January 15, 2025 to January 23, 2025
Day 105 - 113: Lusaka to Mfuwe
This stretch took us a week – a bit longer than we thought it might.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
After tootling around Lusaka on the bikes, we started the next stretch with two mystery flat tyres on Cath’s bike. Very strange. Even using a bucket of water, the holes couldn’t be found. A few days later we did, but for a couple of days we just kept pumping them up.
Leaving Lusaka was a terrible road compared to what we’ve been used to. No shoulder. Noisy trucks. Fewer cars seem to take this eastern road than the other side of Lusaka. The road got a lot better a few hundred kilometres east – the EU have paid for the road to be redone and it’s much nicer. We stopped in a small village (Chongwe) to have lunch. Choppies supermarket and a Hungry Lion (fried chicken fast food). We also knew this was the last chance for cash for a few days, so we tried to extract some. Something must have been down in the communication, because none of the four ATMs would produce cash. Bummer. We didn’t want to ride 50km back to Lusaka (where we new we could get cash), so we pressed on. We had some, a little (roughly AU$50 equivalent in Zambian currency) – and we got to the other end, but it occupied our minds for the next few days – until we got to Chipembe (3 days later).
We had a selection of sleeping places on this stretch. One benefit of not having a lot of cash meant we had to get creative with the accommodation. The veranda of a mosque, next night in a school building, then a disused room in a rural hospital, just outside the village chief’s house, a guesthouse for 2 nights (we found some cash), another school and another guest house. Any place to have a roof over our heads over night or when the rain came. Plenty of rain. Although we have been lucky so far – the rain hasn’t been torrential during the day. We’ve nearly always been able to hide from it.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We met up with a Brazilian cyclist (Adam) on the road and we rode together for a couple of days. Nice to have someone else to chat to for a while. He’s far ahead of us already!
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 2 | Link |
3 weeks ago
We stopped for lunch (light lunch since we still had hardly any cash) at a police road block (Luangwa Bridge) around which a small shopping area had been established. There was a drunk that started out quite friendly and took some interest in the mazunga (foreigners), but for some reason turned aggressive. A couple of times we called out to the police to intervene, but they weren’t interested. Another slightly less than sober, local produced a whip / flail (a stick with two strips of rubber tied on). After some to-ing and fro-ing one of the (female) cops ended up chasing the drunk down the street with the flail, to the delight of the watching women. Odd.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
There’s not a lot to write about this road. The road isn’t too bad. There is jungle on each side. There’s enough villages and food if you can go ~100km per day. The chant from the children on the side of the road is often "how are you, how are you". Sounds lovely until you respond every way imaginable and just get more "how are you".
Cath had a stomach upset at one point and we limped to the nearest town with a guest house. Luckily, we could get cash from a petrol station to pay for a room and better food (maybe the sausage at the bus station wasn't a great idea).
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Most people probably continue to Malawi from Chipata, but we turned left (after milking the ATM of a pile of cash) and rode downhill to Luangwe South N.P. (and the village of Mfuwe). We could have taken a bus for this stretch since we knew we’d be coming back to Chipata on the way to Malawi, but thought we could ride at least one way.
Today's ride: 725 km (450 miles)
Total: 5,908 km (3,669 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 4 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |