The Final Frontier

(768 km)

S 19º 06’ 71” – E 33º 28’ 34”

I was up at 5.00am, had a shower and began loading the panniers and bags onto the bike. I kitted up, drank my third cup of coffee since waking, and was ready to roll at 7.00am. It was Paul’s birthday, and I had yet another cup of coffee with Carol and Peter, while Paul opened his presents… He left for school and I said my goodbyes to the Kemp’s. I had enjoyed their company immensely, and they had made me feel completely at home in Lilongwe… I would miss them in the days to come, and before leaving promised to visit them again later in the year…

I made my way through the early morning traffic of Lilongwe, over the bridge and into Area 2. The bridge itself was clogged with pedestrians and cars and it took more than ten minutes to cross its fifty metre length…!! Once past this obstacle, I encountered hundreds of bicycles over the next ten kilometres, bringing produce to sell in the capital. Mondays are “Market Day” in Lilongwe…the bicycles were transporting bags of maize, firewood, charcoal, chickens, goats and pigs. Chickens were merely hung upside-down from the handlebars, whilst goats and pigs were strapped onto flat boards and then tied onto the carriers behind the saddle. Often as many as three goats were tied onto one bicycle!!

I made the run south-east to Dedza, in a little over an hour, the early morning sun baking my left arm and shoulder. I took the turnoff to the Mozambique border and arrived there a few minutes before 9.00am.

Trucks line up in the area between the Mozambique and Malawi border posts…

Tom from Transcom was there to meet me… Grant had arranged for him to assist me through the border in the same manner that he arranges for all of the company’s trucks to enter and exit Malawi. I handed in the Temporary Import Permit for the bike which I had bought when exiting Tanzania a few days earlier, had my passport stamped, and entered Mozambique at a canter…

Tom had gone on ahead to the Mozambique Customs Office, while I put my helmet and gloves back on… I bought a few hundred Meticais from the numerous money-changers who clamoured for my attention, then parked the bike and took a few photos of the trucks lining up to enter Malawi… By the time I arrived at the Mozambique Customs Offices, Tom had already filled out all the forms for the Import Permit for the bike, and was in the process of filling out the entry form for me to get into the country. I paid MZM 60.00 (R17.00) Immigration Tax, and then MZM 300.00 for the “Big Fella’s” Import Permit. Just as I was about to depart, the Third Party Insurance guy got hold of me and I had to part with yet another MZM 300.00 to get rid of him!!

The border officials at Colomue were all very friendly, and I was made to feel as welcome to their country as was possible. Smiles and handshakes from every official I had to deal with… They crowded around the bike once all the formalities were done with, and asked about my trip, claiming that I had left the best for last!!! Time would tell….

I bid them all farewell and with their shouts of encouragement ringing in my ears, left the border and headed into Mozambique, accompanied by Dire Straits on the I-pod… I stopped a short distance from the border post to take a photo of the first distance marker and realized I was in for a big, big day!!! I was very surprised to see that there were decent road signs in this part of the world, as I had thought that this northern area of the country would be the least developed of all the provinces I would be passing through…

I stopped at this first distance marker at 9.30 am, noticing that I had a mere 655 km to go before Chimoio…. It was going to be a long one….

My first scheduled fuel stop was due at Villa Ulongue, 30kms inside Mozambique, and it was here that I ran into my first problem… There was no petrol at the only official station in the little town. I regretted not taking Peter’s advice that I should fill up in Dedza, as I did not have enough fuel left in the tank to get me to Tete… I managed to find a guy who spoke passable English, and he rode ahead of me on his moped to show me where I could buy fuel on the black market…

Black Market fuel stop, Villa Ulongue, Mozambique…

Allan would be laughing out loud if he was here to see this… I bought 15 litres of petrol at the exorbitant price of about R 17.00 / litre, and watched while the gang of young guys used a little yellow tea-strainer to keep the “impurities” from entering my tank… The petrol smelt normal, but by the time I got to Tete, I realized that they had thinned it down with either paraffin or kerosene, as not only had the bike run a little ragged, but my consumption went from an average of 17km/litre, down to 12 km/litre!! The stories of “diluted petrol” in Mozambique are true… Believe me!!!

