23’ #6 – Cycling Zambia (II): The Great Eastern road, Lusaka, and the mighty Zambezi.

29/08 – Petauke – Sichiwende. 96 km, 727m+

After yesterday’s super hard day, we lower our ambitions for today and allow us to sleep until 7 (compared to the usual military time of 5:45). The bed was very bad, and on top of that we find many of our bags wet because of a ceiling leak, which makes us consider leaving a bad review in ioverlander.

We do the shopping for the next days in the Choppies, where we had take-away dinner the previous night: cookies, spaghetti, some fruits, and instant noodles, as usual. So we only start at 9 am, quite late, but the re-encounter with the asphalt compensates and makes us joyful.

We become even happier when we connect with the Great Eastern Road and start getting the long-awaited tail-wind. Additionally, traffic is surprisingly low, and the shoulder of the road is constant and wide.

We were warned about the very monotonous landscape, but we actually like it. To our left, a vast extension of leafless-tree-packed hills extends, with Mozambique’s territory visible at occasions. Our pace will be soon reduced due to the big amount of short up and downs, which end up being tedious. The wind also stops purely helping us, as slowly turns into side-wind.

A usual Nsima & chicken stop at a mid-size town, and ready to continue. At 4 PM is time to start looking for a campsite, and we ask at the school of a small village, which looks calm, flat and safe. We are pointed to the head teacher house, but he is not there. However, his wife says the classic “not a problem”, what makes things easy.

We camp on a corner of the football field. Pasta with vegetables for dinner, and a bit of penalty-shooting with some kids make the evening. The surprise comes when Gaspard goes to the school loo and a bat comes out of the septic deposit, almost crashing against his sensitive parts. Despite the shock, we are soon sleeping placidly, as we are not fully recovered from the South Luangwa push.

30/08 – Sichiwende – Mukundu. 111 km, 1530m+

The road continues being in good state, but the ups and downs start to become annoying. now and then, we find a dead cat, dog or goat, hit by trucks, presumably at night, making a gross and sad picture. The heat is also paying its toll, and there is absolutely no place to buy food, let alone having cooked food. So we push for 80 kms until we make it to the Luangwa bridge, an impressive construction crossing the homonym river, which we already saw back in the South Luangwa Park. Despite being low, it’s much bigger than at the park, and its cauce extends vastly, occupying almost all the valley.

As we were told, the road deteriorates as soon as we cross the river. The town by the bridge serves as a truck stop place. It´s pretty dirty and the big amount of drunk people, traffic and noise makes you feel not so welcome. The potholes and number of trucks make us consider bailing and hitch hiking to Lusaka for obvious safely reasons. We agree to finish the day as planned and decide in the evening. We have our daily nshima dosis here for double the usual price, but the chicken portion is also double. We both get a cold coke to maintain sugar levels, and get going.

After a few kms, we meet a very nice Italian family, who has parked their rental 4×4 for a short break. They immediately offer us cold drinks and food. We shily accept a cola. They love cyclotouring too, and we are soon having a very dynamic conversation in a mixture of French-Italian and English, as not everyone speaks the same languages as the other. They are touring Zambia with their teenager son, to whom we tell he is very lucky to have so dynamic parents. We really enjoy their kindness, and farewell enthusiastically.

With the coke overdose (or the kindness) provided by these people, we feel euphoric, strong, and kilometres fly until we do another 30 kms. The road ends up being not so bad, and the lack of continuous shoulder is compensated with the scarce traffic. We get to see two times more the “road repair” scam, in which local young men pretend to sand and patche the potholes of the road, so they can ask for money to the drivers. So far, it sounds fair, but the issue is that is quite common to take the sand out again, after the driver has passed, so the operation can be repeated endlessly. As we start looking for a place to sleep, we notice that the area is being burned (or “regenerated” according to locals) which leaves us with the question: do we want to sleep in the ashes and be visible or sleep in the next area that will be burnt? 🤔

The surroundings keep being very rural, with a flagrant lack of schools or churches. So we bet our camping luck on an ioverlander spot, which ends up being a burnt forest absolutely visible from the road. As we spotted a place to sleep, we see some kids passing by, so we take our bikes and pretend we are leaving. We walk back to the road and then back to the camping spot we found. Despite a fast manouver to partially hide behind an elevated terrain, kids outsmarts us once again: 1 hour after, we are cooking noodles with a group of 10 kids observing us 3 meters away. They are very shy and they look very poor, judging from how dirty they are. We ask their names to all of them and share a cookie with them, which, surprisingly, all of them carefully pack for later. We wonder if they were aiming at sharing it with their brothers and sisters. Very touching.

