MZUZU

Have you ever heard of a town called Mzuzu? Well, don't worry, if you asked me this morning I would have also said "never", but since I am writing this blog from Mzuzu, let me tell you about this pleasant town.

Mzuzu is Malawi's third biggest town and was such a nice surprise. It has clean and tree covered streets, relatively modern shops, banks, ATMs and because it is situated at an altitude of 1300 meters, the temperature is much cooler than by the lake. It has also far less bugs and humidity, making it nice to walk around without having to fight flies, mosquitoes while sweating like a pig.
Today's 136 km stage took us back to the African plateau. We did plenty of climbing, starting with a 700 meter gain over a short and steep 10 km stretch. The climb was hard but pleasant as it got cooler with the altitude. At half way through the climb, we encountered this really beautiful waterfall just meters away from the road side. I did not need much convincing to get off my bike and jump into this refreshing natural shower. Great fun and great way to cool down!
The rest of the ride was full of little climbs but it was also full of coke stops, so we had no problems of dehydration. It seems that as we progress south, we are finding more and more luxuries like cold drinks. Today most coke stops had electricity and therefore cold drinks. This is new for us. We have gone at times days without finding a cold coke... So having the luxury of picking when you want to stop for a cold drink is a treat we had forgotten.
We have now left lake Malawi and are heading for Lilongwe, the capital. We rode most of the day going up a beautiful valley covered with African trees and tobacco plantations along the hills. There is very little traffic here, making it really pleasant for us. Just plenty of people walking along the road and all so friendly, it is really true that Malawians are the friendliest people in Africa. Riding through Malawi on a bicycle is the perfect opportunity to realise how nice people are here. Everybody salutes you and wishes you a pleasant journey. It feels really good, I must say.

Gabriele, Jose and myself rode together, we made it to the finish line before 14h00 so being in a city for a change we decided to look for a good restaurant and have a huge portion of meat. That's exactly what we did. You can see we are now approaching meat eating countries, T- Bone was on the menu! After ordering and eating an insane amount of meat, we decided to come back to camp site early as we heard that tomorrow is even harder with over 2000 meters of climbing.

                                                The clean and tree covered streets of Mzuzu

                                  At a coke stop, I came accross this hand written advert outside
                                  the shop which I thought was worth putting on the blog...

                                                          Eastern procession on the road

                                 These workers busy cutting the grass along the road side offered
                                 me to share their lunch, a maize stem that was boiled in water.
                                 It is actually delicious, especially when you are hungry

This potatoe looking root is produced everywhere here in Malawi

                                         Eric and Eric passing local people during the climb.
                                         Here everybody carries something on its head

                                                            Beautiful little huts evreywhere

                                                                   Tobacco plantations

                                       As I stopped to take a picture, these two kids run towards
                                       me and were very intrigued by my camera

                                                                    he he, I love that one...

                                       During our big climb today we passed this nice waterfall.
                                       The temptation was too high, I jumped into it and enjoyed
                                       the best open air shower in Malawi... I only noticed the
                                       number 113 painted on the road. (it is also my race number)
                                       when viewing on my laptop

                                                                    The Mzuzu pharmacy

WELCOME TO MALAWI

We are now entering the 6th country since we departed on January 16 in Cairo. Malawi is a tiny place, the size of a French province and famous for its lake which is the third biggest in Africa. With a length of about 600 km, lake Malawi covers 20% of the country. It feels more like a small sea with sand beaches and big waves. Malawi is highly populated with 12 million people for such a small country and is one of the poorest in the world.


Border crossing between Tanzania and Malawi was a pleasant surprise, easy and efficient. When you read stories of past travellers going through borders, it seems that parts of Africa are starting to get their act right in terms of border crossing, at least on some of the big routes. It was the easiest and fastest border process so far in the trip and within minutes, Gabriel and I were enjoying our first pedal strokes in Malawi.

The first thing that surprises you is the amount of children along the road. It immediately reminded us of Ethiopia. Malawi is poor, very poor and it does not take long to understand it. These were the first cases of malnutrition we witnessed. Half naked children running towards us with their big tummy and tiny bodies. They all screamed "gimme money, gimme money". Some of these kids are pretty exited, almost aggressive insisting in getting our attention and running at us for begging. So we immediately had to switch back to Ethiopia mode where you pay a lot of attention to these kids and try to avoid them physically as they run straight at you, making it dangerous for you and for them. The best, like in Ethiopia is to engage in loud "hello hello, how are you?" conversation while waiving at them. This seems to make them happy and often stops them for running too close to the bike. You can see that these kids are desperate. They are wearing dirty rugs and look pretty filthy. The ratio adult to kids is just as shocking, so many kids and so few adults, especially old people, there are hardly any. The life expectancy here is only 42, so that may explain.

