It rained for what seemed like a couple hours as I was drifting into sleep. Upon awakening, we had the usual wet tents from heavy condensation.
Breakfast was stoked with drama, because three women had bags stolen from their bikes. We are reminded every night by TDA to take all valuables off our bikes and get them into our tents. The bikes are to be locked to a tree, or at least to each other. Every morning, the routine is to put one’s bags back onto the bikes, go to breakfast a few feet away, and then start riding. What happened this morning is that the thieves were apparently lurking in the foliage and trees just beyond our bush camp. When they saw that the bikes had been left unattended for breakfast, they took advantage of the opportunity to quickly remove bags from the bikes. One rider (Joan) had the bag containing her cell phone and wallet pilfered. The thieves also took the Garmin bike computer mounted to her handlebars. Needless to say, she was distraught. TDA staff called police, and they were at our camp within five minutes. In addition, several TDA staff ran into the woods to chase down the thieves. We all rode off on our day’s route with a sense of unease.
106 km, a major total ascent of 2068 m (our 4th day of 6 on the tour over 2000 m), 25°C maximum. The day’s challenge is an 87 km gradual climb that started right out of camp. Then there will be an almost 20 km descent into Mbeya.
Large bags loaded with empty plastic bottles. Not sure if they are going to be recycled or just tossed into a landfill.
The hills are very green.
Another overlook over the Rift Valley near the top of the long climb.
We rode through many mountain villages. A rock thrown by 7 year old went through my rear spokes. Usually, the rock throwers are about 5 years older. I immediately turned around, backtracked, shouted at the group of kids, and they instantly scattered. There’s no way to finger the culprit, but I feel it’s my duty to let them know that this type of behavior is not acceptable. In fact, it is downright dangerous as a big enough rock can break a spoke or mangle a derailleur. 
At just under 2,500 m elevation, the view of Mbeya (population 650,000) in the Great Rift Valley.
The climb was extremely difficult and steep, especially for the last 20 km. Near the summit, there were many agricultural fields and farmworkers harvesting potatoes and corn. Many were waiting at the roadside with large produce bags for tuk-tuks to transport them down to the Mbeya markets.
After some of the descent, a better view of Mbeya nestled in the valley.
Traffic got busier and the roads filled with tuk-tuks and boda bodas as we entered Mbeya. Our destination was Hotel Mbeya. Maybe ten of the heartiest souls remained campers. The rest of us upgraded to hotel rooms, given the tough week we had just endured. Even Andy and Bird took their first upgrade since Egypt. We do have some very tenacious campers in our tour group.
Most of us had dinner at the hotel restaurant, as it was later in the afternoon and we were too tired to venture out. 
Tim had helped Sheila change a flat tire on the road earlier today, and she rewarded him after dinner with a strawberry milkshake (they were out of chocolate).
There is a happy ending to the larceny event from earlier today. There were two boarding schools adjacent to our bush campsite. The headmasters were immediately notified and took attendance. Two boys were missing. They were subsequently discovered lurking in the woods, and their parents were called. The bags and lost items had been dumped on the ground in the forest, but basically everything was recovered, except for a few small bike tools. Notably, Joan’s cell phone, Garmin, wallet (including the cash), were all recovered. All three bike bags were also successfully retrieved. Presumably the bandits had planned to return after school to retrieve their loot, for they certainly couldn’t walk into school with it. Our tour director Colleen was called about the recovery, and she drove back to pick up all the items. The police wanted to charge the headmaster with negligence, but clearly it was not his fault. The boys were in the age range of 10 to 12, and Colleen did not want to make a big deal of pressing charges against anyone. It’s likely that between the police, the headmaster, and the parents, the boys will receive their comeuppance. So this time, we were lucky. Everyone certainly will be even more hypervigilant with their personal belongings at all times. We were grateful that the Tanzanian authorities took this incident seriously, and acted expeditiously to obtain a positive result.
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