We say bye to the day with a tea and honey cheers for having completed already 2’000 kms on this trip. We also realize we have had an all-time record of positive elevation completed in a day. Celebration day!

31/08 – Mukundu – Undaunda. 114 km, 1366m+

As we wake up and pack the tent, we quickly hear some voices and some footsteps running through the bushes towards us. These are the kids from last night, running back to watch us waking up, packing the tent and having breakfast at 6am.

The landscape slowly flattens, and Mozambique stops being so close. We take a steep descent to a road cross, where, while Gaspard buys water, Javi discovers a place offering breakfasts! Javi can’t resist, and despite Gaspard hathred of plain eggs, he orders an omelette and a coffee. It feels so good to have something different for breakfast! We have a short conversation with some truck drivers, who order bottled water for us, without giving us the chance to refuse. Luckily, the waitress had thought that Gaspard also wanted an omelette, so we have something to give them back. Everyone happy.

Ups and downs, ups and downs, and more ups and downs. We want to sleep less than 90 kms away from Lusaka, as we expect a reduced pace due to traffic during the following day. We are constantly doing maths while cycling, and distracting ourselves with percentages of how much we have done, and how much we have left.

When the day-counter is at 114 km, we stop in a tiny school 85 km away from Lusaka. Prince, a man in his 60s, welcomes us. He leaves in a farm house behind the school. He gives us a flat place in front of his house to pitch the tent, and mentions that he is surprised that “so many western cyclists ask him to camp there”. We suspect it has to do with the fact that the school is located close but not too close from Lusaka, and the Great Eastern road is the only alternative to make it to Lusaka for cyclists coming from Malawi.

Prince has a story to tell. Although he is originally from Zambia’s Copperbelt region, he settled in this area “when he felt God´s call”. He led the creation and construction of the school (without any government support), and is its head teacher since many years. He is now building a penthecostist Church, with him being the priest. As it is quite often the case in Africa, he started to build the foundation and walls with the money he could raise. He is now trying to raise money to build a roof. In the meantime, he has built a temporary church made of weaker material to start building a community.

However, he wants it to be more than a church: he plans to hold training courses in carprintry, textiles and blacksmithing for the youth. We are impressed how much effort he is putting into educating the younger generation to keep them out of the street and with a real job: well done! Before arriving to the village, he was in Zambia’s military, and was part of the President guard. For that, he was in a training camp in Yugoslavia in the 70s, which he enjoyed very much. He told us about the struggle between independent Zambia and colonialist and racist South Rodhesia, and about the support of the first to the Freedom Fighters.

After dinner, we invite him for a tea with honey, which he highly appreciates and runs to share with this wife. The conversation takes then a sudden twist, when he starts asking us about the purpose of our trip, and motivates us vividly to combine it with some solidarity project. He has committed his life to “aleviate” the suffering of people, and he wishes we take the opportunity to raise funds for the people in need in Zambia. That being said, he exhorts us to avoid government-led organizations, which he considers corrupt and inefficient. We immediately tell him about Andrew´s organization (See post 5), and he considers that sounds like a perfect one to contribute to. After the conversation, we are quite touched and feel the urge to give back to these countries that are giving us so much. We align we will contact Andrew once in Lusaka to explore a fundraising campaign led by us.

01/09 – Undaunda, Lusaka. 94 km, 709m+

As soon as we start eating the first biscuits, Prince, our host, comes by and asks us to join him for breakfast. He is having plain rice, which we combine with soya sauce and peanut butter. We take some pictures and wish him and his wife all the best, promising we will be in touch. We give him a contribution for his church project, which is missing a roof, and he really appreciates it. Since that day, Prince sends us daily a whatsapp photo wishing us a nice day. what a man!