The other things that we could not miss were the humidity and the heat. We had just descended over 1500 meters and were now at an altitude of about 400 meters. It felt like being in a sauna. I was sweating so much that my cycling shirt felt as heavy as a wet mop. The vegetation is so dense that unless there is a rice field, you can't see far. It is green everywhere and the noise from the millions of insects that live here complete the exotic ambiance. Talking of insects, we are now in the most risky malaria area and have Ben told to be careful with bites. Easier said than done, these flying things are just everywhere and if it is not a kid trying to steal your bike computer, it is a mozzie trying to suck your blood when you stop for taking a picture. Here the kids are so poor that they do make desperate attempt to grab things from you. At one of my many photo stops, I got surrounded by a group of 5 or 6 young boys. Nothing new, as it is always the case along these roads, but suddenly they all tried to grab my camelbak and steal it. Luckily it is strapped around my shoulders and they could not get it, but it was a good warning, we are now in a "grab and run" territory where any loot is worth a lot to these desperate children.

Malawi is also full of wonderful people. Most adults Malawian I met the next day were friendly and easy to approach. As a matter of fact, Malawians approach you. They are all very keen to find out where we are going on our fancy bicycles. Malawi is bicycle country, there are few cars here but plenty bicycles. They all look like they come out of the same factory, which they probably do. I investigated and found out that the Malawians living here are all purchasing their "made in India" bicycles from Tanzania for about 100 dollars a piece, a fortune for a Malawian. Here bicycles are used to transport anything from live pigs to huge stacks of grass, full water tanks, wood, etc etc... Bicycle taxi is also the most common way of transport as it costs the equivalent of 30 cents for a short ride. A bicycle taxi can take up to 3 persons for that price. This makes it very easy for us to meet the locals as they love riding next to us and engage in conversation while we ride. I suppose that the guys in the front of the race are so fast that they miss completely this opportunity to engage with the Malawians.

I am riding slowly enough for them, so let me tell you about a young man named "Maroun" who rode with me the first 35 km of yesterday morning between camp and the city of Karunga. Maroun was on his way to town on his bike, an 80 km return trip like he does almost everyday to purchase food and other items for his family. Maroun is 18 years old, he is a young farmer. He was 16 and had to drop out of school two years ago when his father passed away (most likely from AIDS as he described it as a long illness) and since that has been in charge of the family farm. Being the oldest son of 4 he inherited half the family farm, so exactly 1,5 Ha whilst the remaining 1,5 Ha went to his 3 other brothers. Maroun's English was good and he was already speaking like an middle age adult, obviously life had forced him to take short cuts in his teen years.

Maroun explained to me that life as a farmer was good at the moment. He cultivates rice and maize which bring monthly revenues of about 2 to 3 hundred dollar plus gives him and his family enough food for each day. He was quite happy about the fact that the price of rice had gone up, but he also told me that his biggest expense were chemicals which prices were also going up fast. Maroun told me that his biggest fear is drought with disastrous consequences especially for rice. It takes him 6 months from start to harvest for rice, so Maroun and his family are living on a 6 months plan and the hope of no drought. He told me that he only wanted 3 children and that his wife was already expecting their first baby soon. Maroun was a brave young man who had me thinking a lot yesterday after I met him. I wondered how many 18 years old kids in Europe would have been as matured and as courageous as Maroun. Life is not easy here and meeting him had just reminded me once again how lucky I was to have been born in rich Europe were I had received free and good education for as long as I wished.(actually, I am the wrong example, I didn't wish it for that long...)

The 120 km long stage was magic, giving us again amazing landscapes and allowing us to meet so many new people. Malawi is really an easy place to make contacts. The roads are full of people who are either walking or riding bicycles. The road sides here are also used for many other purposes than just a road. All along the roads you see white patches of maize being spread on the tarmac for drying. You also have plenty of women using the road side to dry their goat cheese on the sun. In between are often cows tied with a rope to a tree and children playing. The Malawian roads are full of life sounds and smells, they never get boring it seems.

Today I have been enjoying a quality rest day along the shore of lake Malawi in a tiny lodge which has only 6 huts. It is run and owned by Marc, a very friendly English guy. A couple of years ago Marc had the surprise to meet Ewan Mcgregor and Charlie Boorman from "The long way down". They stopped here for a night and loved his place so much that they stayed 3 days. Well, unfortunately I am on a bicycle so 3 days is not possible, but I have enjoyed my rest day here and have recharged my batteries for the next 500 km taking us to the capital city of Malawi, Lilongwe. We will be there in 4 riding days. We have been told that we are now going back to the African plateau and this will mean a 1000 meter climb in our first 10 km tomorrow morning. So I'll have double desert tonight....

