Long Road to Lilongwe…

I was determined to get to Lilongwe today, even though I knew adverse weather conditions could make it “a bridge too far”…. I woke at 5.00am, had the bike loaded and was kitted up by 6.00am…. The gate was locked and the security guard absent! I walked around in the early dawn light looking for him, and eventually found him lurking under a large Mango tree at the back of the property. I left at 6.30am, and decided to fill the petrol canister I had been carrying for over 8500km and hadn’t used yet… I was unsure of the distance to Nyimba, where I planned to refuel. I was certain that it would be at the outer limits of my range and did not want to be caught in the middle of nowhere without fuel. I put 8 litres into the canister and headed down the Great East Road, which is Lusaka’s link with Malawi and the port of Beira in Mozambique, through which Zambia receives much of its imports…

I headed out into the countryside surrounding Lusaka, and was pleasantly surprised by the light traffic I encountered. It was 7.00am, and I had expected the roads leading into the capital to be buzzing with vehicles… Lusaka has a population of 2, 5 million inhabitants, but very few of them seemed to be on their way to work at this time of the morning… There were however, many bicycles piled high with charcoal or firewood coming into the city. Long lines of them snaked towards me, their riders managing to balance up to six 50kg bags strapped to the front and backs of their bicycles…   

I parked the bike near the foot of the Muchinga Escarpment to take in the view…

I had stopped earlier to put on my rain gear, because the build-up of clouds over the Muchinga Escarpment to the north of me left me in no doubt as to their intentions… I stopped again to have some water and a few biscuits, as I had left Lusaka too early to have breakfast. The view from where I sat was stunning…deep valleys fell away on either side of the road, the escarpment reared up on my left, as I sat staring up the winding road to the east of me… A truck had recently crashed through the broken barriers just in front of where I had parked; its wreckage littered the floor of a deep kloof, at least a 100 metres below. Thick forest covered the hills and mountains, bird calls rang throughout…it was magical, and I wished there was somebody to share this experience with me… I thought of all my friends back home, who were rooting for me, sending me encouraging messages which lifted my spirits each time I read them…. I wished Allan had been there, as I knew he would have been as mesmerized by the scene as I was….

Up ahead was an enormous Baobab tree, and I walked over to it and leaned up against it. I felt puny in it’s shadow, wondered how long it had been standing here, guarding the route to the east, what it had witnessed in it’s lifetime. It rendered me insignificant in the time I stood there and I realized how fleeting my life would be in comparison to this giant’s…

The first Baobab on the road to Chipata, where I spent some time in silent reflection….

I crossed the Rufunsa River which emptied into the Great Luangwa just before it in turn flowed into the even greater Zambezi… The town of Rufunsa itself was a pitiful collection of mud huts, the rain coming down making them seem even more desolate… Children sat in their doorways, watching as I rode past, some waved, others jumped up and ran out onto the road behind me shouting and waving…

The road surface here was the best I had been on since the B8 in the Caprivi, and the bike (and my right hand!!) responded in appreciation….we swept through many of the more gentle curves, doing 140km/h, and slowed to 120km/h for some of the sharper ones where the forest grew right down to the edge of the road. I saw many troops of baboon, who scattered at my approach, and a steenbok scampered across the road a short distance in front of the bike… It was an exhilarating ride, despite the fact that it drizzled constantly…

I came upon the huge bridge spanning the Luangwa River and stopped the bike and took a few photos. The broad, brown river snaked through the hills surrounding the bridge, with the Mozambique border only a few hundred metres away. The river formed the international boundary between the two countries at this point. It then met with the Zambezi, flowing east to the Cahorra Bassa Dam. I stopped midway across the bridge, got off the bike and started taking a few photos… I was standing about 20 metres in front of the bike, taking a “head on” shot, when I noticed a soldier trotting towards me from the far side of the bridge. He had an AK slung under one arm, while the other arm waved in a manner that I immediately understood to mean, “No photos!!”… I quickly walked towards the bike, put the camera away and pretending I had not seen him, punched the starter button and all but popped a wheelie in an effort to get the hell away!!