We start cycling and arrive to the town of Chongwe. By now, we are already in touch with Simon, our “warmshowers” host. He gives us the phone of his wife, Aya, so we can arrange an arrival time as he is at work. Gaspard becomes very happy when he sees the Lebanese prefix of her WhatsApp number. The traffic is getting denser and a couple of times we are thrown out of the road by some trucks honking, as ther is no shoulder. As we get closer to Lusaka, everything becomes much larger: attractions parks, hotels, chicken factories, green houses etc. We feel like going through the industrial area of a very large city.

As soon as we can, we take an alternative secondary route, going through different fenced rich residential areas that look far from welcoming. We soon observe that Lusaka is a very particular city: big rich residential areas with top protection live side by side with western looking shopping malls. Government buildings and embassies spread around, with churches of all confessions popping up between them. The working class neighbourhoods are seggregated, and one sees obviously little overlap among them.

We arrive at the residential complex where Simon’s and Aya’s house is. We are happy to see that the entrance is much more welcoming than the other complexes we have seen: no spikes or electric fences.

At the house itself we meet Nelly, the nanny of their daughter Lila. She welcomes us with some delicious watermelon and tells us that Aya is about to come. Lila immediately takes our attention: she is one year old and she is particularly social and, with her huge cheeks, she must be the cutest baby in 100 km radius. Aya arrives not much after, and it takes literaly 5 minutes to feel totally at home. Aya works remotely for a start-up in Lebanon, and we postpone the conversation to start to learn about each other for later on, as she has a web-meeting very soon. We leave for lunch and shopping with a feeling that we are very lucky to be hosted by this family.

We go to a nearby mall on our unloaded bikes, but to our disgust, there is only western-looking, western-priced fast food. The mall is full with expats and rich Zambians, all driving fancy cars. We ask an Indian businessman where can we find Indian food, as we don’t feel like a burger. He directs us to another nearby mall. On the way to it, a very rude local driver yells at us: “Are you stupid? In Zambia, roads are for cars!”. We argue a bit with him, but we soon decide to ignore him. The next mall’s indian restaurant is actually an all-asian-cuisine restaurant, as pricey as the ones before. But we are starving, and we were already aware that eating local in Lusaka was going to be challenging. So we get some massaman curry, which turns out to be quite tasty.

As a gesture for their hospitality, we have convinced Aya that we would like to cook for them. In the same commercial center, we find a Shoprite supermarket that has absolutely everything: including Parmiggiano, Pesto, and things you wouldn’t expect to find in Africa. We decide for a Spanish potato omelette and a carbonara pasta and, once we have everything, we go back to Simon’s and Aya’s.

When we arrive, Aya is done with work and she is enjoying some time with Lila in their beautiful terrace, where a smell of Jasmin makes you feel relaxed and at peace. We both find the house so beautiful, with its high ceilings and slight-arab touch.

Aya tells us that they only moved to Zambia 6 months ago, due to Simon’s work in water safety at the Red Cross. Before, they lived in Lebanon, where they met. While we start cooking, Simon arrives from a long work day, and, after he spends some time with his daughter, we slowly start to get to know him better. Simon is from Bordeaux in France, and he has spent the last year at the forefront of water-related epidemics and health issues in the most dangerous and poor countries of the world: Pakistan, Afganistan, Haiti, or Somalia, to name a few.

They both love cycletouring too, and they even went bikepacking in the South of France with Lila in a trolley. They know “warmshowers” from Simon’s past long trips in Iran or Greece, of which we will slowly find out more, as he is far from one of these people that tell you all what they have done immediately.

Their hospitality starts to excel with some rum with ginger cocktails prepared by them. When dinner is ready, we have to control ourselves to behave, as it´s the first time in 2 weeks sitting at a proper table with proper food. The dinner ends up being full with laughters and fun. We go to bed feeling truly at home.

02/09 – Rest day in Lusaka.

We wake up pretty rested, and, while we play a bit with Lila, who is very receptive to us, Aya prepares a delicious lebanese breakfast for all, including hummus, avocado and fried eggs (with Javi happily eating Gaspard’s). Having real coffee for the first time sine Malawi’s Macondo camp makes also for a great start.

While Aya takes Lila to her first swimming lessons (she still can’twalk!), we visit a local handicraft market, as recommended by Simon and Aya.

Although the material is pretty beautiful, with lots of jewelery, art pieces, textiles, and colourful kitchen items, the audience is pretty small and the vendors look quite desperate. We have to explain them that we travel by bike and we can’t afford to carry heavy stuff, but this turns out some times hard.

