Zambia see you in September!
Today departure from the castle, a plentiful breakfast, the eggs, delicious, which I eat countlessly, I want to reach Mzuzu and I have 75 km of gravel in front of me, before finding the tar and I have to pass the border in Mqocha. The ‘troupe’ will film a last Zambian video.
On the road to the border there is the bicycles’ festival, there are so many transporting everything and anything, cases of beer, an armchair, chickens, people, tomatos, cabbages, eggs, … As I am throwing myself at good speed I am reached by a bicycle with an empty cage on the carrier, George is riding it wearing a pair of giant Disk Jockey headphones, which just like them he puts around his neck when he starts talking to me about his ducks’ breeding farm. He has many ducks, and he gives some ducklings to ‘subcontractors’ who feed them until they are ready to be sold. When the ducks are ready George gets some back and leaves the others to the contracted farmer. A barter. Also this is business in Africa.
After the last goodbyes with the ‘troupe’, I left along the small gravel road, maximum 3 meters wide, going to Mzimba, here the bicycles increased, it seemed to be on a belt-way used only by bicycles. The attention needed is the same of the Milan belt-way because the road is sandy and if you leave the tracks of those who passed before you end up sanded, you miss each other by a hair’s breadth, and nobody gives way to others happily. In general in these days I did not have the chance to slipstream other cyclists because those who move from village to village go fast and see me, the bwana, as an adversary to outdistance. Those who cover long distances are usually overloaded and go slowly. Today for some kilometers I was behind three girls, they overtake me at a good speed, the first one, with a bottom which occupies the same space of my side panniers, pedals with energyand you can see she knows the road well, the third one pedals very agile pushing her pumps on the pegs because the pedals are no longer there and she transports a basket full of big fried pancakes which she will sell somewhere, then they stop to drink from one of the many hand pupms I met.
Towards the end of the gravel the uphills become demanding, both for the gradient and the rocks which infest it, on one of these uphills of an impossible gradient a child runs after me to greet me and take a picture. In the following downhill, while I was engaging a harder gear, a sudden and deadly noise , breaks the quietness of the forest, immediately the bicycle halts abruptly and the pedals are stuck. The chain is entagled like a crazy elastic, I look under the right pannier and I see the gear broken in two … after a couple of tries of impossible repair, I would kick the bicycle, then I start to walk on the uphills pushing the bicycle to then go down on the bicycle withot pedaling until the force of inertia allows me.
At the end of the gravel, after a few kilometers pushing, out of nothing appears a lorry which was coming from Lundazi, we load the bicycle with the good Samaritan driver on some bags of maize, and we go to a friend of the driver at the market of Mzuzu, where we find a similar piece to mine, but not too much, and a bicycle mechanic of good will who works until after 6 when the market is already closed. We worked at following approximations and at the end the behind gear is made up of pieces from the new and the old. He has assured me that the bicycle will last long. Hopefully at least until Nairobi.
I found accommodation by chance because the one I had chosen was fully booked, at Mzoozoozoo a nice place for espatriates and not, where I came across also an Italian whose cousin I had met in Lusaka!
Africa, Zambia and Malawi in particular are the best places in the world where to have a mechanical problem, a solution is always found, and somebody willing to help you is always there.
You cannot always do what you want, or always push on the accelerator!
Lundazi S12° 85.496’ E 33° 20.196’ – Mzuzu S 11° 45.807’ E 34° 01.513’
157 km