The “Big Fella” takes a breather on the Luangwa River Bridge, Mozambique to its right.

A short distance further on, near the town of Kachalola, I came across a smaller bridge which had been damaged by a flood a few days earlier. I stopped to consider my options… I could be back in Lusaka in a few hours, cold beer in hand, or… I could end up underneath the bike, buried in a few feet of mud… Decisions, decisions… I watched as a white pick-up slithered its way towards me, the whites of the driver’s eyes showing clearly through his muddy windscreen… I rode carefully through deep sand and mud, over the temporary bridge erected a short distance upstream from the original one, and with my back tyre spinning, got back onto the T4 and with a wave to the guys working on the original bridge, opened the taps again… I had begun to enjoy the adrenaline rush that these unexpected problems were giving me… I began wondering how much worse it could get…

This temporary bridge was taken at walking speed, thick mud making the going slippery.

Not much fun on a BIG bike…

I reached Nyimba, my intended refuelling point, a little after 10.00am. It had taken just three hours to cover the 345km to this point. Not bad for a Zambian road!! If only all the roads in Zambia were like this!!! As if to signal that the “party” was over, dark clouds gathered overhead… I emptied the contents of the spare fuel canister into the tank, before having a further 12 litres pumped into it by the attendant. The fuel consumption had dropped from about 19km per litre to 17km per litre, attesting to the speed I had ridden at to get here…

And then down came the rain… The torrential downpour kept me at Nyimba for half an hour. I knew there was no point in riding in rain as hard as this, even though I was already wet from the few light showers I had already ridden through. Visibility was down to only a few metres, the road became a river in a matter of minutes while I sat and waited for the storm to pass. It was going to be a long ride from here, and I resigned myself to the fact that the “fast” riding was over for the day…

The road became a river in Nyimba, where I stopped to refuel…..

From Nyimba, the road just fell to pieces….that’s the only way I can describe it! Potholes were stitched together by narrow strips of tar, some of them so deep, children stood almost waist deep in them, bathing in the rain water that had filled them. I crawled along, averaging no more than about 30km/h over the next stretch of more than 70 km… At some points along the way, I had to stop and pick a line through the maze of holes and ditches which made for the “road”…

At one of them, my front wheel slipped into a hole so deep, I could not get the bike out. I managed to get a foot on the edge of this pothole, and waited for a guy on a bicycle to reach me, then asked him to help me haul the bike backwards out of it. We pulled it out after a few attempts, with me praying that it would not fall over…. I was exhausted by the time I reached Petauke. It had taken two hours to ride the 77 kms from Nyimba!!

The potholes and constant rain had all but brought me to my knees. I stopped at the exit from this village to rest, my back and arms aching… I watched an inordinate amount of pigs running about, and remembered somebody saying that whereas Botswana had a donkey problem, Zambia had just as big a pig problem… A lone cyclist passed me, with one of the critters strapped to a board on the back of his carrier… The pig let out an occasional grunt, but otherwise seemed to be enjoying the ride…

Three kids rushed over to inspect bike and rider, testing their few English phrases on me. The one little girl asking, “How are you?” and answering, “Fine, thanks!” before I had a chance to open my mouth… I laughed at this, and a little of my exhaustion fell away. We kept each other entertained for about 15 minutes. I gave them each a biscuit and a sweet, which they thanked me for, and sat eating them with me while I rested… I took off the elastic bands I kept around my right wrist and offered one to each of them. Their eyes lit up, and I marvelled at the appreciation they showed for so simple a gift… The girls put the elastics over their heads to hold their hair in place… I took a photo of them near the bike and showed them the result. They held their hands over their mouths and giggled and then clapped their hands in unison, as if congratulating themselves on a job well done…or so it seemed!!