In a corner of the market, we sit for lunch while we plan our next steps. After a bit of research, we decide to give a go to Zimbambwe, as we have some buffer days, and it is also possible to arrive to Victoria Falls from there.

So we go shopping the things we need, and we are happy to find everything, including cooking gas canisters and good toothpaste (for any future cyclist it is located in pinnacle mall). We also manage to get some more dollars by changing zambian kwacha at a very affordable rate, what blows our mind since that was mission impossible in Malawi. We have heard that due to inflation Zimbabwe is now using US dollar as a main currency and that you can’t withdraw money: meaning you have to enter with enough cash for your whole trip! We even go to check the night club recommended by Maxim, our German friend from South Luangwa (Post N.5) , which is very close. They tell us they open at 8:30 PM, and they go on until 6 AM!

Back home, Aya and Simon tell us that they wanted to return us the cooking favor, but Simon had a workshop and got stuck in traffic, so we end up ordering Indian from a this time real Indian restaurant nearby. It turns out to be delicious, but also quite spicy, including the portion of vegetable sauce that they get for baby Lila. Very soon we realize that the poor of her is dropping tears because of it, but without crying! She is so lovely and easy going, that we joke that she must be doing that to impress the guests.

After so much food, our energy levels are focused on the digestion, and Aya and Simon laugh of the few chances we seem to have of eventually going clubbing. But we feel so at home with them that we don’t really care much. We lower our expectations and go to a bar nearby. The bar audience is made of locals between 20 and 30. We check the plates of the cars in the parking, and they all make funny acronyms, such as BAT, BAR or… BBC. We wil see these 3 consistently in Lusaka. Javi gets a mint shisha that awakens him partially, but the yawning of Gaspard, together with the relaxed atmosphere at the bar, eventually propagates, and we end up our “party day” sleeping placidly at 11 PM.

03/09 – Rest day in Lusaka.

After a bit of planning Zimbabwe in the splendid terrace of our hosts, we head to a church nearby to get the feeling of how are religious ceremonies in Zambia. We decide for a (Roman) Catholic one, as the other ones around have too sect-sounding names: Mount Zion, Church of eternal redemption. The ceremony is already started when we arrive and get we get placed by two nones in different benches. Despite hearing locals communicating in English all the time in Lusaka (Zambia has 73 local languages, so English becomes often de facto), the mass is in Nanja or Bemba, we don’t know. So we understand nothing. Our sit neighbours seem also to understand little, as they sleep carelessly, as well as a good part of the audience sitting in the back. The priest talks and talks and we decide to leave, as after 10 minutes it doesn’t deviate much from a Western service. As a curiosity, the Jesus in the cross is black, also in all biblical representations on the walls. The church has AC blasting and all doors opened.

Obviously, karma punishes our impatience another time. As soon as we leave, beautiful chorus chanting starts, and we have to conform ourselves with hearing it from the door, as we feel too stupid to hear it again.

Now it’s time to move on and, for the 1st time in the trip, we separate, as Gaspard feels like going to a bouldering hall with Aya, Lila and a neighbor while Javi wants to check the donwton and the local museum. It feels refreshing to be a bit alone and, although the museum is very simple, it offers a good overview of Zambian history and pre-history, together with some hilarious random facts about Zambian’s ethnology and recent social events. On the way back home, Javi confirms that Lusaka is a citiless city, as the center is composed of international schools, big churches, mosques and hindu temples, embassies, governmental buildings… all isolated from each other. He misses the local market by 2 kms, but he read in the guide that is a bit too hectic. Once back home, Javi enjoys some yoga and reading in the pool of the complex.

For the evening, we join Lila, Aya and Simon for a dinner with a US family that also has kids at an Italian restaurant. Pizza is quite acceptable and fair priced, and we are happy to manage to invite our hosts, despite their strong opposition (only Lebanese people will know how much you need to fight to invite them.

04/09 – Lusaka – Chirundu. 109, 874m+

We wake up and realize that Gaspard has been massacred by some mosquitoes that have appeared in the room out of the blue. We realize we have to increase the amount of spray and never relax about them. After breakfast, it turns particularly hard to leave this cozy, welcoming place, but after exchanging numbers, phones and taking some lovely pictures with our hosts, we hit the road, leaving back some of the most generous, kind people we have met.