I passed Villa Coutinho on the N7 and crossed the Revuboa River and ran due south to a point where the road runs parallel to the Malawi border, near Blantyre. I passed the turnoff to Zobue and the Malawian border post, and then turned southeast for Boatize and the Angonia T-junction. The road from this point on deteriorated very quickly. Huge potholes opened up, some of them covering the entire width of the road… In many instances I had to stop the bike and walk it through some of the larger potholes. I had wanted to ride this section hard if possible, to make up some time on the way to Tete, but there was to be no chance of this…

At one point I could not avoid a particularly large pothole after dodging a few others, and before I could bring the bike to a stop, crashed into it, the bike rearing into the air as the front wheel bounced off the opposite rim of the pothole. The back of the bike “bottomed out” in the pothole itself and I heard a loud “Bang!” and then a scrapping noise, which I thought was coming from the front hub. Judging by the ache in my arms, that’s the part that had taken the biggest impact…!! I stopped the bike, cursing loudly into my helmet, and checked the brake drums to see if one or both of them had been shaken loose or cracked by the impact…

My back mud-guard becomes a passenger, after an unfortunate incident involving a large pothole and an overzealous throttle…

Everything seemed in order, and then on checking the back spring and suspension, I saw that the back mudguard had been ripped off, and was stuck up against the spring!! I had to tear it loose from where it was jammed up against the frame, and decided to tie it onto the bike rather than leave it behind… (We never leave our wounded in the field…)

I rode carefully for the next ten minutes, trying to determine if there was any other damage to the bike, but all seemed well, and I picked up speed again in an effort to get to Tete before midday. I had to take a few detours around sections of the road which had been closed as a result of a bridges being washed away, or where potholes had become too big to ride around, even for trucks… One of the detours went directly through the centre of a small homestead, the new “road” passing only metres away from the doorway to one of the huts…

Tobacco fields lined the road on either side of me, and there were also many pineapple fields interspersed with maize, closer to the smaller villages… I also noticed that Mango trees were planted in rows amongst the maize and this gave the villagers two crops off the same piece of land. The villages were neat and tidy, the central yards swept clean of leaves and grass. Goats were corralled in small stockades, and when let out to graze, were often tethered to a tree or a stake in the ground. Very few animals found their way onto the road; thank goodness…it was stressful enough having to contend with the potholes…

Many of the rivers I crossed were dry, which I found strange, as I had been warned about flooding in the areas around the Zambezi, and had expected every river to be flowing strongly toward it, but this was hardly the case… The countryside was green and lush however, so there had been decent rains here, but not enough to get the smaller rivers flowing… Many of the bridges crossing these rivers were of substantial size, and solidly built, with metal railings and concrete footpaths on either sides of the roads leading on to them. A far cry from those in Malawi…

One of the many detours on the road to Tete….

I also noticed that many of the baobabs along this route had been felled to make way for maize and tobacco fields, which saddened me, as these magnificent trees are in my mind, monuments to the natural world around us… “They know not what they do…” was a phrase that sprang to mind…

I passed through Moatize and slowed down for all the traffic going into and coming out of Tete… Large convoys of trucks, heading north to Malawi, and others heading to the port of Beira on the East coast, rode nose to tail, making it difficult to pass them. Finally, the massive bridge that spans the mighty Zambezi came into view. It was an amazing sight, this bridge which is almost a kilometre long, suddenly appearing after all the shacks and crumbling shops…

