Malawi Mando Day

I am finally feeling better after a long day of riding yesterday feeling really sick climbing the escarpment (650m) out of the lake. I spent my rest day throwing up, not really sure why but it was unfortunate because there was a pig roast that night and I was not able to participate. That was April fools day. Someone thought that it was a good idea to put my bike in a tree, and take the wheels off and put them in a tree also. Luckily my friend Jenn is always around to help and told everyone that it wasn’t funny because I am so sick and she got it out of tree for me! Climbing the escarpment, I was sweating more than I usually sweat in a Bikram yoga class and it was 7:30 in the morning. It was even hard to keep my sunglasses on because the sweat was pouring of my face so quickly.. I think this worked to my advantage as it sweated out whatever was wrong with me. About half way up the climb there was a small waterfall pouring off of the rocks, so I took the opportunity to pull over and take a shower under the water. It felt so great and helped me make it up the rest of the day. After the 10km ride up the climb we had another 120km ride to camp, which is a long ride when you are feeling terrible. Malawi is proving to be just as hilly as Ethiopia. But maybe some of the most beautiful riding we have done. It is absolutely stunning and refreshing to see so much undeveloped land. Yesterday’s total climb was 1600m and today’s ride was almost 1900m. As if the climbing wasn’t enough to make the day brutal and difficult, mix in rain and the occasional headwind and that equals another difficult mando riding day. One of the woman in the group counted the number of the hills and came up with 41… and these were not small hills either. By lunch (at 70km) I decided if I saw one more hill, I might not be able to continue. The day went on and on and on, hill after hill after hill and finally we arrived at camp. So far on the trip we have climbed 46000m!!! My legs will defiantly agree with this number. I haven’t really been stretching and when I arrived at camp from the day, my hamstring was really tight, I moved quickly and tore a little bit of my hamstring. That should make riding easier… Tomorrow is supposed to be an easier day, and I am thankful for that…Two more days until the next day off… In Lilongwe (the capital of Malawi).

So far we have seen some crazy things in Malawi, A pig being carried on a bike, an eighteen month old baby holding (clinging) on to the back of his dad riding on a bicycle, not strapped on in any manner. We saw an older woman carrying an old fashion Singer sewing machine on her head up a hill, pretty impressive.

We have arrived in Lilongwe the capital and unfortunately unless I miss several days of riding I will not be able to dive in Lake Malawi which is a bit of a bummer. We are at altitude here and the lake is now a 4 hour drive away and we cannot drive back to altitude until 6 hours after the last dive. I guess I will just have to return to Lake Malawi another time. We only have one more riding day in Malawi and then onto our seventh country of Zambia. We have a really long (175km day) coming up the day after tomorrow so I am chilling out on this rest day and doing minimal amounts of things to prepare my body for the grind.