Thanks to Simon’s insights, we have found an alternative route to Zimbabwe’s border, one that avoids the main highway, which is supposed to have very dense traffic. Leaving Lusaka at 9 AM on a Monday morning turns a bit challenging and we have to leave the road a couple of times to let trucks pass. But soon the traffic disappears and a fantastic shoulder appears, and we will enjoy nice tarmac for 60 kms, until we take the exit towards the regional road towards Chirundu. The landscape slowly becomes more hilly and very beautiful as after every up with have a stunning view on mountains, forests and valleys.

Well, regional road is an overstatement, as some sections are by no means ridabble for cars (maybe 4×4 in low range can make it). Luckily, it mostly descending, but we do face a mountain pass in the middle with 400m+, where we have to push the bike all the way through. We reach the top with Gaspard getting dizzy, and its not surprising, since it’s 2 PM and we haven’t eaten! Time has flown, and we start increasing the amount of Oreos. A shy kid appears out of nowhere and starts helping Javi push the bike, what earns him some Oreos too.

After the up, comes the down, and the descent is so steep that our hands and shoulders ake from the tension and the weight. We finally reach a sandy plateau, where now and then we have to step out and push, but its not particularly difficult. Its just the fact that we haven’t eaten, and we are short in water, so we can’t cook. We decide it’s better just to go to a lodge that was recommendded to us for canoing tours, that is only 10 km away. Javi is however tempted to just set the tent and ask villagers for water.

After crossing the Kafue river, who is full of water despite the dry season, we arrive to the lodge and a surprise is waiting for us. At the desk we see Maxim, our German friend from South Luangwa (Post N. 5), who is staying there with Lara, his girlfriend, after having returned from Zimbabwe. We can’t believe the coincidence, which is not the first one, as we keep seeing the same people all the way along!

After a shower and setting the tent, we meet them for dinner but, unfortunately, Lara is feeling sick from some food poisoning and has to retire soon to bed. We have a solid portion of pasta bolognese and fries, and despite we pay 10 Euro each, we don’t even think about it, as we haven’t eaten anything but Oreos. Carbohydrates for the people!

We spend the evening talking with Maxim about Zimbabwe’s complex situation, colonizations and decolonizations. We agree we will do a speed boat tour in the Zambezi river tomorrow, hopefully with Lara too, if she recovers. Canoing tours are also an option, but much more expensive (78$ vs 40$ for the boat tour), since a boat has to follow you for security. After 2’500 kms of cycling we also believe we may need a real rest day.

05/09 – Rest day in Chirundu.

We wake up around 7, and we see our German friends at the restaurant. They have already had breakfast and they are unfortunately going back to Lusaka, since Lara is feeling worse and had a terrible night. We share some Imodiums with them, and get saddened that we won’t be doing a last safari with them.

We enjoy the bit of coffee powder given by Maxim, but the breakfast is overpriced, and the town too far from the lodge, so we end up just having the fantastic Lebanese Gandour cookies presented by Aya. A full sponsored breakfast.

Since the boat tour is only at 2:30 – it aims to end by sunset -, we spend the morning in the remarkable swimming pool area, where we plan our next move. We have very good news: a lodge in the Zimbabwean side of Lake Kariba (in the middle of the Matusadona National Park) is happy to have us and bring us out of the camp back to the road to skip the wildlife intensive parts of the road with their pickup. The only and big issue is that they lie on the Zimbabwean side of Lake Kariba, and making it by land is much longer than taking the boat. Going by private boat is crazy expensive (520$), and the local ferry leaves the day after at 7 AM from Kariba town, 100 km and an international border away. After some discussion on their side, they tell us that an employee is going to stock up food on the boat on Thursday (in 3 days), what is much more doable. We get very excited to meet the family owning this remote and unaccessible lodge, given their generosity and kindness.

It’s slowly time to hop on the boat to visit the Zambezi, the river who gives Zambia its name, one of the most caudalous and longest in Africa, converging at the Indian Ocean in Mozambique.