I took a few photos of the bridge before riding into the toll gate area. I was mindful of the police who manned both ends of the bridge. I thought they might be sensitive to people taking photos of this bridge, which was heavily guarded during the war, to discourage saboteurs from blowing it up… Tete is the gateway to the Northern provinces, and the loss of this bridge would have affected people as far away as Malawi… I paid the toll, the equivalent of R3.00, and rode out onto this huge structure…

The magnificent bridge over the Zambezi River at the entrance to Tete…

The river flowed strongly beneath me, and as a result of the sluice gates being opened on the Cahorra Bassa Dam, sections of the town close to the river’s edge were beginning to flood… In some places the water was lapping at the doors of homes and other buildings. On the far side of the bridge, I came to a roundabout that led back under the road and into town. There was no petrol at the first garage I stopped at, and with a sinking feeling in my gut, I rode on to the next garage… Luckily there was petrol to be had here, and while they filled the “Big Fella”, I went into the “Tangerina” shop to buy a cold-drink and a ham and cheese roll. I was served by an elderly Portuguese lady, who was suffering in the heat, despite the shop being air-conditioned… I ate and drank inside the shop, not wanting to spend any unnecessary time in the 40 degree heat outside…

I paid for the fuel, and as I was mounting up, the lady who had served me walked up to me and presented me with a bright orange GALP T-shirt, compliments of the filling station. I thanked her; all the time wondering where the hell I was going to put it, as I was loaded to the limit… I stuffed the shirt into my tank bag and left to draw money at the Standard Bank and at 1.00pm rode out of the furnace that was Tete…

The next 240 kms to Catandica were amongst the worst I had ridden on, and at times I could not avoid all of the potholes I was confronted with, slamming into a few that got the teeth rattling in my head… I was amazed that I did not have a front tyre blow-out, and no matter how slowly I rode through the more difficult sections, I still found myself wrenching the bike up and out of some of the deeper craters in the road… This was tough going…!

One of the more pleasant sections of road on the way to Catandica….

I passed the turnoff to Zimbabwe and the Nyama-Panda Border Post at Changara, and rode out of the Tete Province and into Manica Province, due south for Guro. The Planalto de Chimoio, a long range of mountains ran west of the N6 to Catandica, their granite crests popping up out of the surrounding fields every few hundred meters… I crossed the Luanina River and was now running parallel to the Zimbabwe border, only 30 or 40 kilometres to the west of the N6. I did not have too much time to admire the view though, as I spent most of my time and energy avoiding the massive craters in the road, as well as the trucks and buses who were desperately trying to keep their own vehicles in one piece on this atrocious stretch of highway from Hell…

I stopped for water and a break after about 180kms of nerve-racking riding, wondering how much more of this I could take, and if I would get to Chimoio before dark… I did not relish the idea of having to spend a night on the side of the road in this area, as I had heard that many of these more remote areas had not been de-mined as yet, and tourists (read nutcases!!) were advised not to deviate from the tar roads under any circumstances… Truck drivers who were forced to sleep along theses stretches of road, never wandered very far from their vehicles… I had seen very few people between the settlements I rode through, and for tens of kilometres at a time, there would be no human habitation at all. Getting stuck out here would be no fun, I was thinking, as I mounted up and got on with the very tricky job of getting to my next fuel stop in one piece…

I finally pulled into the town of Catandica at a little after 3.30pm… I was exhausted, and drank the rest of my water and a bottle of Fanta while the bike was being refuelled and admired by crowds of curious locals. The owner sat at a little table, shaking his head at the madness of this man who was travelling alone through the country, with what looked like all his worldly belongings strapped to his motorcycle… When I first told him I was alone, he looked at me in disbelief, and kept glancing up the road towards Guro, expecting a posse of bikers to arrive, confirming to him that I was not telling the truth… I paid for the petrol, and when I asked the owner how much I owed him for the Fanta, he waved his hand in the air and said, “Nada…!” (Nothing…!)

