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ALEX CYCLES AFRICA
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Home » Status » Day 70: Raiding the best coffee shop in Mbeya
StatusTanzania

Day 70: Raiding the best coffee shop in Mbeya

March 23, 2017 Leave a Comment 3513 Views

Finally, after seven consecutive days on the bike, we’ve had a rest day again. This time, we stopped in Mbeya, the largest city in southern Tanzania.

Central square in Mbeya

Though spoilt by scenic green hilly surroundings that—while cycling through—at times looked like just back home in the Swiss or Austrian alps, the city of Mbeya itself is somewhat less exciting. It’s more of economic importance, located at the main transportation links into Zambia as well as in Tanzania’s agricultural heaven—the Mbeya region being Tanzania’s main producers of corn, rice, bananas and the like.

View from Mbeya into the surrounding hills

This was good news for us because no one felt pressured to cram their day up with sightseeing activities. So, other than fixing our bikes in the morning, we’ve enjoyed a full day to rest and recover.

Luckily, I’d already swapped my tires from knobbies to road tires (yay, supposedly great roads all the way until Namibia!) last afternoon. However, I needed to change my chain and gear cables. That sounds worse than it was—our mechanic Leo did all the work while I enjoyed my morning 🙂

Bike clinic at Mbeya Hotel

Then I beat the crowd to enjoy some quiet time with good WiFi in Mbeya’s best and only Western style coffee shop—Ridge Cafe.

Enjoying great coffee and smoothie at Ridge Cafe

Owned by a charming young South African woman married to a senior executive in the coffee industry, the coffee shop gave us a welcome break from Africa. Great coffee, nice pastries, and—best of all—absolutely irresistible avocado/pineapple smoothies.

Ridge Cafe—great Western-style coffee shop in Mbeya

My day finished with lovely India dinner back at Mbeya Hotel—Indian dinner with an East African twist that is, swapping rice for Ugali. Ugali is the main starchy staple in East Africa, a mash made of corn (something in between polenta and mashed potatoes, I guess). It was a nice alternative to try once, but—I think—rice still is a better match with Indian curry.

Indian dinner with an African twist (Ugali instead of rice) at Mbeya Hotel
Previous Article Day 69: If you stand still, you will fall—always keep moving
Next Article Day 71: Go slow to go fast

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