September 1, 2025

Day 119. 05 September. Msata to Bagamoyo. 71 km. 5 Hours. 360m up. 600m down. The lodge gave me a huge breakfast, including a portion of goat stew to go with the omelette. The owner came and introduced himself as I was leaving. He was a retired Brigadier General in the Tanzania army who built this lodge on leaving the army. He was a large, gentle, affable soul who I could not imagine leading troops into guerilla warfare. Once I left the lodge I had to cycle the 2 kilometres north on the T2 into the centre of Msata to a T junction. The main T2 continued north and connected to virtually the whole of north Tanzania and also Kenya. The road I wanted was the T35 and it met the T2 here at Msata. Unfortunately it was nowhere near as quiet as I hoped as all the traffic from the north of Tanzania and Kenya came down the T2 but then left it here if they were going to Dar-es-Salem, which most were, and followed the T35. It looked like I was going to have to put up with 65 kilometres of traffic. However this road did have a better verge than the T1 and T2 of yesterday.

It was not an enjoyable cycle though. The traffic was quite fast and there were many more buses than yesterday and fewer trucks. The trucks were actually a benefit on a road like this as they tended to slow everything up. For the first 30 kilometres or so the landscape was quite dry and barren with few villages or towns enroute. Those that were there lined the road and owed half their existence to selling produce or meals to passing traffic, and then the other half to the meagre agriculture.

Slowly as I travelled further east the villages became more prosperous. There was still little agriculture as there was not the necessary water but the crops were according to this like coconuts, teak plantations and even pineapples. The maize in the fields was all harvested and dried and now just fodder for the tended cattle and goats. I passed a huge steel mill beside the road, which was Chinese owned and then dropped down to the Ruvu River as I neared Bagamoyo. I considered the steel mill and how any in the UK or USA, tariffs or not, could really compete with it in this global economy.

This large river had split into a number of channels as it crossed the coastal floodplain before reaching the sea. It was intensively farmed with well organised rice fields across the plain as far as I could see. There were people working in the fields and many scarecrows to keep the birds off. I saw quite a few kingfishers on the electricity cables, mostly white and black, but one was a huge black one with a rapier beak as long as its body. Beside the river channels were gravel banks where the Maasai herdsmen had gathered their cattle for the afternoon. They were the larger Sanga type of cattle as opposed to the Zebu type and they all had huge horns. I had to pass a few on the road earlier in the last week and although the cattle might be docile the horns were something to avoid and even if the cow was flicking some flies from its head the tips of the horns moved considerably.

On the other side, the east side of the Ruva valley, the landscape rose very slightly to reach an imperceptibly shallow ridge which was the edge of Bagamoyo town. At last after some 4 hours I could get off the T35 highway and dive off down a side street into the town. I was initially very surprised to see the strong Arabian influence. Virtually everybody was dressed in long islamic robes. They must be very practical for this hot climate but then many women were in burkas which would not be that comfortable, especially black ones, in the heat of the day. There were small mosques on many streets and no signs of any churches. I cycled down for about 15 minutes stopping to look at my phone to home in on the Firefly lodge. As I approached it I came round one corner and saw something turquoise at the end of the street. It then dawned on me it was the sea. It was just at the end of the street and just to confirm it was the sea I saw a couple of white horses. I had to turn off down a side street to get to the Firefly lodge but knew I was getting close.

At the Firefly they had a room but it was more expensive than I bargained for and was twice what I had paid anywhere else on the trip so far. It looked like a nice place and potentially full of backpackers. I however decided to check out one other place which was the Millennium Breeze. It was twice the price of the Firefly and seemed to be for rich businessmen from Dar-es-Salem. It was not my scene at all so it was back to the Firefly. Once back I unloaded the panniers into my room, which was only £48, and then went back to the empty bicycle.

I wheeled the bike down through the gardens to the gate at the bottom and opened it onto what I thought was the beach. However it was a thriving and busy fishing village with lots of shacks, hundreds of fisherman and many boats, all side to side along the beach. I managed to tread a route down to near the water. I asked one young guy if he spoke English but they all shook their heads and pointed to a small shack with a young Rastafarian outside. I asked him if he could take some photos and explained why. He told the others and I heard them all exclaiming “Namibia”. I gave the Rastafarian the phone and then carried the bike into the sea, having asked him to take as many photos as possible while I held the bike aloft out of the knee deep salty water of the Indian Ocean. It was the celebratory photo I wanted and he managed to capture some. I thanked him and then returned to the Firefly lodge with squelching shoes.

The lodge was quite quiet and I carried the bike up to the room and then had a great shower. For once I was not bothered if the water was warm or not as even the tap water was lukewarm. The water however was roasting, scalding even, and I managed to wash everything I needed. I then went down for a burger. By way of celebration I just had a crate full of passion sodas and some icecreams. I had intended to try and catch up with the blog but by the time the sun went down I was tired. After some 5,639 kilometres with over 40,000 metres of ascent and descent I could go to bed knowing I did not have to continue east. I will now spend a couple of days in Bagamoyo finishing the blog so it does not hang over me and then try and get some cardboard and tape to cobble together a bike box so I can book a ticket home in a few days time.

As I went up to the room I noticed what an extraordinary building the Firefly lodge was. From the outside it did not look much at all. There was about 50 metres of street frontage of an old 2 story building which looked tired. In the garden area on the other side of this were a large amount of Bohemian chill out areas each with its own unique day beds and cushioned areas. All of these were around a small clear clean pool. At the bottom of the garden before the gate to the fisherman’s shacks on the beach was a large open area shaded by trees where people could camp in their own vehicles or where the overland lorries with 10 off travellers parked every other night. However the real gem was the house itself. Behind that tired facade was an grand merchants house with cool balconies and huge rooms. There were shuttered windows on each side of the room to allow the sea breezes to pass through and keep the house cool. Upstairs there were perhaps 6 rooms and most were 30 or 40 square metres with high ceilings. When I asked more about the house I found out that the the merchant who lived here dealt in slaves up to just over 150 years ago and long after the Atlantic slave trade was banned in 1807 On the East coast of Africa the slave trade still flourished for another 50 years, with the Arabs of Zanzibar shipping slaves to the Middle East. The merchants here at Bagamoyo bought slaves which had been captured from the interior, and shipped them to Zanzibar where they were sold on. David Livingstone was instrumental in getting this East African slave trade banned in 1873 by lobbying the British and French governments and this is part of the reason he is reverred in East Africa.

Day 118. 04 September. Morogoro to Msata. 111 km. 9 Hours. 1110m up. 1360m down. After a restful day at Mama Pierina’s lodge in Morogoro I was ready for the final stretch. I was not really looking forward to it. There was little I could do to avoid the main road without going on unknown footpaths. Initially I had 20 kilometres of the Old-Dar es-Salam road which was not consumed by the building of the New Dar-es-Salem road or the T1 highway. It was essentially a continuation of the road I had been on from Kipera to Morogoro a few days ago. It took me a few kilometres to get out of the city with ever diminishing traffic until there were just tuk tuks and motorbikes left. To the south were the Uluguru Mountains which rose steeply, their heads buried in the low cloud on this overcast morning. These lofty summits, some 2 kilometres above me, caught rain from the winds coming off the Indian Ocean and apparently there was never a month there was no precipitation up there. The streams which came down its jungle-clad slopes nourished agriculture at the mountain’s base. Without these mountains there would not be anything like this level of agriculture or population.

To the north of the track I was on was a more arid plain which did not have the benefit of the mountain streams. It had to rely on the seasonal rains to nourish the crops during the wet months from November to March. After 15 kilometres or so I reached the village of Pangawe. Here there was a small river from the mountains which was diverted into the rice fields, and even at this time at the end of the dry season there was enough water to irrigate the rice and crops which were growing beside the track. I stopped here just to see the rest of the way towards the main T1 road and have a soda. My route from here was on a track which got smaller and smaller until it was a footpath. This then went under the new electric railway connecting Morogoro with Dar-es-Salem and finally rose up to the main road. My rural sojourn was over.

As soon as I was on the road my attitude changed. I was no longer ambling along, curious at my surroundings and stopping to look at things. I was now on a mission to get through the next 45 kilometres unscathed on the T1 highway. No sooner had I crossed the road to the east bound side a convoy of some 15 lorries all rumbled past their wheels spinning quite slowly, but with unstoppable force, just a meter or a meter and a half away. The lorries moved so slowly it took them 4-5 seconds to overtake me and I could see what they were carrying, from sacks of rice and maize, to half a million dollars of copper plate. The lorries however were predictable, slow, lumbering beasts similar to those giant herbivorous dinosaurs, like a herd of brontosaurus. Once they passed came the intercity buses, desperate to keep a timetable and pick up passengers before their rivals did. They were eager and frustrated and flew along like a hungry Tyranosaurous Rex looking for a meal. These beasts were the real danger on the road and I was constantly looking in my mirror to see when they were approaching and then I would go off the road verge and sometimes even onto the earth beside it.

It was an unpleasant 45 kilometres and I was frequently looking at my odometer counting down the distance. The only redeeming feature of the road were the roadside markets and stalls every 2-5 kilometres. Here the road builders had widened the road to allow for lorries to rest but the locals had commandeered the rest places to sell their produce. When a lorry or car did stop here it parked on the verge so I would have to wait until the carriage way was clear before overtaking. During the 2-3 hours I did not really stop and take any photos, but was just on a mission to get to the turn off as soon as possible. Eventually I reached Ubenazomozi and was able to pull off the road and find a cafe. Here I ordered chips and eggs, a popular meal like a chip omelette.

I still had another 50 kilometres to go today but the next section was on a small gravel road. It was the long side of a triangle or hypotenuse between two tarmac highways. It was great to be able to relax and look around again. I could veer into the middle of the track if I wanted, and stop at will to take photos. Sleepy hamlets appeared and herders followed their animals up the middle of the road. This is what cycling in Africa should be about and the previous stressful 3 hours was really just a link between rural sections which I had to grin and bear. This track however was anything but flat and as the afternoon passed it got extremely hot. Some of the longer climbs in the lowest gear were very taxing and there was just some small relief at the top with a cooling breeze.

The hamlets and villages here were quite sparse and I only passed about 3 in the entire distance. There was virtually no agriculture at all and what there was, like long since harvested fields of maize, looked quite half hearted. These hamlets were primarily occupied by Maasai and their cattle, sheep, plus a few goats were grazing here. They have a disdain for agriculture and to be fair this land did not look that suitable for it. The Maasai houses here were different to the ones I had seen for most of the trip and made out of bricks. Here the houses were constructed from a wooden framework of sticks which were lashed or woven together in a framework leaving apertures of about 20 by 10 centimetres. These apertures were then filled with a clod of mud smeared onto and encompassing the sticks. It looked much easier, faster but much more temporary and short-lived than the brick houses elsewhere. Many had corrugated roofs and the rest grass roofs. The area around the houses was also quite barren and dusty with no flowers or shrubs planted. There were quite a few motorbikes on this stretch and most had Maasai tribesmen on them with their crimson and red robes flowing in the wind behind them. I assumed they were going from their homes to their herds to watch over them for a spell and relieve the others who were already there.

After 3 hours on this small track I reached Lugoba at 1700 in the afternoon. It was getting late but I still had 2 hours of daylight to do the final 15 kilometres up to Msata. This was another large road, the T2, although it was nowhere as busy as the T1. At Lugoba there were dozens of trucks already parked up for the evening and at first glance it made a frightening sight. However, as I left the town I saw very few lorries and buses and even the cars and 4X4 were not that frequent. The road was reasonably flat and the small breeze was now behind me so I made good time up the dull road. The only excitement came when I had to cycle through an area where the grasses were burning at the side of the road and the flames were 2-3 metres high. Apart from having to hold my breath as I passed the smoke the heat was terrific. I reached the lodge I had earmarked at 1800 quite exhausted. However they had great showers and also large portions. There was no way I was going to write anything in the evening as I was too tired and put it off until after I had finished in Bagamoyo.

Day 117. 03 September. Morogoro Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was a bit behind with my writing and generally felt a bit tired. I had a cough which I was sure was from the dust of the earth roads and the dry air, and occasional fumes from roadside fires or passing trucks. So last night when I was in the warm shower in the spacious room in the quiet tranquil guesthouse I decided to spend another day. When morning came I was quite relaxed and had a lazy breakfast chatting with Dimitrea.

After breakfast I went to look at the airlines which flew from Dar-es-Salem to Edinburgh, and of which ones could take a bike. It seemed that KLM, Emirates and Turkish Airlines were the only contenders, and of these KLM had the best times without a long wait at their hub in Dubai or Istanbul respectively.

With that research done I then turned to the blog. I was reasonably up to date anyway but I could just not get started on yesterday, and had some sort of writer’s block which I eventually overcame as I started bashing away on the keyboard. Perhaps the greatest curse of this trip was writing the blog. If I was too tired I simply could not do it and then that would mean I would have 2 or perhaps even 3 days to do at once in the near future. This would entail a day off, which to be fair my body also needed especially if there was a 100 km or 1000 metre ascent day previously.

I had it finished by dinner and then could chat to the other 2 guests in the evening. However blog or not I always felt tired and ready for bed around 2100. I felt a bit guilty I had not even left the hotel compound all day as I am sure Morogoro was a city well worth exploring. Tomorrow I would start the final 180 kilometres, a good proportion of which was on larger main roads, which I was not looking forward to that much but needed to do if I was to have a continuous journey under my own stream.

Day 116. 02 September. Doma to Morogoro. 75 km. 7.5 Hours. 620m up. 640m down. There was no breakfast at the Kilimsuli Lodge, and that was perhaps a good thing as it was pretty filthy. However, there was fried chipatis and hot water for coffee in the roadside restaurants nearby. I had 3 chipatis and 2 of my own coffees and was ready to go by 0900. As I was packing up Cheng appeared from his room wheeling his fully packed bike down the narrow corridor. He was just going a short distance today so I said goodbye and wheeled my bike across the busy T1 road to the east side and then found the road to Msongozi. I cycled down it and after 50 metres I was already in a different world where the stench of diesel and fried foods and the noise of the traffic was soon forgotten as tomato fields appeared on each side of the track.

It was about 14 km to Msongozi on a rough stony track, no different to the ones I had been on for the last 2 weeks really. I was quite surprised how arid it was all of a sudden and apart from the irrigated tomato fields and some maize fields everything was brown and parched. There were quite a few baobab trees on the undulating hillsides and this is always a sign that the climate is dry most of the time. There was a village after a few kilometres but it looked quite poor but with plenty of bougainvillea bushes to brighten up the single dusty street. Women in headscaves and one even in a full burkha carried large yellow water buckets on their heads from the various hand pumps back to their relatively small brick houses. The men were almost suspicious as I cycled through and there were no shouts and the silence was a bit unnerving. It was one of the very few places in Africa where I was not a welcome novelty. After a good kilometre I was through the village and then heading down the gentle hill on the other side.

Soon I saw cattle in the fields and a few Maasai in their traditional robes and sandals tending them. There all had a large knife and also their club, or rungu. This club was a 50 centimetre long stick which had a lump at the end and would be a formidable weapon. As I passed the Maasai they always waved and smiled. They had a confidence which the muslim inhabitants of the last village lacked. I expect that down the millennia of looking after cattle they have had to protect them from predators and thieves and as a result are quite ready to fight. I think today in Tanzania they easily find work as security guards and watchmen if they are not herding anymore.

As I left the irrigated fields of the muslim village the landscape became very dry and there was no greenery at all. The leaves on the small trees and shrubs all seemed to have dropped off and I think this was the vegetation’s strategy of coping with the dry season. It was essentially to shut down as deciduous trees do in the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere. In the occasional dry river course there were tall coconut trees and other green trees which must have had their roots into the moisture, deep in the sand. Before I reached Msongozi I passed another village where the people were much more friendly and there was plenty of “how are you” shouted as I went past, by kids and men alike.

After a good hour I reached Msongozi. It was a village a little lost on an isolated plain at least 14 kilometres from the main road. It was very much a sleepy farming village and there was a curious plant, a 2 meter high bush, which bore pea type pods growing everywhere. I looked them up later and found out they were called pigeon peas and they grew on perennial bushes. This and the irrigated vegetables seemed to be the main crops, but I saw fields of harvested maize and sunflowers. Maasai were tending their cattle and sheep as they grazed on the stubble. The village had a population of a couple of thousand inhabitants and it also had a small hospital or health clinic. I paused for a drink here and chatted with the shop owner before moving on.

For the next 20 odd kilometres I turned north now and headed up the Melela Mlandizi. The route on a rough road took me through a very inhospitable landscape. The trees were mostly bare and the ground cover virtually non-existent. The earth was a reddish brown and looked sterile. The only redeeming feature was the towering Uluguru Mountains to the east which looked very high and towered over everything but they were some distance away still, and looked lost in the haze. As I cycled north in this near alien landscape I passed a few small mines. I was not sure if they were mining for minerals or they were quarries for a white stone, possibly quartzite. After a few undulations I reached the roadside town of Melela Mlandizi and cycled up the side street where Maasai herders had parked their motorbikes and were sitting outside various groceries drinking soda. I joined a group at one and chatted with them and was pleased to see they were in awe of my nomadic cycle across Africa. At the end of the street I could see lorries roar past like roving dinosaurs and knew I would soon be amongst them.

For the next 10 kilometres I had to cycle on the main road as there was no option. However I was pleasantly surprised that there was something of a verge and the lorries were nowhere nearly as frequent as I feared. Furthermore there was a gentle downhill run so I got up quite a bit of speed and covered the first half in about 15 minutes. On the other side of the road were larger parking areas and there were Maasai tribesmen trying to coax drivers, especially lorry drivers, into them, where there were large cuts of meat displayed on sticks for sale. Much of it looked like the shoulder of a sheep or goat. After 10 kilometres I reached an uphill climb on a long sweeping bend and could then escape the main road and head off to the SE on a smaller dirt road down to the small town of Kipera.

As I bounced down the earth road for 5 kilometres or so to Kipera I suddenly noticed just how close the Uluguru Mountains now were. While they were still in the haze they loomed large above the town. Their highest peaks were around 2500 metres, some 2 kilometres higher than I was. These mountains were a barrier to the moisture laden ocean winds and forced the air to rise creating rain. I read that it can rain in any month of the year up there on the high montane clad peaks and that meant that the streams which flowed down from their heights could irrigate all year round. There was plenty of evidence to see that was the case and there were fields of maize growing well under coconut trees and these fields were being watered by people with large hosepipes.

Once at Kipera I had another stop and was thrilled to see that there was now smooth tarmac. I assumed this would be the case for the next 20 kilometres as I followed what was the Old Dar-es-Salem Road. It went past a few large training colleges and a hospital and was bustling with pedestrians, cyclists, motorbikes and tuk tuks. However after some 5 kilometres the road veered off to the main highway and I now had 20 kilometres of quite bumpy track along the base of the mountains all the way to the outskirts of Morogoro. Although the road was in poor shape and quite narrow it was reasonably busy as it passed a large army camp, an animal research centre with many cows and even a few camels and finally a University. It took nearly 3 hours from leaving the main highway to complete the 30 kilometres and finally reach the large city of Morogoro.

Morogoro has a population of over half a million inhabitants and was the biggest city I had been in since Lilongwe in Malawi, which I just passed through. However Morogoro looked quite wealthy with a few taller buildings of 10 stories or more. Because of the now looming Uluguru Mountains the plains around it are well watered and there is a thriving agriculture to support the population. With the training colleges and the University it felt more sophisticated than anything else I had been in since Windhoek. There are also good train links, including a new electric train, to Dar-es-Salem less than two hours away. I imagine people often come up here from this major port to escape the heat and turmoil. I cycled through the city on wider roads and round a couple of roundabouts homing in on Mama Pierina, a recommended mid range hotel. I navigated using Google Maps as I was on the old quiet Dar es-Salem Road and not the truck laden highway, which bypassed the old city centre to the north through more modern suburbs. I found the hotel quite easily and met Dimetria, the welcoming owner. She was of Greek and Italian parents and had been running the hotel for decades since she inherited it from her parents. I got a nice room for 40000 shillings, (£12) with a large table and great hot water. Dimetria was about my age and quite a character with perfect English. There were a few other white travellers at the hotel and I felt very much at home. I had not seen another European since the disabled centre at Ikonda at least 2 weeks ago. Once settled in I decided to spend a rest day here and write the blog tomorrow, so after a dinner of genuine moussaka I went to bed without doing any digital chores.

Day 115. 01 September. Mikumi to Doma. 53 km. 3 Hours. 240m up. 220m down. I had arranged to have breakfast at 0700 and went up for it then, and it was ready. It was good with plenty of hibiscus flower fruit juice, fresh fruit and eggs on toast. The Mukumi Lodge and Resort was just right for £25 for dinner, bed and breakfast. I still had the blog to do from yesterday so went back to my room at 0800 and typed for the next 2 hours until checkout time. There was no worthwhile signal here so I did not waste time trying to upload it.

I had spoken to the manager the evening before and he said the main T1 road was the best way to get to Dar-es-Salem or Bagamoyo. He gave me an assurance there was a good verge, he said the lorries only travel by night and he said the other way I was considering was much longer. I took his word and assurance with a pinch of salt and as it turned out he was speaking nonsense, but I had already made up my mind to go through the park to Doma and then the small roads which different cyclists told me about. Once I left I weaved through the sandy side streets of Mikumi for a good kilometre before reaching the tarmac T1. Here the manager’s assurances all fell by the wayside as there was a queue of lorries waiting to go through a roadblock and the verge was a broken shambles with a ragged edge.

However, as soon as I left the town I entered Mikumi National Park and there were large signs saying the speed limit was 70 km per hour in the day, and 50 km per hour in the night and there were fines for not adhering to it. There were also signs for fines if you hit and killed an animal and some of these were a lot. The cheapest was a guinea fowl at US$150 and the most expensive was a giraffe at US$15,000. This would have been a huge amount of money to a Tanzanian. As I entered the National Park I noticed the traffic was adhering to the speed limit, especially the trucks.

I did not see anything except for a couple of warthogs for the first few kilometres and then suddenly there was a giraffe at the side of the road. As I watched it another 2 crossed the road and joined it and then as a truck was coming in the opposite direction another darted across the road and the truck had to stop quite sharply. If it was going any faster it would have hit the giraffe and been severely out of pocket. I watched them for about 5 minutes aware they might be the last wildlife I would see.

I noticed that the trucks would come along in convoys with about 3-10 in each batch. Then there would be nothing for about 5 minutes before the next lot came. It made it quite easy to navigate the road and when I saw a convoy approaching in my mirror I pulled right over to the side and let them pass. Most gave me good space but I could never be sure there was not an intercity bus or a 4×4, both of which were more gung ho, overtaking them and preventing them from giving me space. The road surface for me was quite fast and I managed to keep an average speed of around 20 km per hour. It was mostly due to the flat road and the lack of headwind. There were a few more animals I saw, notably gazelle and baboons. The latter were quite road savvy and looked up and down first and then ventured alongside the road to see if there were any morsels discarded.

On each side of the road the grass had been burnt. I am sure this was deliberate to prevent a fire spreading from one side to the other. The fires would have been set earlier in the year when it was not so dry and then probably with a fire crew in attendance as I saw in Botswana. If there was a fire now there was a good 40 metres on each side with no grass. Beyond this scorched area there was taller dry grass, perhaps a metre high and slowly swaying in the thermals and breezes. I am sure there were gazelle hidden here and there, and also perhaps lions although I should imagine they would be much further from the road.

I did also see some buffalo and some wildebeast but they were some distance from the road. About half way there was a main gate into the park where visitors would have to pay a fee to drive in. From what I had seen so far this was not a prime park by any means and a poor substitute for Chobe in Botawana or South Luangwe in Zambia. The brown arid landscaper looked very uninviting and it did not look like it would sustain many herbivores. As I travelled further east it got even drier and there were more and more baobab trees appearing. I passed one huge tree whose lower branches were grazed in a perfectly flat line. There were 10 giraffes sheltering from the sun under its vast canopy. Much quicker than I thought I reached the east edge of the park after 50 kilometres and I knew that the roadside town of Doma was just after this. In the last two kilometres the road did not improve and the verge was still very poor, however the traffic remained quite slow.

Doma was just a roadside stop. It had a large vegetable, tomato and sweet potato essentially, at the west end in some dusty patches beside the road. Then the town itself started with a collection of shanties and these graduated to a row of local fast food outlets. Every restaurant was just selling chips and small chunks of meat barbecued on a stick over a charcoal fire. There must have been 10 such restaurants on each side and none looked very alluring. There were trucks, cars, motorbikes and 4X4’s parked up along the widened street. There was a single guesthouse here called the Kilimsuli Lodge and I had already earmarked it as a place to stay.

There was a Swiss cyclist, Joerg, who had been a week to two weeks ahead of me ever since Livingstone in Zambia. I had picked his brains in the last few days and he gave me some good tips about riding along the T1 main road. He said that Mikumi National Park was tolerable because the traffic was slow and the unpleasantness of nose to tail lorries was offset by the sightings of animals. However after Doma he said it was terrible and gave me a few alternatives. It was due to these alternatives Joerg mentioned that gave me the confidence to come this way as I knew the manager at the lodge last night was quite naive and a bit clueless about my questions, as I suspected he might be. If it was not for Joerg I would have gone a different but longer way via Kilosa, Mziha and Mbwewe. It was only 1400 in the afternoon but my aim this afternoon was to plot the exact route and send it to my gadgets.

As I went down the slight lane and pulled the brakes at the Kilimsuli Lodge another cyclist arrived 5 seconds later. He was Cheng and had been cycling for the last 18 months from China, around SE Asia, then Nepal and now a great circular trip in Africa. He had also just come from Mikumi and was going to Dar-es-Salem but he was now going slowly as he had 14 days to do 300 kilometres. We both took a room and then went for some chicken and chips in one of the many restaurants and swapped tales. I then went back to the room and had a snooze. When I woke I spent about 3 hours plotting my route to Msata and then to Bagamoyo where I will finish. It is about 200 kilometres to Masta and of that I will have 50 on the T1 Highway in two different sections, and 150 km on smaller roads which is as good as I hoped. Once this was done I knocked on Cheng’s door but there was no answer so I wrote the blog and hoped I would see him in the morning before I went off on a tiny road to the east.

Day 114. 31 August. Ifakara to Mikumi. 109 km. 8 Hours. 710m up. 460m down. After breakfast, where I was reprimanded for taking two eggs, I packed and set off just after 0900. I did not really have a goal for the day and would just let it unfold as I went. I carried on north through the rest of Ifakara and then after a few kilometres of busy urban traffic, mostly motorbikes and tuk tuks, I got to a roundabout on the very fringe of town. After going round it I suddenly found myself on a beautiful, flat, smooth tarmac road with a large shoulder. It was relatively quiet also. I had forgotten how quick new tarmac was and I was blasting along at 20 km per hour with the tyres back up to 40 PSI. At one specially constructed bus stop was the police officer who interviewed me yesterday. I had a quick chat with her and said I had put my account of the crash on my blog if she wanted the address. She said that because I did not see the crash it was of limited use and they are pursuing another line of inquiry.

Although the road was generally quiet with vehicles, the verge was busy with cyclists and pedestrians. Many were heading off to the various churches. Everybody was dressed up and looking smart. The women on their older “sit up and beg” bicycles looked elegant in their flowing dresses and a scarf wrapped around their neck and trailing in the wind like a Parisian. The men were in their suits and with polished shoes. I suppose all over the world people try and look their best for Sunday services and nowhere more so than Africa. I did hear some singing but in general the churches were a distance from the road. I had been told the best choirs and singing belong to the T.A.G. congregations and this is the Tanzania Assemblies of God, which is a fairly prolific church here.

As I headed out of town the superb road climbed a small ridge and I could get a view over the Kilombero Plain to the east. It was the lower or eastern half of the vast plain, split into two by the protrusion of a higher wedge of land at Ifakara. I could see the hills on the other side and I could see the vast floodplain between. It seemed there was agriculture on each side of this plain but in the middle there was a brown area where the channels were and it was liable to flood and this was where the wildlife was. There was a large lodge built in the style to cater for western tourists, with thatched cabins and a large open sided central dining area, also under thatch, about to open.

It was initially quite dry and parched here but as I cycled north the Udzungwa Mountains started to approach from the left hand side (north west) as they got closer so the landscape got greener. I think this was primarily due to the small streams which tumbled down their flanks and then flowed under the road and across the plain to reach the channels of the Kilombero River. The mountains rose so abruptly from the plain the air hitting them was forced to rise would have condensed releasing any moisture. The whole escarpment was verdant green and as I approached its main ramparts got even lusher with everything dripping in vegetation. I passed some lovely small vegetable plots on the side valley floors here which looked like they were nurseries, with the thriving small vegetables ready to be transplanted to larger gardens or fields when they were robust.

I also passed a sign with an elephant and an European Union flag on it and was curious about it. While I was taking a photo an man in camouflage came up to me and explained what it was. There was a large underpass under the road and fences on each side of the road funnelling into the underpass on each side. He explained this was a wildlife corridor which connected the Udzungwa Mountains on the west side with the vast Nyerere National Park on the east side, beyond the Kilonbero Floodplain across which there was also a wildlife corridor. He was a ranger and monitored movements. It seemed that elephants used the underpass regularly as it connected the lush, wet mountains with the more arid park and they migrated at certain times of year between the two. I noticed the funnel of fences into the underpass were electric and on the plain side there was lush vegetation, especially sugar cane, out of reach of the elephants and protected by a fence on each side of the corridor.

The road here was a delight to cycle along after the bumpy dusty roads of the last two weeks. It was quite built up on one side, the east side, where there was a continual series of villages. Beyond them were some small fields and then vast areas of sugar cane. The sugar cane was perhaps hundreds of thousands of hectares as it formed a band about 3-5 kilometres wide and maybe 60-70 long. I saw one factory belching black smoke towards the north of this band, near Ruaha. Here the sweet sappy stems were crushed and then the crushed stems were fed into the furnace to evaporate some of the liquid and turn the sap into syrup or even raw sugar. The sugar industry here was obviously a big employer and it looked like this sustained the population rather than subsistence farming – which I did not see that much of. There was the occasional rice threshing mill but nothing like what I had seen in the 3 days before Ifakara around Mlimba and Mbingu. I guess the sugar estates here had bought or acquired all the farmers’ lands and turned them into employers of their industry.

I was getting parched riding in the mid afternoon sun and stopped at a couple of places for a soda. In a lot of the villages there were large gatherings which looked like weddings. It was obviously wedding season as some villages had two parties on this Sunday afternoon. If it was not a wedding then it was a very flamboyant church service. As I went north, and especially around Ruaha I noticed there were more and more muslims, to the extent that the men in a head cap and long flowing shirts and women in headscarves outnumbered those without. However everybody mixed fluently and in the Christian African local grocer I was in there were plenty of Muslim customers. I only passed one mosque where there was a call to prayer and the iman was singing it himself rather than using a scratched gramophone record or digital recording. His voice was powerful but a little out of tune.

North of Ruaha, where there was a large river across the road, the villages continued for 10 kilometres but then started to peter out. The Udzungwa Mountains started to diminish and withdrew from the roadside. They also looked more arid now and not covered in the lush vegetation as earlier in the day. However the sugar cane was now on both sides of the road in smaller fields. I think these fields were cultivated by private farmers looking for a cash crop, rather than the large estates which employed all its labour. The area was not nearly as densely populated and there were just a few smaller villages scattered about in the undulating fields.

As I left them and headed further north towards Mikumi the road, which was an older tarmac road without the smooth surface and magnificent verges south of Ruaha, started to climb up a forested valley. There had been baboons all day venturing onto the road to retrieve sticks of sugar cane which had fallen from lorries or search for scraps of food but now they thrived in the forest on each side of the road. The stream got smaller and smaller as I climbed until it was eventually dry. The road crossed this stream bed about 10 times, all on very narrow bridges and without any sort of parapet and a 5-10 metre drop onto the rocks or sandbanks on the streambed below. It would have been very easy to cycle or drive off the edge totally unimpeded.

At the top of this valley the road reached a plateau which it crossed for a few kilometres to reach the larger town of Mikumi. The town sat astride the T1 highway and this might be the reason it has thrived. The highway connects Dar-es-Salem, the biggest port in East Africa, with Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Congo and even Rwanda and is busy with nose to tail trucks. I would have to cycle it tomorrow through the Mikumi National Park before escaping on smaller roads to the east as it approached the coast. I had to ride on a two kilometre stretch through the town to reach the Mikumi Lodge and Resort and it was busy and stressful. At last I escaped off it and cycled through sandy lanes, past schools, small shops and houses to reach the lodge. I had hoped to find more people here but I was the only guest. I got a lovely welcome drink of hibiscus and melon which was so cold it gave me a small headache after 5 glasses. I then got a nice cabin with copious amounts of hot water. I sat on my own in the empty restaurant for dinner. Despite a coffee I could not stay awake to write and went to bed early at 2100 under the novel mosquito net. The lodge was good value and I suspect the western safari type guests were at one of the more expensive lodges in town.

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August 15, 2025

Day 113. 30 August. Mbingu to Ifakara. 62 km. 6 Hours. 210m up. 220m down. I was up at 0700 and then went for breakfast. Today the Sisters gave me two pancakes, a large omelette, a bowl of fried plantains and as much milky coffee as I wanted. It was exactly what I wished for. I packed up soon afterwards and then left at 0830. Initially I went to see if I could see anything of the large convent next door but it was all behind closed gates. There was not even a sign on the gates to indicate there was a convent here. Not being able to see much I turned round and headed for Mbingu and the main track which was an easy 2 kilometres away. I had let some of the air out of my tyres, and instead of 40 psi I was running them at 30 psi and it made all the difference to smoothing out the stony surface, and I glided along with a spring in my step. The rest day at the retreat had done me the world of good.

I crossed a bridge over a stagnant stream and then entered Mbingu again. It was quite a scruffy town and it was difficult to imagine that the refined Convent and Retreat was just down the lane. There was another guesthouse in this small town but I did not see it and I don’t think it could have given the Retreat any competition. Before long I was leaving the last of the stalls and heading out into the countryside again. I had only gone about 5 kilometres before I crossed a small girder bridge over a brown river which drained an arc of the Udzungwa Mountains to the north. Just after it was a stretch of irrigated fields, mostly with maize. The maize was planted in many places and a lot of farmers were in these fields weeding their crops. Most were using the digging hoe with the long handle and it was by far the most common form of implement in farming. The next was a slasher which was a curved machete on a sturdy stick which was swung from a height and would go through a 3 centimeter diameter log. Everybody also carried a normal machete and this was used for everything like collecting firewood, harvesting bananas and plantains, and I am sure as some sort of defence but there were no threats here, neither human or animal.

As I continued east there was a bit of traffic on the road and it was very dusty. The motorbikes kicked a bit up but the larger vehicles were the main culprits. The dust coated all the vegetation beside the road with a reddish brown hue. There was a correlation between how fast a vehicle was going and how much dust it produced and the infrequent 4X4 were the worst. Suddenly I saw one coming towards me going really fast, well over 100 km per hour, which on this road was extreme. There were clouds of dust behind it. I gestured for him to slow down. It was a white Toyota landcruiser, without a roof rack and without letters on the side. I pulled my hoodie up over my mouth and cycled into the cloud. As I cycled through it and it cleared I noticed there was another girder bridge 100 meters ahead.

There was something on the bridge and it seemed strange. As I got closer I realized it was a person lying down. As I approached him he sat up, but seemed totally bewildered. Then I noticed there was a motorbike on its side and jammed into the girders which stopped it going off the edge into the stream below. Then I noticed there was another person at the east end of the bridge and she was an older lady perhaps in her 50 or 60 and she was groaning and on her back. It did not take long to work out what had happened. The landcruiser and motorbike were both travelling in the same direction towards Mbingu and they got to the narrow bridge at the same time. The landcruiser was going much faster and overtook the motorbike and hit it, and as it did so knocked the bike over. It must have known it hit the motorbike and caused the crash but rather than hang around and help as he was morally and legally obliged to do he decided to bolt and hope the motorbike rider and passenger did not recognize the vehicle. It was a hit and run essentially and that is the reason he was going so fast when passed me; to escape the scene.

Within a minute there were a few more motorbikes around and we blocked off each end of the bridge. The motorbike riders went to the two injured people while I and another pulled the motorbike from the girders, got it upright and wheeled it off the bridge. There was soon a bus at each end of the bridge and the passengers went to help. The young man who was the motorbike driver looked like a really strong tough guy but he was a bit bloody on a bare foot and his leg. A few men got him standing and then escorted him over to a motorbike and sat him behind the rider while another passenger got behind him so he could not fall off backwards. He was pinned between two people and then the bike drove off, presumably to the nearby health clinic.

I tried to explain what happened to one man who was early on the scene and was quite involved in the rescue. He was on the phone to someone and I could hear him say “cruiser” a few times. Hopefully he was asking people further west to stop, or at least get the number plate, of the escaping culprit. Google translate did not seem to work that well but I think he had already grasped what had happened. In the meantime they managed to get the older lady onto the back of another motorbike and pinned her between the driver and a passenger. There was a lot of groaning though and she was in pain as if she had broken a limb. I was surprised they did not commandeer one of the minibuses for half an hour to help her to the health clinic. When she had gone there were a few people milling around, but there was little I could do. In fact I had not done that much at all despite being first on the scene. Those who arrived just after me were so efficient, responsible and helpful, and knew Swahilli, that it made me redundant. The only person who acted shamefully was the culprit who fled in his landcruiser.

