Southern Africa Eclipse Cycle Tour 2001

Well the start to the trip did entail an element of stress. And this was not caused by the mad truckers and London cabbies whizzing past me at high speed on my cycle from home to Gatwick. (Mental note - don't follow the London cycle ways - they make any trip twice as long and go via obscure industrial estates that smell of coffee). The stress was caused by the fact that BA had overbooked the flight to Lilongwe (capital of Malawi), and that I could not be guaranteed a seat - even though after my 5 hour wait I was almost the first person in the check-in queue. In addition the check-in person said that I would have to buy an additional return ticket out of Malawi as my return ticket was from Johannesburg and the customs and immigration people would not be happy with this situation. Needless to say this introduction to my flight was making my hair recede faster than preordained by my genetic disposition. I'm toying with the idea of charging British Airways with hair replacement therapy.

I had to wait a further 2 frustrating hours to find out that I was one of about 20 passengers who had not been given a seat on the flight. At this stage I'm having visions of me tearing the heart and lungs out of the BA representative. They wanted to route us via Nairobi - where we would spend Saturday, and then arrive in Lilongwe on Sunday. This would mean that not only would I be loosing a day spent in a city I already have a severe aversion to because of previous experiences there, but on arrival on Lilongwe on Sunday that would mean I would be stuck in the city till Monday to wait for the banks to open - so I would effectively loose 2 days of what I considered to already be a short holiday. Visions of blood pouring over the floor of the London Gatwick floor from British Airways staff filled my mind.

I asked if it would be possible to be routed to Blantyre (a city in the south of Malawi) instead - as I had heard another passenger ask for this option at check-in. After a bit more rushing around and checking, I was told, along with 3 other passengers who also wanted to go to Blantyre that this was possible - and that we would be routed via Harare to arrive the following day. Hooray! Good news at last! Plus we would fly Club World, and get $250 worth of denied boarding compensation. Now BA were not so bad anymore, and a couple of hours later my only complaint was that there was too much space between me and the chair in front of me - so I couldn't reach the in-flight magazine. As I was still in the same sweaty t-shirt and shorts in which I had cycled to the airport (England counting as cycling country 1), I imagine that BA will be getting a letter of complaint regarding the quality of passengers from the business-man type person sitting next to me, who ignored me like one would a cockroach on the ceiling of a cheap hotel for the entire flight. As I kicked off my shoes and snuggled in for the night, I felt only a slight pang of guilt when I had to put my head under the in-flight blanket to avoid the pungent aroma arising from my well-travelled trainers.

Of course the fun never stops with BA, and on arrival in Harare on Saturday morning, Emma, a lovely young lady who was part of our small party travelling to Blantyre discovered that BA had lost her luggage. This is bad enough on most occasions, but when it contains your hairdryer and CD collection, there can be no greater crime committed against a woman. After filling in the appropriate lost luggage forms Hannah and her boyfriend Faizel, Emma and I were whisked off in 2 taxis to the Harare Sheraton again courtesy of BA. Emma and I had the privilege of the use of a double room for a couple of hours, where I got to show her how to use the shower (not quite as exciting as some would imagine). After another hearty breakfast we were driven back to the airport for our afternoon flight to Blantyre. Emma's glasses were however to remain as a souvenir of the Sheraton Hotel. It just wasn't her day.

Now the issue arose that we had not actually gone through customs on our merry jaunt collecting luggage in the morning. We thus had to explain to the Visa and Immigration person why we were in the country illegally. Thankfully the man appeared to have taken some happy pills in the morning, and we were able to proceed to our Air Malawi connection with only a minor warning.

Rumour has it that Air Malawi has only 2 planes, and the sight of our twin propeller plane did not inspire confidence. I was however relieved that the chickens under the seats would not be doing the whole flight with us, and that they would be moved to cargo. Just kidding - but on take off I was seriously worried that the turbulence we were encountering would result in the Malawi President not having a choice of planes to commandeer for his movements around the country. But we pulled through, and on being served triangular cucumber sandwiches and tea by a smiling air hostess with a perfect set of teeth my only fear was that we had accidentally entered some time machine which had shot me back to colonial times only remembered today in black and white photos.

