Reflections on Zambia and Zimbabwe

We are now biking through countries so fast I am having a hard time keeping up with doing my “reflections” blogs. All I can remember about Zambia is Victoria Falls, I guess if that is the only thing that I remember that is not so bad. The road surface in Zambia was seal coat which made for a long week or so, or however long we were there…

I really like the bugs in these tropical countries… This first one is a dung beetle. They spend there days crawling around in piles of poo. I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on him… The other one is just a really cool beetle, maybe they will give me a job at the Victoria Bug Zoo when I get home with all my experience…

Botswana and “The Elephant Highway”

Arriving in Botswana involves taking a small ferry from Zambia into Botswana. The ferry is only about 500m and there is an island half way across which has a point which is on four borders, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. This is also a bottleneck for all of the semi trucks that are transporting things across Africa, as only one truck will fit on each ferry and there was only two truck ferries and one people/car ferry. The trucks were lined up for miles on either side of the “border”. Botswana has a lot of kilometers waiting for us. Although this section is mainly flat and straight, we are making up for our shorter dirt days in this section through our “century week” where we do 160 + kilometers everyday… Next week we will do our 207km day (our longest day on tour). Yesterday we went into Chobe National Park on a River Safari. We were on the Chobe river which is a tributary to the Zambezi river which is the river that feeds Victoria Falls. We saw a tonne of hippos and large lizards and even a lion that was chasing a warthog and then the lion came down really close to the river. I thought that this safari was much better than the truck safari because I didn’t feel so crammed in.

The Elephant Highway is in an area which has thousands of wild elephants. They are extremely dangerous animals and we have been advised that if we see elephants on the side of the road we need to stop and wait for the elephant to pass by or move very carefully past the elephant. Most of the day today was just long and there were no animals but just a lot of elephant poo. Later this afternoon, just before camp there was an elephant. I was glad that I ran into a couple of other riders so that I wasn’t close to the elephant on my own. We waited for awhile until the elephant would pass, but he was pretty content to just be hanging out on the side. We finally decided to bike pass the elephant. It made me really nervous like when I used to be nervous around bears before I lived in Alaska for awhile. The elephant defiantly took a look at us as we passed by, but we made it by safely. You have to look closely in the photo to see the elephant in the distance... At camp tonight at our bush camp everyone was trying to set up their tents off of the elephant pathways just in case they tromp through our camp at night…

We have three more long days until our rest day in Maun. 154km, 182km, and 136km. We are now at less than a month count down… My legs are very tired and I feel like I am in overtraining mode… But with only a few weeks left I feel like I can persevere.

Victoria Falls Zimbabwe

We arrived in Livingstone and a bunch of us went across the border (which cost Canadians $75US and everyone else $30) to Zimbabwe to stay at the world famous Victoria Falls Hotel. It is a colonial hotel and reminds me alot of Victoria BC. It is really nice. At check in they bring you a eucalyptus cool facecloth and a "welcome drink" in a champagne glass. The hotel is right overlooking the bridge and the gorge. Really worth it. I guess the Zambian side is much more expensive as the rooms here are around $250 and the rooms on the Zambian side go for $600!! Crazy to think of paying these prices in Africa. We walked the length of the falls today, which make Niagra Falls seem like a baby version of these falls... As you walk along you get soaked, like it is pouring rain. We opted for one found umbrella and no rain jackets. It was so awesome. You can get way closer to the falls then they would let you get in North America, some sections had no barriers against falling into the falls. Apparently, occasionally an elephant goes over the falls who accidently fell into the Zambezi river upstream and can't get out. Even though that would be sad it would be pretty cool to see...

The river is at its peak right now so there is no chance of rafting which is kinda sad, I guess it just means I will have to come back at some point. There are monkeys and baboons and warthogs in the yard outside the window of the hotel room which is a nice reminder that we are in Africa and very delicious food. This is probably the first time on the trip so far that I feel like I am on vacation and not at some sort of crazy biking everyday job. It will be hard to get back to the riding as we have our "century week" coming up in Botswana where we ride 160km + everyday.... Ugh. You would think I had an iron butt by now, but alas my butt seems to be taking alot of abuse lately, especially after getting a small piece of grass in my shorts after peeing the other day and getting a grass shaped saddle sore. Then the next day getting some small thorns in my chamois from peeing and having to pick them out of my shorts while riding, oh man the things that can happen out here, I tell you... Just when you think 150km days are hard, it can get harder.... Someone even got their bike stolen at a camp the other night... They found it, but it took some serious Sherlock Holmes techniques...

The Long Road to Victoria Falls

We have arrived at Victoria Falls, which for most of us feels like Christmas. It is TWO whole days of rest and relaxation! The most we have had since Arusha (where we were lucky enough to get three!) This is the last stacked rest day until the end, almost exactly one month away. The week was long, the milege continues to increase and we have a whole lotta riding left to do. Exhaustion, a bad chest cold and seriously long days tried to stop me from riding this week, but alas I woke up every morning, got on the bike and spun my legs and cranked those pedals to camp everyday. Even as countless others got on the truck, went ahead to Vic Falls and often led me to being the last into camp each day. The milege this week was long, 152km, 185km and 152km. I was really sick so this didn't make the week easier. It did help me to move the congestion in my chest, as the riding caused me to cough a whole lot. We had a campsite last week that got invaded by ants and everyone woke up in the night covered in biting ants inside the tents...I was really sick so I remember waking up in a sort of feverish dream and having a tonne of ants embedded in my armpit and all over my arms and legs. A couple of riders even left their tents and went to sleep on the truck. It was a long night.