The whole scenario played on my mind a bit for the next hour and I could think of little else as I went through a few villages. In one of them I saw one of the main helpers and we greeted each other. Soon though it started to recede from the forefront of my mind and I began to observe the landscape again. The Udzungwa Mountains were now a long way to the north and I was well onto the floodplain and in the middle of an intensive rice growing area. There was no rice at the moment but there were plenty of ponds of water beside the road and tiny trickles in the stream but not enough to irrigate rice. Its cultivation here would obviously have to wait until the rainy season was in full swing to soak the fields. Here and there some Maasai herdsmen were tending their cattle which were grazing on the stubble. The Maasai cattle had absolutely huge horns, some almost a meter long on each side. It was very tempting to photograph the Maasai but I did not want to intrude or get into a discussion about payment.

I passed rice mills and threshing plants frequently as I passed through villages heading to Ifakara. In one of them an ambulance came up behind me with its siren blazing and lights flashing. It was the same as the speeding Landcruiser I had seen earlier but this one had the light on the roof, while the other had nothing, not even a roof rack. I then passed a barrier and was approaching Ifakara when I noticed a policewoman under a tree sitting on a chair. As I approached she got up and walked to the edge of the road and flagged me down. She said something but I did not understand so I got the phone out and she spoke Swahili into it which the phone then translated. She said “I want you to tell me about the accident”. Obviously the news had travelled fast and the authorities were on the ball and investigating already. I used Google to translate what I thought had happened but I don’t think it translated well as she looked unconvinced. Perhaps it was when I said ”I arrived 30 seconds after the accident” she thought I was no use as a witness. But the driver of the white landcruiser was a marked man now. She explained that the ambulance which passed me was taking the older lady passenger from the health clinic near the accident to the hospital for further treatment.

After the police interview I crossed a few more rice growing areas in the increasingly brown and dried landscape and then entered the outskirts of Ifakara. It was a larger town, a district capital, with a population of around 200,000 I guess. It was not hectic and chaotic as I feared but quite calm, with plenty of small lanes and trees. I cycled through a few of them to get to the Ifakara Health Institute Main House, which was a lodge and restaurant for the Health Institute. However the lodge was busy and quite noisy and the room opened onto the bar area. So I left and went past the St Francis Regional Referral Hospital where I guess the older lady on the motorbike was now. It looked like a very new, well organised and up to date hospital. I think it shares links with the convent and retreat I was at this morning. I am also sure both the convent and hospital here have links with a Catholic order in Switzerland and have had for nearly a century. Next to it was the main Catholic church in Ifakara and I am sure I met the priest or even bishop from this church yesterday at the retreat. I tried one more lodge, The Cliften, which looked like it was an office, and then settled on the Mountain Peak Hotel which ticked all the boxes. I had intended to spend an extra day here but have now abandoned that idea and will split the 130 kilometres to Mikumi town on the T1 highway into two days instead.

That brings to an end the penultimate Section 09. West Central Tanzania. It has been one of the best but also one of the hardest. What I really liked about it were the kind, straight-forward, hard-working people all of whom made me feel welcome but without going over the top or with a hidden agenda. I also loved the countryside and the very varied agriculture and land use from the fruit orchards, timber and tea to the rice and potato fields. However it was hard with over 10,000 metres of ascent and descent in a little over two weeks, and much of that was on dirt roads. It was one of the most rewarding sections.

Day 112. 29 August. Mbingu Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I initially slept very well but woke in the night with some coughing. This turned into a bit of a fit and I was awake for a good hour coughing. I am sure it is from the dust on the roads and I will have to find some sort of filter or mask. After that I slept again and did not wake until 0730 when the receptionist was knocking on the door to say breakfast was ready. It was a hearty meal with a large portion of chicken and potato stew, a pancake, an omelette and a lot of milky coffee. The Mbingu Sisters certainly don’t skip on portion sizes. I was joined at breakfast by Nestor and two other priests. At the other tables there was plenty of laughter and leg pulling. It was almost as if this was a group of lads on holiday rather than the spiritual elite of the Catholic Church in Kilombero Region. They were all a very good natured group and typical of all Tanzanians I have met so far who are very straightforward, more serious than their Malawian and Zambian brothers, but as friendly if not more so. If a couple had three sons the Tanzanians would be the eldest, reliable and steadfast, the Zambians the middle son, also dependable, and the Malawians would be the happy go lucky, slightly mischievous, but the most fun youngest son.

Unfortunately the priests and higher clergy were leaving today as their retreat had come to an end and they were going back to the parishes for the services on Sunday. I had enjoyed their company. When they had all got into their very expensive 4×4 vehicles and departed the place felt deserted and I was the only customer. There was the receptionist, who was a man, and then a few of the Sisters who worked in the kitchen preparing the meals. However, it did not matter as I had one task today and that was to catch up with the long overdue blog. I had written 4 of the 6 days I had to publish but I had to write another two and then caption about 50 photographs and publish them also. I knew it would take the rest of the day and I was not looking forward to applying myself to the relatively tedious task. In the meantime my legs would have a rest. I did about half of the writing when the receptionist called me for lunch.

The sisters had cooked me fish, perhaps on account of it being Friday. I am sure it was tilapia and it was whole in a tomato paste sauce. I derive little enjoyment from fish on account of the bones and not being able to shovel it in without getting a mouth full of soft mushy flesh and toothpicks, and the tilapia was the epitome of what I don’t like about fish. When I tried to debone it I only managed to get about half out and spent the rest of lunch picking the others from between my teeth. I am sure a more skillful fish affectionado would have dealt with it in a more refined way. The sauce, the rice and the green vegetables were much more to my taste.

After lunch I returned and did half the captions and loaded the photos before a small stroll round the tranquil grounds and a peek into the main conference room which the clergy had commandeered for the prayer room. I then went back to the photos and managed to finish them all before having a small snooze. After dinner, which was chicken and chips, which I could wolf down, I tidied up the last of the blog and then did some emails. Tomorrow would be the last day of this Section 09. West Central Tanzania when I reach Ifakara, where I will have another day off.

It will primarily be to investigate the route further. Of the 400 kilometres remaining on this Section 10. East Central Tanzania about 300 are on the infamous T1 Highway. It is the main road from perhaps the biggest port on the East coast of Africa into Tanzania and Central Africa beyond that, and is not really an option. However, I have got some feedback that there are dirt roads beside the main T1 and they are a tolerable solution. There is also the option of crossing the T1 at Mikumi and heading north on the B127 for 3-4 days to Mziha and then heading west to Bagomoyo on the Indian Ocean and the journeys end.

Day 111. 28 August. Chita to Mbingu. 56 km. 6 Hours. 250m up. 260m down. There was no breakfast at the Flying Sparrow Lodge so I was packed and ready to go by 0830 after a great night’s sleep. I could have gone the short kilometre back into Chita to find breakfast but decided to head north and find something enroute. After a couple of kilometres I came to a small hamlet with a couple of road side stalls. At one of them a man was selling small ripe yellow bananas and large green plantains. I stopped and bought 12 bananas for 1000 shillings. I ate half straight away, and half beside a stream 15 minutes later. I was wary about keeping them in the front pannier on this bumpy road as they soon turn to mush and burst out of their skins after bouncing about.

As I cycled north the escarpment of the Udzungwa Mountains rose steeply on my left (the north west). These jungle clad slopes were very imposing and wild, although they have suffered from human encroachment, particularly from poaching. To combat this the Uzungwa Scarp Nature Forest Reserve was created in 2016 to try and protect some of the endemic species that are found here, like the Red Colobus Monkey and rare small deer called duikers. As I cycled along here I could see waterfalls coming down the slopes, cascading over rare patches of bare rock. On my right (the south east) was the huge Kilombero flood plain. I said yesterday it was riven by channels which flood and threaten crops but these channels are along the central axis of the plains and between the mountains on each side and these central channels are barely perceptible slopes which are 5-10 kilometres wide and they are agricultural land. They are well watered from the streams which come down from the mountains, but apparently the soil is not that fertile, as the minerals which are washed down from the mountains lack nutrients. Nonetheless it is a prime rice growing area. As I continued north I passed hamlets and small villages where numerous tracks led off at right angles and headed onto this floodplain to the fields where the crops, primarily rice, were grown.

After a good hour I reached the village of Ikule with its rows of grocers, bike repair shops and small food stalls. It was well shaded by tall trees on each side and in the compounds of the homesteads, so much so that photography was almost futile as everything was in the dark shade. At the north end of the village I stopped to take a photo looking back up the track. Just then I was spotted by a group of younger children of about 6-8 years old who burst with excitement and started to chase me. They soon caught up as I cycled more slowly over the stony road. Initially there were about 6 but their numbers grew to about 20 as we caught up with others. I was amazed how easily they ran and even after 2 kilometres the original ones were not breaking sweat or puffing but jogging along quite easily at 10 kilometres per hour. I suppose this is what comes of living and playing outdoors all day without phones or digital games. These kids were not only supremely fit, but also happy and were joking with each other as they ran abreast of me. I left them at the gates of the school and continued north.

After another few kilometres I passed a group of ladies selling bananas and papaya. I had looked at a few papayas but they were always green, however these were ripe and quite yellow. I bought some bananas and a papaya. They cut it into quarters for me and gave me a spoon to scoop out the seeds and eat the flesh. It was delicious and exactly as a papaya should be. My hands were covered in juice but they had water and a cup to rinse them. I think they were primarily selling to the occasional bus which came this way. They were so cheerful I asked for a photo but as always people then lose their joy and become more serious so I could not capture their joy and laughter.

As I continued past the larger villages of Mngeta and Njagi the traffic started to get busier. It was still very little but what there was created clouds of dust. There was the occasional large lorry with a big trailer and these were very slow due to the rough road and created some dust. The 4X4 vehicles, particularly those belonging to aid organisations and private people, were quite fast and kicked up loads of dust. Many of the locals on motorbikes had scarves or masks on but I tended to hold my breath until I was clear of the worst of it. Nonetheless I was inhaling quite a bit of dust and had noticed over the last few days I was getting a cough because of it.

The homesteads on each side of the road were continuous, as was the farming and gardening. There were enough streams coming down from the escarpment to keep this place irrigated even in the dry season. As I approached Njagi and Mbingu the road veered away from the base of the escarpment and onto the flat lands on the floodplain but the streams continued to flow and sustain vegetable gardens of tomatoes and greens, and also fields of ripening maize. There were lots of mango, papaya and banana about, and also palms, many with coconuts. There was sometimes a putrid smell from some of the palms and I thought nothing of it. However in both Mngeta and Njagi I passed filthy yards full of the large blue plastic drums which were blackened with dirt. I could not work out what they were and initially I thought it was a local brewery or even distillery making alcohol that would surely make you blind. In the end outside Mbingu I saw another and was curious so asked someone. He said it was palm oil and went over to get me a spoonful. It was clear with a red hue. The putrid palms I had been passing had already harvested and pressed their cluster of trees and these places with the blue barrels were collection depots.

I reached Mbingu as the heat of the afternoon was at its most intense. I did not really go into the town but turned off to the north just before the centre. I headed out on a small road to Mbingu Sister’s Spiritual Centre. It was a large cross shaped building with 4 arms leading from a round central block. The round central block housed a conference room now commandeered as a prayer room. In the 4 arms were accommodations, dining rooms and more prayer rooms for guests. The whole place mainly operated as a spiritual retreat but was also open to visitors to stay at. Next to this centre was a larger complex where something like 1000 sisters or nuns stayed at or were based there while they worked in the community. It was the sisters from this large complex which ran the retreat and guesthouse. This large complex was home to the Fransciacan Sisters of Charity who had many worthy projects in the area.

I was given a lovely cool room and then sat near the central area. It seemed the centre was holding a retreat at the moment and there were about 20 Catholic priests here at the moment. They were milling about in their cassocks and sandals waiting to go into the prayer room for their afternoon prayers. I am sure some of them were very senior members of the Catholic church from this region and some of the older ones looked very calm, confident, learned and warm as if they were highly intelligent and well educated. I chatted to a few of them and they were exceptionally welcoming. Later at dinner I sat next to a few, including Nestor, who was from Mlimba originally and now worked in his parish of Ifakara. When I mentioned I was from Edinburgh a few exclaimed that Julius Nyerere,the so-called “Father of Tanzania” and the first president had done his degree there at Edinburgh University from 1949 to 1952. I tried to write that evening but was just too tired so decided to take a day off and catch up with everything and let my body relax as I was still tired from the climbs 3-4 days ago.

Day 110. 27 August. Mlimba to Chita. 44 km. 6.5 Hours. 330m up. 330m down. I left the nice hotel quite early after an easy stay. They didn’t have breakfast so I had more granola, finishing my penultimate packet. The hotel was at the southern end of the town and I had to cycle through most of it to get to the northside where the road to Ifakara led out. I passed all sorts of shops, some very specialized, like electricians or phone shops and also a few tailors and seamstresses. I had the most comfortable cycling shorts I had used from the start accessible in the front pannier should I need to change into them later in the day. The trouble was they were ripped at the crotch and were slightly embarrassing to wear in this prudish society. Instead I wore my cycling hotpants which were more obscene as they were so short and I had to wear shorts over the top of them to cover them up. The trouble was the shorts made the set up too restrictive and hot. It seemed ridiculous to pass all these tailors without asking one if they could repair my favourite shorts. The trouble was there was a pad in the inside of these cycling shorts which they might think is a nappy. I passed one and it looked promising, but continued. After a 100 meters I plucked up the courage to turn round and go and ask one. The man I asked was in a tailor shop with about 5 other men all making clothes. He said he could patch it and it would be 3000 shillings (£1). All the others came over to peer at this strange garment and discussed it while I buried myself in the BBC news on the phone. 20 minutes later it was done and I returned them to the panier and cycled off through town in the uncomfortable pair.

It did not take long to leave town on the asphalt road which was a godsend to cycle on. It was quick and smooth. To my south and east I had the huge floodplain of the Kilombero River. This flood plain was about 150 kilometres long from south of Mlimba to Ifakara, and an average of 25 kilometres wide. It is contained by the Mahenge Mountains to the South East and the Udzungwa Mountains to the North West. 4 main rivers flow into it, including the two I cycled over yesterday. These rivers meet at the south west end of the flood plain in a braided splay of channels and they then start their journey over the floodplain, flowing in up to 10 different channels. It is one of Africa’s largest wetlands and can measure up to 6000 square kilometres. At the town of Ifakara the sides of the valley come together for a while and the Kilombero River forms into a single channel again, before leaving this pinch point and splitting into more channels again to cross a smaller flood plain. When it leaves this smaller floodplain to the east the river flows through the huge Nyerere National Park and joins the Rufiji River to flow to the Indian Ocean.

The Kilembero floodplain is an internationally important environment area with a huge variety of birds, naturally wetland birds especially, but it also borders on key areas for Africa’s major animals, like elephant, lion hippopotamus buffalo and puku and it hosts them also. The trouble with the area is there is also a growing human population as the more and more smallholders move in to try the risky business of rice farming on the floodplain. It is risky because the rains can be erratic and if there is too much the rice fields completely flood and the harvest is lost and this can happen more often than not.

On my other side to the north and west I had an escarpment which led up to the Udzungwa Mountains. This range was about 150 kilometres long and pretty much coincided with the north west side of the Kilombero Floodplain. The mountains rose steeply from the plain which was at about 300 metres altitude right up to well above 2000 metres. The mountains were thickly clad in forest. Down here it was tropical forest but I think up at 2000 metres to the highest peaks at 2500 metres it is montane type forest. The road I was on went from Mlimba to Ifakara round the edge of this vast floodplain and along the base of the Udzungwa Mountains. It promised to be generally flat as it went from village to village for 150 kilometres.

The first 20 odd kilometres were on a tarmac road and I was quite spoiled by it. It was a lovely cycle on a quiet road with little traffic except local tractors, both 4 wheeled and the 2 wheeled engine block with a trailer. There were quite a few tuk tuks and this seemed to be the main way of getting around if you did not have a motorbike or bicycle. Occasionally I managed to get a good look into the tuk tuk and there were about 6-8 people in each one. They were crammed in like sardines. There were also smaller lorries and motorbikes. The tractors and the lorries were full of larger sacks which I am sure were rice still in the ear and they were going off to mills along the road which dehusked them. The Udzungwa Mountains were not that big here, but I could see them starting soon and even in these smaller foothills there were plenty of small streams flowing down from them and onto the plain. They were used for irrigation and there were quite a few fields with green maize.

After 20 kilometres I reached the Kihansi Social Club. It was up a tarmac road on the hill and was essentially complex for the workers who operated the Kihansi Dam up on top of the escarpment. The dam was for a hydroelectric scheme which provides some 180 MW of electricity. It is not much in today’s world but when it was commissioned in 2000 it provided 13% of Tanzania’s electricity. The complex had all the workers’ housing and also a guest house for visiting workers which was open to the public. It was supposed to be a nice place to stay but there was 100 metres of ascent up to it and I really wanted to do a bit more today so the journey tomorrow to Mbinga was shorter. So reluctantly I cycled past the hydroplant offices and a small wildlife centre where they bred the endemic toad which was displaced by the dam and would be extinct now were it not for this. The toad was called the Kihansi Spray Toad which thrived in the spray of the once magnificent 800 metre waterfall. Right after these hydroplant offices the lovely tarmac road came to an end and it was a gravel track again.

The gravel track was not in good shape. It was full of rocks which the sand and dust coating them did little to smooth off. The tractors, lorries, motorbikes and even tuk tuks bounced along with their suspension smoothing out all but the worst bumps but the cyclists had to endure them. I thought of letting my tyre pressure down so the tyres are wider and more shock absorbant. A few times the track crossed the TAZARA railway line which looked small gauge. There were rarely trains on it, perhaps once a day, and people were using it as a path to collect firewood. There were also old iron bridges over streams coming down from the forest-clad Udzungwa Mountains escarpment which were now looming above me. These streams were clear as they tumbled down over small waterfalls from high above.

After about 10 kilometres I reached Udagaji village. It was hidden from the sun by a canopy of trees, many mangoes. The village was long and went on for about three kilometres with a row of houses on each side hidden in the dark. The houses were brick with corrugated roofs mostly and were quite quiet with hardly any kids playing at them. I even wondered if some were seasonal homes for the rice season. However there were also shops and a couple of pubs with men hanging round on motorbikes. I think it was a normal village but I could barely see some of the compounds because it was so shaded. I took a photo of a few homesteads but they didn’t really come out. Towards the end I spotted a rice mill in the sun and took a photo of it. Nearby kids came running up and wanted me to take their photo. These were some of the more confident open kids I have seen so far in Tanzania. There were rice mills everywhere and for the next 10 kilometres to Chita there was one every couple of kilometres. The tractors were also towing portable ones. Rice was obviously the main business here.

Eventually I got to Chita at around 1500. I passed a couple of guesthouses which boasted they had attached rooms, pool table and bar. But this means the bar is their mainstay and the music is guaranteed to be loud. In the centre of the small dusty town there was the White Lodge and I went in. The rooms were OK but when I looked out of the window there was the lodge’s bar already with 15 customers right outside. So I explained to them that I could not stay. Outside I asked someone working nearby in the restaurant attached to the White Lodge and he explained there was a lodge at the other end of town which was nice. A group of men started to explain it to me but then the cook got on his bike and offered to show me. We cycled north past about 10 large sheds where lorries and tractors were coming and going with bags of unhusked rice and hundreds of people were outside. There were many ladies winnowing the husks hoping to get enough rice from this supposed waste, and in a day they might get half a bag. After nearly a kilometer we turned off down a small road to the Flying Sparrow Lodge. He rang the bell and someone came to the gate and he explained I was looking for somewhere to stay. They did have a room so I gave the chef a tip and he left.

The lodge was new and exceptionally clean. The hot water was limitless, as there was an electric heater in the bathroom. I think it was essentially a couple who had good jobs and they saved and put all their money into this property, half of which was a guesthouse, and half were their own rooms. It was quite a dull place but it would be quiet. They had no kitchen so there was no dinner and I went back to the White Lodge and the chef in the later afternoon for the usual beans, stew and rice. I was finished before dark as I wanted to get home before it was dark and avoid the gauntlet of lorries and motorbikes driving in the dark. I just managed to write the blog before a wave of tiredness swept over me.

Day 109. 26 August. Taweta to Mlimba. 56 km. 6.5 Hours. 320m up. 490m down. I had a large bowl of granola for breakfast as the lodge did not do breakfast, and I needed to get rid of some of it. It was quick and I was finished and packed up by 0800. As usual for the last few days it was very overcast and the sky was dark and threatening in places. I cycled back through town and over a simple steel latticework bridge crossing the Mynera River to the north bank. I then quickly left town but cycled past a series of homesteads which looked like they grew rice on the valley floor and bananas around their homestead. The homesteads here continued to be poor and along with the road into Taweta yesterday, the poorest I have seen in Tanzania. As I was about 5 km from Taweta I noticed a few large raindrops. A few minutes later it was raining heavily and I parked the bike and took shelter under a large arc of bamboo stems. The rain lasted for about five minutes and the air smelt musty as the earth got wet. Just as the drips were starting to come through the bamboo leaves it stopped and I got back on the bike. I did not have a rain jacket as I thought it never rained in the dry season. Had I got wet it would have made little difference as it was warm rain and I would have soon dried off.

For the next hour or so I cycled through a string of poor homesteads whose mud and grass roof shacks were generally hidden in the banana groves which surrounded them. There were rice growing areas in the valley just to the side of the road but it did not look well farmed and the fields were ill defined. Here and there I passed couples working in these fields and it was as if they were trying to establish a farm. I passed three couples and all of them were making bricks beside their rustic house. I think this area was just being opened up by younger people who were encouraged to try their hand because of the road. Eventually I got to the village of Ipinde about 6-7 kilometres from Taweta. It was small and poor with many of its buildings looking quite rustic.

After Ipinde the road deteriorated a bit and there were plenty of muddy sections. In this dry season it must be a challenge to the lorries but in the wet season it must be very challenging and I am sure many don’t bother as the conditions are so muddy there is a danger of getting stuck for a while. The homesteads stopped for at least 5 kilometers while the road went into deeper tropical jungle. It was dense on each side and virtually impenetrable. I passed a few groups of the small green vervet monkeys who seemed to thrive in the forest here. Perhaps they occasionally raid the adjacent farmers but they are in danger of being hit by a catapult and they know this. Just at the end of this forest section I came across a lorry with its back wheels off. The crew had taken it off as the bearings were shattered. The greasy parts all lay on sacks to keep them off the dirt. The driver then appeared. It was Mr Fistbump from yesterday and he spoke OK English. We had a small chat and he said “Mlimba is now near”. I said “it was still 45 kilometres away” and we laughed. His situation looked dire but he said he had already asked a motorbike rider to get the parts and was waiting for them.

The jungle ended with a ford over a stream. It was murky and I could not see the bottom so I took off my shoes and socks and walked the bike over while a large crab watched from the shallows at the side. Had I cycled over I would have got wet feet as it was well over the pedals. On the other side the rice farming continued but this time it was more organized. The fields were clearly marked out and they were already planted or in the process of being planted with almost luminous green shoots being taken from a nursery paddy field and transplanted. In these rice areas the houses looked more substantial and their farming looked like it had been here for at least a generation.

There were also a few cattle. Not the usual scrawny local cattle but larger cattle with huge horns. I was sure they were watched over by Maasai tribesmen as they were dressed in that way. There were about 5 herds with 20 cattle in each herd, with a few sheep clustered together in the heat also. Each herd was watched by a Maasai. Obviously the Maasi and local farmers must have an agreement about grazing rights here. Pastoralists are always more assertive than farmers who they often view with disdain and this is throughout the world, especially in the Old World nomadic groups like the Kurds or the Fulani. Where the road veered away from the flat valley floor the farmers became poorer again as they had to eke out a living from maize and bananas. I am sure the Maasai cattle could cause havoc amongst these farmers if unsupervised and these poorer remote farmers would not have the same collective voice as the rice farmers. Just before the large village of Mpanga I crossed a bridge over the Mpenga River and stopped to take a photo of the ingenious irrigation system. It was a huge wheel bolted onto the side of the bridge some 10 metres in diameter and made from steel, plastic barrels and black industrial pipes. As the current flowed into the scoop of the plastic barrels it turned the wheels which pumped the water into the pipe and forced it up 10 meters where it could flow. As I was admiring it, 3 men approached me selling sandals. I said “you guys look like Maasai” and they said they were.

Mpanga was the most vibrant small town I had seen since Lupembe nearly 100 kilometres back. It had shops and groceries down each side of the street which was shaded with large mango trees. If it were not for the red dirt road and the mud built buildings it could almost have been a French style boulevard. The small town was cool and pleasant and I thought about stopping here but suddenly I was on the far side of it and heading out having procrastinated too long. The track now became more and more sandy as it crossed a few small stream beds. Most of these were dry but they would have washed sand onto the road in the rainy season. There were also a few rutted areas and some more fords, which were much shallower and I cycled through them, after watching the motorbikes negotiate them first. On one sandy stretch where I was struggling to keep the bike in a straight line a Maasai passed me on an old bike. That would be unremarkable except he was only holding onto the handle bars with one hand while the other hand was clamping the legs of a sheep he had over his shoulders. It must have taken great strength and skill to do this and he cycled as if he owned the road not giving way to the motorbikes at all.

It got very hot in the afternoon now the skies had cleared and I was at about 300 meters altitude. As I crossed the sandy open areas the sun beat down on me. At least it was generally flat with just a few rises and descents. The road got busier and busier with all sorts of vehicles, there were the 3 wheeled motorbikes with the tipping trailer and also a few of their predecessors. This was an engine with a front wheel, behind which was a trailer. The driver sat on the back of the engine and steered the contraption with two handles which manoeuvred the engine from side to side. I was always wary around them as I was not sure how much control the driver had. There were many motorbikes and more and more tuk-tuks. There was always peeping to warm me something was coming from behind. One series of beeps was quite cheerful. It was Mr Fistbump who had somehow received the new bearing and refitted it. He carried on, negotiating a muddy rutted section just in front.

After half an hour the mayhem of the motorbikes and the sand suddenly came to an abrupt end with a section of tarmac. Suddenly I did not have to vie for a position on the firmer bit of track and now I could go right over to the side as I entered town. I stopped at the first petrol station to ask about hotels and he said Njema or Shelaton. However I could find neither on googlemaps which after 2 days of no signal was now working. I carried on and met Mr Fistbump again. This time I said “ now it is near” and he laughed. He suggested the Lugelele Lodge which was nearby. After we parted I cycled about 300 metres and found the sign. It was down a side street and looked secure. She had a room but she spoke no English so I downloaded the Swahili part of Google Translate and we started to have a disjointed conversation via the phone. The room was 25000 shillings ((£8) and it supposedly had hot water. It was a large room and she demonstrated the shower and it was indeed hot. I took the room and enjoyed a long hot shower and washed my clothes. There was no food or drink at the lodge so just before the sun went down I went out and found a nice local restaurant in the busy streets. I had chicken, beans, rice and green vegetables. While eating I was surprised to see a train stop at the end of the street. It was at Mlimba station which was on the Tazara line between Dar-es-Salem and Zambia. I walked back to the lodge in the dark amazed at how little traffic used their lights at all, with at least half the motorbikes were in complete darkness, except for the puny streetlights. Back at the lodge I wrote for 3 hours.

Day 108. 25 August. Madeke to Taweta. 44 km. 7.5 Hours. 940m up. 1660m down. I was awake early and got up at 0630 as I was keen to do as much as possible before the heat of the day. I was surprised to see that there was a mist about and the base of the cloud was just at Madeke. All the surrounding hills which were a bit higher were obscured and the valleys below were dull without the sun. Rather than go into the village for breakfast I just had some granola and powdered milk on the bench outside the lodge. I thought Branson had already gone to work but he was doing a large laundry wash and then was going to the market to get food for the helpers on the farm. We chatted a bit but we were both busy and I left at 0800 by which time the mist had burnt off but it was overcast and still.

Initially the road descended a bit but I was prepared for a real roller coaster today having been warned by Sam and Will that it was very hilly and very few of the hills showed up in the phone apps. There were no real settlements after Madeke but plenty of small farms and homesteads. They were not just beside the road but on the side ridges. Initially they were mostly avocado and pineapple, especially pineapple. There were large cleared areas too with nothing except bracken which seemed rampant and at least 1.5 metres high. I think the pineapple farmers had a constant battle with it and passed many plots where it had been cut with a slasher, otherwise it would overpower the pineapple bushes. A lot of these homesteads looked very romantic perched on their ridges surrounded by well kept plots but I am sure the reality is much harsher and the farmers are at the mercy of both the weather and also the markets.

Pretty soon the road started to drop steeply only to climb again. The drops were very steep and the climbs equally so. As the earth was not smooth I had to go down using the brakes to keep myself at walking speed. On the ascents I was always at walking speed. Sometimes it was so steep it was easier to get off and push. I think a lot of these farmers, Branson included, were hoping the promised tarmac road would arrive. This would really make farming easier for them, especially getting the fruits to market. However, I could not see how even the Chinese could build a tarmac road here without huge expense as the ridges were so convoluted. The yo-yo nature of the road was starting to tax me and I spared a thought for Sam and Will who came up this way. At least for me the descents were bigger than the ascents but it was the opposite for them.

As I continued to drop down the avocados seemed to be replaced by mangos. However, the pineapples still were the most abundant crop here. There were some large fields of 2 hectares or so full of the plants. It was not pineapple harvesting season just yet but there were a few that were ready and they were being collected from the fields. There were some ladies beside the track selling the fruits but I did not pass any lorries which could take them to market. I would have liked to buy one but would have ended up a sticky mess with no water to rinse my hands afterwards. After 10 km or so I reached a larger pineapple farm of about 20 hectares of well looked after bushes. There was also a mango orchard here with 100 trees and a larger plantation style bungalow. There were workers in the fields carrying large white sacks of fruit up to the track. There must have been a few tonnes already collected this morning. I guess this was a resident landowning farmer in the larger bungalow who employed some 10 men to run the farm.

I climbed beyond this farm and then started a more continuous descent. The avocados had long gone, but now the mangos and pineapples also disappeared as I dropped below 900 metres. There were some great views over the ridges which were now largely covered in jungle. Frequently it had been cleared of trees, but most of the time this land was abandoned once the trees had gone. Rarely there was a homestead growing maize or cassava on the steep hillsides while they also grew vegetables on the rich black earth on the valley floors, which were irrigated. However these homesteads were rare and it was usually the jungle which prevailed.

In one large dip I crossed a larger stream. I was half way over the small bridge when a lorry appeared. I got off the bike and reversed it back as there was not room for two. As he passed he rolled down the window and gave me a fist bump as a gesture of friendly gratitude. After he passed I had a very steep push up through the jungle. I was getting quite tired with all the climbs but knew I was just about half way. As usual at the top there was a ridiculously steep descent down to a very small village. It was totally different to anything I had seen in Tanzania and was very poor. The houses were brick and thatch and the fields looked like it was a constant battle to stop the jungle claiming them. The village must have had a school as there were kids just spilling out of it onto the road. Most people in the village gave me a small half hearted wave if I waved at them, but most just stared and must have wondered what on earth I was doing. The village had a good variety of crops with rice on the valley floor, maize and cassava on the sloping fields and banana groves around the houses. There were a few mango trees too but it was too low for avocado and pineapple. I passed one house where an animal, a goat I think, was getting butchered after it was slaughtered. I guess this village had to be quite self-sufficient as it was really isolated in the jungle with only this narrow steep seasonal track as its connection with the world. There was no electricity in the village but there were power lines being put in nearby.

As I left the village 4 kids from school followed me. They were transfixed by me and the bike, but said nothing. They followed me for about 3 kilometres, sprinting after me when I went down hill and then easily catching me when I had two arduous pushes up very steep hills. I tried to communicate with them and gave one an empty bottle of water and another empty bottle of soda. They eagerly took them but there was no smile or acknowledgement. I think they just didn’t know what to make of me. Occasionally a motorbike came the other way and waved and tooted at me and seeing the adults greet and accept me put them a little at ease but they were still cautious and never really took their eyes off me. When the older sister stopped her brother walked straight into the back of her as he was looking at me. Eventually they were gone and I looked round to see them heading up a path to a cluster of simple brick and thatch cottages.

From leaving them the climbs had just about finished and I initially had a steep run down to a valley. The floor of the valley was flat and there was a small stream running through it. Frequently the stream was diverted across the valley floor to irrigate some rice fields before the channels merged again and it flowed as one down to the next widening. There was another village here but it was much more developed and the houses had corrugated iron roofs and were arranged down each side of the street. There were even a few small grocers but still no electricity. I followed the track down alternating between rice and maize fields and then sections of jungle for a good hour. It was predominantly a gentle downhill cruise for which I was thankful as it had been a strenuous day so far. Suddenly I came to a large river. It was the Mnyera River and it seemed to drain the area to the north of where I had cycled for the last 3 days. It eventually joins the Kilombero which I will follow to Ifakara town. I followed the muddy waters of this sluggish but determined river for a few kilometres over a final thigh-killing rise to descend into Taweta.

I did not go all the way in because I found the lodge which Sam and Will had stayed at. It was run by a characterful young wife and her husband. Their rooms were just 12000 (£3) but there was no hot water or furniture in the room except the bed. However the water was lukewarm and it was warm down here at about 400 metres altitude so the shower, although invigorating, was refreshing. There was no food here so I went the half kilometre into town to find a small local restaurant. There was one run by a strong lady. I asked for a meal and she gave me boiled beef stew, cooked beans in a sauce, rice and the green vegetables. It is the standard fare at all the restaurants and this is the menu, take it or leave it. Occasionally there is fish or chicken instead of the beef but the meat or fish dish is the smallest of all the bowls. It filled me up even after having skipped lunch. I walked back to the JS lodge just as the secondary school was released at about 1800 in the evening. The teenagers were eager to see me and walked fast to catch up or those in front lingered so I caught up but very few engaged in conversation other than how are you. I think Tanzanians so far are very respectful and quite shy. It is perhaps the most traditional and polite of all the countries I have been to so far in Africa. Nobody asks for money or sweeties and the greetings are calm and respectful. Back at the lodge I tried to write but the day had been a long one and I was too tired.

Day 107. 24 August. Lupembe to Madeke. 33 km. 5.5 Hours. 600m up. 1020m down. I woke early, did the blog and then packed up and left the lodge at 0900. They did not have break fast and I could not do today without a meal first so went back a few hundred metres into town where there were some rustic restaurants. I found one with the sweet fried rolls which also served tea and had 6 rolls and enough black sweet teas to wash them down. It was now about 1000 and I was ready to go out on this overcast morning. However, unlike yesterday, there was no wind.

There were lots of people going to church. Even the youngest in the families were dressed up and there were toddlers who could barely walk in suits and small girls in meringue dresses. The small girls looked at me with great fear and then quickly ran to their parents and grabbed their hands. I think many of the people I met were going to a splendid church which had a great tower. It looked like it was from the colonial era and when I looked it up I found out it was the ELCT Lutheran Church bilt by missionaries in 1890. It was apparently the oldest church in Njombe Region. With no aesthetic thought there was a large telecoms mast built just 100 metres from it.

I passed the church and then descended past tea plots owned by local farmers to the village of Igombola where there was another church, a Catholic one above the small village. On the other side was a large tea factory called The Lupembe Tea Factory. It was surrounded by large tea fields which looked like they were professionally managed by the Factory. The tea factory was long and quite squat and not like the tall 5 story tea factories of India or Sri Lanka. In those factories the fresh tea leaf entered the top floor to wither and then descended floors to ferment before it reached the ground floor where it was crushed and then fired. Here it seemed the withering must be done in one building and then it is taken over to an adjacent one for further processing. The factory did not look that well maintained and the corrugated iron sheets were quite rusty. I wonder if this was a legacy of the German colonial period or whether it was planted in the last 80 years.

There were lots of small farms beside the road especially near the tea factory where there were many vegetable plots on the damp valley floor. As I left Igombola on a steeper track I saw other large areas of tea growing. I am sure these are individuals who then sell there plucked leaves to the Lupembe Tea Factory to process. There were also more and more maize fields on these steeper slopes. The forests of eucalyptus were plentiful here also but they were mainly just isolated copses as large areas had already been felled. At the end of the longish climb up from Igombola village was the village of Mfrika. It looked quite idyllic perched on a hilltop where a few ridges met. Its neat steep fields where radiant in the sun and its buildings looked well made and possiblily from the colonial era also. Unfortunatelty I had to turn off before I got into the heart of the village.

I now followed the track to the NE for nearly 20 kilometres. It was quite wild with very few homesteads en route. Those that were there had a pioneer feel to them and were clearing the land to plant maize and tea. I also saw a few avacado trees planted in plots some with a hundred trees of so. The road followed the crest of the ridges, which were a confused jumble and not really running in any particular direction. On each side of these ridges were deep valleys. Occasionally the track dropped down into a saddle and then climbed up another ridge. It was frequently steep, both up and down, and I pushed on a few ascents. As I neared Madeke I saw more and more avocado plots and also a few steep fields of pineapple. They were far too many for local consumption and I wondered how they could get them out to market on this track without them being bashed to a pulp in the back of a lorry.