Finally that Saturday evening I was sipping coke and eating Chicken and Avocado burgers at Doogle's - a backpacker rest house in Blantyre. The bike had survived the journey and completed its first 20km in country number 2 without incident. I had a great evening exchanging traveller war-stories with Chenoa, a well-travelled lady from Australia, Papua New Guinea, and South Africa who had arrived in Blantyre from London to undertake her PHD into HIV research. It won't come as much surprise to learn that BA had lost her luggage too - although she was remarkably calm as her luggage had been lost on her 6 previous flights too. On finding this out I had to admit defeat in the battle of the war stories. I think I'm going to make a request to the BA exec club that they route all my baggage via Bulgaria, just so that I can even the score in the field of lost luggage stories. Who do the airlines think they are from denying me this most essential of travel experiences?!

In winter a cold shower is not how most people would start the day. And in retrospect it was pleasure I should have avoided as less than an hour later I was being covered by fine red dust as I started my 85km cycle along the dirt road to Mulanje. When I'd asked about the road I'd been told to have a good puncture repair kit, but I didn't have to use it as the road turned out to be all-right. At one point while going down a hill over the deserted plain that stretches to the foothills of Mulanje I did go over a big bump which resulted in one of my panniers dislodging. I stopped in the middle of the empty dusty road to fix it when "Are you all right?" says a ladies voice in an American accent from the middle of nowhere. And there behind me is a pretty muzungu (white person) in t-shirt and shorts. Cindy turned out to be one of the army of Peace Corp volunteers working across Africa, and although I was a bit suspicious about her appearance from nowhere, apparently they don't yet use teleportation to travel around. "I work in that village" she said, pointing out over the plain at what appeared to me to be a distinct absence of village. It was time to move swiftly onwards.

After a long hard cycle I reached Likumbule at the base of the mountain, a ride which had not been made any easier by my only accident of the trip. It was a fairly dramatic accident, even though it didn't involve getting hit by a bus, or falling into a donga from a broken bridge. I merely fell over while changing a tape cassette in my walkman because I could not get my foot out of my pedals. Of course the local crowd of locals sitting under a nearby Umbrella thorn tree thought that this was hysterical. I don't know why, but there is always this small crowd in the middle of nowhere, who will always appear when some minor calamity occurs. I'm working on the theory that its actually the same crowd that just follows one around purely for the purpose of laughing at you when something happens, and who will then try to sell you a small carved hippo or other handicraft.

Of course I didn't let this deter me and upon hiring a porter and downing a precious redbull that I had brought from London I proceeded to hike the steep 7-10km to the first hut on the mountain. On arrival at the hut I was shattered, and had it not been freezing cold I may well have slept where I sat down outside the hut upon my arrival. But the other hikers in the hut (4 Dutch, an English couple and 3 English lads) had built a lovely fire and I was able to curl up in my sleeping bag in relative warmth. The 3 English lads proceeded to intimidate me with their story of how they had hiked to the highest peak (Sapitwa) and back to the hut again in one day and that it had been one of the toughest hikes they had ever done. I was planning to do the same hike the following day.

After a good nights sleep, interrupted only by screams and possessions being thrown around the room at about 3am when a rat had run over the face of one of the lads, I hiked to Sapitwa and back past the hut (where the lads had finished their hike) to the base of Mulanje. I'll spare you the blow-by-blow account of the whole 10-hour 40km hike, partly because the memories of trying to navigate the last few kilometres in the dark and my legs seizing up still cause my legs to go into spasm. Still, I am proud to have 'out-hiked' the English lads, and not that I would call them soft, but my money would be on Marshmallow-man in an arm wrestling match.

Part of the reason I had shortened my stay on the mountain from 3 days to 2 was that being on a tight schedule, I wanted to be in Liwonde by Tuesday evening. I knew that it would be a long cycle, and did not want to endure a 'warm up' hike down the mountain to start the day. The cycle did not start off without pain though, despite my heroic effort of the previous day. My legs were killing me, and as I started the cycle, a carefully concealed pothole resulted in my bike being possessed by the spirit of the bucking-bronco. One of my panniers flew off my carrier rack destroying the zip that attached the panniers together, but I stayed on and battled to get my demon-possessed bike under control to the sound of laughter from that crowd of locals on the side of the road. I'm sure I spotted some familiar faces amongst those gathered to watch the crazy muzungu fix his bike, but the bloke selling the carved hippos must have been on holiday that day.

After 160km, the longest recorded distance I have ever done on a bike, I arrived outside Liwonde National Park, to be heroically rescued for the last couple of kilometres into the park to the lodge by Neil, the camp manager. After the best samoosas, steak and apple pancake I've ever eaten, I fell into a comatose sleep in the luxurious comfort of the lodge.