                                    In Malawi, they transport anything on bicycles, even bicycles...

                                        This bar offers "Whiteman TV shows" as entertainment...

                                             The fishing boats are made from one tree trunk

                                   The kids were very exited by our presence and by my camera.
                                   The young boys immediately started to display some warrior moves

                                       My bike happlily resting along the shore of lake Malawi

                                               Local kids very exited all wanted to be in the shot
                           
                       Tired, but happy... I have finaly reached lake Malawi holding to my EFI status

                                       I managed to take this shot of this young boy just before
                                      50 more rushed into the scene and tried to be on the photo as well...

                                                  The lake has fishes of all shapes and sizes

                                     Fishermen collecting the fishes of the nets before selling
                                     them straight on the beach to awaiting women. The
                                     women process the fishes immediately on site

                                  These sardine looking fishes are called Lusipias. They dry them
                                  and smoke them for conservation purpose

                                           Woman preparing lunch with freshly caught fish

                                    As we walked towards the fishermen, a crowd of kids
                                   started following us. These kids are vey poor and as you
                                   can see some of them suffer from bad nutrition

                               If we didn't see pigs up to now, we are suddelny surrended by them

                                 Coke stops are a bit like in Ethiopia here, within minutes crowds
                                of kids surround us and we have to be on the watch for our bicycles.
                                This morning two bike computers were stolen at camp

                                  Finally a bit of quietude. This is Sangilo sanctuary along the shore
                                  of lake Malawi. Ewan Mc Gregor and Charley Boorman stoped
                                  here three days during their "Long Way Down" I will enjoy my
                                  rest day in the very same hut where they stayed...

GOOD BYE TANZANIA

Our last day in Tanzania was spectacular, nothing less than that! It started with a 20 km climb out of Mbeya browsing through tea and banana plantations. Mbeya is one of the few Malaria free areas in Tanzania because of the altitude it stands at, 1900 meters. But to get out of Mbeya, we had to climb to 2400 meters going through thick mist and switch backs. It felt like riding in the French Alps on a cold summer morning. Soon enough, we were above the clouds and as the sun unleashed its burning powers at us, within a few minutes the temperature soared to over 30 degrees with a 100% humidity in the air. Everybody stopped in the climb to take pictures and remove the long sleeve shirts. In Africa, riding conditions can change so drastically within minutes from cold misty to burning heat. I had planned for getting through the clouds before putting on the sun cream. This is part of a daily ritual by now. In the morning as you prepare yourself and your bike, two creams are not to be forgotten, the shammy cream for your bud and the sun cream for your skin. You forget one of these two and you pay for days... But today, I decided to put the sun cream after my climb since the sweat makes it very unpleasant. It was underestimating how soon the sun would hit us. So, half way through the climb, I had to get off my bike and go through the process of covering every exposed inch of my body to the sun with cream. The problem with sweat and sun cream is that the two tend to melt into one salty liquid that burns, especially the one that runs down your face into your eyes.

When you stop half way through such a long climb, you lose your rhythm and I was quite unhappy with my decision not to apply the sun cream before leaving; I won't do that again.

There so many details that you have to remember each and every morning before starting your ride, from loading your energy drinks into the water bottles (that you have hopefully remembered to clean immediately after arrival yesterday, otherwise there is rot waiting for you in there) to resetting you bike computer (which you have also hopefully remembered to charge last night), to having taken down the directions for the day and so on and so on. That is why the morning routine at TDA takes an hour and a half. From packing your tent to queuing for breakfast and queuing for loading your bags in the trucks. If you wake up late, then you are in a hurry and then you forget something. This morning, I forgot my cycling gloves.... Stupid, but painful as the result is blisters... Yeah, typical story, I misplaced them, and they ended up in the wrong bag and by the time I went to the start line, I realised they were missing. Too late to go back to the truck and reopen my locker, the trucks are also on tight schedules and were about to leave...

Once we reached the top of the climb; we rolled up and down for kilometers passing endless tea plantations. This is the main road linking Dar es Salaam to the other countries situated south of Tanzania, so it is like a giant open air fruit supermarket where farmers display all their product along the road waiting for buyers to stop and load their merchandise off to the big city. I have never seen such a display of bananas in my life. I didn't even know they came in so many shapes and colours. I even saw some purple red ones. They stack them next to the road in huge piles waiting for buyers.