After a couple of hours climbing and descending knolls and hilltops on this network of ridges I finally saw the village of Madeke on a hilltop in the distance with its corrugated iron roofs shining in the sun. There were still a few saddles I could see I would have to drop into and climb back out of. There were at least 2 signs in English for “Avacado Farms” and they were signposted at 4 and 5 kilometres away so they must be significant operations. I climbed the final hill and entered the mayhem at Madeke. In the main square was a crowd and a man on a loudspeaker. He was shouting into a microphone giving some sort of Pentacostal service. The volume of the speakers was at the maximum and his shouting sounded like a madman’s rant. I cycled through the crowd and past him and on to where I heard there was a guesthouse.

There was a guesthouse but it was very simnple. It was only 7000 schillings (£2) but for that all you got was a concrete room with a bed with a bottom sheet and a well used nylon blanket. There was a washroom with a bucket of cold water, and another cubicle with a cracked squat toilet and a large container of water and a small jug. It was marginally better than a tent because there was a table I could use to write on so I took the room and would sleep in my sleeping bag.

As I was settling in Branson appeared. He was a long term boarder in another adjacent building and he spoke good English. He was a young, upstanding, likable man initially from Dar es Salem and had finished high school. His father had bought an avocado farm here and sent Branson up here to develop it and make it profitable. Branson was dutifully doing this and had been here for a year now. He was working in cahoots with another white avacado farmer, who had transport, in getting his fruits out to market. He offered to walk me back to the village and show me where I could get some food, soft drinks and oil for my chain. En route he pointed out his farm a couple of kilometres away on a ridge. He has something like 60 acres but just a fraction of that was planted. Just 5 acres in all but that had over 600 avocado trees on it. In town he seemed to know everyone and he was warmly greeted by all. We walked past the Pentecostalist ranter who was still going strong now with beads of sweat running down his face and went to a simple resturant where I had beans and rice, and Branson had chips. I noticed he said grace and later I asked him which of the three churches here he went to and he said the Catholic one. Back at the lodge I felt exhausted and collapsed onto the bed. I dont know if it was the altitude or the heat but I needed to lie down. I woke at 1900 and then went and found the table in the other building and wrote for 2 hours until I was done. I went to bed afterwards as tomorrow is a long day with no water, and no villages or hamlets, as I go over more isolated ridges for 45 kilometres to Taweta but with over 1300 metres of ascent and 1900 of descent.

Day 106. 23 August. Njombe to Lupembe. 72 km. 8 Hours. 780m up. 1040m down. I had a huge breakfast again at the Hillside Hotel as I knew it would be a long day. I set off at 0900 on a slightly overcast morning. Initially I had to freewheel back down the steep hill to the river on the north side of town where the Ruhuji Waterfalls are. I crossed the top of the falls, now small in the dry season, and then started the steep climb up the other side of this small valley. The road here was very steep and the verge non-existent, and there were quite a few vehicles so after cycling some of it I decided to push. About 5 trucks passed me barely going any faster as they were fully loaded and this slope was their limit in first gear. It took about 15 minutes to get to the top. Here I noticed that with the torque I had put on the back sprocket the wheel had moved forwards and the chain had come off. It was because I had not done the axle nuts up as much as I liked, as one had slipped the thread. I thought about going back into town and taking a day off while a metal worker tried to fix it for me. As a last resort I swapped the nuts over and tightened them up again and they seemed to bite on the thread. Hopefully that has fixed the problem for the time being.

Soon afterwards I left this busy road, which went to Iringa on the very busy T1 road which I was avoiding, and headed off to the east on a smaller quiet earth and gravel road. It was initially busy with small tuk-tuks which are the shape of taxis and local buses here. These corrugated boxes could take about 4 people and they bounced along this dusty road with their small wheels trying to cushion the bumps. After a few kilometres though most had dropped off their passengers in the small villages which crowded the road at the start and were heading back into Njombe again and the road quickly emptied. It was a bumpy, washboarded road and not great for bikes. I then noticed a few other cyclists on a small path beside the earth track and went over and looked at it. It was a perfect and and quite smooth and it went parallel to the earth track for a good 15 kilometers. It was narrow and when a cyclist came the other way someone would have to give way but it was much easier in all.

Much of these first 15 kilometres were through a huge tree plantation. It was a limited company which had probably taken over running a state owned project from long ago. The trees grown here were eucalyptus, grevellia and Bhutan pine, with eucalyptus being the most popular. There were some tall stands of it which looked ready for harvest soon. It was very dense with large straight trunks packing the forest and many smaller shoots coming from the base so it was almost impenetrable. Various parts of this estate were continually being harvested and I noticed that even the eucalyptus were being turned into planks and building lumber. There were a few loggers camps beside the road where the cutters stayed in simple shacks with their families. I could hear chairsaws in the forest as the trees were felled. As I cycled I passed a few lorries loading up with planks to take them off to a merchant to stack and dry out.

The trouble with this forest was it was on a flat landscape, quite dusty and totally uninspiring. It was not for some 20 kilometres or so that small hills started to appear again and there was something to look at. There was no farming or even villages in the forest plantation at all. However it was fast to cycle through given the lack of hills. When I did eventually get to a village it was dusty and windswept. The red dust from the road coated all the houses, and their yards if they were near the road, and I am sure the insides of the houses would have a coating to this fine dust over everything. It looked like a very uninviting place to stay, especially on this overcast morning with a strong wind which was lifting the dust and blowing it in clouds down the road.

Soon I got to the small town of Kidegembe. It had some large buildings in it which must have been for local government business. I was also surprised to see quite a few guesthouses and lodges here and some looked quite new. In fact the whole town looked like it was having something of a boom and I was surprised to see brighter grocery shops and even a petrol station. I later learnt that there were many Njombe district council offices here. It was far too early to stop at though so I freewheeled out of the east side of town and continued towards Matembwe where I hoped to stay in another 20-25 kilometres.

The road to Matembwe was the same with stones and rubble mixed with red dust and then graded into the road and packed with rollers and hundreds of lorry tyres. The trouble was much of the red earth had turned to dust and got blown away or washed away in the rainy season leaving the stones protruding. It was a bumpy ride and even on the downhill sections I could not let the brakes go otherwise the bike and I would have rattled to destruction. There were some larger hills where I thought it easier to push, especially as I did not want to stress the back sprocket and chain. From the tops of these hills I often then followed a ridge before dropping down into another valley and starting over again. The landscape here was more pleasant and the villages nicer but the overcast day and wind sucked the light and joy out of it. The landscape was also heavily logged and there were large patches of brown brash where trees had been felled in the last 5 years and nothing had yet replaced them. It was only around the villages where there were some maize fields but the rest of the area would take a decade to recover and even then it would not look pretty, but probably a mono tree forest, probably of eucalyptus. I also passed some rough looking large sheds which I think were a plywood factory where pallets of veneer were stacked up waiting to be taken somewhere and glued together to form sheets. A few lorries were heading towards this factory with round logs 2 metres long. These logs were destined to go onto a spindle and be spun round while a sharp blade shaved off a millimetre thick layer like a sheet of paper. This would be folded and stacked on the pallets.

After some 5 hours I reached a rise and could see the town of Matembwe across the valley. There was a drop down into it and then a steep climb up the other side which I pushed up. The town itself was very scruffy with plenty of dirty shops, mechanics garages spilling onto the street and blackened restaurants. I did not see any lodges or signs for them. The wind was lifting rubbish and dust and I found the whole place unappealing. To be fair to Matembwe it was a T shaped town I just cycled across the top of the T which was its more working side beside the road and I think the nicer part was the stem of the T which I missed. Suddenly I was out of the town near a large outdoor bar. I went in to ask if there was a lodge and the owner, who was called Bryson and had a perfect English accent, said there were no lodges but a few rustic guesthouses. I did not want to go back up the hill so I asked him about the next town, Lupembe in about 10 kilometres. He said there was a lodge there, the Macash lodge. It was only 1600 so I cycled off to Lupembe.

The road was much nicer now. I think largely on account of it being sunny and the wind having diminished. It was perhaps even hillier but there was now more rural farming and less harvested forest, although I did pass another veneer factory. On some of the ridges after the climbs I came across small plots of tea bushes and looked at the map to see there was a tea estate near Lupembe. These farmers must have grown tea as a cash crop to sell to the estate. It took me nearly 2 hours to cover the 12 kilometres but at last I had climbed the final hill and was following the twisted ridgetop road past houses and homesteads which lined the road. There were a few churches here and I had not seen any mosques for a while now. One church had a belltower which was almost in miniature and was only perhaps 3-4 metres high. As I reached the centre of the small town the road became tarmac, presumably to keep the mud and dust down for the residents. I asked a man, who was dressed as a muslim, about the guesthouse and he gave me clear, helpful directions on how to get there. Some 5 minutes later I was there. It was 12000 shillings for the night (£3) and the room even had a hot shower. The water was heated in a large tank outside covered in soot and tar from the logs which burnt under it. They had no food but the owner offered to get me some. An hour later it was dark and I was showered and eating cold chicken and chips from a plastic bag. It was what I needed as I had not had lunch. I tried to do the blog but fell asleep on the comfortable clean bed at about 2030 promising myself to get up early and do it then.

Day 105. 22 August. Njombe Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I slept well in the comfortable bed and had a late breakfast at 0830. It was a buffet breakfast and I fell upon it like a hungry labrador. I should have felt embarrassed by the amount of times I went up to help myself to another plate or glass of juice, but I was not. After an hour I was replete and knew I could skip lunch. I then went up to the room to write a bit of the blog and that took most of the morning.

By early afternoon I had a pause as I needed to go into the city to do a few errands. It was a short half hour walk to the bustling market place which I had cycled through late yesterday afternoon looking for a lodge. The first thing I did was to go to a Vodacom shop where I could top up my data package for my phone with another 30 GB which should easily see me through Tanzania. It is always stressful running out so I perhaps over bought the amount I needed but I would rather pay extra and not have the stress of running out when I needed google maps to find my way about. The guy in the shop was extremely helpful as I am finding most Tanzanians are. They are friendly, easy going, not at all pushy or inflating their price because I am a tourist. I am finding them as warm hearted as the Zambians.

The next thing was a haircut. I was unkept with a ring of wild hair and a bald patch poking out of the top of it. The guy at the phone shop pointed to a barber and within 10 minutes I had very short hair and a tidy head again.

I also needed to buy some soap and toothpaste, two things I am constantly running out of. The main street was just wall to wall hardware shops with no groceries even. I have never seen such a concentration of hardware shops and it would have been very easy to buy a spanner or spade on the main street but there was no soap. In the end I found a small household shop in a side street and bought soap and toothpaste.

There was a covered market nearby and I went into it just to see what they had. It was a bustling atmosphere with traders, men and women, at their stalls selling vegetables, dried fish, and beans. There was not that much variety in the way of vegetable and I suppose that was because it was the dry season and not much was growing. There were fruits like bananas, papaya and oranges, and then the usual tomatoes, aubergines, potatoes, okra and peas. However there were many bags of beans and other pulses like lentils. There were sacks and sacks of beans of all sizes and colours.

I returned to the hotel where I noticed I had yet another puncture on my back tyre. This time I decided to put on the new spare tyre and also a new inner tube just in case there was something embedded in the old tyre which I could not feel. When I tested the old inner tube in my basin in the room I discovered that I was at fault and the patch I put on yesterday had not entirely sealed the previous puncture. When I put the back wheel back on I noticed that the thread on the axle bolt was not gripping that well, as if the thread on the both or the nut was stripped. This was a bit worrying as I could not tighten the wheel up on that side as much as I would like for fear of completely stripping it. I agonised about spending another day here as this would be the place to get another nut or rethread the bolt, but thought it would be OK for a while until I got through the next remote stretch which would take 3-4 days. That evening after the meal I finished the blog and sent a few emails before returning well rested to my comfortable bed.

Day 104. 21 August. Ikonda to Njombe. 84 km. 9 Hours. 1400m up. 1470m down. I had another small breakfast quite early at 0700 as I had potentially a long day. The lodge was now empty as all the Germans had left in the very early morning. I was just about to pack up the bike when I noticed I had a rear wheel puncture. This time however I could not find anything on the inside of the wheel. I then repaired the inner tube hoping whatever caused the puncture was not still there. I eventually left around 0900. Initially I cycled up the track to reach the road where I joined the climb I had paused yesterday.

It was 500 meters of ascent I had to make in all and it took me up to just below 2500 meters. It was all on the superb new road which the Chinese had built with the wide verges – but it was steep. It was so steep in places that I really thought it was easier to push rather than risk hurting myself cycling up. It was not significantly slower pushing. On and on I climbed and it took nearly two hours from leaving the lodge when at last the gradient eased a bit and I could get on the bike and cycle to the top. It was something of a pass, like a saddle on the ridge and it was distinctly colder up here. I noticed a few of the giant lobelia growing beside the road and many more on each side of the ridge I was crossing. These giant lobelia are slow growing but once in a while they produce a large spike or flowers. They are found in a few higher almost sub alpine places in Africa and I have previously seen them in Ethiopian Mountains, the Ruwenzori Mountains, My Kenya and on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. These isolated vegetative areas on mountains are sometimes called Sky Islands.

From here there were some great views down the valleys to distant hills. They were not alpine in nature but there were certainly montane and the imported Bhutan Pines seemed to thrive on their slopes. It was really quite extraordinary that I was in the middle of Africa and not really that far from the Equator. Certainly the mountains here were similar looking in size and nature to the mountains of Central Scotland. From this lofty pass which I had struggled to climb I now had a descent. Unfortunately the descent was equally steep and it was completely wasted as I had to go down with the brakes on for most of the time except when it levelled out. I dropped a good few hundred meters until I reached a lower ridge which the road followed along its apex. Each side of the road here were a string of hamlets and homesteads who farmed the upper slopes of the ridge. The main crop now seemed to be the maize again and I saw little sign of potatoes which had been so dominant just a few hundred metres higher in altitude. There were also fields of wheat which were starting to ripen into a golden grass with a heavy seed head. The fields were too steep for machinery and I doubt the farmers could afford them, so the few wheat fields which were harvested were all done by hand. Many of the homesteads here had the purple blossom of apricot trees. They were in flower now and the fruit would soon start to form and they would become juicy when the rains arrived in a few months time.

As I got closer to Njombe there was more and more lumber stacked up on frames drying in the wind. There were some very large yards with perhaps a million dollars worth of planks stacked up. I noticed the forests here were more exploited and indeed at least half of them had been harvested and were being replanted. It was not sustainable forestry and it seemed there was a bit of a frenzied plunder of the forest and in the near future it would run out and the newly planted trees would not be available for another 25 years or so. I passed a couple of portable sawmills and they were operating. They were a small diesel engine which would drive a wheel with belts attached to it. There was a wheel on the saw table also and these belts would drive this and spin the wheel which had a circular saw attached to it. The logs were fed onto the table and the 4 sides with bark were taken off leaving a square log. This was then passed through the saw multiple times and each time a plank or bit of construction timber was produced. The sides were discarded beside the saw and the cut planks were stacked waiting to be taken to the road. From here they would go to the lumber yards to be stacked. Once the sawmill had done all the logs in a 30 meter radius it would be dismantled and taken 60 meters or so and then reassembled to create another pile of offcuts and sawdust on one side and a neat stack of cut lumber on the other. I spoke to a couple of the men stacking lumber once a lorry had dropped it off and they said that the price of lumber fluctuated throughout the year and it was more expensive in the rainy season as the sawmills were not operating then. I guess the businessmen in the villages would buy the timber now when it was cheap and would try and sell it in 6 months when they could get a good price and handsome profit for it.

I had done the more significant climbs and was starting to feel quite drained by early afternoon. I had already done 1000 metres of ascent and not much less in descent and needed something to eat. I passed a couple of villages with what could have been restaurants but decided to cycle on. At last with hunger starting to gnaw at my stomach I could procrastinate no more and at the village of Kipengele I saw another restaurant. I crossed the road and parked outside and went into the kitchen to see what the lady was cooking. She had a large pot of rice, some green vegetables, bean stew and a little beef stew. It was perfect for me so I asked her to plate it up and sat on the bench inside. It was a simple but tasty and healthy meal and by the time I was finished I felt well nourished again. I had not gone very far at all and still had about 40-50 kilometres left but I had done most of the climbing. From here it was an undulating descent.

There were so many lumber yards on the road now, and there were some very large houses getting built here and there. I guess these were for the new timber and grain merchants who had struck gold in the last decade. The rate of change along here now was quite significant and everyone was busy with the lumber and farming. There were no ox carts here but 3 wheeled motorbikes with a tipping trailer. They looked like they were from China and I am sure there are millions there doing the same job as here, and that was being the means by which to move lumber and farm produce around from the farmer to the merchant. They looked very suitable for the task and looked like they could carry half a ton or so. As I neared Njombe there were more and more of them.

Just before I reached Njombe I was stopped at a police roadblock. The police only wanted to hear my story and were keen to know where I had been and where I was going. I then remembered that Sam and Will, who I met at the Mushroom Farm, had been this way too and had also been stopped at a police road block here. Their policeman was so interested that Sam even let him have a shot on his bike. My policeman could have been the same as theirs and he was very good natured. We chatted for about 10 minutes in all. A bit beyond him I started the final descent to Njombe which was now visible. It was much larger than I anticipated and I later found out it had a population of about 200,000. Large enough to be a city really. It was a steep descent into a small deep valley and then a thigh bursting climb up the other side into the heart of the city.

I went straight for the Princess Hotel which was a budget option 1 star hotel favoured by the bikers and overland backpackers. However it was full. I tried a few others but they all looked very tired and some did not have hot water. One said they did but there was no pressure in the system so no hot water flowed. I was getting more and more frustrated so I went a bit more upmarket, but both of those were full. In the end I decided just to go to the best hotel in Njombe which was the Hillside. They had a room for US$35 which had everything I needed and as it was now dusk I decided to stay there. I checked in, had a shower with copious amounts of hot water, washed my clothes and then ate in their restaurant downstairs. I did a little blog in the evening but I was quite tired and had all of tomorrow to do it as I would have a day off.

Day 103. 20 August. Iwawa to Ikondo. 29 km. 3.5 Hours. 500m up. 740m down. I had the small breakfast and then packed up and left by 0900. It was still 110 km with at least 1600 metres of ascent to Njombe, which was too far for me to go in a day even on the tarmac road. I say at least 1600 metres of ascent because that is what the apps say, but in reality it is more as the apps do not account for every up and down and miss a lot out. I returned 500 metres to the main road and then turned east, or right, and cruised down to a large but empty roundabout going round 270 degrees to start the descent to Ikonda. The road was superb with a wide verge on each side and a line of yellow dots separating the empty main carriage way from the verge. These yellow dots would cause the car tyre to vibrate if a car strayed into the area. The tarmac was smooth from the edge of one verge and right across the road to the edge of the other verge. Even without the wide verge the road was very safe as there were hardly any vehicles on it.

I started to freewheel down the hill and picked up quite a bit of pace and was doing well over 60 km per hour. The only problem with the road were the rumble strips and the road builders were obsessed with them and I passed at least 50 of them today. They were not high at all and if I went over them at speed they seemed much less. There were about 5 on this first descent which was long. At the bottom there was a bridge over the stream and then a steep climb. The descents and the climbs were quite steep and each was at least a kilometre long. There was virtually no flat cycling all day. Whenever I did a freewheeling descent I knew, and could often see, that there was an equal climb coming up. I would have much rather just had a flat cycle without the wasted descent with brakes on and then the slow laborious climb which tested my thighs and knees. In the course of the day there were about 6-8 of these drops and climbs and it made for slow progress as my momentum, even at 60 km per hour only carried me a fraction of the way up the climb, and then it was into the lowest gear.

While descending it was all eyes on the road just to make sure there were no surprises coming. On the climbs however I was going slowly and could look around. It was a very nice landscape indeed. There were rolling hills, some of which rose up into small angular mountains. All the higher slopes were planted up in Bhutan Pines, which might even be self seeding now. I noticed many growing on the steeper road cuttings which were self seeded. Occasionally a patch of pines had been harvested. The areas were obvious as the cut area had regular patches of narrow off cut planks with the bark on, lying in a heap and then an adjacent area of sawdust where perhaps 30-50 trees had been cut into planks on a portable saw mill. All the cut planks were removed and taken down to the track side and then on the villages to dry. Sometimes I saw people collecting the lengths of off cuts, which were no use as lumber, and taking it back to their homesteads for firewood. The harvested areas actually made up very little of the total planted areas and one had to look for them. They were a slight blemish but all in all the landscape here was very beautiful. It was like the foothills of the Alps and not at all what I was expecting. If someone told me these valleys were called the Switzerland of Tanzania I would not have been surprised.

The lumber industry here must be a big employer. Apart from the portable saw mills, which might be owned by local contractors, there was a lot of work in getting the timber to the road. I suspect the planks were bundled up and then sent down on a wire but they might have been carried out also. They then had to be transported from the forest track to the roadside. This was done in small lorries. Once they were at the road side they were either stacked in a square with overlapping corners and this would have prevented the wood from warping as it dried. The other method was to lay them against a high rail with a plank coming from alternate sides so it formed a V shaped arch. There were frequently men unloading small lorries, stacking wood or loading large lorries which would take them away. There were very few pubs and bottleshops here with aimless men listening to loud music as in Zambia, or Malawi to an extent. Here all the men had found themselves something to do.

I passed hundreds of homesteads, all with the distinctive architecture of 3 or 4 rooms under a tall pointed roof covered in corrugated iron. In many places the houses looked new and it was as if this area of Tanzania, and the one around Tukuyu north of Lake Malawi, were enjoying something of a boom. I think it is often the case that society moves from one level of development to another in stages rather than in a gradual climb. In this area of Tanzania the culture has moved from peasant, subsistence farmer of say 20 years ago living from hand to mouth and living in mud huts, to a more professional commercially savvy farmer who sells his surplus and invests their money in lumber or trades. Certainly the areas I have passed through seem very egalitarian and there seem to be very few mansions, or hovels, in these rural areas.

I continued to drop and climb from valley to ridge. It was largely on the flatter ridges where the hamlets and villages were and this is where the lumber was also. Usually outside people’s houses or homesteads. I noticed there was very little security around the stacks of timber. I am sure they would be difficult to surreptitiously load into a lorry and disappear without being noticed, but there must be a lot of wealth stacked up here. In the UK and Europe this would all be locked up in merchants yards with CCTV. I think crime in rural Tanzania, and indeed Malawi and Zambia, is quite rare. They are old fashioned and conservative societies and crime is really frowned upon. Shoplifters are usually dealt with by the locals who will beat the culprit. No doubt this will change as the old values diminish in a generation or three but at the moment rural society in Southern Central Africa is blessed.

Eventually this roller coaster of a road dropped down into Ikonda after some 25 kilometres. Here a huge 650 meter climb started but I had decided to stay here as there was not much afterwards and I would probably need to camp and it was still above 2000 metres and cold at night. I cycled up through the small town noticing a few scruffy lodges. However I had read that all of them are plagued by exceptionally loud music from a couple of pubs until midnight at least. All the reviews pointed towards a lodge on the edge of the town called the Udiakonia Lodge which had a Christian influence, but was considered expensive. I found some quiet roads which meant I did not have to continue to climb the hill and drop down the other side. It was the long flat side of a triangle basically. There were a few schools here as there were hundreds of primary school children, all in their distinctive red jerseys, on the road. They were not as excitable as the Malawi kids and some were even wary of me and moved to the side. If I waved or gave a thumbs up they reciprocated but they would never initiate it and would just stare as I cycled past.

The lodge was nice and there were about 20 Germans staying here too. The manageress showed me a small room for 25,000 shillings (£8) and assured me there was hot water. We tested it and there was a lukewarm dribble, but I was not going somewhere else. When I came back to the bike quite a few of the Germans were admiring it, especially the Rohloff gear hub. Especially one called Fidus. It turned out Fidus had done a lot of cycle touring and once cycled from Germany to Togo as a young man with his then girlfriend now wife and had also cycled a lot in Africa, especially Tanzania and Malawi. They were a very friendly and gregarious crowd and they invited me for super which was generous of them. I thought little more of it, and wrote my blog in the afternoon while they went into Ikondo to look at a project. Later some of the Germans explained the lodge and the adjacent buildings to me. The lodge and the buildings were all run by the Lutheran Church. It was essentially a charity that helped the local disabled people. Some, about 10, were here full time and others came to get trained in various crafts like carpentry or sewing and then they could take those skills back to their village and earn a living from it.

As dinner approached I chatted to more of the Germans and was quite in awe of what I learnt. It turned out that Fidus was a quite extraordinary character. After his cycle touring trip to Africa, which involved crossing the Sahara, Fidus had worked with handicapped people in South Germany. Initially he was part of a very small team but as his career unfolded he became quite senior until he was responsible for 500 staff and 1000 disabled clients. At the same time he was a member of the Lutheran Church in Neuhausen near Stuttgart. With his love for Africa and his experience and competence he was able to establish a small charity in Ikonda helping the disabled people in the community here. This charity was called Udiakonia. This has grown over the last 25 years into what it is now. It has trained hundreds of disabled people in the area to learn skills which means they can return to their villages and become an active member. It has a small residential unit here where some disabled people live and participate in the running of the organization. It has this guesthouse where most European visitors to the region stay and the accommodation charge goes some way to help fund the project. It has a 440 kilowatt hour hydro electric plant to help develop the region. It also sponsors 500 children to go to school and have their meals with sponsorship from Germany. It really was making a huge difference to the community here. And all of this can be attributed to Fidus and his vision and service and also the Lutheran congregation of Neuhausen for fundraising. It was a remarkable success story.

The meal that evening was in the main hall of the organization and it was a way that the local people involved in the project in Tanzania could thank the visiting people from Neuhausen, all of whom belonged to the Neuhausen congregation. Many had been here quite a few times and I think Fidus had been here 25 times. Some of the Tanzanian side of the operation had also visited Germany through the years. The celebration in the hall started with the local brass band and then a choir. The brass band was pretty good but the choir was exceptional and their singing made my arms tingle. Then there was a long series of speeches in Swahili and German where people were thanked and prayers said. The local deacon at the church also gave a talk and you could see she was an exceptionally warm and kind person. After an hour we all had the meal, which was something of a communal feast as the 50 people in the hall all lined up to serve themselves to the simple but healthy dishes. I was sitting next to one of the German congregation, a lady called Heike, who explained everything to me as the celebration unfolded. After the meal there was more singing and then a long series of heartfelt goodbyes as the German congregation were all leaving at 0400 in the morning for a week’s hiking. It was quite a privilege to be invited to the celebration and be part of it. Back at the adjacent lodge I had a chat with Fidus and was quite in awe of what he had achieved here. Many people have a dream to establish a charity like this but few have the social entrepreneurship and acumen and warmth to actually create it and make a real difference to peoples lives, and Fidus had these skills in abundance.

Day 102. 19 August. Iwawa Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was tired in the morning. My legs had peddled my 20 kg bike, 40 kg of luggage and 100 kg of me up some 4000 metres in the last 3 days and needed a rest. Especially as there was a lot more to come on this hilly section in West Tanzania. So it was some relief to wake up with stiff legs, see the sun was already shining through the window and then roll over and go back to sleep for another hour. I eventually got up at 0800 and went down for breakfast. It was just 4 slices of bread, an omelette and a thermos of ginger tea. I saw the accountant had potatoes, so I asked for two of them also.

After breakfast I moved a table to the window so I could have a view and then brought a chair up from the restaurant as there was none in the room. I then spent the entire morning and early afternoon writing the blog. By mid afternoon I was nearly finished but thought I better have another shower and wash my clothes while there was still some time and sun to dry them. In the shower I heard some really loud bass music and hoped they were not going to have a party for the rest of the day in the function room.

Once out of the shower I looked out of the window and saw a small lorry full of loudspeakers playing some nice music but very, very loudly. I have seen a few of these in the last 10 days and it is usually a wedding and this one also seemed to be. There were about 50 people, all well dressed and with the women all in one dress or another as if they belonged either to the brides or the groom’s family. They looked happy and relaxed and either chatted of danced to the music. The music was very good, a gospel type singer with a chorus and some instruments like a synthesizer or slide guitar. I looked a few of the songs up and a couple were sung by Atosha Kissava, a well loved Tanzanian singer. The DJ hopped through a list of artists for an hour. Then the music stopped and the small truck drove away and everybody got into two waiting buses and drove off leaving the place quiet and deserted again.

In the evening I just relaxed, read some news and did a bit of research on the route ahead. My next goal is Njombe where I will have a day off. It is just 110 km away, but involves a further 1700 metres up and 2000 metres down. However the accountant at breakfast told me it was tarmac all the way so this will make the descents much faster and easier.

Day 101. 18 August. Kikondo to Iwawa. 60 km. 9 Hours. 920m up. 1470m down. I slept well and was warm in my sleeping bag under an enormously thick blanket. I was woken in the night twice with severe cramps in my thighs which were painful. But in the morning I was hungry and the younger brother showed me a tea shop where I could get some fried buns and a mug of tea. It seemed many people in this village came to these tea shops and the 3 or 4 in a row were very busy. The village was shrouded in mist on the way to the tea shop and it was cold and damp. Everyone else were dressed in thick jackets but I had shipped my home months ago. Everywhere in the village were huge sacks of potatoes. Every shop, tea shop, and the yards of house had piles of 100 kilo sacks piled up waiting to be sold or stored. This village was built on potatoes with huge terraces around the entire hilltop so it looked like an iron age fort. On each terrace there were no fields or demarcations, the whole terrace was cultivated as one and now with the harvest done the entire rings of terraces were turned over and bare earth waiting for another crop to be planted. It was one of the friendliest and liveliest villages I had stopped in and there was a lot of banter in the tea shop with me and each other.

By the time I came out the mist had burnt off and it was bright sunshine. It was still cold though and as I set off in a single shirt and cycling shorts I worried I was unnderdressed. However pretty soon I was climbing again and warming up as I entered the Kitulo Plateau National Park. This park covers the large plateau and I was going to cycle along the southern edge of it along the top of the escarpment before it dropped off to the south down the steep slope into the Rift Valley. As I cycled up the warm moist air from the Rift Valley was rising and condensing and the whole section was in the mist. It was cold again and quite eerie and I could easily imagine I was in some sub alpine temperate climate like Scandinavia or New Zealand and not in the heart of Africa. The Kitolu National Park is known primarily for its flowers and it is sometimes called the Serengeti of Flowers. I saw quite a few including a Giant Groundsel, Dendrosenico, some proteas, and lots of ericacious ground plants. There were not a lot of other flowers at the moment but in the rainy season from December to March, Kitolu is a kaleidoscope of colour apparently.I cycled across this predominantly treeless plateau for a couple of hours reaching nearly 3000 meters at one point, twice the height of anywhere else on the tour so far. The road was poor and it was very stony but it was quiet and peaceful.

By midmorning I started to descend slightly and entered into extensive eucalyptus forests. It was alarming to see how prolifically they were spreading, and in places there was a red hue to the hillside where their new leaves were emerging from buds. As I descended more they were the dominant tree with some large specimens and I would say there will be little stopping their spread. They are an invasive species, an Australian weed, in this environment and one can only hope they do not blanket the whole of the flower-filled plateau in 30-50 years. As I descended further I crossed a few small streams and then came across a large dairy farm. It was spread out along each side of the road for about 5 kilometres and there must have been about 500-1000 Holstein-Friesian cattle, which are primarily milking cows. I was surprised to see them and with the open plains, rolling hills, large eucalyptus trees and these dairy cattle I could easily have thought I was in Australia.

Beyond the grazing fields on the lower slopes of the hills surrounding the plain I saw hundreds of white dots on brown areas. It took me a while to realize these were potato bags, either with a harvest or with seed potatos for an upcoming planting. As I dropped down the ridge more and more the cultivated areas of potatoes covered everything. There were fields as far as the eye could see and white bags everywhere. There must have been thousands of hectares of potato fields up here and every bit of land was cultivated except for the higher slopes. As I came down into a valley which was completely covered in potato fields I noticed that some farmers were already planting. The farmers here had the same digging hoe as I have seen since Zambia but with a much longer handle, almost 1.5 metres long. With these they make troughs and ridges. In one field I saw 4 men in a diagonal line with furrows full of potatoes every 10 centimetres. The 4 men were busy pulling the ridge of earth on the other side of the potatoes from where they stood onto the potatoes burying them. They were staggered each pulling a ridge so they were covering 4 lines of potato at once. The whole operation looked very organized.

The bumpy track then reached a section of tarmac at the village of Ujuni and I sped down the road loving the silence from the rattling panniers. There were some very simple cafes in Ujuni so I had a meal here. The only thing the lady had was rice, a bean stew and a beef stew for I had a portion of all for 3000 shilling and then continued down the tarmac road, past the other villages of Kitulo and Nkenja. The houses here were all the typical brick houses with the tall corrugated iron roofs but there were also larger timber sheds with corrugated iron roofs and I think this would be where they stored the potatoes. I have never seen such an all encompassing potato growing area. There were no other crops, it was just potatoes and if there was a disease like blight there were no other crops to eke the farmers out over for a year. Eventually this lovely tarmac stretch came to an end and then it was back to the bumpy stony road as I descended steeply to a junction.

Here I had a choice of ways. The preplanned route which went up a steep stony road to Makete village and then on to Iwana in 20 kilometres, or up a less steep hill on a rocky road which I thought would have less up and down for 20 kilometers. I abandoned the preplanned route and threw caution to the wind and took the latter, which was the left fork. It was a mistake and it turned out to be much hillier as it went through extensive Bhutan pine plantations. It seemed to be a well managed forest with lots of different growth ages. Between the patches of forestry were maize fields still full of dried standing maize with the cobs still on. It looked a poor harvest unless most of the cobs had already been picked and what was left were the ones left to ripen a bit more. This forest and maize went on for about 10 kilometers until I got to the village of Ivalali. It was thriving with potatoes, the maize I had just past and timber.

In the forest the timber was cut and turned into lumber as where it was felled I presume by a small portable sawmill. There were planks along the road before Ivalili waiting to be picked up by truck and then transported back in a lorry to be stacked at Ivalali and also at Iwawa where I was going. There were huge racks of the timber curing in both places and the main use for them seemed to be roof trusses for the tall roofs. It must have taken considerable effort by the lorry drivers to bring the timber down to Njombe and out to Iringa and then to the rest of Tanzania and onto Malawi.

From Ivalali there was a bumpy descent for 5-6 kilometres down to Iwawa past small hamlets which were really just a part of that town. The tracks here were steep and it was really just suitable for motorbikes. It took a good half hour to negotiate my way down with the brakes frequently applied until I got to the bottom of the valley, where there were extensive stacks of lumber drying. I then had a exhausting steep push up roads to meet another segment of tarmac road and merge back with my preplanned route. I think my detour cost me at least an hour and prossibily and extra 200 metres of climbing.

Iwawa was not like any other town I had seen on my trip. The main street was very wide and the shops were back from that again. There were stationary shops, electrical shops, plumbing shops and even a couple of 2 story shopping centres. It was also clean and tidy and not at all chaotic. It felt as if were planned and the planners had sought to create a feeling of space and openness. I cycled down through the town on the main street passing a couple of rough looking lodges hoping the one I earmarked had a room and I would not have to return. I then took a side road to the Madihani Villas Lodge some 500 metres away. When I got there it was very quiet and I feared it had closed when I heard someone shout ‘You are Welcome”. They had a room but no food or even drinks. She showed me a cardboard box with various bottles of spirit jumbled in it, but I explained soft drinks and she had none. There was one other guest, an accountant from Njombe, and he helped translate and he said I could order a takeway which I asked the manageress to do and she did. I arrived quickly and after I ate it I went up to the room to have a shower. However there was no hotwater so I went into the clean sheets with 2 days of sweat on. I woke in the night and tried the water again but still none, so I tried the neighbouring room, which still had the key in the lock. There was hot water here so I took a shower in the middle of the night. Such are the foibles of plumbing and maintenance in most lodges.

Day 100. 17 August. Kiwira to Kikondo. 47 km. 8.5 Hours. 1740m up. 300m down. Peter, one of the lodge managers, gave me a great breakfast with eggs and coffee. I needed it as today was just an ascent as far as I managed to go up towards the Kitulo Plateau. I had been aware of this climb for months and anticipated it. I set off at 0930, a little late, and cycled the 200 meters to the T junction and turned right north up through the rest of the town and then into the countryside again. The climbing started straight away and the road was a bit busier than I would have liked given the pitiful size and state of the verge. However I could stay on the road and move on the verge when traffic came up behind me and I could usually hear it as it was roaring up in a low gear. There were many motorbikes on the road and very few cycles. In fact I hardly see any bikes at all. The motorbikes are the beasts of burden and they frequently are loaded down with sacks of agricultural produce or 2-3 passengers in addition to the rider. Most of the bikes were extremely noisy and I am sure a lot of them had special mufflers on their exhausts to enhance their noise, and supposed masculinity. In addition to the motorbikes were the buses which could seat about 20 at a push, and a few returning petrol tankers heading back to the terminal from dropping their load in Malawi. As I cycled out of the town the noise seemed to ease a bit and the climb was never desperately steep.