"So did you hear the hyenas last night?" asked Neil at the start of our game drive in the morning. "Those weren't hyenas, that was me screaming in pain when I had to get up for a piss at midnight" I replied.

The game drive was great. Especially the part where we had to build our own road while on a quest to see rhino. After great food, excellent bird watching, brilliant owl watching on a night drive, and superb hospitality washed down with locally brewed Carlsberg 'greens' I felt truly at home and happy to be back in the bush. And when the next day we found lion tracks near the camp, it was an agonising decision I had to make to leave - but there were roads to cycle and lakes to dive, and off I set.

By about midday I had sore hands from waving at the village children, who upon seeing me cycle slowly by would erupt into cries of "Muzungu, Muzungu!", which would occasionally be followed by "Hello how are you" (statement not question). Then depending on the economic status of the area this would be invariably be followed by "Give me 10 kwacha" (10p), or "Gimme 10 Tambala" (0.1p). Then just to have a break from the norm a white Toyota pickup pulled up onto the side of the road in front of me and out piled a crowd of muzungus to wave at me. I could hardly believe my eyes when it turned out to be Hannah and Faizal and family on their way to Lake Malawi. Although I was keen to stop at the resort they were headed to on the lake to have a drink, unfortunately I missed it, and ended up cycling to Cape Maclear in the dark, which is not something I would recommend to anybody. Being a bit weary after about 100km I had made the fatal error of buying batteries too large for my front light. I had to push my bike the last few kilometres to the campsite in the dark because the road was so bad I risked doing me and the bike serious injury. But I survived, and updated my PADI logbook with a dive memorable for the swarms of beautiful blue cichlids, and freezing cold. It was mid winter after all, and I don't know why but divers always just have to stay under till the last drop of oxygen. Fill a bath full of ice and then sit in it for 50 minutes and you'll know how I felt.

Mission number 2 of the trip accomplished, it was time to cycle the third country - Zambia. I had a choice of cycling for 300km up out of the Rift Valley in 2 days, or catching the bus. After cycling 90km I decided that like most sensible people I would catch the bus - through Lilongwe to Mchinji, on the Malawi-Zambia border. The man at the border post was quite nice. Like the kind of rapist who hands you some toilet paper after finishing with you. Or at least that's how I felt after handing over US$60 for my Zambian visa to the smiling, friendly, man-with-a-gun. $60 had gotten me a bed, warm shower and the to-die-for steak at the lodge at Liwonde National Park, so I felt like I'd gotten a poor deal as I left the office with my small white piece of paper, which apparently qualifies as an official visa.

To add injury to insult, while at the border there had been a map on the office wall. It said the road to Mfuwe (the small village on the border of the South Luangwa National Park) was 62km away. 186km later as I pulled into the Wildlife Campsite at the edge of the park after cycling one of the worst 'roads' in Africa, I realised that some smart-ass must have erased the 1 from in front of the 62. When I find that person I'm gonna kick their ass so hard they'll have an idea of what mine felt like after that ride. However, at $5 a night the campsite was good value with its pool, hot showers and fantastic view over the South Luangwa River filled with hippos and crocodiles. But, the game drive in the National Park was probably organised by relatives of the border official. At $20 for park entrance and $25 for the drive my wallet had lost a lot of weight in a very short space of time. It would probably have been worth it if we had seen a leopard, but apparently our ranger had the 'alternative' safari experience in mind and proceeded to get us stuck in mud for an hour. Although we got to see some Cape Hunting Dogs as they were leaving a kill they had just been on, the experience was not my idea of 'value for money'.

The wildlife was just as good outside the park as inside, and I had good viewings of giraffe, waterbuck, impala, warthog, baboon and elephant on a couple of cycle-safaris I did on the tracks along the river. Sometimes it was a bit unnerving cycling along these tracks when the grass on either side was 2-3m high and the termite mounds are even higher, especially since the manager of the campsite had told me that 2 locals had been killed while on bicycles over the last couple of years. But as bicycle still seemed to be an important local means of transport I was happy to take my chances.

So you can imagine my fright when cycling along one morning I round one of these giant termite mounds and there is an elephant on the other side not more than 10 meters from me. We both took fright - the big beast spinning round, ears spread, causing me to drop my bike and scramble up the termite mound - and luckily for me while I was doing this the elephant was running the other way to get a giant marula tree between me and him. From our respective vantage points we viewed each other, his ears flapping, my heart pounding. Being on a mission to explore the round further south, as a possible access route to the main Lusaka road, I soon tired of this stand off, and tried the old shouting and hand clapping trick to move the elephant on, but it wasn't having any of it. The few clods of earth I threw at him had no affect either, so I decided maybe I should back off from this situation. I retrieved my bike and retreated along the road. Eventually the elephant crossed the road and I was able to continue.

