Mzungu in Mpulungu

We are in Bujumbura, Burundi. I can’t quite believe it – if you look on the map of our route from the first Africa blog posting, we are more than two-thirds of the distance through our travels! Over the last week, this has actually involved little physical effort on our part, but has involved a bit of physical discomfort.

Since our last blog posting, we spent a few more days in the saddle continuing north up Lake Malawi, including a small jog inland that involved climbing onto a plateau with a rubber tree plantation. Climbing was hard work but meant that we also got to descend about 800m back down to the lake in less than 10km. Wheeee! Luckily, there were bore holes and water pumps quite regularly, so we didn’t have to carry too much water weight up the hills. We have continued to be impressed with all the cycling done without gears, and the heavy loads that people carry on their bicycles, as well as on their heads.

Most people we meet, locals and other travelers alike, think we’re crazy for what we’re doing, but we finally are able to say “you know what’s even crazier?” and tell them about Richard, a really nice guy that we met who is WALKING a similar journey. He started in South Africa, at the southernmost point of the continent and is walking to Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest point on the continent, which he will climb before heading home. He started in October and will be finished at the beginning of March. His website is here if you want to check it out: www.richardsrun.co.za

When we arrived in the town of Karonga, at the north end of Lake Malawi, we had to figure out how to get ourselves up several hundred kilometers of dirt (mud) roads with no public transportation back over to Zambia and to the south end of Lake Tanganyika, where we wanted to catch an old ferry boat that may or may not run every Friday or Saturday, according to the best information we could get. In general, we have found things here don’t transpire quite as they would other places we’ve been and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that a journey that we thought would be very difficult was actually logistically fairly simple, even if it wasn’t that easy on our bodies. We were able to strap our bikes on the back or top of several trucks and hitch rides along with the locals. It is amazing how many people can fit in the back of a truck! Every time I thought we were completely full and couldn’t possibly pick up another person, that is exactly what we did. After we reached a point of maximum discomfort , it actually became more comfortable as all the bodies around you held you up and allowed you to just relax, even if you couldn’t feel your feet. In Nelson’s case, he didn’t mind so much since a chicken was pecking at his foot.

Unfortunately, we had jinxed ourselves a few days earlier by marveling about how neither of us had gotten sick, so I also had to find a toilet immediately every time we stopped, which wasn’t quite often enough. Antibiotics didn’t work and three days later when we arrived in Mpulungu, at the south end of Lake Tanganyika, a South African nurse that we met highly recommended take medication for malaria. That seemed to work and I am feeling one hundred percent again. Phew!

We actually arrived in Mpulungu a day ahead of schedule so thought we would wander down to the harbour to see if there just happened to be a cargo boat going up the lake. The problem with the ferry (besides the fact that it may or may not run any given week) was that it was only going part way up the lake, where we would then have to find another boat/bus/truck to take us the rest of the way to Burundi. Well, we arrived at the harbour to find that a cargo boat was leaving in two hours and could take us, so we rushed all over town getting groceries and packing up all our gear, to get back in time to go through customs and immigration only to learn (we should know better by now!) that the boat was now going to leave the next morning. The captain stressed that we needed to be there by 7:30am because we were leaving at 8 sharp. We took that with a grain of salt, but still arrived at 7:30. Of course, by 8am, there was no sign of us going anywhere, so I thought I would run up to the bank and change our extra Zambian kwacha into dollars. When I was leaving the bank and walking back down to the harbour, I heard the ship’s horn blast, so I started running. Everybody I passed shouted “you’re late!”, and as I entered the port, I could see Nelson on the boat looking a little anxious. Apparently, the captain was ready to go about 10 minutes before I arrived and he was saying, “we wait for no one!”. Luckily, he waited for me! Also lucky for the three guys that arrived two minutes after me. Our boat was pulled almost entirely away from the dock and they jumped the gap at our last point of contact just in time!

The boat, the Kizingenza, pulled not just itself, but three other cargo boats as well. It took two and a half days to reach Bujumbura, but we are here now. Apparently, I was mistaken before and we are NOW near the place where Stanley said “Livingstone, I presume?”. So hard to keep track of those guys – they sure did get around.

I have wicked bicycle glove tan lines, by the way, for those who are wondering, and not cycling doesn’t seem to be changing that.

The last photo is for all you birders following our blog. This little guy and his friends are living in the same campground as us. Any help figuring out what it is would be most appreciated!

We are now headed for Rwanda, “Land of a Thousand Hills”. I assume they’re just kidding about that.

Zambia and Malawi: Wowee!