It was Sunday morning as I climbed up through the series of villages with one following as soon as the previous one ended. There was some great singing coming from the churches I passed. Some were exceptionally happy and powerful gospel anthems with choirs of women belting out songs. I would have loved to have peeked inside them as some of the singing almost gave me goosebumps. I also passed one church, The Evangelistics Assemblies of God, where the pastor was berating the congregation, shouting fire, brimstone and pools of burning sulphur at them. I had a pause from the climb outside this church and he was still going some 10 minutes later, bellowing until his voice was coarse. I wondered why anyone would go to him and not one of the jolly services with the ladies choirs. His audience must be the religious masochists who believe everyone is born into sin and wearing a hairy shirt, cold bathing and his sermons are the only redemption.

As I climbed, the farming and vegetation changed. Bananas were everywhere and all of the homestead houses were smothered by them with just the tops of the tall pointed roofs poking out. I even saw a few plantations where bananas were the overstory crop and beans and coffee grew on the ground. However the banana leaves were so large that they blotted most of the light and the beans and coffee grew slowly in the shade. There were also many avocado trees appearing, and some homesteads were covered in them while others just had a few trees. Beside the road I also saw the first of the potato fields and soon they were everywhere with small fields full of them and many were now being harvested. There were large white sacks of potatoes, probably 100 kilo sacks, everywhere in the fields. They were also on the backs of motorbikes as they were getting driven from the fields to the homestead. There were more and more beside the road for sale and they were soon as common a sight as tomatoes in Malawi.

The trees changed too and soon there was eucalyptus everywhere and the air was full of the aroma of their resin. I am not sure if they are used for their their wood or used as firewood. Many people beside the road were selling bundles of sticks which would be used for firewood. I think these replaced the sacks of charcoal which lie along the road in Malawi, and Zambia especially. There were more and more pines appearing too. However what really stuck me was outside this farmed strip on each side of the road were green forests which covered the hillsides and stretched away into the distance. To my east the distant hills were big and their great rounded shapes loomed large over the forest from which they gently rose from. Their rounded summits were often covered in mists as the warm air in the Rift Valley rose up in the winds cooling and condensing

As I was on the verge for much of the time I was vulnerable to get a puncture from either from the copious amounts of broken glass or other fragments. I had not had one since Zambia with these new Schawalbe Mondial tyres so I was overdue and got one at Ntokela. I pulled over into the forecourt area of a few shops well off the road, and started to take the paniers off. The shopkeepers looked up and knew what was happening and went back to their work but soon the kids in the neighbourhood found out and they all came to watch. There were about 20 of them in the end all sitting about 10 meters away watching respectfully and calmly. It was a piece of wire from the reinforcing from a tyre which had gone right through the Schwable’s. I managed to find it and pull it out with the pliers and then patch the inner and refit it. It took about 20 minutes, as it was the back wheels and that is always more fiddly. Once I finished I felt I should give a bow to the kids, but gave them a wave and they all waved back in unison as I headed up the hill.

After many hours and having climbed from 1350 to 2350 I at last reached the Isyonje. I was tired and stopped here for some biscuits and sugar water. The shop keeper said they did not have a fridge because they did not need one as the nights were so cold. I had been looking forward to leaving this road which I had essentially been on since coming down from Livingstonia a week ago. It was not unpleasant but the culture along it was not that rural and veered towards commercial. This was where I would turn off from it and go across country on small roads for a good 2 weeks until I got to Mikumi 650 kilometres to the east. However as soon as I turned it off my heart sank as instead of a beautiful packed earth road which I could cruise along I found myself on an incredibly stony road. It was like cycling over rubble and the bike was bouncing every 20 cm as it had to go over a dust covered rock.

It was a bumpy 10 kilometres to the high village of Ngoma. On each side of me were extensive views, especially to the south where the land stretched away down to the Rift Valley and the end of Lake Malawi now some 2000 metres below me. The road was very rough though but the motorbikes still managed it well with their suspension and bounced along with large sacks of potatoes or 3 people on each one. There were fields of potatoes everywhere now and it seemed nothing else was grown.

I had set my sights on Ngoma and when I climbed the last steep section to the town I was hoping for a lodge or somewhere to fill my water bottles so I could camp. The town was bigger than I thought with perhaps 20,000 inhabitants and it did have a lodge. Some ladies directed me to it and I met the manager. From the outside it looked promising. But the manager was the most apathetic young man I had seen in a long time and seemed to think being extremely slow at everything, walking and talking, was cool, so much so I began to wonder if he was 100%. He showed me a room for 15,000 shillings. I would not have stayed in it if it was free. The room was filthy, the unmade bed looked like the sheets had not been changed for months and the pillows looked like they were impregnated with human grease. There was an attached bathroom and it smelled like the urinals in a working man’s pub in the north of England. I left the town and continued east along the ridge top looking for somewhere to fill my bottles so I could camp.

After another hour I bounced my way along to Kimondo. It was now about 1500 and I thought I would go through this hamlet and into the forest a bit and then find water at a pump or someone’s house. However, just after the hamlet was a steep hill. I knew it was coming but was thinking it can’t be that bad. However, it was worse than I feared. The road climbed a further 400 metres on the stony, bumpy track which was so steep I had to get off and push. It took me about 2 hours to heave the bike up. There were a few lorries and many motorbikes on this climb and some of the bikes were making their passengers walk. One lorry was in the middle of the road up on jacks and chocked up on stones with a broken leaf spring. It was having major surgery and I guess it would be there for a few days.

On and on the track climbed with a few discarded motorbike passengers chatting to me as we walked up to the waiting bikes. I kept hoping for a hamlet but there were none and no water source either. One person told me the next place “was far”. This was alarming as usually “it is near” translates to less than 10 km. I checked my maps and there was a village called Kikondo in 10 km. It was further along the ridge with a fair bit of up and down before I got to it. At last I reached the top and could get back on the bike and bounce along for another hour until Kikondo appeared beyond the next deep dip some 4 km away. I gingerly descended into the dip passing two more broken down cars and then started the 2 km climb up to the village. I was now shattered and there was no way I could cycle even in lowest gear so I just pushed the bike. It was getting cold now the sun was on the horizon to the west and I was at about 2750m.

I was parched and hungry so I went into the first shop. It was run by a large cheerful lady. I had two packets of biscuits and some soda water and asked her about somewhere to stay. This prompted a flurry of phone calls from the other 3-4 middle-aged ladies outside. I guess these were some of the matriarchs of the village. Pretty soon a younger man appeared in overalls and spoke great English. He had been to university and studied engineering. He and his brother had a guesthouse, mechanic workshop and flour mill, and although just 25 was quite an entrepreneur. We walked over to his large guesthouse and he showed me a small clean room with new sheets. It was perfect. There was just a bucket shower in a communal washroom but there was no hot water. He could get his brother to boil some while he went back to the mill but it was dark now and getting very cold and the thought of drip drying in a freezing bathroom did not entice me so I skipped any form of hygiene and went to bed at 1930.

Day 99. 16 August. Kasumulu to Kiwira. 58 km. 7 Hours. 1220m up. 420m down. The hotel gave me a great breakfast and I was ready to go at 0900. I had decided to go straight up the main road, The B345, to Tukuyu instead of taking the longer, smaller way, as it looked very steep towards the end. The traffic also did not look that bad after all as I watched it while having breakfast. As soon as I left I started to climb but it was quite gentle. There was a verge to the road but it was really quite narrow and often destroyed by erosion. I cycled on it and frequently made the jump up the 5 cm tarmac lip when I got to bad potholes or where it simply vanished.

As I climbed I was astounded at how green and forested it was. After the arid time in Zambia and the treeless slopes of Malawi this was lush forest. The homesteads were surrounded by trees and the fields were full of them. Beyond the homesteads were forest clad ridges with almost a jungle like cover with vines growing up the tall trees. I noticed that some of the homesteads were growing 10 or 20 teak trees, easily identifiable by their huge leaves. The houses here on the homesteads were much more substantial than their Malawi counterparts and virtually all had tin roofs. The tin roofs were quite striking as they had a very steep pitch which made them very tall. I don’t know if there was a practical reason or whether it was simply to make the houses look more grand and imposing. Certainly it would have cost more as there was perhaps 50% more corrugated iron used and there had to be many more roof trusses. I don’t think the roof space was used to store any produce and I don’t think it was used as a living space either.

After a few hours where I climbed gently I was really starting to gain some height and I could see down the tree-clad slopes to the valleys on each side. They were covered in fields at the bottom but at the moment they were fallow. Beyond them the ridges rose up again and were covered in forest as far as the eye could see. Had I gone the other way this morning, further to the east, I would be on the other side of these ridges and in a valley which continued north from Lake Malawi. In this valley were a number of crater lakes as this was part of the rift valley where Africa is splitting in two. At this split there is sometimes volcanic activity every 1000 or 10,000 years and craters are formed and then when redundant they fill with water.

As I climbed I reached a tea estate. I think it was called the Chivanjee Estate. It was quite large but it was the scruffiest and most neglected tea estate I have ever seen – and I have seen a few. The bushes were all at the same height and were being plucked but the fields were full of weeds and creeping vines and these were smothering the bushes. I don’t think there was any weeding done by the estate owners. It seemed though they did give permission for locals to go into the fields and collect fodder by collecting the weeds and I saw many farmers carrying sacks of weeds along the road returning home. The company running this estate was called “Mohamed Enterprises” and it looked like they were running it into the ground. I did not see the factory but there was a sign for one. There were also many homesteads which grew tea and these looked in much better shape with vibrant green bushes all neatly plucked and no weeds coming through at all. I think Mohamed Enterprises would have bought this tea from the local farmers to supplement their own production and process both at the Chivanjee Tea Factory.

There was little let up in the climb and as soon as one finished there was a small downhill run and then the next slope started. One of these slopes involved a 500 meter ascent on its own. As I climbed I saw the homesteads were all well organised and productive. There was quite a bit of tea grown on them but the main crop now seemed to be beans and they were in many of the fields. Sometimes there were nets over young seedlings which were being propagated in small plastic tubes before being taken to the prepared fields and planted out. There were thousands of seedlings under each net. There was also a bit of cassava and some maize, but tea, beans and bananas were the main crop. I stopped and bought some 20 small bananas for 1000 shillings (£0.30p). For the first time I also saw that the farmers had planted some ornamental shrubs and flowers around their houses and some looked quite vivid.

Towards the top of this long 500 metre climb I came across another tea estate. This one was called the Kyimbila Estate and it was managed by the Wakulima Tea Company. It was in complete contrast to the previous one and the fields were bright green with new growth on the well ordered bushes which were all the same size. I think the Wakulima Tea Company was in it for the long term and were probably fertilizing their fields to increase their yield and profit. Their tea factory was near Tukuyu and looked relatively small compared to the Sri Lanka ones. There was no one in the fields at all but then it was a Saturday and perhaps this was a workers day off.

I reached Tukuyu but could not see anywhere nice to stay. I had only done 40 kilometres and it was just 1430. I looked at the map and saw there was another small town 18 kilometres away, and it had a couple of simple guest houses. The road to it was flat so I decided to continue to it. Up to Tukuyu the hamlets had been quite spread out and it was not that densely populated, but after this town it was very busy with an almost continuous suburban spread of homesteads crammed together. They were all surrounded by banana plants which almost enveloped them and just the tip on the tall corrugated clad roofs stuck out. Beneath the bananas were beans. It was still very lush and green on this stretch but all the big trees had gone from around the farms, but they still clad the hillsides. There were many timber merchants here and even house builders putting the roofing frames together for the tall roof structures. It was a busy, vibrant active community and everyone seemed busy. There were no ox carts now but a curious 3 wheeled motorbike with a large trailer on the back which even had a hydraulic tipping function. The trailers were easily big enough for two cows.

Tired and hot I eventually reached the bustling large village of Kiwira which was at a T junction and right at the foot of the first climb tomorrow which was 650 metres. Here there was a simple lodge which cyclists used and I checked it out. The caretaker was called Peter and he showed me a room with a large bed with clean sheets. There was a bathroom with a squat toilet which I am well used to from Asia. It even had hot water. With Peter’s help we rigged up a table from 4 stools and a sheet of plastic so I could write and I was all set. I wasted a bit of time as I fell onto the bed and snoozed a bit before the shower which is always a fatal thing to do. After the shower I went out to eat but there was nothing except for a local bar which just did grilled kebabs and plantains. There was no rice or nshima or vegetables. I had a few small kebabs and plantains and then went back to my room to write just as a power cut started. I was done by 2100 and was tired after the climb. Unfortunately it is the same tomorrow and the day after too, as I continue to climb out of the rift valley.

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June 27, 2025

Day 069. 17 July. Rufensa to Luangwa Bridge. 79 km. 7 Hours. 660m up. 1080m down. I had already bought some milkshakes for breakfast so had them at 0630 and then left soon afterwards. I was glad to be leaving Rufunsa and could see no charm in the place at all. It was cold in the morning as the sun was just breaking over the horizon. I crossed to face the oncoming traffic again as I had done yesterday and also because the sun was directly into my eyes and therefore would also be in the drivers eyes, blinding them, if I stayed on the correct side. The road was never that flat and quite undulating; however I saw that there were some quite big hills on each side of the road especially to the north. It was very green here and the forest looked healthy. I climbed over one small ridge to freewheel down the other side into the next valley which was hazy with the smoke from the morning fires.

In the valleys between the ridges there were hamlets, some with a few shops but mostly old traditional homesteads with idyllic traditional buildings on them. It was a very pleasant cycle despite the hills and the occasional truck, which seemed to arrive in convoys of 3 or 5 vehicles. Eventually I reached the village of Kaloma, which was the start of the climb which my gadget had warned me was coming. It was a 300 meter ascent over 5 kilometres. I thought about stopping in Kaloma for something to eat but it looked quite scruffy and there was nowhere I thought I could eat without the bike on full display and attracting attention, so I carried on.

It was a serious hill and I was soon in the lowest year going up some steep inclines at 4 km per hour. At such a slow speed it was difficult to keep the bike in a straight line, especially if there were potholes about. I cycled up the conventional side as the trucks coming up behind me were barely moving faster than I was, while the trucks coming down were roaring as their engines in low gear prevented them running away and their brakes would have been hot with friction. I managed to cycle up the whole hill without getting off and pushing but I had to keep in a low gear. On and on I cycled past a dubious looking zip line and a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, slowly gaining ground. My thighs were pumping relentlessly and tired, but they were still coping and after a good hour I finally reached the top of the climb with green bush on each side.

The descent down the east side was quite steep and I sped down for about 5 km passing charcoal sellers and then getting into more homesteads and maize fields. Again some of the homesteads here were very pretty. The hamlets of shops, every 5 km or so now, were not pretty at all and were quite scruffy, noisy and busy. I passed one after the other looking for somewhere to eat until I thought I was just being too picky and stopped at an older lady who advertised food. She had none but directed up a small side street where there was a simple clean restaurant which did the usual nshima and greens and with either fish or sausage. I had been going for nearly 5 hours and the tank was empty so this was a much needed pit stop. As I sat in the shaded concrete area in front of the restaurant I could see the village hand pump. It was constantly busy mostly with women coming to get water in large 20 litre buckets which they managed to place on top of their heads and walk home. Occasionally young boys or older men came also and they carried the buckets away more awkwardly with their handles while it bashing into their legs.

After the meal I felt much better but the roller coaster ride continued with some vicious short uphills which I was not expecting. After yesterday and then the monster climb this morning my legs were tired. At the top of a few of the hills the verge widened out a bit where people had stopped over the years, and now this served as a place to sell charcoal in bags. I must have passed perhaps 100 charcoal sellers today and the same yesterday. The bags were much larger here and went for 200 kwacha. There were small groups, perhaps families, involved in each venture and the whole area around them was blackened with dust. I did not see the fires burning to make the charcoal but assumed they were nearby in the bush. I don’t know if the charcoal sellers were local farmers who had branched out into this side line or whether they were displaced or opportunistic families from poorer areas who had moved here and this was the only way they could find to make a living. Either way it looked an unpleasant business and the people were often grubby with their clothes covered in soot.

At last the hills eased off and it was now a more sustained descent down for 5 km to the Luangwa River. The roadside got a bit more built up as I approached the town called Luangwa Bridge. It looked as if it was worse than Rufunsa and I cycled right through it without stopping. There were a few lodges here apparently but judging from the rest of the town I guess they would be unsavoury and charmless. Just before I reached the large arterial Luangwa River I took a road to the south which led me down to the river bank and I followed this road for nearly 2 kilometres to Luangwa Bridge Camp. It was a campsite with chalets sometimes used by safari travellers going from one National Park to another. It was a well known rest place and in its hey day was quite cherished.

Bridge Camp was now run by Mulenga and her husband and had been for the last 3 years. It sat on a slight prow overlooking the Luangwa River which was one of Zambia’s largest rivers and drained the entire east side of the country. Sitting in its reception area I could relax in a slight cooling breeze while the river slowly flowed past beneath. Now it was quite low and the river bed was braided with the water flowing between large sandbanks. On the far (eastern) side was Mozambique and there were a few homesteads here and children were playing near the water while some fishermen were casting nets into the shallows to get small fish which were dried. It was a superb, quiet, peaceful location. The chalet was quite over priced, especially when compared to the chalets at Sinazongwe and Chirundu in the last 10 days, but looking at the alternatives here I had no quibble with it. The food was good and Mulenga was a delightful lady who was very knowledgeable, entertaining and had spent years working within hospitality in the UK. I will have a day off here to catch up with the blog and rest my legs before crossing the river and starting the next Section 06. South East Zambia.

The last Section 05. South Zambia which was essentially from the Livingstone area to here at Luangwa Bridge was probably the best of the 5 sections so far. It was the hardest and most challenging, both physically and also socially, but I had survived both and it was therefore the most rewarding. During this bicycle expedition I had wanted to experience Africa as unsullied by the all-encompassing commercial mono culture, from sophisticated coiture to grubby transactions, which is consuming all other culture before it, and my 2 weeks in the rural hamlets north of Lake Kariba had certainly done that and I will cherish it.

Day 068. 16 July. Chongwe to Rufunsa. 114 km. 9.5 Hours. 930m up. 1250m down. I was up early but waited a while for the breakfast, which was perfunctory but would save me stopping soon. I left just before 0800 and later than I wanted for this huge day. I weaved through the pedestrians in the side streets and then made it onto the chaotic main road with people, large wheelbarrows, cars and trucks everywhere as people were setting up their stalls. It was the most chaotic I had seen anywhere in Africa on this trip, but it was still a long way off Nepal or the rest of Asia for that matter. As all the traffic was going very slowly it was easy for me to sit behind a small truck and go the same speed as it.

Eventually the chaos started to thin as the market disappeared behind us and the traffic started to speed up a bit, but I could still keep up with it on the long downhill stretch out of town for 4 km, down to the Bridge over the Chongwe River. However, up from here it was different. The road was relatively narrow and the verges were dreadful. They were not really part of the road at all but were the stony base of what was the road before the tarmac was laid. It was essentially compacted rubble. To make matters worse there was a lip at the faded yellow line at the edge tarmac and this verge and it was between 5 and sometimes 30 centimetres depending on how eroded the gravel verge was. So it was either one or the other as I could not chop and change as required. It made sense to go on the verge as the road was narrow and when two vehicles met there was no room for them to give me any berth, let alone a wide one, especially if they were trucks. However, the verge was an unpleasant place. There was occasional rubbish, including broken bottles, the surface was bumpy and thorn bushes frequently encroached from the side. I could do a third of the speed that if I was on the road.

Then I noticed that all the other local cyclists were using the other side of the road, the south side and so I crossed over. Here the verge was still packed rubble but it was smoother and much much wider and there was hardly any lip. As usual there were cyclists with large bags of charcoal and these were stacked horizontally across the luggage racks so the bike was well over a meter wide. They were all using the side I was on but as the kilometres started rolling by I noticed more and more heading into town on the other side of the road so they were facing the traffic. Indeed everyone on my side of the road was also heading east and facing the traffic. It was totally contrary to the rules of the road as I knew them from Europe. I then realized that there was almost an understanding between the truck drivers and cyclists as they approached each other. If the truckdriver could pull out he would, but if he could not then he would blow his horn and flash his lights and that was the signal to get off the road and onto the verge. The truck drivers were actually very able drivers but their trucks were large and heavy and if they had momentum, especially going up a hill, they were loath to lose it. Hence the flashing if they could not pull over. The one group of cars which were not accommodating were the 4×4’s either with Zambians driving one with the blue writing of an NGO on the side or White locals or tourists on their way to a game park. As a rule they always drove too fast. And so it continued all day with me riding into the oncoming traffic and occasionally having to drop down onto the verge and this seemed to work. I also had to be wary of 4×4’s overtaking a truck going in the same direction as me so I was always glancing at my mirror if I heard a truck coming.

The road was not a pleasant cycle though and I was always on alert and could not enjoy the countryside as I had done in the last 2 weeks. In the first 20 kilometres it seemed much more built up with small businesses and factories, and also houses behind concrete block walls. I am not sure if this was an extension of Chongwe, or even Lusaka, which was only 50-60 km behind me. However pretty soon these petered out and the maize fields of the plateau and small rural hamlets took their place. Despite being close to the road some of the hamlets were very traditional with all the buildings in the compound made of mud and under thatch.

The road was very undulating with some significant climbs and descents and I was quickly racking up the meters I had ascended. The trouble was the ascents and the descents were too steep for a cyclist to enjoy and after labouring up a hill I had to freewheel down the other side frequently applying the brakes and wasting the momentum. Around Chinyunyu I passed quite a few signs for accommodation with the headman. I assumed this was the headman of the village or community and he was offering camping places or even simple rooms to Zambians and tourists alike, although the signs were old and faded. Also in this area there was a plethora of fringe denominations, perhaps all with a charismatic Pentecostal pastor. Some of the churches looked very rustic and others dilapidated, as the charisma of the pastor waned and the collections dried up. In one 20 kilometer stretch I must have passed 20 of these and that was in addition to the more accepted common denominations like the Seventh Day Adventists, The New Apostolic and Catholic. Some of the fringe ones had magnificent names.

I passed through many homesteads and a few hamlets but I had my mind set on reaching Shingela where there was a restaurant. I had been going for about 4.5 hours now and the breakfast was long gone. The road was still very undulating so progress was slow and there was a head wind as usual but at last I reached the large village. The restaurant I wanted was closed so I found another and it had the usual: nshima, green stewed vegetables quite similar to mustard greens, and an interchangeable meat, in this case goat. I was beginning to accept this meal as it was all that is available and is the staple. I sat outside the restaurant and watched the vibrant trade of this commercial village unfold.

I still had about 55 km to cycle and I could see that after a hill it was largely flat or even downhill. As I left Shingela the landscape got very green as if this area got more rain. To my south was the large Lower Zambezi National Park, a large park with many ecological zones from the river itself to these higher green hillocks. But what was flat on the apps and my map turned out to be more undulating hills and was very taxing. I cycled on and on all afternoon and was never that confident I would make Rufunsa by dusk. However there were places to stay enroute including one forestry camp with green chalets on the south side of the road which almost had me stopping to enquire. But my heart was set on Rufunsa as I wanted to reach the Luangwa Bridge the next day. Thankfully the downhill run into Rufunsa was just what I needed. It went on for almost 10 km and took me from the rolling green forested hills down to the flat plain where Rufunsa sat and I got there about 1730.

I had read about the 4 places to stay and all seemed quite grim, with one in particular to avoid called JB’s. I cycled past the market, concrete shops and the truck stop to the one I had singled out called the Gambit. However when I got there it was dull and there was no one about so I went back to one I had noticed on the way in. They had a room. It was rough and scruffy with a concrete floor, a double bed as the only furniture, and an attached concrete outhouse with a toilet and bucket shower. There was no sink. But I took the room as I was so tired. After I handed the 250 Kwacha over I asked the lady what was the name of this lodging. She said “JB’s”.

The write ups about this lodge on google and Ioverlander were scathing about the place, but I still think they were far too generous. It was filthy, so filthy I didn’t go into the bathroom except to pee. I was not going to have a shower. The whole ceiling had collapsed leaving just the rafters and then the corrugated iron above that. Between the rafters and the roofing sheets were so many cobwebs you could barely see the corrugated iron sheets in some places. She did have the time to change the pillow case but not the sheets or covers. In addition to that there was extremely loud music coming from the attached bar.

The door was just a metal grate and curtain. As I did not bother with a cold bucket wash in the cold bathroom I went out to find something to eat. I passed through the large very noisy bar area which only had 3 bored customers sipping beer from a bottle. It was too loud to talk. In the main market area, where about 30 trucks were also parked, I found a restaurant which did nshima had a chicken, vegetable and maize meal, washed down by sugary drinks. Back at the room I took off my cycling shorts and put on long trousers and kept my cycling top on and crawled into bed. I was too tired to worry about the unwashed sheets and was grateful my head was on clean linen anyway. The music was incredibly loud and it was a good 100 metres away but I soon fell asleep. I woke at midnight and the music was still going but it was more melodic now. How I longed for the rural villages of the last fortnight instead of this low echelon commercialism.

Day 067. 15 July. Katoba to Chongwe. 53 km. 5.5 Hours. 320m up. 340m down. I had a breakfast of granola in the room and then left at 0830 cycling down to the shops and the T junction. Unfortunately the road I had to take was the only one which was not tarmac, as the other direction went to Lusaka. The road was not really gravel but powdered earth and small rocks. It was not pleasant to cycle on as the rocks made it very bumpy and occasionally the powdered dry earth was 5 centimetres deep and this made it almost as bad as sand. However there were always routes through the most rocky or dusty sections and these were usually at the side and this is where all the cycle tracks were. I could only average 10 km per hour at the most and this was despite the fact it was a very gentle downhill slope.

There were homesteads pretty much the whole way here to Mulalika. They were better off than their equivalents on the arid plain beside the Zambesi I had cycled through last week and they had a mix of traditional and newer buildings in their compounds. Occasionally some of them must have had a bore hole because there were vegetable patches beside some of them with small fields under cabbage or mustard greens. I also noticed how a few had the red or purple bougainvillea trees near the huts and buildings, something I never saw in the Zambezi area on homesteads. There were also many more fences here, primarily to keep cattle and goats out I think but it also served to mark off a plot in this slightly more individual and commercial society up here.

At Mulalika I saw a huge pile of sacks. I thought they were cotton and it was a cotton buyer. However I asked someone and they said it was maize. The government was buying maize and paying 350 kwacha (£10) for a 50 kilo sack. There must have been over 1000 sacks piled up waiting for lorries to take them off somewhere. In the photo you can just see a small part of the pile. I guess this area produces a surplus and other areas like the Copper Belt north west of Lusaka produces very little as everyone is involved in mining. During the course of today’s cycle I passed another 5 or 6 depots each with around 1000 sacks.

From Mulalika to Lwiimba the road got slightly better but after the Lwiimba it improved significantly all the way to Chilyabale and at last I could go a bit faster across the virtually flat plateau. The closer I got to Chongwe the more built up the homesteads became with virtually every one having a 2-3 room brick or even concrete block house under a shiny corrugated roof. There were still the traditional buildings in the compound and some were very beautiful and well constructed. After some 25 odd kilometres on the earth road I reached the tarmac road at Chilyabale just at the primary school. It was break as I passed and perhaps 100 kids yelled and shouted as I passed which was quite rousing and I made sure I gave them a long wave.

I had forgotten just how easy good smooth tarmac is and soon I was flying along the very gentle downhill slope for nearly 20 kilometres to a dry riverbed. There was a steep drop into it and a climb up the other side to take me to Chalimbana which was really a small town with a University and a Government Training School. There were lots of students all over the road and many signs for lodgings, and quite a few fast food outlets. It was quite a vibrant town and it really marked the end of the rural countryside. There were still farms occasionally for the last 10 km but there was a lot of house building going on with many being built inside large gardens completely surrounded by a concrete block wall. The traffic increased also and I had to watch out for people walking 2 or 3 abreast at the side of the road until I reached the main Great East Road, the T4, which went from Lusaka to Malawi.

The T4 was busy and at this point it was narrow. There was a stony verge at the side but this was occasionally 20 centimeters below the tarmac so I had to decide where I was going to ride. As the traffic was going quite slowly I chose the road however after a kilometre or so when I reached the centre of Chongwe it was quite chaotic so I dropped down onto the stony verge with all the pedestrians and the other local cyclists with large sacks strapped to their bikes. Suddenly I burst into a large market area where there were hundreds and hundreds of stalls on the north side of the road. They were mostly selling vegetables and as I cycled past I saw there were lots of different sections, like dried fish and seaweed I think, another had metal work with welders fabricating window frames, wheelbarrows and stoves. Wherever I looked there was the flash of welders rods. There was also a large area of charcoal with huge bags for 300 kwacha right down to shopping bags for 15 kwacha. In amongst all this vibrant activity were the barrow boys with special wheelbarrows locally made at the market. They were very big with a car wheel as the fulcrum point and a large platform at least a meter long to the front of the wheel for carrying a few large sacks. I wove through here to reach the Backpackers.

The Backpackers were in name only. I was a row of broken bedrooms in a dusty compound with not a bit of greenery or soul. I looked and then sat on the wall outside the reception to find something else. I did and it was three times the price but it had everything the backpackers did not, like hot water and electricity. It was called the Chimthunzi Executive Lodge, but executive it was not. However it was certainly comfortable enough. I settled in and then went for a wander round the market and finally went to the supermarket to get dinner. Choppies always had a counter of cooked food so I got chicken, chips and an aubergine stew and took it back to my room to eat it there and start writing.

That was pretty much the end of this rural deviation which I started in Zimba 14 days ago. It was not the easy option with 650 km and some 6000 metres of ascent and descent. I am sure I could have halved all those figures had I come up the T1 main road to Lusaka and then the T4 to Chongwe but I am sure it would not have been as pleasant or rewarding. This detour, shall we call it the “Lusaka Bypass” took me through the heart of Africa where old values still exist and they have not got eroded by the commercial culture which is now emanating out of the cities and towns, as it did in Europe 50-100 years ago. It was exactly the reason I came to Africa. If I wanted a comfortable and predictable journey I could have just hired a landcruiser and gone from one tourist hotspot to the next, but that would not be in the spirit of this bicycle expedition. I have a few more rural diversions planned but even with this one, The Lusaka Bypass, under my belt I feel my expedition has been a success.

Day 066. 14 July. Mufundeshi on D481 to Katoba. 23 km. 4.5 Hours. 670m up. 210m down. At 0400 the 3 cockerels, two in different tents and one in an elevated chicken house, started crowning. And they did not shut up until Joe let them out around 0630. The one in the tent beside me was especially tiresome. I was already up in my sleeping bag sitting up having granola and more milk when Joe got up to let the cockerels out and then started the fire. After my granola I got up and started to pack and Joe came over and we chatted. To me the farming up here made little sense as he was from the flatlands near Chirundu. I asked him about it and he said it was so dry down there it was not good for farming, whereas up here they get more rain. However I asked him specifically if he got 2 crops a year here and he said no just the one. I didn’t ask if he had livestock or not. Their granary was half full but the quality of the cobs was poor, and many had missing kernels. Soon his brother and the wives were up and they were making breakfast while I and Joe chatted. He was a nice guy and in the end I felt it right to give him 200 kwacha which was over the odds but of great significance to him and small for me. However the whole time I was wondering if the farming was a ruse and basically he and his brother were prospecting up here. There was certainly gold in the area and there was a Chinese gold mine somewhere. Over the course of the day after leaving them I came across a few small abandoned mines and also a couple of local prospectors with hammers and chisels.

I left them at 0730 and immediately started up the next climb. Joe said it was not as bad as yesterday’s, and that was the case. There were a couple of sections where I had to really heave, but not to the extent of straining every sinew. As I climbed it got warm when the sun broke over the ridges and started to beat down on me. On the climb I passed perhaps 3-4 abandoned mines. They had been exploited with an excavator as the tooth marks of the bucket were still visible in the hard earth. There was also another farmer half way up the slope who was a tall lighter skinned man who I am sure was not from these parts or a Tongo of Soli tribeman and must have been a surreptitious prospector. I also passed another man with a large hammer and chisel hidden in a bag and he got very excited when I thought I might be a gold buyer. Eventually after an hour and a half I reached the top of the climb where there were some farms.

From here I was essentially at the top of the escarpment and about to reach the plateau above it. To the east the hills continued to rise and the land stretched away with wild forested ridge after the next where I should imagine humans rarely venture, even the hardiest prospector. Luckily I was going north where the landscape was more gentle and there were just a couple of smaller less steep climbs to reach the plateau and 3 hours after leaving Joe and his brother in the depths of the side valley I was finally on flatter ground and reaching villages and hamlets more continuously. This was the same type of farming I had seen around Zimba and Luyaba when I was last on the plateau before descending to the amethyst rich village of Mapatizya 10 days ago. The homesteads were now less traditional and in better shape than those down in the arid plains north of the Zambezi River. It was much more pleasant on the eye and most of the land was cultivated.

I had about 5 kilometres of this on a much improved large gravel road until I reached a tarmac road. It was quiet and smooth and easy to cycle on. There were still some significant rolling ridges to climb but then there was often a wonderful run down the other side on the smooth tarmac without the bike rattling like hell over the stony gravel road. I was parched and stopped at a small shop for a drink and then learnt that it was just about 3 kilometres to the junction at Katoba beside Leopard Hill. I had already noticed there was accommodation here and after the difficult day yesterday and the hard morning decided I would throw in the towel here despite it just being midday. I cycled past a lovely simple thatched church and then up a slight hill to reach the junction and a sign for the Kankonongo Lodge.

The lady, who had hair extensions down to her knees, had a room. It was 300 Kwacha or £10 and it had a ramshackle bathroom but with hot water heated by solar pipes and a tank. These were the first I had seen in Zambia. The lodge also had a great view over Leopard Hill. There are 4 such rocky hills at Katoba and leopards used to have their lairs in them up to the 1960’s. However since then Zambia’s population has grown significantly and more and more land was taken up by agriculture around here and the leopards withdrew into the deeper forest and down to the Lower Zambezi National Park. I had a magnificent hot shower and washed all my stinking clothes, despite it just dribbling out of the roseless shower head. The lodge had no food so I went down to the row of shops at the junction and had chicken and nshima in a restaurant run by 3 characterful battleaxes. It was fun watching them chase a very drunk man out who had obviously come in because I was there. After that I went back to the lodge mid afternoon and wrote the blog for the last two days and then had a great sleep. Tomorrow I would cycle the 50-60 km to Chongwe where I would reach The Great Eastern Road, the T4, and follow it east for 2-3 days to the arterial Luangwa River and complete Section 05, South Zambia.

Day 065. 13 July. Chirundu to Mufundeshi on D481. 41 km. 8 Hours. 910m up. 610m down. The elephants did not come back in the night and I did not see any hippopotamus either when I heard a sound around 0400. The ladies made me a nice breakfast and even got bacon from the shop specially for me. I eventually left at 0900 and was sorry to leave this hidden gem. I cycled up the steep road, wary that I might encounter the elephants at the start near the forest beside the river. However there was none and after 20 minutes I made it to the main gravel road leading north. I looked for the house Harry and Hilary stayed in as directed by James to say goodbye but could not find it so headed north.

There were quite a few people on the road and many were well dressed. Then it dawned on me it was Sunday morning and many were off to church services. I passed a few and there were joyful gospel hymns coming out of the windows. There were many denominations here but Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah’s Witness, Catholic and New Apostilic were the most common. Not all were off to church though and at a few bottleshops/bars I saw younger men already with beer in hand at 1000 in the morning.

It was a bumpy dusty road for about 10 km passing hamlet after hamlet the whole way. It was almost a continuous homestead, cultivated land and occasional shops the whole way. The road was not busy but there were a few lorries taking villagers up to the flat agricultural lands between the Zambezi river and the start of the escarpment, but west of the Lower Zambezi National Park. This park blocked my way east and was a totally wild area full of animals. Just at the bridge over the Kafue River there was a rare section of smooth tarmac.

The Kafue River is a major river in Zambia but it pales into insignificance next to the vast Zambezi just below the bridge, but out of sight round the corner. There was a large bream or tilapia fish farm here which seemed to be quite well organized. I think it was Chinese. On the other bank, the north bank there were also some ponds which had been dug, and water pumped up to them. I cycled on to the start of some vast irrigated crop circles again similar to the ones I saw in Sinazongwe, but I don’t know who operated these ones. If someone had said it was the Chinese I would not have been surprised. Interestingly there was also a Zambeef feedlot cattle farm here but I only saw the entrance. I turned off the larger gravel road to a minor one which went along the north side of the Kafue River to the village of Gota-Gota and beyond. Just here I got a puncture. The second on my new tyres since Livingstone 600 rough kilometres behind me.

Gota-Gota was just 4 km up the road. When I got there people were just coming out of church. The Catholic one I think. People looked remarkably well dressed and tidy for a typical village with the women looking very smart and many of the men in suits with ties on. It was hot now and I needed a drink. I was sure it would be my last for a while so I found a small shop with a chest fridge full of them. Inevitably some young men came in and asked if I could buy them a drink. I again said I only give money to women as men just spend it on alcohol. This created raptures of laughter from the 3-4 women crowded into the shop and the men left almost as if admonished by the woman’s laughter.