We met Wimba, an experienced river man, who has been working with the owners of the lodge for 19 years. The lodge itself is 23 years old, when a white family fleeing Zimbabwe’s dangerous situation settled in Zambia. He tells us that the tour is expected to last 2 and a half hours. We were told it lasts 4 by one of the receptionists, to what he reacts with a bit of anger towards his colleague, who seems to have oversold. We hop on the boat at the lodge’s wharf, among an incredible amount of speed boats, easily 20 or 30. The warf lies on the Kafue river, who merges into the Zambezi 6 kms downstream.

The boat takes a dramatic speed that generates enough wind to refresh us from the merciless midday sun. Wimba proves to have an eagle eye and soon spots a gigantic crocodile relaxing on the bank. As soon as we stop, he jumps in the water and starts approaching the boat, under our perplex sight. Slowly but steadily, Wimba turns the boat and continues before the croc gets too close.

When we enter the Zambezi river, our eyes contemplate with awe its vast width, which must be of 500 m at many points. Dozens of hippos graze on its banks, or refresh on the water, at every corner. Every time we get closer we see them running into the water to hide. Apparently they are more scared of us that we are of them… Despite them, quite some fishermen play their luck, standing on simple canoes called mokoros.

A bit later, we get lucky and get to see from very close the whole process undertaken by a herd of 10 elephants to cross the river. We slowly see how they submerge, while the mothers help the babies, and their skin color changes drastically. We follow them through the whole process, with our jaws wide open. Superb.

We also get to see colourful bee eater birds, and fish eagles, the national bird of Zambia, from pretty close. Maxim would have loved it!

The sun starts setting and we do a stop on a precarious sand bank that Wimba calls an island. We crack a beer while we get to know him better. The return to the lodge racing on the speed boat with the horizon on fire evoques a sense of grandiosity to end up the day.

As we arrive to the lodge we contemplate a massive fire in the horizon. Zambeef, a large manufacturer of food is burning their fields in order to regenerate them. The show is very impressive and last for almost 2 hours.

06/09 – Chirundu – Siavonga, 99.7 km, 950m+

We start without breakfast because, well, we don’t have any. But we plan to arrive at the Shoprite of Chirundu town center, 10 kms away, at the opening time. We do a big shopping for the first 5-7 days in Zimbabwe, since all we hear is that is very expensive, offer is limited and we want to keep our dollars. As most of Shoprites, this one also has a quite acceptable and cheap take away area, where we get 300g of rice, 2 muffins, a banana and a mango juice for 3 Euro. Gaspard is having some stomach issues, so he saves the mango juice. We wonder if the water that was supposed to be drinkable in Gwabi lodge wasn’t.

We finally find out the origin of Shoprite: is a South African supermarket chain and it’s the biggest employer in Africa, with 155’000 employees. It’s in most of countries of Southern and Central Africa, except Zimbabwe, so we better buy lots of stuff now.

Instead of crossing in Chirundu, we cycle for 90 kms on a well paved road to Siavonga. Siavonga lies on the lake Kariba (Zambian side) but has much less traffic compared to other border posts. We would only have to cycle an additional 20 km on the next day to cross the border and meet the boat of the Musango lodge.

The heat is unbearable, so we have to run on ice cold colas. Some kids and adults cycle along us, and, as usual, they don’t like being overtaken by us, and they push it as hard as they can to avoid that. Their single speed bikes, however, can’t compete when we go on high gears, but when it’s flat, they are really fast. They seem to have a sense of pride for which they want to show the muzungu they are strong, which, fair enough, they are.

An enjoyable 300 m elevation mountain pass brings us to the town of Siavonga, the border town on the Zambian side. After so many days eating like tourists, we manage to find our beloved nsima with very tender beef meat for 1.5 Euro, as we used to do. We then go to the recommended camping: Eagle’s Rest, for 10 Euro per person per night. As all others in Zambia, this one also has a swimming pool, that we enjoy during the sunset, before getting back to cooking our infamous spaghetti with tomato sauce.

Tomorrow, we have 20 kms to the pickup point. There are many unknowns and many things that we will define on the go in Zimbabwe. We are excited about this chaotic country and what it has to offers us, yet we are respectful and are committed to play it safe. We only say “bye for now” to Zambia, as we will re-enter in Victoria Falls again. This country has stolen our heart and has created some of the best cycling memories, so we are happy that our paths will cross again.

Days cycled in this post (total): 9 days, out of 44.

Kms cycled in this post (total): 640 km, out of 2568km

Elevation gained in this post (total): 6173m+, out of 26,500m+