We crossed over into Zambia and went to see Victoria Falls. They are the longest falls in the world at 1.8km long and were really impressive and beautiful, not commercialized like Niagara Falls. We were able to jump from rock to rock out into the Zambezi to dip our feet into the river while eating our lunch, maybe 30metres from where it poured over the falls.

We were really impressed with the number of bicycles in Zambia – it is the most common form of transportation, which means lots of thumbs up and bell ringing from the locals and very little motorized traffic on the roads. People carry so much on their bicycles, including enormous stacks of wood, corn, coal, and even other people. Lots of the back racks have built in cushions so that people can use their bicycles as taxis.

We went into another national park and game reserve, called South Luangwa, and had lots of really close encounters with wildlife, mostly from the safety of a truck. We went on an evening drive, and saw more lions (stalking a baby hippo), a leopard, spotted hyena, and lots of other incredible animals. The campsite we stayed in had platforms up in the trees for the tents, because elephants and hippos regularly wandered through camp.

From Zambia, we crossed over into Malawi and are now cycling north up the lake. People here are very friendly and every kid (and many adults) calls out to us as we cycle by – mostly saying “Muzungu”, which means white person. There are not a lot of white Malawians, so we are a bit of a spectacle. Malawi was a British “protectorate” before independence but not many colonists lived here. Livingstone did a bunch of exploring around here, looking for the source of the Nile, and it was near where we are now that Stanley found him and uttered the famous, “Livingstone, I presume?”.

We can’t really stop to stretch, eat, pee, or buy food (all important things to do while on a cycle tour) without getting quite a lot of attention. We stopped for lunch one day in the most remote stretch of road we could find, and before we knew it, we were surrounded by more than two dozen people. It is nice to get to meet the locals and chat, as usually at least one person speaks some English and translates for us. In every country/region, we learn at least how to say “hi, how are you?”, “thank you”, and a few other useful phrases, which always surprises (and, I like to think, impresses, people). We certainly get a lot of big smiles from people when we speak their languages.

We have been buying lots of food along the roadsides, which is delicious and really fresh. We made fish/ mango curry one night, on locally grown rice, which was delicious. Nelson's favourite snacks are these cookies and crackers we are finding everywhere, though.

A Special Cameo

Hi all. Normally, this blog is Lynda's domain but she has agreed to let me make a cameo appearance to recount my version of the dog chase mentioned in her last blog posting. This is straight from the journal I have been keeping of our travels and describes the incident from my perspective:

...The next town was Motopi which was still another 50km or so which meant we got hit hard by the sun. Lynda was really feeling it and at one point I even offered to tow her with a small piece of cord I had. Our pace slowed considerably, that is until we encountered a wiley dog and his canine companions. As soon as they noticed us they started barking and running after us. This was to be our first dreaded encounter with potentially rabid dogs that we had read and heard so much about in Africa (we decided to skip the rabies shots back home mostly due to the exhorbitant cost - $1,200 for both of us!) Only one of the dogs, an exceptionally vicious and vocal one who was spotted and scraggly looking, kind of like a hyena, continued on with the chase; the rest fell behind. I had barely noticed them before I heard Lynda yell, "Oh shit!" and watched her kick into high gear. Before I could blink her legs were a spinning ball of adrenaline charged terror as she sped off ahead of me. She dropped into the aerobar position, her body and bicycle unified, slicing through the wind like the blade of a focused and determined ninja; a 'Lynja' if you will. She had left me to fend off the malicious mutt as by now she was approaching light speed. My salt-encrusted, tired legs could not match the cadence nor the determination of her legs - two powerful pistons propelling her away from the dog and towards safety. The persistent little bastard surprised me with it's stamina! Just as I thought it was starting to fall back it seemed to get a second wind and jumped into overdrive. That was when I yelled, "Keep going!!" Lynda charged on showing no signs of slowing down, in fact, she was still gaining speed! An incredible feat considering just a minute ago she was on the verge of collapse and resembled a lethargic sloth riding a bicycle during a heat-induced coma.

Finally, the dog could run no further and gave up his chase. He stayed in the middle of the road watching us as we sped away, probably annoyed that he missed out on this blue moon opportunity to take down two bicycle tourers on this own turf. I kept looking back to see if he was still pursuing us. It was a while before Lynja's steely-eyed forward gaze left the dashed white line ahead of her and peered over her shoulder. By the time we had put in a large enough safety margin between us and the dog we eased off on the pedals and both had a good laugh about it. "I didn't know I had it in me!" she said. "I didn't either!!" I answered back in disbelief.