Crowds of young men gather round the “Big Fella” in Catandica, Manica Province…

The crowd of young boys cheered him loudly, which had him grinning from ear to ear… His generosity had mad him a hero for a short while… I rode across the road and into the courtyard of a general dealer to enquire if I could buy a starter pack and airtime for my cell-phone, and was disappointed to find that the only shop selling starter packs was closed. I decided to wait until I got to Chimoio, and eased my way back through the thick sand at the entrance, and through the crowds of people who had walked across the road from the filling station, to continue their inspection of the bike and its rider…

I decided to give them even more to talk about by stopping amongst them to set my GPS for the “Pink Papaya” guest house in Chimoio where I would be staying… They crowded around and shouts of “TV…TV!” went up amongst a group of young boys standing close to the bike… I patiently explained that it was in fact a “satellite driven guidance system”, pointing up at the sky as I did so… Many pairs of eyes raised themselves heavenward, and a few heads began nodding in understanding. (Or so I would like to think!!)

A young man then sidled up to me and pointing toward the back wheel, asked where the chain was… I tried to explain that this bike was not chain-driven like the ones he was used to… I remembered then that in many of the countries we had passed through, people commented to each other that “this bike uses a propeller”… So I looked the young man square in the eye and said, “This bike, my friend, is as fast as an aeroplane, and therefore uses a propeller…” He nodded his head slowly, as if in understanding, and then surprised the hell out of me by saying, “No Padron, this bike is shaft-driven!!” I burst out laughing, feeling my cheeks redden…

I left them standing in the middle of the road, shouting “BEE-EM-DOUBLE-YOU”, as I opened the throttle and roared away to my rendezvous in Chimoio, which according to the GPS, was 145 kilometres away…. It was 4.30pm, and I had spent enough precious time educating the inhabitants of Catandica on the finer points of the “Big Fella”…

The final run to Chimoio, as the sun begins to set. It had taken almost nine hours to get to this point, and I was feeling the strain…

The next 100kms, directly south on the EN102, went by quickly, as the road surface improved considerably, and I was able to maintain a steady 120km/h. The few potholes I came across were easily avoided, and the village of Honde flashed by on either side of me… The light was beginning to fade, and I again hoped that I would not have to ride in the dark to get to Chimoio…

One section of this road did give me a few hassles however… There was a 15km stretch of dirt road, which I presumed was being prepared for re-tarring. I had to avoid the dust clouds kicked up by large trucks which barrelled their way north, dodging potholes which I could barely see, but were a lot easier for them to see from the heights of their cabs…

I chugged along in 3^rd gear, eyes straining to see through the dust… I managed to take this photo on the fly, before quickly dropping the camera back into my Tank Bag, and hanging on for dear life as this behemoth roared past….

The section of dirt road on the way to the T-junction which led to Zimbabwe in the west, and Chimoio and Beira in the East….

I crossed over the Pungoe River Bridge, directly west of the Gorongosa National Park, then on through Nova Vanduzi, and came to the T-junction, where turning right would take you through the town of Manica and into Zimbabwe, to Mutare. I turned left instead for the final 40km run to Chimoio… With the setting sun on my back, I motored east hoping that the Pink Papaya would be a comfortable overnight rest stop… I felt I had deserved one, after the day’s long and torturous ride… Just before Chimoio I was stopped at a Police road block, and with the warnings of friends ringing in my ears, came to an apprehensive stop… I was immediately surrounded by four policemen, one of whom spoke passable English, and seemed quite proud of this fact. I spoke slowly and carefully, explaining where I had come from and where I was going… (I said I was from Dar-es Salaam and was on my way to Johannesburg, to impress them…!! It worked like a charm…!)