At Gota-Gota I found the track I needed using the Tracks4Africa app, which is remarkably good for me on these smaller roads. It led north through the village and then down into rural hamlets near low lying stream beds. There must have been some irrigation holes dug here as there were green vegetable gardens occasionally. It was a fascinating area as between the stream beds was denser bush which was almost jungle-like. The only problem was the steam beds and the adjacent areas were very sandy and although I could still cycle it was hard work and difficult to keep the front wheel from skidding to one side. I was soon sweating a lot.

After a good 5 km of this, these rural hamlets stopped and the track, which was only used by infrequent motorbikes, rose up out of the sandy areas to a series of small ridges. It was steep down to one and then a hard climb up to the next. I was starting to question whether this short cut on the track was worth it, but it did save me about 30 kilometres going via Kiambi. I passed a sign for Headman Tigere and then the going got easier. It was now hard packed earth on a flatter surface and I could go from 5-6 km per hour to 8-10 km per hour and not work as hard doing so. This easier cycle continued for the second half of this track for about 10 km out of the total 20 km. There were two more larger hamlets to pass through until after about 3 hours on the track I reached the infamous D481 gravel road just as the flat lands met the foot of the escarpment and at the base of the climb.

This climb was significant and I had been dreading it for a good week. It climbed steeply from here at about 550 metres altitude up the Zambezi Escarpment to about 1200 metres in the course of 20 kilometres. However there were two large climbs of 400 metres and 300 metres. My plan was to do the first today and camp, and then do the second tomorrow.

I set off up the very rough track on foot pushing the bike. There was no way I could cycle this, even in the lowest gear and not even if it was smooth tarmac let alone this rubble and bare rock. There were some extremely steep bits, perhaps 15 degrees occasionally, and I could just not get the purchase on my feet to heave the bike up. The bike itself was 20 kilos, with 40 kilos of baggage, with nearly another 10 kilos of water. So 70 kilos in all. At some sections I was straining with every sinew just to move it half a meter, then slam on the brakes to hold it while I took a step and repeated the process and thereby just make 100 horizontal metres in 15 minutes. Then there would be some respite where I could go at perhaps 2 km per hour before I was at another steep section heavy for all I could. It was very slow work and I was sweating profusely despite the fact it was overcast above the Escarpment. In all it took me well over 2 hours to do the 3 kilometres and climb the 400 metres by which time I was exhausted. It was probably the hardest I had worked all trip and on a par with the wrong turning I took a week ago. My arms were especially tired but my whole body had had a severe workout.

Just as I got to the top on this remote route I met Blythe and John. They were as surprised to see me as I was them. They both had 20 kilo bikes and each had a 50 kilo sack of maize kernel strapped to the back. They had just finished a climb as I had with a similar load. There was a fair bit of banter between us and we applauded each other. Then I learnt that they had actually started at 0200 in the morning from Chongwe and had been going for 14 hours already and still hoped to get to Chirundu that night. These were strong lads which any mother would be pleased if their daughter brought home, instead of the lacklustre dullards outside a bottleshop.

After a 10 minute chat we parted, with them trying to stop their bikes running away from them and me gingerly descending the rough track for 250 vertical metres. I stayed in the saddle most of the time but the brakes were constantly employed and must have gotten very hot. Frequently I had one leg out, off the pedal waiting for the inevitable skid and on the 5 odd occasions it came I was ready and just let the bike fall over once. I was descending into a side stream called the Mufundeshi, which drained this section of the Escarpment. Ahead of me on the other side of the valley I could see tomorrow’s climb up, which was only 300 metres and not 400 as today. It took the best part of an hour to make it down to the bottom bouncing slowly over the bare bedrock and the rubble. By the time I got to the bottom it was after 1700. I crossed the stream bed which was dry and went 200 metres further and saw some tents used by road gangs. There was a superb patch of bare earth to camp on here and no one was about except a small dog, so I started to put the tent up.

Just as I started, two men appeared after returning from a day in the fields. They said it was no problem to camp but insisted I come down to their tents. I did and they showed me a place between their 5 large tents and the granary, which was full of maize. They were two brothers of 38 and 50 and their wives. The elder brother was Joe and he spoke great English and was very intelligent and entrepreneurial. He had spent years working in a mine up in the copper belt north of Lusaka. They helped me put the tent up and then soon afterwards I said good night and went in. I was too shattered to chat with them under their thatched opensided cooking and chatting area. I had a cold dehydrated meal which was still a bit crunchy after 15 minutes and 3 litres of thick creamy powdered milk. I was too tired to even bother taking my clothes off let alone writing anything. It was a mistake as the sweaty cycling shorts meant my crotch area festered in a salty, moist environment all night and meant I got badly chaffed the next day.

Day 064. 12 July. Chirundu Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was excited about seeing the hippopotamus grazing on the lawn last night. It was too dark to get a photo but I described it. James and the breakfast lady said it was very common and they came out most nights. After the cooked breakfast I went over to my chalet to write the blog and do some emails. There was a nice verandah with a table under it. It was perfect and I could look out across the parched lawn and see the Zambezi River gently flow past and even see Zimbabwe on the other side.

As soon as I started one of the gardeners/handymen came along and told me there were elephants just at the edge of the forest. I went down to have a look and there just 100 metres away were about 7 large elephants and no young. I asked where they came from and he said they had been in the forest here for a while but probably before that came from Zimbabwe. He said they would just wade across the river which was not that deep at just 1-2 meters. We stood looking at them for ages as they tentatively inched their way forwards reaching high up with their trunks to pull branches down and then stripping them of leaves, or breaking the small ones off and eating the whole lot. I was captivated by the spectacle and soon the other workers and Harry and Hilary and some of their grandchildren came to have a look. They seemed to think it happened every other day and that they would soon venture onto his lawn and start on some of the trees there.

There were plenty of branches with leaves hanging down for them to spend time where they were, but they kept looking in our direction, hesitant to come further. In the end the workers and Harry, Hilary and family eventually left as they had seen it all before and I slightly hid behind a tree. Sensing the humans had retreated, three of them started to wander into the trees at the edge of the lawn. One however was determined to get to a tree on the river bank at the edge of the lawn where I had seen the hippopotamus last night. I retreated back a bit and then went round to the bottom of the slope up to my chalet where there was a great escape up the slope and into the cabin. Another one joined it and they were now only 50 meters away. I watched them for a while but they were quite stationary.

So I went up the slope to the cabin and then went along it where I could see the other 5. One was a very large male. They carried on pulling tree branches down and devouring them but a couple seemed to have found some vegetation on the ground and were busy scooping that up with their trunks. They were only about 50 metres away and I was about 30 from the safety of my cabin, but there was a big slope they would have to climb up. I spent about half an hour watching them and noticed how trimmed the bottoms of the trees were becoming. I took loads of videos and photos as this was quite a bonus for a rest day to watch these magnificent beasts in such close quarters. I am sure they could see me and knew exactly what I was doing. The gardner did say that a couple of weeks ago an elephant had killed someone locally after she threw stones at it to try and chase it off her maize plantation. I could imagine a herd of 10 elephants could decimate a quarter hectare (half acre) of maize within half an hour.

When I went back to the verandah the two by the riverbank had obviously spotted tastier trees on the lawn and one came up and was not about 40 metres away devouring the fronds from a palm. After it had eaten about 5, stripping all the leaves off the central stalk and cramming them into its mouth it started coming up towards me. I made sure the door of the chalet was open and watched it come to within 30 metres and then 25 metres until it got to the branches which drooped down. Up went its trunk and it brought the branch down and broke some off. It then started twisting bits of it and putting it on his pointed lower lip. before it disappeared between great sets of molars which reduced all the pulp – small branches and twigs along with the leaves.

As the canopy he was easting was devoured he had to move towards me, moving a metre with every step. I double checked the door was open and watched him until he was just 15 metres away. There was a significant slope still between us and he would not get up that in one bound. As he reached up, with one eye on me and the other on the next acacia branch he was intending to pull down, I could see right up into his mouth. We sat and watched each other for about 20 minutes until he left the acacia and moved on to a coconut tree which Harry had planted. He just broke one frond off that and started to devour it but then walked backwards leaving the frond hanging and half chewed and went round the side of another shrub. It is amazing how such a big animal could vanish behind a small shrub. When he reappeared he saw me again and this time was not happy. With ears flared he took a few steps towards me and stopped. I was already half way into the chalet but he stopped and turned and went quickly after the other 6 who had already left the lawn area and were heading away. And that was the end of quite an exciting and intense two hour encounter with this herd. It was perhaps the wildlife encounter of the trip so far, along with the surprise of seeing the lions feeding on the buffalo carcass in Chobe national park.

By now it was midday and I still had all the blog and paperwork to do. So I sat on the verandah all afternoon typing away until 1700 when I managed to upload all the photos with the weak signal and then had just about finished typing when someone came over to the chalet and said have you seen the elephants. I said “Yes! I saw them this morning. Hopefully they will be back”.To which she replied “They are just over there now” and I looked where she was pointing and saw two large males. Then the whole show started again but this time all 7 elephants, all males, came onto the lawn. Everybody came to watch on my verandah as it was a safe spot. Harry and Hillary were there and a bit worried about their palms. 3 of them were attacking one of her cherished palms and another was sniffing around Harry’s coconut tree. They milled around just 30 metres away from us, but down on the lawn below us. One or two went along towards the swimming pool with the tan coloured Zambezi water where there were more acacia trees by the water and also more palms. We all left my verandah and went down to the pool area to monitor those down there. Harry was very philosophical about the potential carnage but Hilary was more concerned. “They were here before we were,” said Harry. It was getting dark now at 1800 and the carnage looked like it was in the early days and Harry thought they might settle here for the night. However I was not really comfortable going to my chalet and also did not want them on my door step all night. They might start on the roof. So I went back to my cabin the long way and went out with my powerful headtorch and airhorn. I let out a half second blast and they all turned to the forest and then let out another and they all walked quickly away. The security guard thought they might come back now they had seen the goodies on offer.

I then went in to finish off all the paperwork before returning to the bar area hoping to find Harry still there but he had gone. It had been a fascinating day, one of the most exciting days of the trip on what was essentially a rest day.

Day 063. 11 July. Changa to Chirundu. 67 km. 7 Hours. 430m up. 600m down. It was hot in the room in the early part of the night so I did not sleep well but eventually the cool of the night permeated through the corrugated roof and chilled the air. In the morning I was up early as I wanted to get to Chirundu early. I gave the sweet lady running the place a good tip and then left the dusty village and headed off on the tarmac road to the east. It was just 42 kilometres along the road to the T junction where this road, the D500, met the larger M15. Pretty much the whole time I cycled on this road there was a line of hills to the north. It was the Zambezi Escarpment, a ramp leading from the lower flat lands on each side of the Zambezi River up to the plateau. I am not sure if the escarpment was caused by the relentless erosive force of the Zambezi River over the last hundreds of millennia, or if it was a natural tectonic rift which the Zambezi River exploited on its course to the ocean. It was probably a mix of the two.

As usual there was a strong headwind and it was blowing dust up into the air and some of the shrubs were getting a little buffeted. The villages kept on coming and there were perhaps 5 of them in total between Changa and the T junction 42 km later at a place called Sikoongo. I had noticed in the last few days as I come further east a lot of the granaries now have the same structure as in they are elevated from the ground, are usually round and are constructed from sticks and then reeds. Not all seem to have a thatched grass roof any more. However the biggest change seemed to be that the walls were sealed with a layer of mud daubed on them. Rarely the mud was even painted. I could not work out the reason for this

I had seen that more and more of the thatched houses now had a small overhang on them. It was perhaps too much to call it a verandah. I assumed this was to help keep the houses cool as the sun would shine less on the mud brick walls. There was no other shade to speak of really as this was back in charcoal production country and most things which could be made into charcoal had been chopped down. There were two sizes of sack now; the usual small one for 70 kwacha and then giant ones for 150. I think most of it was used, if not locally, certainly in the district as it seems everybody cooks on charcoal in the villages. Even at the guest room in Changa the lady cooked on charcoal on a small round stove about the size of a saucepan with holes in the side. As it was charcoal she could also cook inside with hardly any smoke being produced.

Occasionally, I would pass a cyclist on the road. Often a younger boy taking maize kernels to the flour mill. There were still no electricity poles beside the road so the kernels had to go to the electric blue shed flour mills, with the array of solar panels. I also saw a few men making charcoal and packing it into sacks and men driving the ox teams, pulling carts or logs. Perhaps it was the men who did the ploughing in a few months, before the planting started. However currently, these were the only men I ever saw working. While the women were constantly on the go. I frequently passed them on the way to or from the community borehole with buckets on their heads. The women were the only ones in the vegetable patches irrigating their tomatoes, they were the only ones at the market selling things, frequently they were the ones in the small shops. I am sure a lot of the agricultural work falls on their shoulders also. By far the majority of the work seems to fall to them. Perhaps I am just seeing a snapshot of the working year and that men in fact do the ploughing, tending, harvesting and transporting the produce home, and this takes up a lot of their time, and I am just seeing them during their annual break as it were.

I am sure though I am being overly charitable towards them here because at the moment they seem to congregate around a couple of the small shops in every village and just hang out in their fashionably ripped jeans and cheap sunglasses. If they had the misfortune to have money in their pockets it is all spent on drink. I do not see anyone blind drunk and staggering as in a UK city during the weekend nights, but just enough to alleviate the boredom of hanging out. I am sure they are convinced they are as cool as one gets, and an indispensable mainstay of the community, but in reality they were a burden and a totally wasted resource. One of their highlights of the afternoon was probably spotting me cycling past, then waving in the hope I would join them and ply them with ethanol all afternoon. For them the loud music and alcohol was the opium of the bored. Although the women were always busy, they were always joking, chatting and laughing while the younger men are essentially predictable dullards. This dichotomy seems to become more pronounced the further east I travel since Livingstone.

There was not much wildlife around here, and what there was, was limited to birds. I think any larger animal would have been poached for the pot generations ago. Around the villages the goats and cattle would have foraged everything bare so there would be no food anyway. However, there were occasional doves and hornbills and a lot of smaller passerine type birds. I saw a flock of hornbills on one occasion but they all flew off bar one when I got the camera out.

Eventually after about 3 hours battling into the decreasing wind I reached the village of Sikoongo and the T junction. I had 2 choices here: either go north to the large T2 main road, which would inevitably be full of trucks. Alternatively I could go south for a bit and then find the gravel road, R143, which would take me into Chirundu from the south. I chose the latter and was heading down towards it when people kept asking where I was going. I said “Chirundu” and they all seemed perplexed and tried to redirect me back north again onto the T2. Eventually I said “small roads” and then one knowledgeable older man on a bike said follow me and led me down a small track. After a few hundred metres he stopped at a junction and said “Follow that in a straight line all the way and you will reach Chirundu”. It was not quite as south as the gravel road I was wanting on the Tracks4Africa map but it looked like a short cut towards this gravel road.

As it turned out it was a path in itself and did not reach the road I wanted until just before Chirundu. However it took me through the most remarkable countryside and a couple of small villages where this was the only to reach them. The path generally went due east and was quite level and generally firm. It had been formed by generations of pedestrians and then later bicycles, so it was easy to follow. I could never go fast but then it was a great way to savour the landscape. In a little under an hour I reached a village which I think was called Matavista. It was an idyllic village with perhaps 50 homesteads all under thatched roofs. There was also a small row of solid mud built shops but they were all closed. In the middle of the village was a vast open area with a couple of large trees. All the homesteads were arranged around this bare open area, the size of two football fields. On the far side there was rhythmic music emanating from a house and drifting across the open area. It was more gentle than the high energy rap coming from the pubs where the disenfranchised youth gathered to drink. Under one of the large tree’s shade were about 20 women all gathered with their tiny market stalls, some with just 50 tomatoes. I asked them the way to Chirundu and then they all pointed in the same direction. One grandmother spotted a teenage boy and dispatched him to show me the way for a few kilometres. After weaving through the scattered bush and across large areas of sugar cane, which had all been harvested, for around 15 kilometres I came to the D road I wanted to be on. It was just a few kilometres south of Chirundu and I was there soon afterwards after following the vast Zambezi downstream. I had said to the guy 2 hours ago I wanted small roads and he certainly showed me them, but it was a delightful cycle.

Chirundu was large and busy and like nothing I had encountered since Livingstone. I found a shop with cold drinks and went in and sat in a chair in the shop. Here I spent half an hour on my phone searching for a place to stay. It seemed there were cheap perfunctory places to stay for visiting officials and Zambia travellers. Even cheaper places for truck drivers to overnight in as this was a major border point with a bridge over the Zambezi into Zimbabwe. Or finally very expensive safari lodges at $200 a night outside town on the banks of the Zambezi. Then at last I found Machembere Lodge which seemed like a high end tourist lodge without the superfluous luxuries and without the price. I cycled down the road north for 3 km to reach it passing a lot of elephant dung at the gate.

The lodge was very quiet but I met the characterful Harry who was the owner and James his softly spoken Zambian manager. They had a room and it was 850 kwacha or £25. It was an enormous chalet with a thatched roof looking across a shaded sparse lawn to the gently flowing Zambezi River just 50 metres away. The only problem was there was no power due to an outage. So it was dark inside and there was no hot water. There was also no wifi on the premises and the mobile signal was very poor. However the location and ambience were great. I spent the evening chatting to Harry and Hilary who owned the place. They had both grown up and gone to school in Southern Africa, mostly Rhodesia as it was then. The land was Harry’s old family land and he used to grow bananas on it until Hilary thought it possible to build a lodge here to cater for the aid workers, notably World Vision. However with covid and a change in NGO policy and internet conferences that market had diminished and this tranquil place was somewhat wasted. When the substation fault was rectified and the power came back on I could see how nice the chalet was and the water was soon hot for a shower. I slept well but woke at 0300 with a noise outside. Curious I went for a look and saw there was a large hippopotamus on the lawn just outside my thatched chalet.

Day 062. 10 July. Munyumbwe to Changa. 90 km. 8 Hours. 640m up. 730m down. I was ready to set off early when I noticed I had a puncture on the front wheel. After the amount of acacia thorns I had ridden through on the last day I was not at all surprised. I was grateful it did not happen on that day. After I changed that I went back to the bakery where I bought a loaf of bread and something like a cornish pastie. I had the latter for breakfast and kept the loaf for later. I said my goodbyes to the staff at the council guest house who were trying to look busy, like council workers all over the world. I set off on the tarmac road which people assured me would be quiet. At the eastern edge of the small town was a petrol station and just before it was a bed and breakfast behind big security gates.

The road was surprisingly good and I was surprised it existed. In the course of the day perhaps 20 motorbikes, 10 cars and about 4 buses and 4 lorries passed me. So I could use the whole road and often needed to in the potholed sections. One thing I did notice on the first stretch to the village of Katete, after some 25 km, was how poor it was. There were no electricity poles and so no electricity anywhere. Also all the kids seemed to be barefoot. It seemed an odd juxtaposition to have this road and yet no electricity. The road was also full of ladies in groups going to or returning from the borehole pump with water for the household. There were plenty of pumps amongst the hamlets beside the road. I could have found plenty of water here and now cycle with all my water bottles empty, save for a litre. The landscape was very dry and quite rocky and not really great for agriculture. The only thing which thrived were the baobab trees.

After Katete the landscape became even more harsh and arid. it was almost sahel-like with nothing on the ground and just shrubs and trees growing from it. There were more and more cacti. I was still passing herds of goats and cows and I could just not see what the cattle could eat at the moment. Perhaps in the rainy season all this bursts into life, but there was just not the ground cover or the roots of grasses around to use any rain. I think this place is extremely vulnerable to climate change because if the rains don’t come it would easily become uninhabitable and all these thousands of people would be displaced.

In the last half of the day I did pass a few villages. They were the most traditional villages I had seen so far with about 50-100 households in small compounds, with virtually every house or hut under a thatched roof. However, I also noticed that the agriculture here was quite well organized as if it was a cooperative venture. The fields were large, perhaps too large for a single household to plough and harvest. There were also many small vegetable gardens beside the rivers where pools had been dug and the vegetables were then watered by bucket. An Irish charity had various projects in the valley growing drought resistant maize. But even drought resistant maize needs some rain.

The kids here were the most excitable of the entire trip so far and spotted me a mile off and came running out of the compounds and often ran alongside the bike. Two young boys managed to keep up with me going very slightly uphill for a good kilometre running fast without becoming short of breath. The women here were also the most confident so far with all waving even single girls walking towards me, who are usually shy. If they were in groups they were shouting and waving. Most of the men were also friendly but on the two occasions I stopped I was plagued by middle aged men asking for money or to buy them a drink, meaning an alcoholic drink. I told the second lot I would only give money to women and never to men to buy drink with. I might make it sound worse than it is, as it was just a tiny fraction of men who are drink pests and the majority are upstanding and polite.

Towards the end of the day and in the last 15 kilometres I passed some small mines. There were no signs on the gates and this led me to believe they were Chinese operated. It seemed they were mining in an area with a lot of orange coloured rocks and much of what was produced seemed to be stored in the meter cube white industrial sacks waiting to be taken away by lorry to be processed. These mines, and there were about 6 of them, all seemed to be in the test or exploratory stage rather than full blown production.

As I neared Changa the landscape became even more arid and cactus was rife. There were not many trees save for the large baobab, as charcoal production was rife. I noticed large areas where anything bigger than an arm was cut down leaving a stump. I doubt this would have a benefit of clearing the land for agriculture. The prevailing crop now seemed to be sugarcane as a cash crop, with fields of maize also as the subsistence stable. A few kilometres before Changa I ran into a sports competition. There were perhaps 300 spectators and 200 competitors. It was mostly girls volleyball and boys football, someone told me there were scouts looking for talent to train professionally. I don’t think I saw one overweight person in the entire crowd of spectators or competitors. Indeed the only fat Africans I see are urban ones and there are usually merchants or those working for the government. I would have liked to have stayed and watched but it was just an hour before dusk. However, a few people said there were guest rooms in Changa and to ask at the market.

In 2 km I reached the market. It was basically 20 brightly dressed respectable ladies all sitting with stalls of vegetables and tomatoes. Some had sweet potatoes and a few had fish. I asked one about rooms and she beckoned a man over who led me to a building behind the stalls. He asked a gentle, older man in front of a longer concrete building. Yes they had a room and it was 100 kwacha (£3). Of course I took it as it was a great alternative to camping. The man’s daughters spoke good English and were very hospitable and welcoming. The room had just 4 bare walls and a double bed with sheets and blankets. I would use my sleeping bag again. For dinner a daughter gave me a litre of hot water for a dehydrated meal and I had the rest of the excellent bread from the morning. I wrote the blog as the sun set and rhythmic music drifted between the simple houses, most still thatched even in this village. About 1930 the sports competition spectators and competitors returned to the market and the whole place erupted into joyful singing. The massed voices of the girls and women easily drowning out the music from all the man caves.

Day 061. 09 July. Munyumbwe Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was tired from the long day yesterday and I had work to do on the blog. These combined to make it sensible to take a day off. I could probably have cycled as I noticed how my legs can keep going all day now as long as the gears were low enough. Long distance hikers get something called “Hikers Legs” where they suddenly become fit enough they can hike all day, like a young spaniel dog, without feeling it too much. If there is a cycling equivalent then I must be on the threshold of it.

However the blog, that never ending deadline, needed a few hours of attention. If I did not do it today I would have to catch up sometime in the future and live under a black cloud until then. So it made sense to combine the two. I spent the entire morning doing it in the guesthouse’s perfunctory dining room and then returned to my room for a long siesta.

In the late afternoon and early evening I returned to the dining room which was now full of Zambians cheering on their women’s football team in an African tournament. I went out to eat after dark to the simple bakery/restaurant across the street which did a take-it-or-leave-it sausage, greens and shima dish but could replace the nshima with macaroni. It was much nicer than last night’s and had a window. There were cheers outside from time to time as at least 20 people pressed their noses against the window of a pub which had a television showing the same Zambian ladies soccer team. They were passionate about football here. I had an early night and was in bed by 2000 after the lazy day.

Day 060. 08 July. River Njongola Estuary to Munyumbwe. 62 km. 10 Hours. 920m up. 770m down. I slept well in the yard beside the small mud brick house. If there were ticks on the ground they would have been short lived as there were chickens, guinea fowl and even doves patrolling the earth constantly scouring the ground. The doves lived in the rainy season kitchen which was shunned now in favour of a fire in the open. There were also three small pigs wandering about the yard who would head off soon into the bush to forage for the day. I took my own breakfast of granola over to the newly lit fire and ate it there. The day was well underway already at 0630 as the sun had already risen.

People were coming and going on the track and two younger men were already taking dried manure to the fields from Minister’s cattle corral where about 10 cattle spent the night. They were shovelling the pile into a large box sitting on a sled with wooden runners and then this sled was pulled by two oxen. I had seen more and more teams of oxen pulling carts, ploughs, trunks of trees and sledges, yesterday and this morning now I was in this relatively poor area without roads or electricity.

I packed after my granola, with everyone turning to watch me, especially Minister. I was packed up quite quickly and by 0730 I was ready to go. I was not sure if Minister was the headman of this hamlet or not. He seemed to have a few daughters but no wife, and was 39 years old. I am guessing his wife had previously died. I thought if I gave him money he would use it wisely rather than drink it so I found a brand new 200 kwacha note and gave it to him. It was more than needed but his family had shown me kindness. He was delighted. It also meant I could get a photo of the whole homestead and the men who had come down to Minister’s morning fire before I finally set off.

I cycled through the rest of the village passing fields with piles of manure and then reached the bridge. It was a concrete weir which had been laid across the river to allow traffic. However it was maybe 10-15 years old and without any maintenance, like the road through the village, it had fallen into disrepair and a few floods had washed sections away. As I cycled down to it a pair of oxen were pulling a couple of large logs up the hill. I had to push the bike over the river, which I guess would have been nearly impossible in the rainy season, especially when in spate. Once over I had to continue pushing the bike up a steeper hill for nearly half an hour as the road was essentially now just a footpath. I climbed some 100 metres, toiling hard pushing the bike, sometimes over very stony ground or bare rock. Eventually I reached the top and the footpath turned into a track again and levelled off passing through a small hamlet where children ran out to meet me.

When I plan a route I usually do it on Strava, a mapping app, and confirm it with google maps. I then plot the route so it follows the way I want to go along the roads shown on Strava and Google maps, especially the satellite view, which shows the roads. I then create a GPX of the intended route and send it to my gadgets. When I am cycling I simply follow the gadget which indicates all the twists and turns of the route and also all the ups and downs. The route I was following now was created months ago in the comfort of my study. The trouble is sometimes the view of Google maps satellite view and the information on roads on Strava can be very out of date, rarely by as much as a decade, and often new roads are not shown. But this system has always worked well for me and I had no reason to suspect any difference now. I don’t even remember passing a junction about 4-5 km after the river crossing but there must have been one.

Instead I just followed the route on my gadgets and it directed me on the right fork of the unnoticed junction on a narrowing track which eventually became a footpath. However there were bike tracks here so all was well. As predicted by my gadgets the route now started to climb and I had to climb another 100 metres over a ridge in the Sikolqinzala Hills which is where I was cycling. The track however became worse and worse, and it was frequently steep, rocky and totally overgrown. The previous bike tracks had also completely disappeared. It was a bloodsome slog going up the hills and I was frequently getting scratched by the small acacia bushes. Occasionally I passed a section where I recognized a road had been and another where a culvert had been washed away leaving a couple of concrete pipes in the forest. I thought Googlemaps and Strava had just not updated for a decade when this road was abandoned and the village I passed through used the road to the south through Ministers hamlet to get to the rest of the world.

At the top of the hill after the very taxing push which left me tired and scratched there was at last a nice run down the NE side. I thought I was free and it would now be a nice coast down the other side of the hill. But the relief was short lived as soon the track became very overgrown and destroyed by floods of water leaving rocks and bedrock. This just could not be right even through I was still on my pre planned GPX route. I had my drone so I launched it and flew down over the preplanned route but it just seemed to get worse and then dissapear. I then flew higher and panned around and I could see a large area of cultivated fields about 2 kilometres to the north around a village. The village lay in an open valley within the Sikolquinzala Hills. There seemed to be footpaths leading from my position through the bush to this village. I then remembered I had downloaded another map app called Tracks4Africa, which showed all the 4 wheel drive tracks in Southern Africa. I checked with this and saw I was on a small track which went nowhere and there was a track 5 km to the north which went from the broken concrete sill across the Njongola River I crossed previously to the road up to Munyumbwe. It was definately the road I wanted to be on. I must have been on it but at the junction I could not recognize or see I must have left it to follow this godforsaken dead end road by slavishly following the GPX route on my gadgets. This GPX route I created 3-4 months ago contained the error.

Now I knew my predicament I had two ways to solve it, either return the way I had come or go down through the bush for 2 km on one of the footpaths to the vicinity of the village and its fields. I chose the latter as I knew the way I came was hellish. The footpath was not really a path leading like a twig from the top of a tree down the small branches and then bigger branches to the trunk and then finally the bole of the tree, which is where the village was, but rather a criss-cross network of footpaths across the bush. The ones I took were always small and there were numerous junctions where I always had to pick the one I thought went to the village. Generally they were OK but I was getting scratched pushing through bushes. However, once I got to a steeper boulder field and had to negotiate the heavy bike through this which took half an hour for 200 metres and a lot of heaving.

At last I came to a long since harvested maize field and I could now follow the access paths to the fields which were now like the branches of a tree leading to the trunk and bole of the village. Occasionally I caught sight of it. It was gorgeous with the pointed roofs of perhaps 25 small huts emerging from the the low scrub which surrounded it. I knew If I got to the village there would be an access path from the village to the gravel road I wanted to be on. Slowly I twisted my way down to the base of the village which was raised up on a shallow knoll. I did not go up to the village. I would certainly have been the first Musungo on a bicycle to arrive there, but found the access path below the knoll. It was at least a meter wide, well trodden and had numerous bike tracks on it. I started following it to the north crossing two deep sandy river beds. In the second one I came across a boy on a bike taking a sack of maize kernels to the mill. It was about 3-4 km along this path until at last I reached the gravel road just at the village of Siabbamba. This was the road I should have been on all along and should never have left for my inadvertent detour which cost me perhaps 3 hours in total and a lot of effort. It was already 1230 and I had been on the go for 5 hours. I still had a demanding 45 km to go to Munyumbwe.

I started North East along the road which was quite stony as it did not get the traffic here to pack it down. I think the road was destroyed in places in the direction I was going and this cut these villages off. There was also no electricity anywhere here. Virtually all the buildings were the round mud huts under a straw roof and there were very few of the newer style mud brick buildings under a corrugated tin roof. These very traditional villagers had immense simplicity and charm, and the villagers all waved and then put their hands together in a single clapping motion indicating a respectful greeting. I cycled here for a couple of hours climbing steeply and dropping down into a dry stream bed only to climb again. Most of the track was firm but there were frequent shorter sandy bits in the dips. I passed a few motorbikes and cycles but no vehicles. I also passed an ox drawn cart with biscuits, drinks, provisions and some hardware for a shop in Siabbamba, which must have been up a lane in that village, as I heard it but did not see it.

Eventually I reached Sinayala. I was tired, thirsty and hot. Here there were two rustic shops, electricity and although I did not see any vehicles there were tyre tracks. I stopped here for biscuits and some sugar water and felt my energy surge. It needed to be as I still had a way to go. The next stretch was relatively short and it took me past arid homesteads with the new style mud brick 2 room houses and many baobab trees. I noticed a few had been cut down, and cut with an axe. I can only imagine this is for firewood, but I am sure it would be a huge effort for relatively little reward as the trees were massive and to get them into firewood would have taken considerable chopping. The road was now smoother, but still with its ups and downs and at 1600 I arrived at the T junction with the larger gravel road. There was still 15 km to go north on it to Munyumbwe.

The last 15 km was hard. There were 3 sustained climbs, each of about 60 metres and quite steep. It does not sound much but with tired legs, and 60 kg of bike and baggage it was taxing. I thought I had good time to make it but suddenly I noticed the sun was dipping below the ridgeline illuminating the Sikolqinzala Hills with a warm orange glow. Since I left Namibia I have been in the same timezone although I have travelled some 1800 kilometres due east, so the sun sets much earlier here than Namibia and it takes me by surprise. By the same token it rises much earlier. I did not stop for photos now but just pressed on with set determination grinding up the hills in the lowest gear. At last with dusk approaching I reached the T junction in Munyumbwe.

Just to the east of the junction was a council run guesthouse I had hoped to stay at. They had room and even one with an attached bathroom. Everything was a bit ramshackle with broken tiles on the floor and the bathroom due to them being laid on an uneven floor. I was tired and would invariably spend tomorrow here recuperating but just took it for a night. It was dark now but I was hungry. The maintenance man at the guesthouse showed me where I could eat nshima and took me to the “restaurant” at the junction. It was pitch dark inside but with a torch I could see she had chicken pieces, greens, gravy and the maize meal or shima. I had a plate of it, bought some drinks in a shop and returned to the guesthouse room. I was tempted just to have a dirty dive and head to bed at once but forced myself to have a shower. I took 2 sets of dirty clothes into the bathroom with me with the intention of washing them one at a time until the water ran out but 40 minutes later it was all washed and rinsed and I was sparkling. I at last went to bed at 2100 and slept well. The blog would wait until tomorrow.

Day 059. 07 July. Sinazongwe to River Njongola Estuary. 61 km. 8 Hours. 450m up. 440m down. I was up for breakfast and was packed and away by 0830. Before I went I wrote a favourable review of the Lake View Lodge and especially the two ladies who worked there. I then cycled back up the rough track to a cluster of shops which might have even been the centre of Sinazongwe, but it was a very expansive village, if not town, and there could have been another centre. Just here I should have taken a road to the east but it was being dug up for the new road. I asked a grader driver who I thought would know the way but he directed me back the way I came and told me to go east. I did that but ended up on a cul de sac to a couple of other lodges. He must have misunderstood me. I asked someone with good English this time and he directed me back to the grader driver and beyond until I could go back onto the new road. As I passed the grader driver again he looked perplexed but I was on a sandy patch and did not wave or stop. I went round the detour and then back onto the road which was blocked off with tape but was hard packed earth beyond the tape. It was too good to resist so I went under the tape and cycled fast on the beautiful smooth earth for a few kilometres until the detour and the new road merged again.

I was now joined by a young man who was going to the electric mill up the road to turn his sack of maize into flour. We chatted and he told me a bit about the huge irrigation circles which we were passing. He said it was a Chinese farm and they had 24 such circles and each one was at least a kilometer in diameter. The one we were passing was paprikas and it was all destined for the Chinese market and none was sold locally. The water for the irrigation was pumped from the lake. I saw workers in a field and they looked like they were harvesting a vegetable crop. The whole operation reminded me of East European workers on a giant vegetable farm in East Anglia. We got to his electric mill and we parted at a cluster of shops, which could also have been the centre of Sinazongwe. A bit further I reached the Zambian Cattle Company. It was a feed lot where cattle were raised in dry dusty pens and fed soya or perhaps even the waste from the vegetables. It was a vast site and there must have been about 40 pens each with about 50 cattle. I got the impression it was not Chinese owned as there were no signs, but it just seemed too much of a coincidence this industrial beef factory was right next to the Chinese vegetable fields. The whole place stunck of manure and I was glad to be past it.

Just at my turn off to the east on a small D road I came across a man with a makeshift adze swinging it into a log. He was making a dugout canoe and the amount of work involved to hollow out the entire log was phenomenal. Just after him I turned off to the east and cycled along a rural road for almost 2 hours passing a few villages with markets and also the small row of dingy concrete shops. For much of the start of this rural D road I was passing along the north side of the vast irrigation circles which were on my south. However the land to the north was also partially irrigated and entrepreneurial local farmers were growing maize and other vegetables like squash and beans. The homesteads here looked better off with a solid 3 room house in every compound. Near Sikaputa I passed a small welding yard where a team of welders were fabricating pontoons and then joining 2 pontoons together to make a frame for a boat. I think they were houseboats, which are popular on the lake with tourists. I now turned northwest for about 5-7 km to head up to get the gravel D499 to the east. It was warm now as I cruised along on the stony road. Virtually the whole time since my turn off by the cattle lots I had been going through subsistence farming except for the huge irrigation circles at the start. There was also a large scale fish farm here, also Chinese owned, but it was down a road with no exit near the lake shore.

Once I was on the D499 very little changed except it was now subsistence farming on both sides, and there seemed to be some small scale irrigation at the start from the Nangobe River, which although was dry had some deep machine dug pools in the middle and a petrol pump beside these pools to draw the water into the fields. I passed a few clusters of shops, one perhaps every 5 kilometres and there was plenty of scope for a snack. I was going to wait until the larger village of Sinamalima to stop for a drink, but passed a nice hamlet of shops and called in at one of these for some cold sugar soda. The kids all clustered round and were excitable so I took a photo of them all in their joyful mood.

Sinamalima was quite a big village and definitely the biggest on this road. It had barbers and shoe shops along with the rows of dingy grocers. It also had its fair share of pubs who were already blasting out loud music for the benefit of a small handful of clients who were starting to drink. There was nothing of interest for me in this village at all except for the health clinic which was quite big and well maintained.There was also a Pilgrim Wesleyan church here as there had been in a number of smaller villages. They are certainly the most prolific missionaries in this area. As I cycled further west the road got more and more sandy but I could still skid through the worst bits. It also got a bit hillier in contrast to the very flat morning. To the south it was flat fields, some now with cotton bushes and then the plains leading down to the lake, while to the north were fields and then a line of forested hills which rose up at least 500 metres above me. The villages now started to get sparse and poorer again until I got to a fork in the now track near a pond.