Ten minutes later we got chased by another dog but ever since those two incidents, the dogs have been much nicer and Lynda has gotten way smarter about having her pepper spray handy for future dog encounters. "I'll spray you! I mean it! I'll f*cking spray you!" I believe were her exact words to the next dog who attempted a chase. Miraculously, he must have sensed her seriousness because the damned thing backed off as soon as she said it! Look out dogs, there's a new boss in town and she goes by the name of Lynja!















Here in Africa, they don't use junkyard dogs, they use junkyard lions! This was taken at the gates to an auto scrap yard. Hopefully we don't run into any of these!

Happy New Year from Namibia! Biking through wild animal country

We fell asleep by 8pm New Years Eve to the sounds of hippos braying in the river, but celebrated at 10am the next morning (midnight in BC). We have biked up the west side of the Okavango delta, and east through the Caprivi strip in Namibia now, and are later today heading out to a little island where the Zambezi and Chobe rivers come together, right next to where the borders of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia meet.

Yesterday was the first day that we passed through a national park and weren't allowed to ride through, so we had to put our bicycles in the back of a pickup truck through the park. Every other game reserve or park, the folks at the gate all say "aren't you afraid of wild animals?" but let us go anyways. We have heard that lions and other cats don't really hunt during the day. The one time we had to fix a flat inside a park (there are a lot of thorns here), I was definitely looking over my shoulder, though! There is definite incentive for me to keep up with Nelson, too. I've seen enough nature documentaries to know that it is the smaller, weaker, slower one straggling at the back that gets eaten first.

We did see two elephants from our bicycles one day, about 30m away. While we were stopped and taking pictures, a park warden drove up. Our conversation went something like this and, in the end, it was still a little unclear to me whether or not this was an unsafe distance.

Park Ranger: "Hi, how are you?"

Me: "Good, how are you?"

PR: "Are you okay with these animals here?"

Me: "I think so. Are we okay with these animals here?"

[pause]

Me again: "Is it safe?"

PR: "Is it safe?"

Me: "Are we too close?"

PR: "Are you too close?"

Me: "I don't know. Is it okay that we're here?"

PR: "Is it okay that you're here?"

Me: "I don't know. Is it?"

PR: "Is it?"

[pause]

PR again: "How fast can you go on those bicycles?"

We haven't had to try to outrun any wild animals yet, but I did learn how fast we could go when a mean dog came running out of a yard one day barking like he wanted to eat us. Nelson described my legs as "a spinning ball of adrenaline charged terror". I couldn't believe that I had outrun both the dog and Nelson until I realized later that Nelson had slowed down to put himself between me and the dog. Who says feminism killed chivalry?

Besides the elephants and the animals we saw in Pilanesberg, we have now also seen warthogs (with their babies that are so ugly, they're cute), springbok, klipspringer, water buffalo, turtles, enormous ant hills, lizards, donkeys, monkeys and their babies, baboons (in the middle of the road), a baby crocodile, and lots of funky birds.

I also learned that not only does my name mean something in Spanish, it also means something in Zulu! It signifies "to wait" and is quite a common name. Anyone who has ever had to wait for me, which is pretty much all of you, might find this quite fitting.

I find myself making profound statements on a fairly regular basis, like "Wow, it's really sandy here in the Kalahari desert", or "Man, Africa is hot in the summer!". In order to beat the heat, we are getting up at 4am and starting cycling at 5:30am, at first light. We have usually gone 50km by ~8:30am and 100km before noon. It is the 100+ days that are hard, because we end up riding in the afternoon. Luckily, it is the rainy season, so it is often cloudy in the afternoon which makes it bearable. Botswana and Namibia are also very flat, which is nice after hilly South Africa. The road surfaces have all been paved and smooth, except a few sandy access roads to lodges.

This last week of cycling has definitely been our favourite so far. People seem happy and busy and generally don't pay much attention to us, except to give big smiles and waves from the fields. We've seen lots of people using oxen to plow their fields and bent over doing farmwork. It looks like really hard work and puts what we're doing into perspective - it may seem hard at times, but it is entirely by choice and we can stop whenever we want and have access to luxuries on a regular basis. Most of the "camping" here is on the sites of posh lodges, so we have access to the swimming pool, showers, restaurant, etc. Several nights now, though, we haven't been able to make it to the next town with established accommodation, and are hesitant to wild camp because of the animals, so we have camped at the local police station, which has been really nice. We always meet lots of nice men and women who work there, as well as from the town.

Kilometers to date: 1663

We are loving the reaction that we get from people when we tell them where we've come from and where we're going. I wish we had on film all the times people said that what we're doing is impossible! I guess they don't know about possibilism.