We found this cute little cameleon on the road to Vic Falls and played with him for a little while. It made my riding day, especially since we had some dirt riding to do due to the construction that was going on.

200km riding day

There is nothing more daunting than waking up after a 152km day, knowing that you have a 200km riding day. For a lot of riders on the tour, this riding day will be the longest any of us have ever biked consecutively, however I am sure for many it won’t be the last. We woke up at “Mama Rules” campsite which was a nice overlander campsite with a pool (although I never saw it) and showers and and a bar and restaurant, pretty nice campsite for our first day in Zambia. Since passing over the border the landscape has changed (again) and the roads have become a little less maintained. They are bumpier and watching for large potholes in the road is essential to not have an accident. Plus the bike riders in this country seem to ride on the wrong side of the road. While it took some of us long enough to get used to riding on the left hand side of the road (since Kenya), now we need to get used to riding with other bikers coming directly at us.

The riding day began pretty good however at 40km I had my 21 flat tire in the form of a blow out. I quickly changed this out as I have become quite good at changing tires now and continued the ride. Lunch arrived at 84km and when I rode into lunch I realized I had a second flat tire (my 22 of the trip…)It was frustrating but Sam said that I could use his front wheel because he didn’t want to ride anymore. It worked out quite well because I didn’t want to change anymore tires for the day. The day went on and on kilometer after kilometer. I was lucky because I loaded a lot of podcasts and audio tapes onto my ipod shuffle. It is a long long way to ride on your own. I rode *almost* all day on my own which is a long ways and a lot of thinking time. At around 185 km one of my friends biked back to see if I was okay, he had already been to camp and then camp out to find me, it was really nice to have someone to ride with the last 15km. Camp actually ended up to be at 195, which was great for my legs but disappointing for the fact that I could have carried on to make the 200km. A very satisfying day, with a party waiting at camp for Tony’s 50th birthday and Juliana’s birthday… Drinks for all and a good rest before the rest of the week’s riding days of 124km, 152km and 108km respectively before reaching Lusaka (where there is apparently a Subway). Since our halfway mark for time and distance did not happen at the same time, we now have a lot of ground to cover to get to Capetown by May 15. The good news is that Botswana is very flat, the bad news is we have a lot of miles to cover within that time…

The last 5 days have taken a toll on riders. In five days we rode 720km and now we have another 500km to ride in the next three days to arrive in Victoria Falls for our double day off. A bunch of us are going to go into Zimbabwe to go to the world famous Vic Falls Hotel to rest. We have so many kilometers to cover still and people’s bodies.are getting tired.

Reflections on Malawi

Wow, another country completed. They have started to fly by at this point now… Malawi was beautiful and welcoming. There were a lot of children but they were relatively tame compared to what we are used to… The things I will remember of this country is the humidity, Lake Malawi (which I unfortunately did not get to dive in due to logistics), climbing the escarpment out of the Lake, and the difficult hilly days (not as bad as Ethiopia for climbing but close).There were also stark reminders that we are in a very poor country in Africa, the dozens of coffin shops at any area where there are shops, the dozens of AIDS signs and reminders of that and the children in ripped clothing lining the sides of the roads. Malawi defiantly gave Ethiopia a run for its money with the beautiful vistas and lush vegetation, it would have been nice to stay a few more days in this country. There will be lots of places I will need to come back and visit later on in my life when I am not so focused on biking. I will also remember Malawi as the country that we had to change the clocks. We now wake up at 4:20ish and are riding by 6:15. This usually means that we are at lunch by 9:00am. This really messes with your mind when you are so hungry again by like 2:00pm.

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.  

Into Malawi

The roads that took us out of Tanzania and into Malawi were amazing. Malawi has brought back flashbacks and déjà views of Ethiopia as children line the streets shouting, the only bonus is the fact that the children do not throw things. The views have turned to more lush rainforest type landscapes, with banana trees and leafy greens. It is very very humid and hot which makes riding a bit more of a challenge. Sleeping is also difficult as it has been storming in the night so we have to have our tent flys on, which makes it like a sauna in the tents.

We saw this “End of the Dangerous Zone” sign along side the road as we left Tanzania however at no point was there a sign that told us we were “Entering the Dangerous Zone” so we were quite surprised to see this sign as we rolled by… Well thankfully we made it out of the Dangerous Zone, with no problems. We are on our day off beside Lake Malawi which is a massive freshwater lake. There is a chance of the parasite Bilharzia in the water (a small microscopic snail that swims up your ureter and causes you to excrete small amounts of blood in the urine until you are anemic and it can only be gotten rid of with a special antibiotic), also my toe is questionably infected right now from where the nail came off, but alas I could not resist the turquoise water and it was such an amazing swim that I decided I would be okay with getting the parasite for the cost of the amazing swim. I got another bout of sickness this morning and spent half of my rest day throwing up. We now have a lot of climbing (uphill) to do, to get out of the valley that Lake Malawi is in, up to Lilongwe in 4 days, just over 650km to our next rest day where I am hoping to do some scuba diving if all goes well. I just booked my next hotel break in Victoria Falls which we will stay in the Zimbabwe side, hopefully logistically it all works out, it is our last two day rest days in a row before the end of the trip,