I did not know which way to take. The obvious way led down to a village and stopped, while the way on my map and GPS say the left fork was the road through to Munyunbwe but it had no tire tracks and was only used by cycles. I took the one to the left as my GPS indicated and soon realized it might once have been a road but was now destroyed by heavy rains which had rutted the track. It was also overgrown. I thought perhaps a new road was built and that was the right fork and it would eventually come round and meet the left fork. I persevered and found myself on a small twisting track, almost a footpath in places going through thicker jungle which was encroaching on the track in many places. I don’t know if a Toyota Landcruiser could have made it through this section. I think not. In the end I climbed over a ridge with the lake below me and no sign of a village below and then started the descent down the other side. The whole time I was on my preplanned route which was a comfort. As I descended down the other side I came across a young boy leading a young blind man.

A bit further I came to a very small hamlet of just 2 homesteads. No one spoke English at the first homestead so I went to the second. There was a grandmother and about 5 young women there and again no-one spoke English. I asked about the way but got little response. I was going to ask if I could camp with them but decided to go on a bit as I understood they said there were more houses later. I cycled about 500 metres over a small hill and was coasting down the other side when someone shouted Hello as I went past. I glanced in that direction but only saw a bit of collapsed road where a small landslide had occurred. Then something caught my eye. It was a man with blood over his head. I stopped and realized that this man was also blind and had been walking along the road and had fallen off the edge. He could not get up as it was 3 metres down and steep on all sides. I stopped the bike and spoke to him. “Musungo” I said which meant white person. He put his arms out but I could not reach him. Then he extended his cane and I managed to heave him up on that until I could grab his arm. It was then easy to haul him out as he was a lot lighter than I thought. I gave him some water to drink and wash the blood off his head. I could not leave him as he was a bit shaken so I decided to walk him back to the homestead I had just left. The chances were he was related to the other blind person I had seen. I pushed the bike holding one end of the cane against the handle bars while he held the other. In 10 minutes we were at the homesteads and he indicated which one to go to and it was the one with the grandmother.

When we walked in there was a bit of indifference. Until I explained a tumbling motion and pointed to the gash on his head, now bloody again. They brought a chair for him and I think he told them what had happened. I thought this is great, I will now be their hero for rescuing him and can stay at this idyllic homestead after all. When I suggested it there was again indifference and puzzlement. Then one of the young girls managed to get enough English together to say in 10 minutes there is a better place. I did not feel unwelcome but I felt there was little gratitude. Perhaps it was a cultural misunderstanding.

I said goodbye and they all cheerily waved me off and I cycled past the landslip that claimed the blind man and went on another 10 minutes until the track climbed more steeply. En route I passed a couple of homesteads but they were empty. As I pushed up the hill and neared the top I passed another. They waved me over. I needed no further invitation and came into their compound with my bike and noticed a great place to put the tent.

They were very welcoming. His name was Minister and his daughter brought me a cup of water. I suspected it was river water but drank it anyway from the dirty cup, trusting my cast iron constitution from 6 decades of travel in the tropics. He said I could stay and soon a few men arrived and the tent was up in a jiff. Then the women all went to get more water from the river in buckets and Minister brought me a big bucket of water and a cup. Then all the men left to bring in the animals leaving me on my own at the homestead. I used the cup to fill 2 containers of water and put some purification tablets in them and then photographed the place.

When Minister returned he put a chair beside the fire and beckoned me over. His English was as bad as my Tongo, but other men came and went and spoke a smattering of English. His daughter gave me some hot water for a dehydrated meal and 2 packets of noodles and that was my supper. It got dark as I finished and before they had eaten. There were about 4 men, a daughter and 3 small kids around the fire. In the end I thought I was making them a bit uneasy as I think Minister was quite shy. So I thanked them and retreated to my tent to write the blog. They went to bed at 2030 just as I finished. It had been a very interesting day and I was delighted to at last have spent a night in a compound in Zambia and also to have helped the poor blind teenager. I don’t think a 4×4 could ever make it to this hamlet so it is still very traditional.

Day 058. 06 July. Sinazongwe Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. It was nice not having to rush off from this beautiful spot in the morning now I decided to stay an extra day. After a surprisingly good breakfast I went out to a table on the verandah of the lodge’s dining and reception area. It was a cool shaded spot and I could see the lake through the trees. There was a troop of the small vervet monkeys which sauntered around the complex occasionally wandering along the tops of the railings. Had I been eating and left the table they would have cleared the plate in a flash. It was very peaceful sitting there looking over the water from time to time. It took me about 4 hours to collate everything but at last I was done by midday.

Just as I finished a group of 5 Indians turned up to spend Sunday afternoon here. I chatted with them and learnt that they all worked in Maamba at the only coal fired power station in Zambia. They said most of the power went up to the Copper Belt via Lusaka. The power station was managed by an Indian Company and its Indian workers spent 5 months here and then 1 month in India. They told me the Chinese were constructing another two power stations in Maamba to use the coal they were mining. They also told me the road to Sinazongwe which I cycled on yesterday is being funded by the Zambian Government but it is Chinese engineers overseeing the construction. They had brought a picnic with them and gave me a large plate of food which their Indian chefs had prepared in the canteen at Maamba. It was delicious, very flavoursome and spicy.

In the afternoon I went for a small stroll down by the lake. There were a few small beaches but above them were boulders. The level goes up and down considerably depending on rainfall. In recent years the level has been low. So low Zambia had to have power shedding to distribute the power around, as a significant proportion of Zambia’s power came from this dam and power station. However after this recent very wet rainy season in the Zambezi’s catchment area the level has risen recently.

There are crocodiles, hippopotamus and bilharzia snails in the lake. They all like shallow reeded areas but can travel about. I think the crocodiles and snails also like the reeded areas around the estuaries which flow into the lake and the hippopotamus need grazing areas nearby and return to the water by morning to wallow in it and to protect their skin from the sun. There were some subsistence fishermen in dugouts and canoes on the lake but they would have local knowledge of where the crocodiles are and would avoid them. They might have even referred to them by name and discussed with themselves when one moved. I am sure they are hated and young ones are killed if caught, as in Indonesia.

I returned just as the jolly Indians were leaving after their picnic and frolic in the small pool. They all shook my hand and wished me luck. That evening I was on my own again for dinner and then spent the evening clarifying my route Chirundu about 300 km to the east and the next big place. It seemed straightforward enough.

Day 057. 05 July. Siabaswi to Sinazongwe. 45 km. 6 Hours. 260m up. 260m down. I fell asleep before the music stopped and it did not disturb me. However given the simple room, the dining facilities and especially the toilet, it scored very low. But they did make a breakfast of raw shredded cabbage, sliced tomato, a fried egg and 8 pieces of white bread, and they spared me nshima and they served it with kindness. As I set off up the small lane I saw it was the welders quarter with about 3-4 workshops fabricating large round pipes to put under the road as culverts. The welders were very skillful and were doing it all squatting on the ground, welding rod in one hand and mask in the other.

I was soon on the main street which was a collection of shops, mostly grocers and general merchants, all pretty much stocking the same stuff. I passed it quickly and then went onto a good gravel road which was flat and fast. I made good time passing villagers coming and going on the road with loads leaving to go to market, others heading home from the communal bore hole with buckets of water and a few driving small herds of animals up the road. It was already warm when I set off.

There were perhaps 2 or 3 large coal lorries who passed me in the 20 kilometres and 2 hours it took me to get to the main tarred road, the D775. However they were slow and I could hear them half a kilometer away. I noticed how much greener everything was here and I don’t know if that was because of the proximity to Lake Kariba or that it was near the ground water. The road was occasionally bumpy but nothing like it had been yesterday. After two hours I rode over a small ridge of hills and then descended down to the junction. To the left (west) about 5 km away was the town of Maamba and luckily I did not need to go there. I was going to the east and towards Sinazeze. There were a few shops at the junction and I stopped at the largest which called itself a “mall”. It was much larger than the dingy shops and sold a wide range of hardware and also food. There was a freezer with cool drinks and I had one on the bench outside while the owner came and chatted to me while his mother cooked a large pot of nshima beside us, throwing in handfuls of maize flour to thicken it up. The owner said there were nice lodges at Sinazongwe which is where I was heading in just 30 kilometres.

When I left the junction I felt elated, it was a great temperature, the road was tarmac and pretty empty and there were lots of cyclists and pedestrians on the road and they all greeted me as I went past. I was waving back so much I virtually had one hand on the handlebar. Although the tarmac road was more of an imposition through the landscape, as opposed to the dirt roads which probably followed ancient paths, it still felt rural. I passed a coal mine just after the junction but it was well hidden by trees despite its large piles of coal. I cycled along this vibrant road for about 15 kilometres in all until I got to two bridges over two rivers, they were still flowing and there were pools of water in them. I think the first river was the Kenzine River and the second larger one was the Zongwe River. They both merged just after the second one in a wide open sandy braided river bed. On each side of the river any flat land was green with maize and here with the help of irrigation they could get two crops a year. This green fertile valley was in complete contrast to the dry parched landscape elsewhere. There were many potholers on the road and this forced the cars and lorries to slow down often to a crawl. At these areas there was a thriving business of road side ladies selling fresh boiled maize to the slow traffic. I stopped and bought one, but it was full of starch and not that sweet. A little further I reached a junction where there were road works. The main branch went up to Sinazeze and the arterial T1 road at Batoka and the other went down to Sinazongwe where I wanted to go.

Curiously, they were building a new road to this small town and it was going to be a superb road for a relatively small community. It did not make sense and I thought there must be more to it; like a yet unpublished grand Chinese plan to transport minerals. At the junction was a small covered market with perhaps 30 women sitting at small stalls selling vegetables and lengths of sugar cane. I had noticed a few of these lately. I went over to them to confirm it was the way to Sinazongwe and they all pointed and confirmed in unison. I should imagine nothing happens in the community around here without these market trading ladies knowing about it first. As I set off down the road I was delighted to see it was hard packed earth which had been rollered so it was very smooth. I sped along at well over 30 km per hour, the fastest I had been for a week. However it was not to last as I soon met the construction team where the road deteriorated into piles of loose materials and I was diverted onto the old road which was narrow and sandy.

However the old road went through villages and it was full of interest. The houses here were much more substantial with many homesteads having a 2 room mud brick building and a couple of other brick buildings on the compound and most under a tin roof. The soil here did not look more fertile and it was still a parched landscape with many baobab trees, so I guessed the slight increase in wealth was due to cultural reasons where people were more industrious in the fallow dry season. It could also be that when the Tonga tribe which inhabited the area now underwater on the Zambian side of Lake Kariba and also the lands around Sinazongwe were given a lot of financial help and agricultural expertise 3 generations ago when they were displaced by the flooding of Lake Kariba and this has increased their productivity.

I passed one village through an avenue of baobab trees leading to a neat row of shops and a junction. Across the road from the shops was a building with large portable solar panels strewn about but all connected to the building which had an enormous speaker pumping out very loud music. There were about 5-6 young men here already dancing and gesticulating, some with bottle in hand. It was only about 1300 in the day. The other shops across the road looked relatively clean and were recently whitewashed and were small grocers. I should imagine the shop keepers were quite conservative and upstanding and would have looked down on the bottleshop owner and wastrels whose music dominated the whole junction like Americans view crystal meth addicts.

I continued down small roads for another 5 km through the spread out Sinazongwe passing many nurses in blue uniforms almost looking like nuns with their heads covered. There was a lot going on with cows and children all over the road. Although I did not go past a centre or market, there still seemed to be a lot going on. Curiously the roads here were also a bit wet. It was either water seeping out of the high ground water or it was a truck which had filled up from the lake and was spreading it on the sandy mud to keep the dust down. I passed the turn off to the Zambian Special Forces Marine Division, who must patrol Lake Kariba and its long border with Zimbabwe which ran down the middle of the lake for 200 km and then took a small rocky track to two lodges which were right on the edge of the lake. I had already noted the Lake View Lodge which was at the end of the stony track.

The lodge was very quiet with two older ladies who ran the place sitting in the reception. There was no one else around. I think it had the main reception area and then 4 chalets under thatched roofs. 3 were large “executive” chalets and 1 “standard” The whole place was very photogenic and the chalets looked great but two of the “executive” chalets I could see were out of action due to maintained issues like a broken water heater and the other was occupied, So I got the standard. It was like a hobbit’s house but was much larger inside and with a functioning bathroom. It was a considerable step up from Enedge’s in Siabeswi last night.

I went for a short stroll in the late afternoon along the shore of the lodge, which was a 2 star hotel. It was rocky with big boulders and the occasional pocket of sand and grassy area. I noticed the signs “Beware of Crocodiles” but there were a few fishermen in small craft cruising just off shore. The lake itself is huge, about 200 km long and 20-40 wide. It is the biggest man made lake in the world and was formed in the 1950’s when the Zambezi River was dammed at the Kariba Gorge. The ladies at the lodge said it was much lower a few months ago but has been rising since the heavy rainfall in this recent rainy season in its catchment area in the Angolan Highlands 4-5 months ago has swollen the river. It was the same river I was rafting on a week ago and the water on those waves and rapids would now be in the lake. The ladies made me a great dinner but there was no sign of anyone else at all here except for a team of gardeners who lived in two perfunctory bungalows and were perhaps part of the ladies families. I don’t know who owns the place but it seems like a wasted resource. I made a start on the blog but had already decided to spend a rest day here tomorrow so postponed the effort.

Day 056. 04 July. Mapatizya to Siabaswi. 64 km. 8 Hours. 550m up. 1090m down. Again I slept long and well in the simple room. I got up at 0630 as the village was coming to life and the sun was about to rise. There was nothing to eat so early in town so I sat outside my room and had another large helping of granola and powdered milk. It was my staple at the moment. I was finished and packed by 0800 and set off after Corbett, a stone buyer, came for a chat. I met him yesterday and he showed me the restaurant. He was setting off round all the small artisanal mines, legal and illegal, to buy amethyst.

Once I left it did not take long to leave the village and descend into quite green bush. It did not last and soon it was brown and parched. The track climbed up past a mast and then descended steeply. Before me I could see the landscape stretching out to the south with ridges getting more hazy and blue as then went down to the vast Lake Kariba, which I could just see perhaps 30-40 kilometres away. The descent was very steep and my brakes were working hard on the very rough road. I could see it would be a real struggle for lorries to get up here to supply Mapatizya. It was not just down, there were some vindictive short steep climbs too. There was even poor quality amythyst lying on the road, used to fill in some of the potholes. It was too steep and I think too dry for any farming and there weren’t even goats on this stretch. In 5 km I dropped some 300 metres and then came across the first homesteads. One was particularly idyllic on a small saddle on a minor ridge. It looked like an extended family stayed there as there were a few huts on stilts packed with maize and about 5 round huts for sleeping in. I have noticed a lot of daily socialising seems to take place under the shade of the maize stores.

After a few more homesteads I came to a junction near the village of Siwaza. There was an army checkpost here but the female soldier barely looked up as I cycled past. In complete contrast I also passed a gang working on the road. There were about 40 of them and most were women. There was lots of banter when I cycled past them with confident greetings and much gleeful shouting. I would have loved to have photographed them but am sure this would have spoiled the mood. They were filling in potholes and I am sure they were being paid by the Chinese as many further down the road near a Chinese coal mine were.

From Siwaza the road was a bit better but it was rough on the cycle with many stones and some severe washboarding. It continued to descend but more gently, however with the rough surface it was completely wasted and I could not release the brakes and let fly. It seemed a bit poorer down here than up on the plateau where I had been for the last couple of days on each side of Luyaba. However down here people seemed very cheerful and the women more confident. After a good 15 km from Mapatizya I came across the side road to the Chinese mine but there seemed little to indicate there was anything up the road, which looked small and rough. Somebody told me they had a few mines in the area and they were all coal mines and the lorries took the coal up to the copper belt north of Lusaka on the Congo border, where it was used to smelt the copper.

I carried on along the bumpy road with its ups and mostly downs until I reached the market village of Siameja. By now the landscape was very arid and the baobab trees were abundant again. On the ground were parched shrubs and scant grasses. I did not see cattle in this area as it was mostly goats. However there were fields of maize which had long since been harvested and all the cobs stored in the granaries. I noticed Siameja had a Chinese funded milling shed. It was powered by a large array of solar panels and a battery bank. The bank then powered the 2 milling machines to make flour for nshima. A clever form of colonialism to win hearts and minds rather than the British “divide and conquer” or the Belgium brutal oppression. The mill was busy with women with bundles of kernels or flour in sacks.

After Siameja the road got a little easier to cycle on but I could still not go fast. It was getting very arid now and the farms looked even poorer. There were cactus all over the scrub floor and very little for even the goats to eat. The baobab trees grew well here. Someone once told me it looked like a tree which was planted upside down with the roots in the air and the crown buried in the ground. Now they had shed their leaves for the dry season I could easily see how that description came about. I passed a large dry river with a few pools of water in it and some thirsty cattle in the river bed. A few kilometres further I came to a small village called Muunka. I was tired, hot and thirsty as I had been in the saddle for about 6 hours non stop. I saw the only shop here and despite the music blaring outside it went in. It was both a grocers with biscuits, cold drinks and bike parts, but also a pub with about 4 younger men in it. I bought some biscuits and cold drinks and then retreated outside where some primary school children were playing draughts on a board made from cardboard and different coloured bottle tops as pieces. Two older men approached who had obviously been at a political rally as they both had T-shirts with a candidate on. They were quite charming and well spoken and said it was still 40 km to Maamba town and I would not make it before dark. It would be better to go 20 km to Siabaswi and ask for Enedge who had a lodge. It was a great plan and I set off eagerly. It was only 1400 so I had good time.

The road climbed slowly up a gentle hill for 10 km through dry scrub. There were some homesteads here but not many. It was just inhospitable and arid and the growing season must be very short for maize. The few small subsistence farms that were here probably relied on goats to provide a living. At the highest point the road got very sandy but still just manageable to cycle on. I noticed now there was nothing on the ground which was bare sand with scrub growing out of it. Anything a metre from the ground was eaten by goats so uniformly it almost had a manicured look. I struggled through the sand noticing the other cyclists kept veering off the road onto harder parts which they cruised along. I joined them and it was much easier on these bike paths. The Zambians of this area belonged to a certain tribe but I forgot the name and they spoke a Bantu language. They were very dark and seemed very strong and lean. They powered those heavy gearless steel bikes up hills with large loads with ease.

At last I reached a village. I thought it was Siabaswi but it was the one before. Luckily I wrote the name of Siabaswi village and Enedge, the lodge owner, down so I could ask later. I was directed down to a junction and then left to the north over a river, which was now a trickle. Here I asked a large group of women directions and they came over and teased me with good humour about me cycling. They pointed out where I should go. It was only 300 metres and then down a lane. Enedge was there when I arrived. He also had a restaurant. Unfortunately the only thing in it was a single chicken drumstick which had been sitting all day and was the only one left, and nshima. I took it and ate it at once. Enedge then took me down to show me a simple room with an outdoor toilet. It was only £5, or 150 kwacha, and it had power to recharge my batteries. Just beside the rooms was a bar which I went too to see around. It was empty but could seat perhaps 50 on a payday or weekend. I went to my room while Enedge got a bucket of cool water from me to have an invigorating bucket shower. I then wrote the blog listening to the array of Zambian music coming from the bar. Some was aggressive, like a type of rap, and others were melodic anthems. By 2000 I was done with the blog and ready for bed.

Day 055. 03 July. Luyaba to Mapatizya. 57 km. 7 Hours. 380m up. 670m down. I slept extremely well and got up at 0630. There was a lot going on and the morning fires were already lit in the compound next door and the cockerels were showing off as the sun came up. I had a breakfast of granola and powdered milk. I had a lot of it, perhaps 4 kilos of both together and needed to start getting through it to gain some place in the paniers. I set off at 0800 and cycled up through the market village of Luyaba. The title market village makes it sound more quaint than it was. On each side of the street were small solid shops with heavily locked doors. Inside the shops that were open was a dingy blackened interior with sacks of staples, hardware and groceries. The facade of the shops were a lot grander than what was inside. There were about 15 shops on each side and then the countryside slowly returned. Within a kilometer I was back between the fields and the homesteads.

Cattle and goats wandered across the road having just got released from their corrals of log posts or thicket piles stacked in a circle. There seemed to be more cattle here now and slightly less maize although it was still prevalent. I found out what the other mystery crop was and that was sunflowers. The heads must have been pressed for oil. It was a joyous easy cycle on a good firm road which was descending slightly. Occasionally there were some pot-holed areas but largely the road was great. What really made it great for me was the homesteads and especially the round granaries and the small round kitchen huts. Initially I thought they were dilapidated mud huts for sleeping in but I saw a few in use in the morning with a fire within and the smoke coming out of the roof. It meant the family could gather round in the rainy season while the fire was going. There were some larger oval ones where the extended family might gather and eat. Many had brick patterns to let the air in at the lower levels.

After about 24 km I reached Kabanga which was similar to Luyaba. It was also a market village with a large secondary school. I cycled the last stretch to Kabanga with a retired policeman on an old bike. His English was good enough to tell me they were building an earth dam nearby so they could keep the cattle watered through the dry season. At Kabanga itself I had intended to stop and perhaps even eat at a local restaurant but there was nothing which I liked the look of. All the shops were small, dingy and unappealing and there were men hanging around most of them. I did not want to stop amongst them to find a drunk might come over and make life difficult so I cycled on through the large village knowing I would find a hamlet with a couple of shops soon. These hamlets with a few shops were every 10 km at the most.

About 10 km past Kabanga I came across some large buildings and a guarded compound with trucks. There was no sign to say what it was but I knew there was a small mine here. A bit later I came to a hamlet of shops and stopped at one to buy a drink and a packet of biscuits. The owner was Ibrahim and he was a lively character. He was fascinated by my journey but thought it was just a ruse and I was really here to buy minerals. He showed me some amethyst and said I could have it. I explained I did not want to take it to Dar es Salam. He then took me round the back of his house where his wife was winnowing her way through a large pile of gravel and was sifting the chunks of tungsten out. It transpired there was a lot of tungsten in the area and that is what the previous mine was recently built for. It was owned by a Chinese company. He said a lot of people in the area produced tungsten which was sold in Lusaka by the sack load to supplement the farming.

After leaving Ibrahim’s I continued south on a deteriorating road passing fewer and fewer homestrads and more bush. There were a lot of small short climbs and then gradual descents as I traveled over a series of gentle ridges. Occasionally there were far reaching views to the south. The short climbs were quite taxing and I had to creep up in the lowest gear. After two hours of this I reached a hamlet in the almost forest like bush. There has been no charcoal production since I left Zimba otherwise I suspect these trees would be gone. I passed one homestead right on the edge of a long descent where there were many people gathered, perhaps 40 and they were all in a good mood with everyone waving at me. Perhaps it was a wedding.

From here I started a long descent on a terrible road. I think the homestead with the party was the end of one road and where I was going in 25 km was the end of another road and the next 25 km was just a track to link them up. In my favour most of it was downhill and I think I dropped about 300 metres in this section, some quite steeply with the brakes working hard. There were some good views to the south but I could not see Lake Kariba in the distance. As I dropped down the rough road it got warmer and drier and there was no habitation or farming for about 15 km. It was a wild bush area too rough for farming and perhaps too dry also as all the rain would run off quickly. It was not all down and there were a few hard climbs where I often pushed. I saw no one on this track at all for nearly an hour until I saw the first of the homesteads which were creeping up the slope. Then I got to a hamlet where there was a school. Here I met a man who said there was a market village 10 km away and he was sure there was a lodge there. He himself worked in a nearby small mine owned by an Indian.

The 10 kilometres to Mapatitzya were mostly down and I was back into the rural harming homesteads again with lots of interest for me. They were still all subsistence farms, but one or two had a small old tractor and I heard a generator at another. After a demanding undulating section I reached a busy and well maintained health care clinic on the edge of the village. Here someone confirmed there was a lodge which was great news. It’s not that I mind camping but a lodge means comfort and company. At the Catholic church I finally got a view of Mapatizya on the next ridge. It was a mix of the old mud huts and homestead type buildings next to the small, dingy shops. I pushed the bike up the hill into the large thriving village.

A few people offered me amethyst and took me for a mineral trader as I wandered up the main street past the shops. I then saw the sign for the Deep Purple Lodge and went down to it. It was nicer than last night in Luyaba but double the price at 300 kwacha (£9). I took it and after unpacking realised I had to eat. The lady directed me to a restaurant and I was surprised when I got there just how simple and dingy it was. There was a pot of meat, a pot of greens and a bucket of nshima. I ordered and then drank a litre as the food was brought over. The meat and vegetables were surprisingly good but the nshima was tasteless and dull. The meal was exactly what I needed and it broke my fear of going into the dark gloomy shops.

Back at the lodge I had a bucket shower, with a huge tub of hot water the host had prepared on the fire. It was ideal and I managed to wash my cycling clothes. As I wrote the blog 2 Zambians came over to chat. They also thought I was a mineral trader. They explained that there were lots of high quality amethyst in the area and they had come down to buy some. Good quality was £30 a kilo and ordinary was £2 a kilo. They said the village was flourishing because of the amethyst found in the vicinity and there were lots of illegal and also legal mines. The illegal mines were all on a small scale. Indeed I had noticed much talk in the village was about amethyst.

Day 054. 02 July. Zimba to Luyaba. 72 km. 7 Hours. 360m up. 290m down. After the poor, but well meaning, breakfast I learnt there was a bike shop right behind the lodge. I went round to it and was surprised how good it was. It was a bit ridiculous for me to carry 5 tires and 11 inner tubes so I asked him if he wanted some. Which he surely did. An assistant helped me change the old tubeless tire at the front to a new Schwalbe with a tube. So I now had the new tyres with tubes on both wheels. I gave the assistant both the old tyres and also about 4 inner tubes and the liquid latex to put in the tubeless set up should he wish. All in n all it was about 2 kg which I managed to shed and it went to a good home. I returned to the lodge and loaded up the bike and said my goodbyes to Diana and the staff, all of whom were very nice, despite the poor food.

I cycled up the busy side street to the main road and then turned north towards Lusaka, still about 350 km away. However I only had to follow this ghastly road for 2 km until I turned off. As I left the town I saw the Pilgrim Wesleyan Mission were responsible for some of the hospital and that they were also building a “university” next to it. So this Wesleyan mission is having quite an impact on the well-being of Zimba. It did not take long to get to the turn off for the road to Kasikilis. I crossed over the main T1 road and then heard the crunch of gravel as I started east on the newly graded dirt road.

It was a relief to be able to cycle with abandon all over the road. It took about half an hour before a car overtook me and all day I only saw about 3 lorries crammed with people, 4-5 cars and about 25 motorbikes, but a few hundred cyclists. So it was an exceptionally quiet road. I could stop to take photos again and wave to people when they waved. Initially there was scrub on each side of the road but that soon changed and I was into cattle stations. There were two on each side of the road and it looked like they were run by Zambian workers who all lived in the same style of house with small vegetable plots beside them. later a cyclist returning from Zimba caught up with me and confirmed they were owned by white farmers who lived somewhere else, but he did not know where. At one station they had rounded up about 200 cattle to inoculate or mark them. The cyclist was returning from Zimba where he had sold some aqua stones he had mined. I assume he meant aquamarine stones. Just before the bridge over the Kalomo river he left me and cycled off on his simple bike which had no brakes. The bridge over the river was quite new, as was the road I think they were built in the last 5 years. There was still a trickle of water in the Kalomo River and this kept its pools topped up.

After the bridge the larger farms stopped and it seemed to be much more traditional African farming with subsistence homesteads. The actual homestead houses were small but there were a few to each compound. They all had a new small rectangular house under a corrugated tin roof. These were so alike I thought it must have been part of a government initiative. There were still quite a few round thatched mud huts in the compound also and also one or two storage huts in stilts and also under a thatched roof. The storage huts were essentially for the maize and I could see most were still packed with maize, still in its sheat, and waiting to be de-cobbed and then pounded into flour for the nshima staple.

The homesteads were pretty much continuous for 50 kilometres all the way to Luyaba. Around the homesteads were large fields usually of maize but there was another crop, perhaps sorghum, which I could not identify. It looked like the fields had been ploughed with oxen as the rows were often uneven. However, occasionally it looked like a tractor had been used and I saw some small older ones parked near a few of the homesteads. There were also small herds of cattle and goats foraging in the parched undergrowth between the fields. It looked like a quiet time of year in the agricultural calendar as there was no one in the fields and there was no sign anything had been ploughed recently. Most fields still had the stalks of the crops standing after they were stripped for harvest. I am sure everything will have to be ploughed before the rains start in November. The road was generally good and it was a delight to cycle through this pastoral landscape which has probably not changed for hundreds of years.

Occasionally there were some villages and there were lots of schools. The three villages I remember were Chuundwe, Mankubu and Kasikilis but there were a few more. Each village had a rustic primary school and a Mankubu had a secondary school, the pupils of which waved and shouted as I went past. I think education is taken seriously here but then there will be times of the year when the pupils are helping in the fields, like at harvest time. At each village there are also a row of roadside shops stocking general groceries and some hardware. In this row there is also a bottleshop, or pub, where 5-10 men seem to hang out and chat or drink. They would always call me over but I would wave and carry on. If I needed to ask a question or buy something I would head for the grocers where there were women, especially schoolgirls, outside because they spoke the best English.

Between Mankubu and Kasikilis the road got narrower and more uneven. It was still easy to cycle on but slower. The surface was a bit sandy but it was large grains of sand, like sand from granite, and it was easily packed and my wheels did not cut in. Just before Kasikilis I met another gravel road which came south from the town of Kaloma and I would follow for the next two days. There was no change in the land use beside the road with lots of homesteads still, but here and there I noticed some NGOs had been developing various projects with arid tolerant seeds for maize. I thought about asking one of the prettier homesteads if I could camp in their compound, especially as I had topped up my water bottles from a communal bore hole hand pump, but soon I was approaching Luyaba.

It was a larger village and certainly something of a rural hub which had a goverment secondary school and a health clinic. It looked 3-5 times bigger than anything else I had cycled past today. The problem about coming into a busier place and asking about accomodation is it is easy to be overwhelmed by information and opinions. I had intended to head to the secondary school and see if I could ask someone there who might be connected with the school for permission. However just as I entered the village I saw a sign for a lodge. I suspected there might be one as there were visiting teachers, health workers and merchants who would need somewhere when visiting Luyaba I went down the lane and at the end of it was a simple lodge with about 12 rooms in many seperate buildings. Opposite them were toilets and a wash room in concrete shed. It was all very simple and rustic. She had a room free and it was just 150 Kwacha or £6. It was easier than the tent so I took it. I sorted my pictures for the day on the concrete verandah as the sun went down in its usual blaze of orange and then went inside to write and have a cold dinner of biltong and some cans I wanted to get rid of. I finished the blog by 2030 and then got into my sleeping bag and slept on the bed as I was not sure when the sheets were last changed.

Day 053. 01 July. Zimba Rest Day. 0 km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was up for the breakfast at 0730 and then wrote the blog for the rest of the morning sitting in the small reception area. People came and went but generally it was very quiet as I typed away. I was finished by midday and thought it best go for a walk round town. I assumed it would take a few hours.

I left the guesthouse and walked up the rough track to one of the side streets. It was a dirt road, as all roads were in Zimba except for the T1 main road which went through the town. It was just a 2 block walk to the main road but there was not much of interest other than the small shops. There were 3 types, general grocers, butchers and material shops. All were small and the general grocers had very limited supplies of the same non-perishable items like biscuits or hermetic food in tins. There were a few stalls of vegetable sellers and most of them slowly sold tomatoes. The town was busy though with people everywhere.

On the main road it was pretty much the same but now there were many many small booths, only about a metre by a metre and 2 metres high and they were selling sim cards, telecom money services and top up charge cards. There must have been over 100 booths in the town in all but only a third were occupied. I could not understand how there was such a demand for them. There were also a few bottle shops which doubled as pubs and they looked small and unsavoury. I don’t suppose drunks are that discerning though.

There were a few local restaurants. It seems most cooked batches of their food in the morning and then it sat in metal trays with a lid. Customers were then served chicken, goat or fish from the tray. To this was added greens and nshima, a dish found all over Africa. Nshima is made from maize flour and is quite firm and filling although it lacks much nutrition. It is known as ugali in East Africa and fufu on West Africa. It was something I was going to get used to now as it is the main carbohydrate staple in rural areas. I went into a few restaurants but most had run out of food as it was 1400. However I found one with some and had a local sausage with greens and nshima.

There was not much else of interest so I walked past the Pilgrim Wesleyan Mission where I have seen the lorry with the young white people in the back of it. But there was not much going on in the compound. There was quite a large hospital, The Zimba Mission Hospital, with perhaps 100 beds and I think the Pilgrim Wesleyan Mission had a lot to do with the funding of it.

I was back at the guesthouse in an hour and there was little to do except have a long siesta. Diana offered a steak for dinner but then when it came it was the toughest 3 chunks of rib one could imagine, full of gristle and cartilage. The rice was nice though. She said it was all she could find in the market but after seeing all the butcher shops I could not believe here. The Floating Attic Executive Lodge had comfortable accommodation but the food was poor. By the end of the day I was eager to get onto the smaller roads through the rural villages from tomorrow for 10 days, where I am sure I will have greater affinity than this small commercial town.

Day 052. 30 June. Livingstone to Zimba. 77km. 8 Hours. 660m up. 350m down. I was up early but spent a far amount of time packing. I now had 6 tyres and 11 inner tubes in all. I had the tubeless set up still on the bike and was reluctant to change it. However when they failed I would change over to the new Schwalbe Mondial tyres. It was a luxurious abundance of tyres and inner tubes but I had to pay for it in weight. I put my spare tubeless aside to give away to a local cyclist I liked. I set off around 0930 and went to the ATM again just to get a final top up for the next month or so. Then I started up the hill. The bike was very heavy with perhaps 20 large servings of granola and milk, the extra tyres and all the ready meals. However, I just put it in a lower gear than usual and slowly ground away.

There was a reasonably wide road with a clear and bright yellow line down each side of it. Outside the yellow line on each side was a good meter and often a metre and a half of rougher tarmac which was for cyclists and pedestrians. I felt quite comfortable on it. The only problem was that it occasionally had scatterings of broken glass on it and they were often difficult to avoid. I passed one older cyclist who gave me a cheery wave so I stopped and gave the spare tyre to him. It was too big for his bike but he would be able to trade it. The road was quite busy with cyclists as in Zambia many people have bikes, usually old solid steel built Chinese built bikes. On the other side of the road there were a few of these going into Livingstone piled with sacks of charcoal. On one bike I counted 7 in all. The sacks of charcoal I later learnt sell for about 60-70 Zambiam Kwacha, or about £2 or US$ 2.5. I guess a large portion of the population, perhaps 5-10% of the rural population, is connected with producing and selling charcoal.

As I cycled up the hills there was a considerable headwind against me and my progress was painfully slow. Meanwhile the trucks continued to go past at about 15 an hour just 1.5 metres away from me. There were also some large buses and more frequent cars. Many were slow and overloaded but there were some newer Toyota pick ups and Landscruisers which went speeding past in a hissing blur. I would be glad to get off the tarmac roads soon. I had been on them virtually since entering Botswana, and though I was being spoiled for ease of cycling it was not the slow, easy-going, rural experience I was hoping for. Although on this particular road there was also a dirt track running about 30 metres to the west of it through the bush. It was mostly for villagers on foot, small herds of goats and cattle, and also the donkey or ox carts which were made from a car’s axle and wheels with a wooden frame on top. It would have been much slower to travel on though and I was already cutting it fine to reach Zimba in the daylight with this headwind.

There were charcoal stalls all along the road side. They mostly all waved but a few, mostly run by women, just stared even when I waved. I think I must have passed 100 stalls during the course of the day and maybe as many as 200. In places there were so many stalls small hamlets had formed, and there were even a couple of shacks at these hamlets selling biscuits and warm sodas. After 4 hours I stopped at one of them and had a packet of biscuits, but of all of them I picked I managed to find the most indifferent and everybody pretty much ignored me. While if I stopped at others I often got overwhelmed with excited boys and young men who wanted to know everything about my trip and swap Whatsapp numbers.

As I was going down a rare hill there was suddenly a rhythmic hissing sound and after a while I realized it was me and not a passing truck. I looked down to see the back tyre was gushing out the white latex liquid I had put in at Nata some 10 days ago at Rupert’s Eselbe Backpackers. The tyre had a catastrophic gash in it which the tubeless liquid would not fix. It was about 5-8 mm long. There was no option other than to change tyres to the new Schwalbe Marathon’s with an inner tube, so I wheeled the bike right off the road and took the paniers off. Just then a local villager, Terrance, came past on his bike. He was off with his catapult hunting birds for dinner but stopped to help. If anyone is adept at changing tyres, fixing punctures and removing wheels it is a Zambian villager. We had the wheel off and old tubeless off in no time, and then put on the inner tube and new tyre in an instant. On my own it would have taken an hour but we did it in just half that time. He was easy going, calm and helpful the whole time so I gave him a good tip which he was clearly not expecting. At the end his wife and daughter came down the road looking to see how his dinner hunting with the catapult was going and were overjoyed to find him with some crisp green kwacha notes in his hand. It meant little to me but a lot to him and I felt his kindness should be rewarded. I waved good bye to his family and started up the road again and immediately noticed how much better the rolling resistance of the new tyre was and I was going some 10 % faster with the less knobbly tyre. I would probably give the old tyre away in Zimba, but in retrospect should have given it to Terrance but his bike had 26 inch tyres.

