Lusaka to Livingstone

Thursday April 10 to Saturday April 12 - Three riding days from Lusaka to Livingstone - they say that the total of 495 km makes this the longest three-day distance of the Tour d'Afrique although my arithmetic says it is about the same as the first three days last week out of Lilongwe.

Either way, it's a lot of time in the saddle, even with a favourable wind and relatively flat terrain. The best we did on Saturday's 160-km stretch was 6:45 'in-motion' and a total time (including lunch, a coke stop, and very few photos) of 8 hours. That's about as fast as we've been. Other days may have shorter distances but more hills, so slower and just as long and fatiguing.

Day after day like that is what has become really exhausting. One rest day in six (that is about the average) just isn't enough for our old bodies to fully recover, so occasionally we'll ride only half the day and hitch a ride on the lunch truck - that's what we did on Friday.

Thursday we had a 12-km convoy through Lusaka and its rush-hour traffic, here seen approaching a rather striking pedestrian bridge arrangement.

There is a very energetic film crew accompanying the Tour this year. Benny and Brian clambered up the pedestrian overpass to get a vantage point for filming the convoy.

Benny is the leader of the crew, here on one of the support vehicles photographing me photographing him.

The third member of the film crew is Christian, here riding a rather unique bicycle that the crew built to give them a better perspective for filming - it is rather illustrative of the creative and innovative talent that they have, not to mention energy and athletic ability to ride it and move along far faster then we'll ever do. This bike elicits lots of attention and oohs and aahs from the local population when these guys ride through town.

Back to the departure from Lusaka - we mentioned before that it is more modern than most of where we've been - here we pass a shopping mall that could easily be found anywhere in the west.

AIDS is a major problem in many of the places through which we have passed. This sign was at the side of the main road as we approached the centre of Lusaka - we'll let it speak for itself. Maybe we could erect something similar on the subject of panhandlers and homeless street people in Toronto.

We headed south out of Lusaka, passing modern car dealerships, and then into the country.

About 50 km south was the town of Kafue which had a mix of industry and agriculture.

The Kafue river flows towards the Zambesi river. Although we are now in the dry season, we know that there has been flooding in the north of the Zambia, and the river here appears to be quite swollen.

We came across a national monument as we climbed westward out of the Kafue valley.

We were in the Munali Pass where Livingstone, travelling east from Angola to Mozambique, reportedly first saw the Kafue River.

His view must have been similar to this, looking back at where we'd been.

No road back then, and probably more difficult travelling than avoiding the washed out part of the road in the picture. The road was much worse than this nearer Livingstone. We saw them filling potholes with earth from the side of the road. Truck traffic in places had resorted to driving on the unpaved shoulder (either side of the road) for extended distances the road itself was so bad. On our bicycles, we could often pick our way through and avoid holes.

After going through the Munali Pass, we were on a plateau with a mix of farm land...

and forest...

We saw signs saying that there was also a nickel project. Zambia also has copper resources in the north.

This was the typical scenery for the three days... pleasant if nondescript and not much to disgtinguish it from many places in Canada or Europe.

Weather was sunny and we had colourful sunsets.

I was taking the sunset photo, this lady asked wtheir picture, so I did. The kids seemed rather in awe of the group of us pitching tents in a now-abandoned campground about a kilometer off the highway. I wasn't sure if they recognized themselves when I showed them the picture.

Sunrise the next morning was equally colourful and we had an audience to watch us pack up and ride off.

Our route paralleled a still-active railway track although I wouldn't count on the warning lights or guardsman to tell me if a train was coming.

We have both a doctor and a nurse on the support staff for this trip. Irmy Bush, the mother of Doctor Luke, participated as a rider in the Tour d'Afrique a couple of years ago but had to abandon when she contracted malaria. She has since become active in the fight against malaria and has personally raised money for mosquito netting. She rode on this segment of this year's Tour and brought 1500 mosquito nets for donation to specific aid organizations, here delivering 500 nets to World Vision in Choma.

North of Livingstone, we passed three Morris Oxfords driving north from South Africa or a charitable mission.

We finally got into Livingstone on Saturday afternoon. The main road curved and went over a hill in the middle of town and suddenly we had this view of mist rising from Victoria Falls, about 15 km away.

Two rest days here in Livingstone. As this is being written, we haven't yet visited the Falls, so this will be in the next blog.