bag downstair. I sat down for breakfast, and everyone else started coming one after the other. Dani informed us that he has not been feeling 100%, and we spoke healing to him. We started our drive at 9:13am and slowly we started leaving Mbeya and drove the 250km to Mafinga where we had lunch. How long did it take to get to Mafinga? 6 good hours!
Get Samson Genya’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
One hour was spent in Mafinga, and we were on our way again. It took almost 2 hours (1 hour 55 minutes) to get to Iringa, which is just over 80km away. There we met with some friends, chatted a bit, took photos, and held a short ‘meeting’ in which Eric was telling everyone that if anyone says we are sleeping anywhere except Dar, he’ll catch a bus. We agreed to push on. It was now 7pm and since we are no longer in Namibia, it was dark.
The 170km to Mikumi took 3 hours and 43 minutes. We stopped at TOTAL Mikumi to stretch and add fuel before proceeding. The 113km to Morogoro took 2 hours and 4 minutes. TOTAL Msamvu didn’t have diesel, so we had to go back to Puma Msamvu which we had left behind for fuel for w123. It was past midnight by now. The 73km to Msolwa where we stopped for coffee. Some 95km later we were on the outskirts of Dar and Dani and Daud swapped cars — Dani came to the w123 so that after I drop, he goes home with it, and Daud took the w126 so that after Eric drops, he goes home with it.
We helped Nancy get a hotel, which was decently challenging given the hour, it was almost 5am in the morning. We were glad she got one. Dani, now alone in a Mercedes for the first time in over a month, drove home to his Jemimah who had been in Dar for 2 days already. I had been dropped at the apartment I was staying at.
We all slept. I of course had to think about how inefficient the TANZAM Highway is, how the 50km/h makes no sense, how the multiple police checkpoints are duplicating efforts, and how 815km should not take 20 hours, ever. By the time I finished thinking the sun was up, and I was down to sleep.