As I neared Zimba the climbs levelled off and the head wind eased off too so I was suddenly up to 20 km per hour after a day of 10 km per hour. It was just as well dusk was only an hour away when I reached the town. It was busy even in the evening with the main road widening out to a broad tarmac area which was lined with small shops and stalls. There were a few rustic lodges here, a mission hospital and churches of many denominations. I saw a truck of young white youth in the back, sitting on the bed, going into one church, maybe returning after a day of construction at a small development project or joining in at one of the many schools. I cycled past the stalls and shops and then went down a side street which was also busy with stalls selling vegetables, rolls of materials and sim cards. It seemed Zimba was something of a market town for the surrounding rural villages in the countryside. I at last found the guesthouse which google maps had indicated was the best in Zimba. It was called the Floating Attic Executive Lodge. I was greeted by the friendly Diana who worked here. She led me up the steep ramp where I could hardly push the heavy bike. It was a small guest house with a nice entrance and sitting area and then a small inner courtyard with 6 rooms arranged round it. The courtyard had a deep, tiny, drained pool which was surrounded by tall plants which crammed the whole courtyard filling like a postage stamp size rain forest. It was as quirky as it was friendly. I settled into the room and Diana helped me carry the panniers and bike through the congested courtyard to the room by which time it was getting dark.

In the entrance area I spoke to one dapper man who had the fabulous name of Pass Well. It turned out Pass Well was the owner of the lodge. He knew the district around here well and all the roads. When I quizzed him on my route to Maamba he said I would best be going on up the big road to Choma, 100 km away. This was something I was very reluctant to do. I was done with big arterial roads for the time being. There was little interest, glass strewn verges, 38 ton lorries passing just a metre away occasionally and with little to commend it other than friendly local cyclists and my curiosity of the charcoal enterprises. When I showed him my route on the map I had, passing through the villages of Ruyala and Kabanga to reach Lake Kariba, he said that it was not only possible but a nice way to go and the dirt roads were firm with no sand. He said I would be able to sleep at the local schools. It was all music to my ears and exactly what I wanted to hear. I would have 2 more km on the main road and then turn off.

I was tired as I sat on my bed before the dinner and realised I would want a day off here tomorrow to catch up with the blog, look around the bustling town and rest my legs after the strenuous cycle today so arranged it with the competent young Diana who seemed to run the place. She cooked a dinner which was a little dubious with grilled chicken which had come out of the freezer and while the outside was well cooked the inside was not so well done so I only ate the outer bits. After that I slept well.

Day 051. 29 June. Livingstone Rest Day. 17km. 3 Hours. 200m up. 200m down. I was up at 0600 and the backpackers had breakfast ready soon after. However, it turned out I was getting picked up at 0830 not 0720 so I had plenty of time after all. When I was picked up I was driven to a large lodge right on the edge of the river called The Waterfront. I am sure the place could sleep 200 comfortably in the large complex. Here I met the rest of the team who were some 15 younger travellers on a group overland tour, with Con-Tiki. Most were from the US but there were a few Australians too. There were also about 10 Zambians who were either river guides, drivers or porters. The Zambians were a vibrant bunch, full of jokes, which they must have told every day.

It transpired that the river was too high after all to do some of the upper rapids and they were grade 6 at the moment. Number 9 Rapid down from the Bridge was especially dangerous at this water level, and even when the river was low it was portaged round by the commercial rafting companies. There were immensely strong eddies, boils and whirlpools on this upper stretch at the moment apparently, which would suck you down, even with our extra buoyant life jackets. So we would start at Rapid 14 and go down to Rapid 25, which were mostly grade 3 or 4.

The 15 Con-Tiki overland truck clients, the 10 rafting staff and myself then set off in a couple of converted lorries with seats in the back to Rapid Number 14. It was a fascinating journey as we passed a couple of interesting villages, one of which was from where our raft guide, Melvin, hailed from. After a good half hour we then had a long descent down concrete steps to the rivers edge where the 3 raft boats were already set up and waiting for us. The Zambezi River looked considerably smaller and less violent here than it did a couple of days ago at the Boiling Pot just under the Bridge. Perhaps it was just deeper here. We then had another safety brief, met the safety kayakers who would rescue anyone who took an inadvertent swim and launched our boats just below a big drop which was either Rapid 13 or the first half of Rapid 14.

The swirls and upwellings and the whirlpools at the edge of the eddies were considerable, and while the whirlpools would not suck the raft down they would hold it for a while, spinning us round until we drifted down out of the eddy line into more stable water. The rapids were mostly big wave trains. A curved tongue of smoother water led down in a V shape to a series of large waves, all with a white crest which curled over us like a Hokusai Wave until we crashed through it and climbed up the next. Each rapid had perhaps 10-15 large waves in it. The waves were generally quite predictable and straight forward and there were no stoppers, or holes to complicate things. A stopper or hole is where the water plunges over a lip into depression but which usually has water circulating back upstream on the surface just after this depression. If the raft went into one of these it would stop and possibly flip over. One of the other rafts went over a lip caused by a submerged boulder and did in fact flip over. We all saw it in slow motion and everybody got thrown out. Their boat guide, Choogmo, managed to right the boat eventually and all but one of the rafters who were holding onto the edge of it managed to get in. But one, Jess, went for a very long swim of about 5 minutes in which she was carried down over 2 rapids hanging onto the front of the safety paddlers kayak. She was eventually pulled into our raft and looked quite shaken.

As we went down the rapids we passed the corpse of a hippopotamus which had been washed up onto the rocks when the river was a bit higher 6 weeks ago. Melvin, our boat guide, thought it had probably had a fight with a larger male above the falls. It had lost and had either been killed or injured and had been washed over the Victoria Falls and then down about 20 rapids to end up here. Apparently there were crocodiles in the river too and we saw about 3 small ones, a metre long. They also get swept over the falls and the really small ones can survive the drop and then get washed down the river where they can survive. However as they grow there is not enough food to sustain them and they slowly migrate downstream to the end of the gorge and the Kariba dam area where they can thrive.

From about Rapid 20 all the rapids were grade 3 and it became quite tame, but there were still some violent eddies and boils and large waves trains. On one I thought we might flip over also as the raft could not climb up over the wave and was stuck there surfing with the bottom of the wave threatening to catch the lower edge and push it under while the breaking water at the top kept it in place, but it did just not happen and after a few seconds we were released. After Rapid 25 we pulled over to the side and then landed. There was a steep path with log ladders in a few places out of the deep Batoka Gorge and back onto the lip of the plain. It took a good 20 minutes to climb back out. At the top we had a packed lunch and then drove back to the Waterfront lodge past all the fascinating villages again.

I now had an hour to wait until the cruise on the Upper Zambezi with the same company, Safpar. This cruise was thrown in with the rafting. It was onboard a boat called the Makundi which had two decks. When I boarded I went upstairs and grabbed a table on the top deck with a large group of middle aged and elderly Germans. Pretty soon the Con Tiki crew arrived and most of them were still buzzing with the adrenaline of the rafting. There were about 20 of them and they flocked around the free bar like vultures on a carcass. The cruise went round the biggest island in the river which must have been about 3 kilometres long and 1 kilometer wide. En route we saw some elephants, hippopotamus and some smaller crocodiles. It was interesting but nothing like the cruise on Chobe which was rich in wildlife. As the evening progressed we were served some food and the Con Tiki party got rowdier and noisier with each drink. I think the Germans were fed up with them, but because I felt I knew some of them by now I was not so bothered. But I had sympathy for the Germans who were wanting a sedate, meditative, sunset experience. After the cruise I said my goodbyes to the mostly American and Australian Con Tiki crew and was driven back to Jollyboys Backpackers. My sojourn amongst the flesh pots of Livingstone was over and I was going to be back in the saddle tomorrow on my cycle journey.

Day 050. 28 June. Livingstone Rest Day. 0km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. Because of my early nights I am always awake by 0600 and up at 0700. And this was the case today despite its being a blank day. The only thing I had to do was extend my stay for 2 nights and book the rafting for tomorrow. I did them before breakfast.

I still had to stock up on cash for the next month as I guessed I would not pass a town like Livingstone again as I was avoiding Lusaka. I also went to the supermarket to stock up on granola and powdered milk. I aimed to have about 3 kilos of it and along with 8 dehydrated meals I had been carrying since Swakopmund they would be my main food as I navigated the smaller roads and villages on the north side of Lake Kariba from Zimba to Chirundu, via Maamba. It is only some 300 km on this deviation but I think it could take 7-9 days depending on the firmness of the dirt roads.

In the afternoon I went to the Livingstone Museum which was about 100 metres from Jollyboys. It had exhibitions on the cradle and spread of man, traditional ethnography of Zambia, the current transition from rural to urban, post independence politics and a section devoted to David Livingstone and his travels. I think the exhibitions were all put together by enthusiastic and knowledgeable students some 20 or 30 years ago and have not been updated since. All the notices and captions were on curled cardboard and the writings all very faded. Still I found the ethnography section and everything about David Livingstone quite fascinating and this alone was worth the modest entry fee. On returning to my room I had another snooze and then dinner before preparing for the rafting pickup tomorrow at 0720 in the morning.

Day 049. 27 June. Livingstone Rest Day. 0km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. Having been down at Victorian Falls yesterday and suffering a technical malfunction with my camera I came back to Livingstone disappointed. However I managed to fix it so returned after breakfast. I took a taxi down this time not wanting to have my bicycle to worry about. The taxi dropped me off at the entrance to the Avani Resort and then I walked to my chosen location. I spent the next hour taking photos and was very pleased with the results. Packing everything up I managed to flag down a taxi returning to town. The driver, Rainbow, was a Pentecostal Christian, and even by Zambia’s happy, friendly standards Rainbow stood out. In the 20 minutes he took to return he explained a lot about Zambian culture to me. Apparently there are 73 tribes in Zambia each with its own language, although many are similar. So it was decided to make English the National Language. Consequently both the younger and middle generations are not only linguistically adept at English but are also agile in puns, nuances and jokes. In fact I would say Zambians in Livingstone probably speak better English than the English. En route back to the hotel we ran into a traffic jam of cyclists. There were about 25 waiting on the road in each direction. The reason was there was a large herd of Elephants crossing from the riverside up to the bush on the east side. We drove through slowly and there were at least 20 on each side of the road. Those on the river side were tentatively still waiting in the scrub to cross.

In the afternoon I sat at Jollyboys under the cooler verandah looking onto the pool and caught up with the last two days’ blog. I also had a few perfunctory things to do like get a haircut at a local barbers, have lunch in the local restaurant next to the barbers and take money out of the ATM. Zambia is developing fast and does not have enough electricity to go round so there are frequent power cuts, so less people here use cards for payment and ATMs are few and far between. Cash is king and in the rural areas I would soon be going cash would be the only option.

All in all I had a relaxing, if not lazy afternoon. It was the first time since Rupert’s Eselbe Backpackers in Nata that I had nothing to do and was quite happy to relax. I even had a snooze in the afternoon. One decision I had to make was whether to go rafting or not on the Middle Zambezi River. It is one of the classic rafting rivers of the world and it would be a shame to miss it and have regrets about not doing it, as I had about not cycling through Zimbabwe 2 days ago. So I made the decision to extend my stay here for 2 days and go rafting. The trouble was the river was so high that instead of putting the rafts in at the Boiling Pot below the bridge I think we have to drive down to Rapid Number 14 and put in the deep in the gorge. From rapid 14 I think we go down to number 25 or higher before we climb back out of the gorge for an evening cruise on the Upper Zambezi above the falls.

Day 048. 26 June. Livingstone Rest Day. 30km. 5.5 Hours. 340m up. 340m down. My main aim for today was to see the Victoria Falls, reputed to be the biggest waterfall in the world. After breakfast at Jollyboys I got on my bike and cycled down the road for about 10 kilometres to just before the bridge at the Victoria Falls. The road went through the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park and there were many warnings about wild animals. I did not see any elephants although there were signs of them everywhere from footprints, trails, broken trees and piles of dung. However, I did come round a corner and was face to face with a large giraffe which would not move. In the end a pick-up came and shielded me as we went past it, but I am sure it could have almost stepped over the pick up truck. I bought my ticket for $20 US and then went into a complex of restaurants and gift shops. At the far end was the entrance to the Avani Resort with a security guard. I gave him a dollar to park my bike inside the resort grounds and next to his booth. I then went through another booth to visit the falls.

I had heard there was a lot of spray and when I saw ponchos for hire I thought about it and then thought just how bad can the spray be to warrant a poncho. I was sure it was overkill but hired one anyway. I donned it and walked towards the falls. The falls themselves are 1.7 kilometres wide and in high water form a continuous veil of water crashing down a 100 metre drop into a slot. The slot is also 1.7 kilometres long and 100 metres deep, and is an average of 100 meters wide from the veil of water to the rock wall forming the far side of the slot. Obviously this slot would rapidly fill with water if there was not an exit, which there is, on the downstream side of the slot where the deep Batoka Gorge starts and leads downstream to the east. So viewed from space the waterfall and gorge would look like a T shaped gash on the flat plain. The Zambezi plunges over the top of the T into the slot and then drains down the stem of the T.

I had already seen some of the spray when cycling down the road and I could hear the falls from a kilometre away but as I followed the path in my poncho I rounded a corner and suddenly saw the eastern edge of them as they poured in a huge white veil into the slot at a place called the Eastern cataract. The water was completely white here, having already gone over small rapids just before this 100 metre drop. It was a phenomenal sight and very moving to see such a truly awe inspiring spectacle. The scale and power of the waterfall was bigger than anything I could have imagined and yet this was just the very eastern edge of it. It was simply enormous.

In June the river was in its high flow so there was nearly the maximum amount of water cascading over the falls. While this meant the veil of water pouring over the falls was nearly continuous for the whole of the 1.7 kilometre width of the falls it meant there was a lot of spray and mist, and this swirled round the bottom of the slot and then rose up in a huge plume. It was so thick and dense in many places it obscured any view of the falling water just 100 metres away.

As I walked west along the rocky path to other viewpoints I soon came to the Knife Edge Bridge, a walkway across two rocky knolls on the downstream side of the slot. Here the spray and mist was obscuring the powerful section of the cascade on the falls. This mist was rising up into the air like a plume, condensing and then the huge drops were plummeting back to earth in large dense drops which was 2 or 3 times heavier than the heaviest monsoon rain I have ever experienced. Without the poncho I would have been soaked to my underpants in seconds. I kept somewhat dry but my feet and shoes were drenched. After this walkway the path continued westwards with some parts dry and sunny with a great view to the veil of water on the other side, and other parts with heavy mist which rapidly condensed into rain and came crashing down onto the path. Meanwhile unseen in the bottom of the slot was a chaos of spray and foaming water at the bottom of falls which must have been growing rapidly in size as I went west and more cascades joined it. After about 500 metres I got to the end of the path which was where the stem of the T joined the top of the T and could not go any further. Across the other side of the stem of the T the slot continued but I could not reach it from this side. It continued for perhaps another 900 metres and it was all on the Zimbabwe side of the falls. There was a good view of the Victoria Fall Bridge over the Batoka Gorge, just a few hundred metres down the stem of the T. I retraced my steps back past the visible cascades and the drenching showers and returned my essential poncho to the stall.

I then went past a statue of David Livingstone, who seemed to be a revered person here in south Zambia, and went to the top of the falls just upstream of where the water crashed over. You could get a good impression of the scale from here too but only for 200 metres until the mist and spray obscured it.

There was one last walk I wanted to do and that was down to the bottom of the Batoka Gorge, just under the bridge and below where the two currents from the top of the T shaped slot met. It was the first pool of the Middle Zambezi (as the river was now known below the falls). The 200 meter descent down to it on some 600 polished and wet stems was quite fascinating as it went through a troop of baboons. They were quite brazen and did not move off the path. I was warned if I had food on display they would accost me for it. Eventually I reached the bottom of the path in a dripping rain forest jungle where it was always wet. Here the trees finished at the waters edge and revealed the Boiling Pot, a huge turbulent cauldron of whirlpools and boils where the enormous Zambezi River flowed into a rockface and changed direction. The eddy it formed was probably the largest and most violent eddy I have ever seen and it was shocking to see the angry chaos of the turbulent water here. I returned past the gauntlet of baboons to the booth and then got my bike from the security guard.

I wanted to see if I could get to the Zimbabwe side of the falls and that meant going over the bridge. It was not far to cycle to the immigration who gave me a bridge pass when I said I was going to do a bungee jump. It was just an ink stamp on a scrap of paper. Armed with this I went to the adjacent border post who let me pass onto the bridge. It was 150 years old and built in the UK as part of Cecil Rhodes’ plan to build a railway from Capetown to Cairo. It was still used as a railway bridge and also as a single carriage way for cars and trucks going over one at a time. Occasionally a train went also, either a small freight train or the steam tourist train. I cycled over to the Zimbabwe side and on up the hill to the border post but there was no way I could see the falls from here without getting a $30 visa and paying a $50 entrance fee for their National Park. I returned via the pedestrian walkway on the bridge where half way across was the Bungee jump. I watched as someone hurled themselves off the 100 metre drop over the river and then bounced up and down until they were hauled back up.

I had seen pretty much all I could but wanted to find somewhere to get some aerial shots. It had to be hidden and surreptitious. I found somewhere but would have to come back tomorrow due to technical problems. So I then returned to Livingstone up through the National Park keeping an eye out for wildlife going down to the river in the early evening. Back at Jollyboys I had a great meal, sorted out the technical problems and went to bed early as I always do now by 2100.

Day 047. 25 June. Kasane to Livingstone. 79km. 5 Hours. 400m up. 400m down. I was later for breakfast than I would have wanted. Partly my fault for sleeping in and partly the Thebe River Lodge for not being that organised even at 0800. However I ate as much as I could as I did not know when the next meal would be and then eventually set off at 0900. I agonised about which way to take as I had 2 choices both about 80 km with 400 metres of ascent. The first option was the route through Zimbabwe. It was much quieter and went through a National Park where animals, including lions, leopards and elephants could be a hazard. It also involved a border crossing into Zimbabwe which would cost $30 at the minimum and perhaps more if they dug into their barrel of reasons, like carrying pepper spray, a large knife or even a drone. It would be a much nicer way. The other route was through Zambia but it would involve much more traffic, especially trucks and was rumoured to be rather dull. After some 7 km when I reached Kazungula I had already made the decision and turned left instead of right and headed up the ramp towards the large new bridge over the Zambezi River and into Zambia. It felt like it was the weaker option but then in the very, very unlikely circumstances where I found myself surrounded by a pride of lions on the Zimbabwe road with traffic every 15 minutes I would have severely regretted not taking my chances with the trucks instead.

The ramp up to the bridge was easy as there was a pavement at the side. At the top of the curved bridge I could look down and see the forlorn and rusting ferry moored up by the loading jetty. I doubt it would ever be used again now the bridge was here. On the bridge I could look upstream and see the confluence of the Chobe and the Zambezi Rivers. They were both absolutely enormous and virtually went from horizon to horizon. I guess each was 7-800 metres wide where they met. They were not sluggish either with plenty of gentle upwellings as their waters moved downstream under the bridge. On the downstream side of the bridge the combined river was perhaps a kilometre wide and it stretched down to the east until it disappeared beyond the curvature of the earth. This river was the 4th largest in Africa after the Nile, Congo and Niger and it rose in the highlands of Angola. In complete contrast to the scale of the river and the bridge there were a couple of small mokoro, or dugout canoes, fishing off a reed covered island on the Zambian side. About half way across the bridge was the meeting point of 4 countries; Namibia (by virtue of the Caprivi Strip), Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

I freewheeled down the northside of the bridge and followed the road to a large, clean, well organized customs and immigration complex. It was like a small empty airport. On one side of the hall was the Botswana immigration where I got stamped out of Botswana and then I crossed the hall to the Zambian immigration who stamped me in. It was a quick and easy process, with no visa required and I was out of the hall and back on my bike in 10 minutes. I already noticed how genuinely friendly all the Zambians were here. I cycled north through the small town, also called Kazungula, and then met the larger road, the M10, which went east-west. Livingstone was about 65 km to the east.

It became rural very quickly with much simpler hamlets and compounds than I had seen in Namibia, and nearly all of Botswana. It was much more the Africa I imagined with simple round huts made of sticks and mud blocks and then daubed in mud all under a thatched roof. I don’t suppose the design of this home has changed much in many millennia. There were quite a few huts to one compound, and some smaller ones on posts which were used for food storage. The compounds were also much closer to the road than they had been in Botswana, as if this was a more ancient lane. Virtually every compound had a small stand beside the road where 2-4 sacks of charcoal were stacked up. The sacks were all the same size and were a simple used nylon thread sack with 6-7 sticks around the inside perimeter which extended well beyond the top of the sack. In the space inside the sticks were lumps of charcoal, each the side of a fist. The sacks were bulging with charcoal. Villagers were making more charcopal beside the road in a cottage industry type of way and I guess for many households this was their main form of income. The villagers looked poor and many shouted a greeting and then “give me food, we are hungry”. However, there were lots of waves and warm smiles.

Frequently the hamlets became more concentrated and there was a school. Each school was well advertised with a faded sign and had a school motto. The ideal of the motto was incongruous to the somewhat dilapidated building which formed the school, which looked like it had been built by a worthy NGO, Mission group, or even a Rotary or Lions club and then abandoned. In a few of them there were some children and one at Nakama looked busy and vibrant. The charcoal industry had extracted a heavy price on the forest and bush, and it looked like much of the bush had been cut down and the landscape was now parched and dusty. This might have been because it was the dry season but I think even in the wet season it would not have been lush.

The road was reasonably busy with trucks as it had been in Botswana, however the main carriage way was a bit narrower between the yellow lines and then outside the yellow lines was a narrow tarmac verge, less than a meter wide. Beyond this was a lip and weed covered gravel. It was not a nice road to cycle on and at times I thought I would have been better off taking my chances with the lions on the Zimbabwe side. The truck drivers, and the car drivers to a large extent, thought that they had sole right to the road between the yellow lines and the cyclists, of which there were many now, should stick to the verge. Many did not even bother to pull out and give some space even if there was nothing coming on the other side.

After a few ups and downs, one large village I eventually reached the outskirts of Livingstone. There were schools here but they were busy with children in tidy uniforms. There were also churches of every denomination, many with unique names like “The Tabernacle of the Savior Shepherd” After a few kilometres of it getting busier I reached a crossroads which I knew to be the centre of town. I turned right down the quieter road where I could look at my phone. It was quite a good location as I could buy an airtel sim card for my phone and get money out of an ATM. I then found a recommended hotel/hostel/camping place, called Jollyboys. It was just up the street and I was there in 5 minutes and checked in. It was quite a vibrant place and I think it was probably once a favoured overlander backpackers which had now gone slightly upmarket, (as overlanders have done) and morphed into a social meeting point. I met quite a few people that evening who lived and worked in Livingstone, especially in the tourist industry, like microlight pilots or people arranging Zambezi cruises, and they congregated here for a drink at the end of the day. It was interesting, comfortable, not too expensive and was right in the centre of town next to the things I needed like a barbers, the DHL office, an ATM and the David Livingstone Museum. I checked in for 3 nights.

 

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June 13, 2025

Day 046. 24 June. Kasane Rest Day. 0km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was up at 0500 to get picked up at 0545 for the Game Drive. The drive was arranged by the Thebe River Lodge so it was all easy and inhouse. Right on cue a specially adapted Toyota Land Cruiser arrived with seating for 9 on the back in three rows of tiered seats. We set off in the dark and I was hoping to see some animals at least. Before we got to the park entrance the driver took a turn down a sandy lane and drove fast across the sand. Someone in the back through we were heading off to see elephants. After a km of the sandy track the driver/guide, called OC, headed off into the bush for a little and wove between some shrubs and then manoeuvred the jeep so the lights shone upon something.

It took me a while to work out what it was, and it was only when OC and the others confirmed it, I knew I was not seeing things. There just 5 metres in front of us were perhaps 7 lionesses tucking into a  buffalo carcass. There was not much left on the bones and most were still knawing on the large ribcage. It was quite a sensational find. OC said he had heard about this kill yesterday and had it confirmed the lions were still here this morning. It was quite a sensational view. There was a lot of snorting, grunting and posturing as the lionesses jostled for position. When they walked about you could see they were full of meat. We had the view pretty much to ourselves for 5 minutes before the news spread to the other drivers and soon there were about 5-6 jeeps jostling for position around us. It took OC quite a while to extricate himself from the gridlock and continue to the park gate.

At the gate we registered and then got back into the jeep and continued on the main A33 road for perhaps 15 km until we turned off down a very sandy track to the north. OC had got confirmation of another sight. He drove very fast, but well, and the large vehicle almost glided over the sand. We stopped to look at a herd of some 6-7 giraffes who were browsing the tree tops just as the sun was coming up behind them. After watching them for a while we continued down to the shallow wide river valley. Ahead the air was dusty and I assumed it was some low fog from the river. However it was the dust kicked up from the hooves of about 500 buffalo who were walking and grazing as they headed east along the river bank. OC thought they were a breeding herd which might have come from Namibia. There was a total variety of animals from giant bulls slowly striding with their massive heads adorned with huge horns swinging from side to side to young calves tottering along awkwardly on legs which looked like they were made of wood. We parked and they flowed around us like a river and we were a boulder. Apparently this breeding herd would be really difficult for a lion to attack as the bulls would attack the lions and could do some real damage to them. Lions were apparently more likely to attack a bachelor group of bulls where it was more everyone for themselves, rather than all rallying round to protect the calves.

As soon as we left the buffalo we ran into another pride of lions. This one had killed an eland a couple of days ago and had devoured most of it. This group was a lot less experienced than the pride that killed the buffalo and consisted of a lot of larger cubs and a few lionesses. The cubs spent a lot of the time wrestling with each other, while a lioness ate. On the surrounding tree there were about 50 vultures waiting for the lions to move off so they could pick over the remains. It was an amazing start to the drive and well beyond anything I expected.

For the next hour or so we then went down to the edge of the Chobe River and slowly worked our way back east. I did not realize it at the time but this was just a southerly side channel and the main channel was further to the north over a very flat green island called Sedudu Island which gets covered when the floods arrive after the rainy season in the catchment area upstream in Angola. Here, we apparently just missed the lions who had been feasting in the eland coming down to the water’s edge to drink. However we did see a small herd of elephants in the water both drinking and splashing themselves and then they came up the bank to where we were parked and filed by us slowly. There were a number of very small young with them. As we left we passed the buffalo again who were still creating a large dust cloud, and then passed many impala.

Just as we were about to leave the park we came across another cluster of wildlife including waterbuck, greater Kudu, a few more giraffes and an elephant right beside the track who was demolishing a small tree. I noticed he was stripping all the leaves off the twig and discarding them and then just ate the twigs. It was well after 0900 when we reached the tarmac road again after our sandy loop. Once on the tarmac we went back out of the gate and returned to the Thebe River Lodge. The excursion had been beyond my expectations.

Back at the lodge I had breakfast which was still being served to those who did the early morning Game Drive and then I returned to my room for a snooze. It turned into a sleep and I did not get up until 1330, just an hour before the next excursion. I did not have lunch as I was still full from breakfast.

The second excursion was called something like the Chobe Sunset Cruise. Again I was picked up at 1445 and then driven some 15 minutes to a jetty area. Initially I was on my own but then a group of 20 arrived from one of the Overland Buses. There were a mix of nationalities but all spoke English. The boat was wide and stable at about 15 metres long and 6 metres wide with a roof and two outboard engines. I guessed this second tour would be hard pushed to match the spectacular of the morning but it tried.

Firstly we went up stream to where the Chobe River was a single channel again after it split to go round Sedudu Island. Here the guide took the southern channel and slowly went up stopping at the various wildlife we encountered. The first was a crocodile, its tail swollen with stored fat. The crocodile was about 3 metres long and would have lived off fish but I am sure it could already take an impala if it came too close to the water’s edge.

As we went up the channel I saw something in a patch of aquatic weeds and thought it was resting hippopotamus. However as we drew nearer I realized it was a large mother elephant, a smaller female elephant and two small baby elephants. The mother was almost fully submerged, and I am not sure if her feet were on the riverbed or if she was floating. She was sweeping the weed with her trunk and bringing large bunches of it into her mouth. The other three elephants, especially the two youngsters, must have been swimming. They occasionally disappeared underwater with just their trunks breaking the surface like a periscope. They looked a little like they were struggling and occasionally tried to clamber onto the large elephants back, but then became confident again and tried to feed themselves and stay afloat.

We continued up this south channel passing many more elephants, hippopotamus and buffalo and a lot of birds, especially storks and geese. The guide explained that the older buffalo liked it on the island as they were safe from the lions, which would not swim out. The buffalo looked to be mostly old battle scared males who had limps and scratches and had no doubt had their fair share of lion encounters over the years.

Eventually we got to the west end of the island where the south channel and the main channel initially split. There were a lot of hippopotamus here and they were just beginning to come up onto the land. They would get to the firm bank and then go and forage in the bush for the night. Some might venture 7 kilometres from the river in search of grazing before returning in the morning. In the group we were watching the bull male emerged from the water and scattered his dung around the waters edge marking his territory. He was also battle scared and looked like he had to defend his position and females from time to time. He then plunged into the water again roaring and with his mouth open and the great teeth ready to do some serious damage.

The sun was now low on the horizon and we started to return. We passed a herd of buffalo on the island as we now went back down the main channel to circumnavigate Sedudu Island. The buffalo here looked content in the evening sun chewing their cud either standing or sitting down. There were a few birds gathering on the backs of the buffalo to pick at any parasite, like ticks, or just peck off the dead skin. The sun set as usual at 1800 in a blaze of colour but once the sun had crossed the horizon it did not take long for darkness to set in and already by 1815 it was too dark to read a paper. At the jetty the others boarded their tour bus while I was driven back in the dark to the lodge just in time for dinner. It had been a sensational wildlife day and I had totally underestimated the quality of the trips and what I might see. It was a fitting end to the 04 Section, NE Botswana as tomorrow I will leave and cross over to Zambia.

Day 045. 23 June. Pandamatenga to Kasane. 102 km. 6.5 Hours. 240m up. 380m down. I was up early for a 0700 breakfast. It was a hearty breakfast and it would have to do me until I reached Kasane in 100 km as there was nothing en route. I left at 0800 but the tail wind of the last couple of days had disappeared. Almost immediately I was into farming country again with vast fields on each side of the road. To the east was wheat and to the west was sorghum. The wheat was being harvested by a couple of combine harvesters side by side such was the pairie-like scale of the farming operation here. After the farm though the there was a slight rise and then I was back into the wilderness with signs saying “Caution Wild Animals”

I did not see many animals at all really. Initially there was a large Tawny Eagle. I think they are opportunistic hunters and will take anything small and even scavenge carrion or road kill. Perhaps that is why it was perched on a tree beside the road. The scrub was reasonably scattered here and it would be difficult for an elephant to hide near the road. I saw plenty of signs and there were tracks everywhere but I think most were in the bush now foraging and would not cross the road until dusk approached. A bit further along the road I saw a small herd of zebras who were about to cross and then saw me coming and retreated back into the bush. They ran along beside me, about 100 metres parallel to the road, for about a kilometre.

Then the trees suddenly vanished and I was onto an open savannah plain. At last I saw an elephant but it was at least half a kilometre from the road. It was wandering across the savannah and was not eating, but en route to the distant forest or a waterhole. It is not far from the Zimbabwe border here, perhaps just 10 kilometres and the elephants are free to wander across there, where there are reserves and national parks. This savannah plain lasted for about 15 kilometres and then I was back into the scattered bush.

The road was fast to cycle on although it was reasonably busy. The trucks came in convoys with about 4-5 in each and they all gave me plenty of room and often gave a friendly toot on their horns or a flash of their indicators. The verge I was used to for the last couple of days was now very small and I had to be careful when there was traffic coming in the opposite direction and the trucks could not pull over to the other carriage way as much as they would otherwise. All in all though I would commend truck drivers for their thoughtfulness.

The last 30 kilometres were generally fast but as I approached the Zambezi valley there were some long descents but then some vindictive small climbs. They took my momentum away completely and left me struggling to climb them with my legs aching and full of lead. However soon I was on the final run down into the border town of Kazungula. It was a busy town with lots of petrol stations and supermarkets. This was the town where 4 countries; Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia all met. At the bottom of the hill and down onto the plain beside the Zambezi River was a turnoff to Kasane. It was about 10 kilometres along the road to the west on the south bank of the Chobe River, a tributary of the Zambezi which it joined in Kazungula. Most of the traffic and all of the trucks continued north here into Zambia but I wanted to go to Kasane for a couple of nights to make a touristic foray into Chobe National Park. Kasane was the gateway to Chobe as Maun was to the Okavango Delta.

Initially I wanted to go to the Elephant Trail Backpackers but I think it was all full except for their dormitory beds. When I passed the road up to it I could see it was all uphill for nearly 2 km and I just could not be bothered to enquire so went for plan B which was suggested to me by Franz and Mandy this morning.

Plan B was Thelbe River Lodge and it was a bit further along the south bank of the Chobe River on the road busy with small cars and taxis. I passed some fruit farms and banana plantations and then a road sign warning about crossing hippopotamus to reach the lodge. It was a large lodge which seemed to cater for the overland trucks with 10-15 people in each truck. There were about 4 parked here and their clients were milling around the reception area. The lady at the desk was not unfriendly, but not pleasant, and gave me a room which was really poor value for money. However after 100 km I was tired and wanted a shower and was not going to cycle off and look for somewhere else. They also did the two tours I wanted to take tomorrow from here so that added to the convenience. It was certainly a tourist tour and I am sure it would be quite tame compared to a self drive into the heart of the National Park, but that was not feasible at the moment.

I did meet the owner of the lodge later and asked him a few questions about my route to the Victoria Falls which were about 80 km to the east. He recommended I take the Zambian option rather than the Zimbabwean option as the latter went through the Zambezi National Park where he suggested there would be lots of elephants and possibly lions and leopards. He said if I wanted to go the Zimbabwe way I should really have an escort vehicle. Plus it would mean I would not have to deal with the Zimbabwe customs which are renowned for being eager. I wrote the blog in the evening before supper and then prepared for the 0500 alarm clock as I would be picked up soon after for my game drive early in the day, while the animals were on the move at dawn.

Day 044. 22 June. Pandamatenga Rest Day. 0km. 0 Hours. 0m up. 0m down. I was tired in the morning as I did not sleep well due to inadvertently drinking the caffeine laden drinks last night. However it did not matter as breakfast was when I wanted it so I slept in until 0830. The breakfast was good and the hosts Mandy and Franz looked after me well.

For the rest of the morning I sat in the dining room/bar area under the large cool thatched roof and caught up with the blog. Mandy and Franz went into town leaving me, the cook, the maintenance man, and Zeus the massive Boerboel, to man the fort. Zeus lay out at my feet in a confident relaxed posture as I wrote.

Once I had finished I went for a short walk near the cabins and down to the waterhole to see if I could spot anything. Hidden behind a copse of scrub was a small herd of about 20 impala. luckily they moved slightly into the open to graze on the parched grass as I watched.

I spent most of the afternoon sleeping on the bed in my cabin. It was cool and relaxing and I lay there in a stupor half awake and half asleep until the afternoon was done. I was certainly well rested now. As I went over to the dining room for dinner at sunset Franz pointed out 6 large Roan Antelope who had just emerged from the bush to drink. He explained that after the Eland they were the second biggest antelope and some might be 300 kilos. They did not stay long and looked nervous. I had an opulent dinner and then retired early as I had a long day tomorrow all the way to Kasane which was around 100 kilometres.

Day 043. 21 June. Telecom mast 85 km North to Pandamatenga. 120km. 8 Hours. 250m up. 170m down. I slept surprisingly well and no wild dogs or lions squeezed under the gate. In my tent most predators would think I was a giant tortoise and not worth investigating, as long they could not see in and providing the the flysheet was on.  I slept right through from 2100 until 0600.  It was easy to get an early start while camping and by 0730 I had finished breakfast which was an entire 400 gram packet of granola and powdered milk. It was cold in the night and my lukewarm water the evening before was now chilled and palatable. I was finally packed and ready to go by 0800. Unlocking the gate and pushing my bike over the elephant protection I made it back to the main road inspecting the track carefully for the omnipresent devil’s thorn seeds,  which were a constant threat of puncture.

Back on the main road it was not as busy as I feared. The sound of the trucks could be heard a kilometre away and reality there was only one every 3-4 minutes. The road was wide with a good verge, and the trucks were relatively slow. The tarmac was smooth, my tyres were at 40 PSI still and firm and there was a tail wind. At last the planets were aligned so I would be able to average 20 km per hour. Within an hour I made it to the abandoned huts just on the west side of the road. They still looked in remarkable condition but I did not go the 100 metres to investigate for fear of rolling the wheels over thorns. On each side of the road was the endless bush and nothing else. The bush was a little parched and most of the watering holes were dry. There was lots of elephant dung but I did not see any all morning. I made great progress up the road climbing slightly and almost imperceptably until midday when I had already done some 64 km.