The one guy said, “Jesu Christo!!! Dar-es Salaam!! On dis one!!” pointing at the “Big Fella”… I nodded my head and he patted me on the helmet… I wasn’t sure if this was to indicate that he thought I was crazy, or that he was proud of my achievement!! I spent some time sitting on my bike as the sun went down, telling them about the trip, complaining about the roads and asking them where I should stay the night… Each one gave me a different answer, with not one mentioning the Pink Papaya… I should have taken this as an omen of sorts…

Finally they settled on the “Hotel Nacional”, and agreed this would be the best place for me… I mentioned that I had been told about a place called the Pink Papaya, and asked if they knew of it. There were a few moments of silence… and then one of them slowly said, “Yes…it is possible to stay there…” This last reply should have had the warning bells ringing loudly, but I was too tired to hear them, if indeed they rang at all… I left them without having to show my drivers license or insurance papers, and rode slowly into town, feeling as if a huge weight had settled on my shoulders, and that I was dragging the bike along rather than riding it…

Road conditions like this tend to keep you focused, but after a long day, the occasional “misjudgement” or two is inevitable…

The Pink Papaya was in a side road off the main roundabout, and the gate swung open as I rode onto the wide pavement in front of it. It was 6.30pm, darkness settling over the large trees that grew around a ramshackle house… There was lots of pink… The Cane Furniture, the eaves of the house, the outside rooms, the walls in the kitchen; the decorations….very little had escaped the pink paintbrush…

I spent some time haggling with the German owners, who between them spoke perhaps a dozen words of English… There was only one room available, the other being a dorm, which already contained two Israeli girls, two American girls and a young Chinese guy. There was one more bed left in the dorm, which would have cost half the price of the room, but I was not in the mood to be sharing a room with five strangers, who had to have been in various stages of mental imbalance to have chosen to stay here in the first place…

I lugged my kit off the bike, was forced to pay the MZM 500.00 up front, and then headed for a cold shower. (There being no hot water available, as the geyser had given up the ghost…!) There was only one bathroom in the entire house, shared by the owners and their “guests”… The toilet did not flush, but there were at least five 25l drums filled with water, which had to be decanted into a large bucket in which floated a dirty green jug… This was the “toilet” system…!!

The bathroom curtains were moth eaten and did not come anywhere close to covering the clear-glass window… (No opaque windows for the Pink Papaya…No-sirree!!) I stood in the bath and ran the shower tap, whilst the American and Israeli girls chatted noisily on the veranda right outside the window… The only attempt at modesty I could successfully muster was to turn my back to the window, and try not to drop the soap!! Every now and again, the conversation outside would come to a complete stop, or descend into hushed whispers…then laughter would ring out… It was un-nerving to say the least…

The Pink Papaya…. Avoid it at all costs… My tent would have seemed like the Ritz when compared to this place…

The “Public Area” squeezed between the owner’s bedroom, the bathroom, the dormitory and my bedroom…

After my shower I walked down the road to look for a place to buy a starter pack and air time, carefully avoiding making eye contact with the girls on the veranda as I passed…

My room was, as can be expected, littered with pink furniture, and the curtains were no better than those in the bathroom, the windows also looking out onto the veranda… Privacy was clearly not a priority for the people choosing to stay here… The girls had visited the bar fridge and were tucking into the beers… Then the sweet smell of Mountain Tobacco came wafting through my window… A few moments later, there was a light knock on my bedroom door, and the elder of the Israeli girls sweetly enquired if I wanted to join them… I put on a shirt and strolled out onto the veranda, after getting a cold beer from the fridge on the way past…

We sat talking into the early morning hours… The Israelis were sisters, and had travelled extensively through India and South-East Asia, before coming to Africa. The American girls had met them in Dar es Salaam and decided to travel with them to Tofu, in Mozambique, where they all planned to spend a month, before heading back to Tanzania to catch their flight back to Tel Aviv and New York respectively…

After another round of beers, I bid them goodnight and floated back to my room… I turned out the lights, crawled under the mosquito net and fell asleep to the sounds of giggling and laughter from outside my window…

The road to Vilanculos couldn’t come soon enough…