Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

The bicycle: an amazingly useful tool!




As the distances increase and as the tour moves onward, the countries keep flying by!

My last update was from a southern point in Tanzania from which we had a stunning day of cycling where though we climbed a cumulative 1850 vertical metres, we dropped over 2500 vertical metres. We were shrouded by a thick, low-lying fog in the morning but it soon burned off as we climbed and climbed to lunch. From our lunch stop the terrain kept rolling but in the general direction of down and we were treated to beautiful distant views of the hills rolling into Lake Malawi and the tiny grass huts the overlooked the views.

Once over the border into Malawi I assumed that we were going to experience people like we had in Ethiopia due to the state of the Malawian economy and the high population density; however, I was extremely inaccurate. Though the first 20km to our first bush camp in the country had many locals begging and harassing us, this proved to be an anomaly. We cycled down the coast of the massive Lake Malawi to our rest day at Chitimba beach which looked curiously out of place. It looked as though we had been transported to Hawaii with the blue vast water bordered by white sand.

This is where we had the judging for our "Moustache March" competition where we took the month of March to grow our baddest 'stache. Never having grown my whiskers this long, My theme (pictured above) won me third prize in the competition and was entitled the "Pubescent: I just grew my first 'stache to find that our former mail man had red hair" look. See picture above.

We cycled up and away from the lake and inland toward Malawi's capital Lilongwe. The views were spectacular and monkeys were running across the road in front of me. The locals were extremely friendly along the road working hard transporting their goods, but always waving, smiling or yelling a greeting.

Travelling through the countryside I was creating a suspicion that Malawi's title as one of Africa's poorest countries was in question. The infrastructure seemed to be pretty developed, the locals clothed, cell phones abundant, vehicles in reasonable working order, etc. Dropping into Lilongwe was no different as it seemed to be also significantly more developed than the other capitals that we have travelled through.

Lilongwe was the location of my long awaited bike presentation that I had managed to raise so much money for. The local media showed up as well as a representative from the South African High Commission. The presentation was a success, but will require its own posting. I will do that at a later date.

I enjoyed the feel of the city, and met some neat people. A few riders from a local cycling team joined us for a couple of days of riding and one took me to see the theatre that he and his wife help maintain. I just missed hearing some local drummers rehearsing, but it was cool to see pictures on the wall of all of the shows that had taken place in the 1960's theatre.

The next day of riding had us leave the country which I must admit I did sadly as I really enjoyed Malawi. Over three days we covered over 500km which brought us through the Easter weekend in Zambia, our seventh country. The scenery has been green and rolling, the pavement has varied from beautiful to "hold on tight" but has generally been very good. Our camps have been fun; one night we were camped in a school yard and the school kids hung around our camp to watch our "travelling circus." I took out my Frisbee to play with the kids and was floored at how relatively courteous they were compared with other children with which I threw the disc. Sure there was a little fighting for the disc, but more often than not, someone else would grab the disc back and give it to the child from which it was stolen. The girls were also far more assertive than previous which was cool to see.

We have now arrived in Lusaka, Zambia and have a rest day here. I am privileged to be able to join a German rider who is going to visit his charity project. He raised funds for a school to be built and sponsored a child here. That should be a cool experience.

I am now sitting in an internet cafe in an extremely westernized shopping mall. I feel extremely out of place here! I am happy that I get to spend my rest day tomorrow out in the rural areas!

We have just another three riding days, then we are in Livingstone, Zambia where the famous Victoria Falls are situated. Then on to our next country: Botswana!

Until next time from the adventure capital of Africa!