I kept my eyes out for wildlife but saw nothing. The road went past two or three watering holes, one like a small lake, but there was nothing at these either. Although round the perimeter of them there was a lot of dung and footprints. I can only assume that the animals were either away from the road in the bush foraging and would return in the evening to quench their thirst or that there were other watering holes far in the bush and away from the road, which were more preferable.

Soon I was approaching 100 km and it was only 1430 in the afternoon. However it was taking its toll. My arms were sore, especially the wrist joints and elbow joints. I think my handle bars could have been 5 cm higher. In theory I could have put the seat down a bit, but it was just right for peddling and I would rather have sore arms than risk injury to my knees. I was also getting chaffed in my groin area and with the sweat it was starting to sting. About 20 km before Pandamatenga the road reached a large cattle grid and I cycled over it into a totally different landscape. There was no more bush with the threat of wild animals about to leap out of it, but now I was into farming land with huge flat fields full of sorghum. The fields were vast and this was farming on an industrial scale which one might find in the mid west of the USA or Ukraine.

I also reached the section where the road was being widened. The road rollers had packed an earth and aggregate track beside the current carriageway and it was firm and great for cycling on. Occasionally it was covered in a thin layer of bitumen with rocks on it to prevent traffic going on it but I could weave between the rocks. I passed by a large army barracks and then entered Pandamatenga. It was a spread out town but had a tangible centre which was dominated by huge grain silos. This was where all the sorghum ended up before being transported south on the many grain carrier trucks passing me. There was also a large parking area here for all the trucks where many probably spent the night. Currently there were over 100 parked up along the wide dusty verge, 3 or 4 deep. My main interest in Pandamatenga though was the supermarket. I was parched when I arrived although I still had a bottle of old warm water with unpalatable bits suspended in it. It was no match for some cold sodas and an icecream though.

There were a surprising amount of white farmers in the carpark and I asked one of them about a place to stay. They recommended a Touch of Africa, a lodge which had camping spaces some 6 km further north. It was the one I had already bookmarked so it was good to have the confirmation. It was a quick half hour cycle to get there and I reached it in the heat of the afternoon. It was run by Franz, a retired Austrian hunter and his wife Mandy, a South African. They gave me a lovely thatched lodge overlooking a waterhole where game was rumoured to come. There was the main restaurant and bar area which was also thatched. The only issue I had initially was the dog. I was the largest and most ferocious looking dog I had ever seen. It was a 90 kg Boerboel, which was extremely muscular and with an enormous head. The dog would have eaten a couple of drug dealers XL Bullies for breakfast and perhaps a lion for dinner. However, the gargantuan canine had been well socialized, knew its subordinate position and was well behaved. I had a great shower and then one of the infamous burgers before deciding to have an extra day here. I was tired and needed to rest and I also needed to catch up a bit with the blog tomorrow. I did not sleep that well as I made the mistake of buying two energy drinks at the supermarket which were loaded with caffeine.

Day 042. 20 June. Nata to Telecom mast 85 km North. 85 km. 6 Hours. 190m up. 120m down. My tyres were still good in the morning so it looked like the problem was solved for the time being and I would be able to move on up to Kasane and Livingstone. Rubert made me the usual sumptuous full breakfast and by the time I had that and said my goodbyes to the team and other guests it was already 0930. I did not really have a plan but there were a few options every 15 to 20 kilometres as I headed north. The one thing I did need was one of these options. It would have been foolhardy to camp beside the road, a little in the bush as there were quite a few wild animals about on this next stretch. Most notably there were elephants and they were abundant over the next 300 km. After all, the road between Nata and Kasane was called the “Elephant Highway”. However there were also rumoured to be wild dogs and lions. So a secure camp was necessary.

Once on the main road north, The A33, I was delighted to see that there were road works to widen the road. I knew there was a little from my last foray up here until the punctures forced me back, but now I could follow them on one side or the other of the road for the best part of 20 km without going on the main carriage way. The packed earth which had been steamrolled was as good as smooth tarmac and I made good time. Even if I had not been on the newly constructed verges the road was not that busy with trucks and vehicles.

Eventually the packed earth verges finished and I was forced back on the main carriageway, but there was a wide verge of nearly 2 metres width and this was separated from the main carriageway with a yellow line and a row of cat’s eyes. The trucks were not that plentiful and they were not going that fast either. Perhaps they were wary of the elephants. Each side of the road there was initially wild open savannah stretching to the horizon, golden and shimmering in the heat. However after some 30 km since leaving Nata the bush slowly started to appear and then it became quite dense. I knew there were some elephant watering holes near the road along here and kept my eyes peeled for them but I did not see any. There were plenty of signs though, most notable the large tracks across the road and into the bush on each side and elephant dung everywhere. After about 45 km I got to the turn off to Elephant Sands Lodge and Campsite. However, it was down a very sandy track for 2 km and it was likely I would have to push the bike the whole way there and out again tomorrow. Despite the likelihood of seeing elephants come to the watering hole at Elephant Sands I decided to skip it, especially as it was just after midday.

My next option was another 10 km and it was the Veterinary Fence to keep foot and mouth out of Central and southern Botswana. I reached it at the same time as a large convoy of trucks but then overtook them all as they waited. I was flagged through as there were not real controls going north; however there were coming south. Just after this control were a number of shacks selling cold sodas and biscuits. I stopped at one and had something but there were no cooked snacks. It was still just 1330 when I finished so I decided on the next option which was a Telecoms mast in another 30-35 km.

It seemed a bit wilder now on the north side of the Veterinery fence and it did not take long before I saw a few zebras in the scrub, but still no elephants despite all the signs. Then in about a kilometre I saw the unmistakable sight of one beside the road. It was huge even from here. There was very little traffic and I covered the distance in a few minutes and was suddenly 200 metres from the elephant who continued to graze right beside the road. There was no way I could get past without risking a charge so I waited and waited. Eventually after 5 minutes a convoy of 4×4 came the other way heading south. They slowed for the elephant but continued and the elephant was unmoved. Usually they are afraid of traffic and run back to the bush, but not this one.

At last a 4×4 came going my way and I flagged it down. The driver I think just wanted to blast past the elephant but agreed to drive between me and the beast. The road was quiet so we both crossed over to the other side. I could see the driver was nervous and had the elephant charged, I am sure he would have sped off leaving me in the lurch. It didn’t charge but there was a lot of ear waving. Soon we were both past. In the next 30 km I saw another two elephants attempting to cross the road but traffic came by just at the right time and they remained on the edge of the bush waiting for another chance, wary of the trucks. I don’t think they would have seen me as a threat but I was just 40 metres away as I passed.

The telecom tower I was aiming for soon appeared some 5 km away and it took no time to get there. The head wind of the last month was more of a neutral side wind now and the road surface was good and the tyres at 40 PSI rolled smoothly over it. It was just 1530 when I got there so I decided to check it out. I had heard the perimeter fence was damaged, according to my app called “ioverlander” I parked the bike at the edge of the road and walked the 100 metres up the sandy track checking for thorns as I went. The fence had been damaged but it was now repaired in a fashion. However, right round the perimeter of the compound was the most vicious elephant defence of concrete with sharp stone sticking out of it and also a grid work of iron with spikes in it. The latter was like an upside down agricultural harrow and it would not be possible for an elephant to cross it. I returned to my bike and wheeled it back to the compound. The only issue I noticed was there was a 50 cm gap under one of the gates which perhaps a predator might wiggle under, but it was unlikely I thought and they would still have to cross the harrow spikes.

I had my tent up quite quickly and then ate cold dinner out of tins; pilchards, backed beans and fruit salad to be precise. I still had 3 litres of water for tomorrow which would hopefully take me the 115 km to the village of Pandamatenga where I hoped to stay.  If I had not stayed at this telecom mast the next option was a cluster of abandoned cabins a further 20 km. Apparently they were still clean and with roofs but only one had a door and that was last year’s report. After the hermetic dinner I wrote the blog and finished around 2000.

Day 041. 19 June. Nata Rest Day. 0 km. 0 hours. 0m up. 0m down. I had a great lie in as I knew I had nothing to do today. After the usual tasty full breakfast Rupert got a phone call to say the package had arrived and was ready to pick up. Half an hour later I had everything I needed to get back on the road.

I took the wheels off the bike and then the tyres of the rims and cleaned everything up. I had already cleaned them a week ago in Gweta so there was not much to do. Once clean I put the rims back on and had great difficulty in getting a seal to pump the tyre up. Eventually it started to inflate using my electronic pump and soon I had enough pressure in them so the tyres pressed against the rims and they were “seated”. I then removed the core of the valves and injected the latex liquid, about 130ml, into each tyre and blew them up again to 30 PSI. There were a few leaks but as I spun the tyre the latex liquid found the leaks and bubbled out. As it bubbled out it reacted with the air and solidified in the leak,  thereby sealing it. I let the tyres be all afternoon spinning them from time to time to distribute the latex liquid and was delighted to see they held their pressure. I then put them up to 40 PSI and they still held their pressure.

The punctures were solved for the short term and I should be able to get to Livingstone now. In the meantime Fiona had had great success at the main DHL Express depot on the outskirts of Edinburgh and the parcel with the new puncture resistant tyres was dispatched with all the customs forms in order and DHL promising to facilitate it through Zambian customs, which could still be a banana skin.

That evening more guests arrived and Rupert made another great meal. That he prepared this sensational rice and curried goat in a spinach sauce on a couple of gas rings is impressive. Two of the guests were Ricus and Pietro Delporte who were South Africans moving up to Malawi for 6 months until the weather at their other house in Knysna improved. They had worked and travelled all over Africa and were incredibly well informed and experienced. Ricus was articulate, assertive and knowledgeable but was not a know-all by any means and a joy to discuss things with and listen to. They were the most interesting people of many interesting people I met round Ruperts camp fire. They also invited me to stay in Malawi at their lodge, which I was planning to go past anyway. I had really enjoyed my stay at Eselbe Backpackers and was indebted to Rupert for his hospitality and help, but after 3 days here I was now ready to move on.

Day 040. 18 June. Nata 7 km up road and return. 14 km. 2 hours. 110m up. 110m down. After a very relaxing day at the bohemian and inspiring Eselbe Backpackers as the guest of Rupert I was ready to set off after a great breakfast which he made. I half cycled and half pushed the bike the half kilometre up the sandy lane from the rivers edge to the main road and then started the cycle up the road. The road was being widened and there was a long stretch of newly finished road with rocks on it to stop drivers going on it. However I could simply cycle between the rocks very easily,  and did so.

However I noticed that my tyres were deflating and eventually stopped. I had inner tubes in them but I think both had thorns in them. It took me well over an hour to change the tube at the back and patch the tube at the front and I was ready to set off again when I noticed the tyre at the front was still deflating. I must have had two punctures. I thought this is a hopeless situation and I cannot limp up the road repairing punctures every 10-15 kilometres. I knew I was vulnerable to punctures as the tyres I had did not have any embedded protection in them and were primarily designed to be tubeless. I decided it best to return to Eselbe Backpackers and sort something out. I pumped up the tyre again and it just got me back. Everyone was surprised to see me.

I made a few phone calls back to the UK just to make sure the new tyres I ordered were in hand and to find out about freight. In the meantime Rupert made a call to Cycle Base in Gaberone to see what they had. Rupert discovered they had the latex liquid to put in the tubeless tires I had on and also that they had inner tubes with valves with removable cores so I could also put the latex liquid in the inner tube if need be. We ordered some and were assured it would be sent when the money transfer was made.

Rupert then spent hours on the phone to his bank to try and make the transfer. He had a frustrating fruitless time of it and we eventually had to go into his bank to sort it out. However, the transfer was done and the goods were put on the night bus. I was very indebted to Rupert for all the hassle he had on my behalf.  Meanwhile back in Edinburgh Fiona had received all the new tyres and inner tubes to send and had researched the best way to get them to Zambia. There was not much more to do except wait.

As usual there was a great meal that night and then everyone sat round the fire discussing virtually every topic on Wikipedia. The ambience was superb. While Rupert’s Eselbe Backpackers is quite rustic and everything just about works, with his cooking and the evening’s conversation round the fire after the meal there is the potential for Eselbe Backpackers to become legendary.

Day 039. 17 June. Nata Rest Day. 0 km. 0 hours. 0m up. 0m down. I had a great lie in and got up when the sun had chased off the chilly morning. Rupert the host at Eselbe Backpackers made me a great breakfast with real coffee. Most of the guests were leaving including the very nice French couple. However I would probably see them again about Livingstone in a week’s time.

Once everyone had gone I went into the quiet bar area where there was a table and wrote for a couple of hours. It was very relaxing with virtually no disturbance or sounds save for the doves. By midday I was done so I then went for a snooze on the hammock. It was lovely to have nothing to do for the afternoon as previously virtually all my time was spent either cycling, camping or trying to keep up with the blog.

Once I woke I went for a small paddle on the river in one of the old canoes Rupert had. This part of the Nata River still had about a kilometre of water in it and it was about 2 metres deep at the most. There was no inlet or outlet of this long channel at the moment but it would return in the rainy season when the river would form and flow south again. I was assured by Rupert there were no crocodiles in this long pond and he regularly paddled here.

In the evening he made another fine meal and there were only 5 of us at the meal. In the evening we sat round the fire again and chatted until it was quite late. Rupert had a wealth of knowledge about the area and the wild road north from here to Kasane so I picked his brains on it. I had really enjoyed the peace and quiet of his rustic lodge.

Day 038. 16 June. Zoronga to Nata. 45 km. 4 hours. 30m up. 40m down. I slept well and long, and was up at 0630, as the first glimmer of light was appearing in the east. The cockerels had long been awake but now the hens too started foraging nearby, clucking away as I packed. I was ready by 0730 and set off down a series of sandy tracks to the tarmac road which was the artery of the village. Many children were also emerging from the lanes and heading to school in the smart green uniforms. They were vibrant and lively in stark contrast to the younger women at the shop yesterday obsessing about their hair extensions. Once on the tarmac road in the village I cycled up past the shop and onto the main A3 road. It was just over 40 km to Nata now.

There was no breeze for a welcome change and I made quick time. It did not take long before I found a rhythm and was making good time on the empty road. I passed a sign saying “slow down severe potholes”. I thought nothing of it as I generally welcomed them as it slowed the vehicles to a crawl while I could weave in and out of them.

However in this case the entire road had disappeared. There were some thin strips of tarmac for a few tens of metres and then they ended in a lip before another strip started. Most drivers simply abandoned the road and moved onto the verge which was graded, but somewhat rutted. It was a difficult choice for me to either persevere on the destroyed tarmac road or risk the sometimes sandy ruts on the verge. The road was often the least of two evils. There were perhaps 4 sections of this destroyed road and each section was about a kilometre long. I think they were in the process of building a new road adjacent to this road I was on and they had pretty much given up with any maintenance of the original road, assuming the traffic would cope until the new road became operational in a year or five.

Beside the road the landscape continued to vary with either sparse forest and exhausted grazing underneath and then homesteads just visible through the trees away from the road in the forest, or open savannah which stretched far into the distance beyond the curvature of the earth. There was some livestock grazing here but most I saw were clustered around a few water holes near the road. The livestock were again a mixture of cattle and horses with about half and half of each. At a few of these water holes there were flamingos, either resting on one leg or slowly wading through the shallow water while filtering with their beaks. I had heard from many people that the larger salt pans which were currently flooded were currently full of flamingos.

I stopped for a rest and to eat a snack of dried noodles and biltong. When I did this a 4×4 usually stopped to enquire if everything was OK. Before long one stopped with a charming young French couple. We chatted for about 10 minutes and they gave me a delicious packet of biscuits. We discovered we were both heading to the same backpackers in Nata. They told me they had just seen a large male lion crossing the road about 60 kilometers back towards Maun. It was exactly in the place where I had seen the large herds of unfenced livestock yesterday. They showed me a video and it was clear the lion had just fed as its stomach was full. I am sure this lion was living on borrowed time before the herding or grazing committee contracted a hunter to put it down as it would continue to kill livestock now.

Once they left I had about another 20 kilometres to go to reach Nata and without the head wind it went quickly. As I entered the town I got to a T junction with a larger road which went up the east side of Botswana from south to north. It was the A33 and it was another route from Central Southern African countries like Zambia and Congo to the coast at Durban and Port Elizabeth. I would have to follow it for 300 km in the next week from Nata to Kasane up the so-called “Elephant Highway”. I followed the road for about 2 km to the north and then headed east down a sandy lane to Eselbe Backpackers.

It was only about 400 metres down the lane but I had to push the bike half the distance due to the sand. When I reached the backpackers it was even more Bohemian and relaxed than I imagined. It was owned and run by Rupert, a Brit with a long family history in Botswana and Swaziland. There were perhaps 10 various buildings, all of wood and bamboo. Some were the bar and kitchen and others were the small huts which were bedrooms. There was a large outside table under a huge canvas awning. The French couple who gave me the wafers, Pauline and Damien, were already here and so were about another 8 overland travellers in their 20’s. It was outside of the cut and thrust of Nata but I suspect there was nothing to entice me into downtown Nata except the supermarket to stock up. Rupert showed me a bamboo hut with an attached bathroom and shower and I unpacked the bike. The room had everything I needed and outside there was plenty of chat with the relaxed group. Later in the afternoon Rupert ran Emelia, another French guest, and myself into the supermarket for some supplies. He also bought the ingredients for himself to make lasagne for us that evening.

The backpackers was right beside the Nata River which was still full of water but not really flowing anywhere. It was almost like a large long pool which still existed while the river had stopped flowing. Contrary to my intuition the river flowed from the north to the south through the town of Nata and onto the salt pans. There it spread out to form the seasonal lakes which then evaporated in the dry season.

In the evening Rupert made a large lasagne to feed about 6 people while a few of the others made their own dinner and we all sat around the large table and ate together. Once the meal was done the fire was lit and everybody gravitated towards it, sitting round it. Without the breeze the smoke went straight up so there was no one having to endure smoke in their eyes. I was a little distracted in the evening trying to get some replacement Schwalbe tyres with some puncture protection as the current tyres I have on the bike have none and I feel quite vulnerable especially when cycling near thorns or over broken glass.

Day 037. 15 June. Gweta to Zoronga. 64 km. 6 hours. 140m up. 150m down. In the morning the tyre was flat. The sealant had failed to seal the hole. I tried blowing it up again to no avail so decided to take it off and put a tube in the tyre. On inspection all the sealant was either dried up or had been expelled by various punctures. It did not take long to put the tube in as it was the front wheel and I pumped it up to 35 PSI and it was taut, but with enough flex to act as a shock absorber. I paid the bill and left at 0930. As I cycled through the village on this Sunday morning it seemed quite a few people were going to church. They were well dressed and seemed to be the friendliest in the community as all smiled and waved as I went past. I passed the giant baobab tree, which was perhaps 25-30 metres on second thoughts and then reached the main road by the petrol stations. I cycled along it for about 5 km until I reached the turn off for Planet Boabab, a 3 star lodge.

The lodge was a short kilometre down the track. Dotted amongst the savannah scrub here were more enormous Baobab trees. It was not so much their height which amazed me but their huge girth. However, at the lodge there were a few gigantic ones and one especially right at the lodge which must have been 7-8 metres in diameter. I guess this tree was at least 500 years old and probably a lot more. There were perhaps 20 giant trees here but this was the most impressive. The lodge had built a bar right under it thinking that would be cool, but I found it lacking taste and a bit disrespectful. I chatted with a very nice UK couple here before having a second look at the trees. If trees could talk they would have some story to tell. Possibly from a time when humans did not live in the area.

I did not return to the main road straight away but continued on a gravel road to the east for about 5 km. It was a lovely quiet cycle through scattered homesteads in the sparse forest. I have noticed that a lot of the homesteads are not beside the main road as one would expect but are perhaps 200-400 metres off the road and not visible from the road. Here surrounded by a perimeter fence of branches as posts and wire lies a large compound with maize growing in it and then the inner compound with 3 or 4 huts, often with thatched roofs and a corral where the livestock spend the night. On this small gravel road I was much closer to these homesteads and frequently passed people who were much more friendly than their counterparts in villages and frequently waved. It was not as quick as the tarmac road but much more interesting.

Eventually the two roads merged and I was back on the tarmac but now I entered a region which was bereft of trees and was a vast area of savannah grass with extensive salt pans in between. These salt pans were quite natural and occurred because the rains of the last millennia collected in these barely discernible depressions on the landscape and then evaporated over the dry season leaving a mineral residue which has accumulated. They were bare areas of white deposits where nothing grew. I passed a few smaller ones of perhaps a square kilometre or two but I knew from the map there were much larger ones which were hundreds of square kilometres just beyond the horizon like the Ntwetwe Pan, The Nxai Pan and the Sowa Pan. My initial plan had been to cycle across one of these on 4×4 tracks, but because there was so much rain in the recent rainy season many of the pans were still covered in water or still marshy with a muddy clay like silt which would be a nightmare to push a bike through.

Between the small pans I passed beside the tarmac road were the extensive veldt-like grasslands with golden grasses. They were excellent grazing and there were large herds of cattle and horses scattered across them. There were no fences and the livestock were free to wander. I thought there can’t be lions here as they would have a field day with all this easy prey at their disposal.

As I cycled across this area of smaller salt pans and open savannah I realized I had little hope of reaching Nata that evening. It was mid afternoon and I still had 50 km to go, although the easterly headwind was diminishing as it did most afternoons. I had two options, one was a telecoms mast just before Zoronga and the other was Zoronga village itself just a bit further, leaving just 40 km to do the next day to reach Nata. I had enough water for the telecoms tower but they were quite soulless, perfunctory places to campsite so I decided to continue to the village where there was a small shop where I could buy something and ask about somewhere to pitch a tent as I have done in Phudukudu.

I reached the village and took the side road into it and soon found the shop. There were a few young women hanging around the shop and working in the shop and they all seemed totally disinterested, with a lot of shoulder shrugging to every question. Of the 5-6 of them, half were putting hair extensions in each other’s hair and they only said “give me money”. Eventually one woman said “try next door” but there was no next door. When I queried this she said “try the police at the end of the road”. So I set off into the spreadout heart of the village. Eventually after some 5 attempts and nearly at the point of giving up and returning to the tarmac road out of frustration, I found a grandmother who pointed me to a sandy track leading to a cluster of houses. There another grandmother found a neighbour of the policeman, who said he was away. However he made a call to the policeman who gave me permission to camp in his compound. It was perhaps 1700 now so I had the tent up beside his house and had eaten by nightfall. I went into the tent as all around me the evening fires in the compounds around me flickered and the evening air had the aroma of woodsmoke. I wrote a little but was asleep by 2000 and slept well.

Day 036. 14 June. Phuduhudu to Gweta. 81 km. 8 hours. 230m up. 230m down. I slept well on the verandah of the community hall and was content to be amongst the fire fighting crew who were all very helpful. After the indifference of the Botswanans I met on the first 3 days in the country I got a completely false impression of them and that has now completely changed. I now find them competent, helpful, good drivers and cheerful. I was up before anyone else and had a disgusting breakfast of corn beef out of a tin and some bread. I had forgotten just how putrid corned beef was as it was about 3 or 4 decades since I last had some. I was packed up and ready to go by 0800 as the others were rising. I went to see the foreman who sanctioned my stay yesterday and gave him 200 Pula, or about £10, to either buy the team some soft drinks that evening or give it to the Phuduhudu community as he felt fit. It was graciously received. They waved me off from the compound and I cycled through the empty lanes just coming to life and returned to the main road.

The headwind hit me with a vindictive force as soon as I was out of the shelter of the village trees. I guess it was a force 5 and right into my face. I was struggling to get much more than 10 km per hour and if I pushed harder I could feel my right knee ligaments straining. It was going to be a long day. After an hour or so I saw 4 zebras running down the road towards me. When they saw me they bolted into the bush. As I was looking for them I saw two giraffes some 200 metres away. They were both very alert and looking straight at me. Either they have very good senses and saw me on their own or were alerted by the zebra as I think the two animals have a symbiotic alert reciprocity.

There was not much to say about the next hour as I ground into the wind. The grasses at the side of the road were being buffeted by it and I felt progress was slow and at a cost. About an hour later I passed a larger herd of zebras. They were grazing on the wide verge but when they saw me they became unnerved and started to run in the same direction I was going but just inside the edge of the bush. They ran for about a kilometer pausing just to let me catch up. I could hear their hoofs pounding the ground.

Soon the vegetation changed and the taller scrub gave way to shorter scrub and then this too almost disappeared leaving just wide open grassland savannah. There was no hiding here and any zebras or giraffe would have been visible for a kilometre and an elephant 2 kilometres. But I could see nothing and all the animal tracks which came out of the bush on each side of the road disappeared. It was only after 20 km when the bush started to get a bit thicker again did I see a flock of about 40 ostriches, just before the end of the park. As I was watching them a police pick up appeared and wound down the window. “Do you remember me?” said the passenger with a bright smile and gleaming teeth. It was the police woman from 2 nights ago when I encountered the elephants. We chatted for 5 minutes before she headed off back to Maun.

?After the park I was suddenly back in cattle country and I was quite surprised to see them. There were rumoured to be lions in Makgadikgadi National Park and this did play on my mind a bit, but now there were cattle, goats and donkeys about I was off the menu. Their farms were small and almost subsistence level I think. The going was still slow despite the wind dropping as it often did in the afternoon. Then I noticed my front tire was very flat. I stopped to blow it up but it had a hole in it and the sealant was bubbling through and would not seal the gap. I pumped it to 35 PSI from the 10 it was at, and set off. I was going much faster now and perhaps I had been running this tire under pressure for a while and was blaming the laborious progress on the wind which had largely disappeared now, while it was actually the tire all along.

My joy was short lived as I had to stop and blow the tire up again after 5 km. I could feel the air escaping as it blew onto my cheek as I operated the battery pump. I had to do this about 6-7 times in all and the hole was just simply not sealing. There was still sealant in the tire as it was bubbling out. I was starting to curse the idea of tubeless tires. When working they are great but in a crisis like this they are useless and inevitably I will have to put a tube in this front tire too. I will then have both front and back on tubes and only the outer tire to protect them from the thorns on the verge and the copious amount of broken glass along the road. A puncture resistant outer tire like a Schwalbe Marathon Plus would have been better as it had a 5mm thick strip of kevlar embedded in the tyre’s circumference. I limped down the road to the turn off to Gweta and then down the 2 km access road.

On the access road I passed a huge Boabab tree. Its swollen trunk must have had a diameter of 3-4 meters or so and the tree had a height of 35 metres. It was an enormous specimen and must have been very old and venerable. It has overseen many generations of humans. When I got into the larger village it was easy to find the lodge. They had space for me but were busy with a large group with about 20 Chinese. I got a small roundavel style round hut with a thatched roof. It was quite cramped inside but had all I needed. On the outside was an area enclosed with a 2.5 metre wall which was the bathroom, with toilet, sink and shower, and the trees above. I had a shower and washed my clothes and also washed the back tire I took off yesterday to get rid of all the water soluble latex on it. I did this as I would probably have to use it tomorrow morning if the front tyre did not seal overnight. After that I went over to the quite chaotic buffet which was dished out rather than self service. I had to be quite assertive to get a good portion and then get cutlery from the limited supply. The Gweta Lodge has potential to return to a former glory but at the moment most things were a bit haphazard or broken and it was almost the same price as the considerably better Maun Lodge. Still I was grateful for a bed after 2 nights camping.

Day 035. 13 June. Motopi Telecom Mast to Phuduhudu. 45 km. 5 hours. 110m up. 110m down. It rained a little in the night which was a surprise, however I slept well and woke early. In the morning the tyre was flat so I decided to change the tubeless to one with an inner tube. The whole procedure took about an hour. There was no liquid latex left in the tyre. It had all either leaked out or just dried up in the heat. It meant whenever I got a new puncture there was nothing to seal it. In retrospect I had no choice but to switch to an inner tube. In the next few days I will have to get a replacement organised. Elias left first heading towards Maun while I headed east into the land of the elephants and into the strong wind.

Once I left the security compound and was back on the main road I was aghast at just how strong the wind was. Elias would have an easy day while I had to struggle at 10 km per hour. I retraced my route of last night past Leopard Plains Lodge and on to where the two elephants were last night. There were none now but I soon saw a single one in the bush on the south side.

A bit later I saw another, possibly a smaller female. Then behind here I saw a small procession of elephants heading east. There was a side road here up to a raised area and I took it to get a better view, I could now see there were at least 25 in the procession of all shapes and sizes. The smaller female was marking the back left of the procession while there was a large matriarch at the back. As the procession passed a dusty area they all stopped and flung an arc of dust over their backs. There must have also been a big matriarch at the front also but I did not see her. I watched for a good 20 minutes as the whole herd moved through the bush on the other side of the road. The younger female guarding the back nearest the road knew where I was and what cars were approaching the whole time. It was a tremendous privilege to watch them heading through the bush towards greener pastures.

I left as the herd moved off and returned to the road. There were another two sightings of single elephants right on the verge. I think they were drinking from a leaking pipeline which went along the south side of the road. After these two I continued east for another couple of kilometres into the wind and then came across 4 large elephants near a leak in the water pipe. They were close to the road and had I cycled past they would have been just 30 metres away. Way too close to call. So I stopped some 100 metres away to wait for a vehicle. There were none for about 10 minutes. It was great watching these elephants as such close quarters for this time, completely alone with them. Then a 4×4 arrived and I flagged it down and explained to the Botswanian driver I needed him to drive slowly for 200 metres while I used his vehicle as a shield. He was very obliging. Once past he drove off and I observed the elephants for another few minutes. They were truly enormous.

I was making heavy weather of the kilometres in this headwind and with the animal viewing breaks was doing less than 10 km per hour. I then decided to see if I could find somewhere in Phuduhudu village rather than go another 40 km after that to another telecoms mast. I did not want to get caught out in the dusk in elephant alley. I had heard that the area I was going into now, the Makgadikgadi National Park was full of zebras at this time of year and right on cue I ran into a herd of about 300 crossing the road. As I was watching them an elephant also crossed right in front of me. I think the elephants are generally quite passive, but if there are young, or a male is in musk then they can be unpredictable. I had to wait for about 10 minutes to allow for all the zebras to cross. I peddled on for another 10 minutes and then came across another large herd with 300 animals. They were unnerved by the bike and ran parallel to the road for a good kilometre with me cycling beside them.

Soon afterwards the road veered to the north near a telecoms mast and then reached the village of Phuduhudu. I knew there was a shop here but it was off the main road. I asked a few people and they directed me into a grid of wide dusty lanes. The houses here were well kept and there were some enormous parkland type trees dotted about. It had a nice ambience. The shop was closed for the afternoon but a team of kids soon discovered me and came over excitedly. They were easy and delightful and quite happy to practice English. There was a building next to the shop with perhaps 10 green tents outside it. I went over to ask if I could stay also. “Not a problem,” they said.

It was actually the village hall they were at and there was a building with a verandah. They said I should put the tent on the verandah. It was up and I was unpacked in half an hour. I was curious about the others here and asked them what they were doing. They were all firefighters from Maun and they were burning the verges so a fire could not jump the road. There were few females but they were mostly men. They had a lot of small equipment like leaf blowers to help drive the fire. They were a cheerful, generous and good natured lot. Once the shop opened I bought some supper and bread and then settled down to write the blog as the sun set in a blaze, as it was partially cloudy. It had been a really memorable day with the elephants and then the insight into the nice village and the travelling firefighters.

Day 034. 12 June. Maun to Motopi Telecom Mast. 96 km. 8 hours. 310m up. 310m down. I was slow in getting going and did not leave until nearly 1000. I was already on the SE side of town so I was soon on the main road, the A3, which led east to Nata nearly 300 km away. I passed a lot of the suburban warehouses one finds on the outskirts of town like builders merchants, petrol stations and workshops and also a few out of town tourist lodges, and then suddenly I was beyond the outskirts and in livestock country again. Sheep, goats, cattle and donkeys grazed the verges. There was very little change and if it kept up like this all day I would be struggling to find much to say. After 2 hours I passed the village of Chanoga where there were a couple of very basic roadside pit stops selling food from 3 or 4 large cauldrons. I am not sure if it would be freshly made or yesterday’s, but I am sure as I go deeper into Africa I will have to eat at these soon. Today I was still full from the large breakfast.

About an hour east of Chanoga I saw something unmistakable in the distance, namely bicycles with panniers. There were two of them so I crossed over the road to meet them. There were Marius and Simon from Germany and they looked cool and rough, cycling in sandals on bikes which looked like they had been well used. I was very enthusiastic to meet them. It was like a Man Friday moment. They were also eager to meet me. Very soon we realized we were both doing the exact opposite to each other. They had come from Dar-es Salam, about 3600 km away and were going to Swakopmund. with about another 1300 km to go. We chatted for nearly an hour beside the road exchanging tips and they added me to a Whatsapp group about cyclists in Africa. They said there were about 6-7 cyclists coming my way over the next week or so, including a Swiss guy not far behind them. It was a joyful chat, partly because of the coincidence, and partly because they were likable, happy, easy going people. One tip they gave me was that it was possible to sleep in the fenced off areas at the bottom of telecom masts as the gates were always open and it was then possible to close the gates and lock yourself in with the bike lock. They had used about 4 in the last week as it was out of the way of elephants. There were apparently many elephants in the next section to Kasane. After an hour we shook hands heartily again and then set off.

It did not take me long to get to a veterinary fence where I had to disinfect my shoes and ride through a puddle of disinfectant. Immediately after it was a selection of tuck shops and stalls and I bought 4 bananas at one stall for a late lunch. Once I set off I was in a totally different landscape. The verges were no longer dusty and covered with livestock, but were now tall, golden, flowing grasses, and they came right up to the road. I also noticed that there were no subsistence compounds here and the area was devoid of people. I think I had entered a Park but was not sure if it was National or Regional or even just a game reserve. The wind had died and I was making quite good time, but labouring a bit. Then I noticed my back tire was at a very low pressure.

I stopped to blow the tyre up with a battery gadget and it was soon at 45 PSI again. However 5 km later I had to repeat the process as it fell to about 15 PSI again. I had to do this about 6-7 times and just managed 5 km before I had to top up the tyre pressure. It was not good as obviously I had a puncture which the latex goo inside the tube could not plug. I had inner tubes but once I switched from the tubeless system to the more standard inner tube I could not go back. The problem was there were so many thorns and glass fragments which the tubeless system had dealt with admirably so far, and had I used inner tubes instead I would constantly be stopping to repair punctures. I had a spare tyre and 3 inner tubes and I would need the former if I was to change over as the current tyre would have so many sharp protrusions embedded into it that it would puncture the inner tube immediately in multiple places. It was a quandar, but for now I would have to pump every 5 kilometres until I reached a destination.

I did have my mind set on Leopard Plains but it was an expensive lodge. I had checked yesterday and it did have availability. It was still 20 km away, or 4 fills of the tyre. Suddenly something on my right caught my eye. It was a massive elephant some 40 metres away in the bush. It had large tusks so I assumed it was a bull. It did a quick U turn and went back into the bush before I could photograph it. Then half an hour later there was another but this time it just stood watching me flaring its ears. I was past it in a gif but then turned to get a photo, but the elephant was now partially obscured by trees. It was exciting. Not long after I passed the turn off to Motopi and the telecom mast at this T junction where Marius and Simon had spent the night locked in its compound. I cycled past it and on for another 5 km to reach Leopard Plains. Unfortunately the Lodge was now full and he was not going to open the gate for me.

I decided I would continue and find somewhere to camp nearby. It was already 1730 and dusk was imminent. I cycled for another 2-3 km but there were many elephants on the south side of the road on the edge of the bush waiting to come out as it got darker. They were like sheep in the Scottish highlands beside the road, except with considerably more menace. I got to one place where there were two drinking from a pond beside the road and it just seemed too close for comfort.

Fortuitously a police pickup came by and I cycled beside it keeping the pickup between me and gargantuan beasts. On the other side I had a discussion with the 3 policemen and they said I would be best going back as the next village was 40 km and the road was full of elephants now in the dusk and they would be wandering along paths on each side of the road where I intended to camp. They watched me cycle past the two elephants again and then continued east while I returned west. The police wanted me to go to Motopi but I knew I just wanted to go the 6-7 km back to the telecoms mast. It was an exciting cycle and a few times I passed an elephant lurking behind a tree just 30-40 metres away. I made it to the junction peddling with a sense of urgency and then headed up the sandy track for 200 metres to the tower. The gate was bound with cloth.

Then Elias the Swiss cyclist appeared and opened the gate for me. He said “you’re leaving it late to finish” and I explained the previous 2 hours. He had been here since 1500. We chatted as I put up my tent right under the tower. By the time I had finished it was dark. I then had 2 cans of food for dinner, while talking more with Elias. He had cycled all the way from Switzerland to here. I noticed he did not have tubeless, but inner tubes, and the Swalbe puncture resistant tyres with a kevlar strip embedded in them. I pumped up my tyre before I ate in the hope it would reseal and hold its pressure overnight. If not I would have to put a new tyre and inner tube on tomorrow morning. After the meal we said good night and then I went into my tent to write the blog. I felt very secure locked into the compound with the locked gate. There was some distant lightning occasionally but too far away to hear the thunder.

 

 

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