I drew strength from these three kids in Petauke, after the “hell ride” from Nyimba…

The time I spent with them seemed to expel some of the frustration and exhaustion I had earlier felt. I was still wet and uncomfortable, but I knew I couldn’t wait any longer and tackled the next section to Sinda and Katete, a further 85 kilometres of road in similar condition… In some places the road was only wide enough to take one vehicle at a time, and I had to ride off the road on occasion when a big truck approached and gave no indication of trying to share the narrow strip with me. I overtook a number of 4 x 4’s who had to go even slower than I was riding… They were doing their best to save their vehicles from being battered to pieces by the potholes…

It took an hour and a half to reach Katete. Chipata was a further 90 kilometres away, and even though I rode through steady rain, the road surface improved to the point where I managed to cover this distance in less than an hour, meeting little traffic coming south-west out of Malawi… The mountains in the distance were covered in low cloud, and as I reached the arched entrance to the town, a distant roll of thunder, followed by jagged bolts of lightning, welcomed me to Chipata…

On arrival at Chipata, I considered calling it quits for the day…..

I stopped under the roof of a Shell petrol station and got off the bike to rest… I was tired enough to consider staying the night in Chipata and going on to Malawi the next day. While I was considering this I called Peter Kemp in Lilongwe to advise him where I was. His voice floated down the line, informing me cheerfully that the border was about 20kms away from where I sat, and that the road into Lilongwe was in good condition. It was almost 3.30pm. It had taken me more than eight and a half hours to travel the 597 kms to Chipata… More than five hours to cover the last 252 kms from Nyimba… An indication of the battle I had waged against the weather and the road itself…

I rode on to the border, cleared Zambian customs with little fuss, changed $50.00 and R100.00 rand into Malawian Kwacha, and then went across to the Malawian side to begin the process of getting the bike and myself into Malawi. It cost R60.00 (MK 1200.00) for the import permit covering the bike, and R150.00 (MK3000.00) for Third Party Insurance. I was helped on the Malawian side by a contact of Peter’s who saved me some time and effort, and before long, I was in the saddle for the final run to Lilongwe. Peter had advised me that petrol was a lot cheaper on their side of the border, so I stopped at Mchinji, where I paid R10.04 per litre, as apposed to the R 15.18 a litre in Zambia!!!

The first road-sign on entering Malawi… I was thankful I wasn’t heading to Blantyre…

The ride to the Kemp’s house went smoothly. I made good time, wanting to get this day’s ride over and done with as soon as was possible. I cracked along at over 120km/h for most of the way, getting stopped twice at police checkpoints to have my Insurance documents checked. I began passing small herds of cattle, grazing in tight bunches on the verge of the road. I had not seen many herds of cattle in Zambia, and wondered if the Zambians kept their cattle away from the main roads to protect them, or if cattle were less important to them than they were to Malawians…

Cyclists carrying large bundles of firewood, doors, planks and corrugated iron sheeting hindered my progress at times when they wobbled off line and ended up in the middle of the road… I stuck to the centre line most of the way to Lilongwe, my left thumb on the hooter, blowing long blasts each time I came upon a group of cyclists…

A few kilometres outside the city, I came across another bridge that had been washed away, and was in the process of being repaired. The Garmin lady started her chatter, indicating that I was a short distance from my final destination. I had not heard from the little hussy since I left Lusaka, as there was no need to make any turns between there and the outskirts of Lilongwe…

I looked out for the water tower Peter had said was close to where they live, located it and turned off the main road and started searching for the house which he had described… The guard at the gate opened up when I mentioned Peter’s name, and I rode up the driveway as his wife, Carol, came out to greet me…

I parked the bike in their garage, took off my helmet and practically fell into Carol’s arms… I followed her into the house, and felt a huge smile lighting up my face as she switched the kettle on… It had been a very long day, and I felt every year of my age, and then some…. If I had planned to ride again the next day, I am not sure if I would have had the energy to… Much as I loved my bike, I needed a day or two to recover from the days ride…. It had been almost eleven hours of hard work, my longest day on the road so far…  

Peter arrived home a short while later and he and I went to collect Paul, his son, from football practice, chugging on a few cold Carlsberg as we drove… It was great to be seeing the Kemp’s again, and I was immediately made to feel at home… We sat chatting deep into the night until with a yawn which had the empty beer bottles rattling on the table, I dragged myself into the shower and off to bed…

Another country, another broken bridge… This one a few kilometres outside Lilongwe…

The “Big Fella” on arrival in Lilongwe…

© 2008 TBMH