Several kilometres further on and the tsetse flies were becoming a real pest. Their numbers had been increasing steadily as I cycled, and I was battling to keep them from biting. Anyone who has encountered these nasty creatures before will tell you that you don't want to get bitten by them, not least because they carry sleeping sickness, but purely because being bitten is like having a hot pin stuck in you. Eventually after cresting a small hill I decided to stop to try and chase the flies away. This was a big mistake because I had not realised that the whole time I had been cycling a swarm of flies had been trailing behind me, and as I stopped they descended upon me - getting into my eyes, ears, nose, mouth. I dropped my bike, my bag and performed a panic-stricken dance, rolling around trying to swat flies at a hundred places at once. Realising that I could not stay and fight off the flies, I endured the bites long enough to grab my possessions, hop on my bike and fly down the hill as fast as I could, thankfully leaving most of the flies behind. I continued the mad cycle the remaining 20km back to camp, not worried at all about bumping into another elephant, just keen to get as much distance between me and the flies as possible. The elephant experience had been scary, but this experience was terrifying in comparison.

Despite this experience, I was sad to leave South Luangwa - it is really beautiful and there is a lot of wildlife to be seen. But it was time to pack the bike onto a bus to head to Lusaka to catch the eclipse. After a 24 minibus and bus ride I arrived on the outskirts of Lusaka, to find the campsite was fully booked, which was not really a surprise, but being 2am I was not in the mood to search for alternative accommodation and simply pitched my tent outside the campsite gates.

21st July, 2001. Shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere, and at 3:14pm I was privileged enough to experience the eclipse in its totality. Although I wouldn't go as far as Zambian's president Chiluba to say "it was and act of God", I was very impressed and would highly recommend the experience. Something they don't warn you about is that the mosquitoes also come out - so if you get to watch the eclipse that is happening across Botswana and South Africa in December 2002, be sure to include mosquito repellent with your eclipse glasses as part of your eclipse watching equipment.

After the eclipse it was another 24 hour bus experience to Livingston, the town on the Zimbabwe border, followed by a spectacular early morning ride over the Victoria falls into country number 4, with mist shooting hundred of meters into the air glowing orange in the early morning light. The town of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe was not exactly my cup of tea, filled with package tourists and touts, and I was glad when finally my parents arrived to rescue me and take me to Botswana.

So after 2 border posts in 1 day, I was glad to be in camping paradise with my parents - who carry a fridge and duvet as part of their standard camping equipment. After the first night in Botswana, it became cycling country number 5 with an 80km morning cycle (without panniers), towards our second camp - the famous Kubu Island in the Makgadikgadi pans.

"I wouldn't like to be in that storm" - famous last words as we sat eating our chicken curry overlooking the Sowa pan at a magnificent lightening display in the storm clouds to our north. Very soon strong winds was blowing rice from my plate, villages to the south reported a short blizzard, and a religious gathering further south reported a miracle in the form of rice flavoured manna being delivered from heaven. As the clouds and rain rolled in over the plains we battened down the hatches, while an owl shrieked out of control over our heads, followed by a small ball of fur with nasty gnashing teeth. I am sure that the whole of Kubu Island was dragged a few meters south as our tents billowed like the sails on a yacht. The whole situation was crazy - I mean this is the middle of the dry season in the middle of the Kalahari Desert and we've just been hit by the daughter of Hurricane Hilde! I would not have been surprised if the Wizard of Oz had made an appearance and demanded legal representation in a copy write case against a large island more commonly associated with kangaroos. However, he may have been killed by one of the bolts of lightening which were lighting up the night like a crazy laser show at a trance rave, except in this case the DJ only had access to a loud drum machine with overkill on the bass (I'm trying to describe the thunder here ok?) And I would like to publicly state this whole episode was not the hallucinatory by-product of the food poisoning that I suffered in addition that evening.

Luckily I had a couple of days in Johannesburg to convalesce before making South Africa cycling country number 6 with a mountain bike ride round a local quarry.

And although I had just under a week in Johannesburg, between a trip to Pilanesberg National Park (where I got to play game ranger again), and meeting up with old friends and family, it was all to soon that I was back on BA and winging my way to London.