After reaching the top of a last hill, suddenly I could not believe what was lying in front of my eyes! There it was, the enormous Rift Valley with a giant lake at its bottom 1300 meters bellow me... Lake Malawi! My first view of lake Malawi will be stuck in my mind for ever. It was one of these moments in life that gives you goose pimples. Wao! Africa had once again managed to bring tears of joy into my eyes. I had pedaled 7000 kilometers to get here and I was proud, I was happy, I was overwhelmed by the satisfaction of having sweated my way from Cairo to see this. Lake Malawi, the legendary lake Malawi.... Here I was, riding bicycle heading downhill at full speed enjoying the warm wind blowing at me and feeling full of joy and excitement.


One last stroke of pedal and we already were reaching the border post... Malawi here we are!
 

                                        Me in a tea plantation on the last hills of south Tanzania.
                                        We can now see the norhtern shore of lake Malawi in the
                                        far distance behind me

               Tea plantations are covering the hills of this hot and humid region of southern Tanzania

                                     When it is not tea, it is bananas here. This is the main road to
                                     Dar es Salaam, so the farmers can sell their bananas directly
                                     along this busy road

                   Not quite sure what was the danger, but I am happy to leave the "danger zone"....

                                                                 Maize drying in the sun

                                    We saw this everywhere along the road, women scrapping
                                    the maize grains of the stems by hand

                                                     Africa and its happy faces.... everywhere....

                                            Here it is, the fibre optic cable that will change
                                            the course of communication in this region

                             We have been riding along this massively long trench for 3 days now,
                             and everywhere, the same, hundreds of cheap hands digging in front
                             of amused children

                                  OK, guys, next time your children complain about getting more
                                  fancy toys, show them this picture....

                           Tanzania, beautiful Tanzania, all the way to the border we have just had
                           amazing landscapes... Lake Malawi in the horizon and a new country
                           waiting for TDA riders...

                                      These blisters are from a beetle called the "blister beetle"
                                      It pisses on your ankles and creates this skin reaction....
                                      Within a few days the blister eventualy pops and leaves
                                       nasty skin damages...

                                    So, you here is the mysterious blister beetle victim identified...
                                    he took a picture of himself with his wife in the background... Thanks Andre....

LAST DAY IN TANZANIA

As I am spending my last night in Tanzania, time has come again to draw a few lines of conclusion about the fifth country of the tour. Well, as you have seen on this blog, Tanzania is a beautiful country. It is the Africa you see on National Geographic reportage's. I enjoyed Tanzania and have definitely added the "must come back" mark next to it. Tanzania was a very positive surprise, it gave me a good impression. I think that it has great potential for future development and for anybody interested in a visit, I would recommend not to miss the central part of the country which offers some of the most magnificent landscapes in Africa.

The disparities between rich and poor are big here and it is definitely an issue, just like it is in most African countries. I was impressed to see that the kids we met were are all going to school, all wearing clean uniforms. I was also impressed by the kindness of Tanzanians, especially in the rural areas.
Tanzania suffers from a lack of infrastructures, but roads and buildings are being erected all over the places we went through, and a fair amount of foreign investment seems to be taking place. The touristic region around Arusha are already looking very fast growing.
Over the last 3 days, we have been yo-yoing between highlands plateau situated at an altitude of 1900 meters and large flat valleys lying at about 800 meters bellow that. So, in cycling terms, it means we have gone up and down and up and down, and .... The valleys are hot and humid with plenty of exotic fruit farms as well as rice plantations while the highlands are much colder but also very humid, mostly covered with planted forest made of Pine trees and Eucalyptus trees.

All the riders who had left us in Arusha for holidays in Zanzibar or for climbing Kilimanjaro rejoined us in Iringa. Then we were told that 11 new sectional riders were also joining, so it means that the group is now about 80 people TDA staff and local riders included... So we went from a reduced team of about 40 riders to a super size group of over 70 riders since we left Iringa. This means that the queues for lockers are now worst than ever. The new sectional are much slower than us at loading their lockers. We have 2 and a half month practise whilst these guys are just as efficient as we were in Cairo... The holiday makers who went to Zanzibar for 10 days are all looking brown and fat. It is amazing how quickly they have managed to put some weight back on, whilst the rest of us has lost further weight in this very hard and long 7 days off road section.

This fifth section of TDA is the shortest and easiest of all. It will take us to the capital of Malawi, Lilongwe. It is fully paved and does not have any major difficulties. So I have to say that after what we have gone through so far, the first 3 days of this new section have felt like days off. Good, because my knees are still a problem and I need to take it easy. Well, even if I took it easy, I made it to camp so early that I had time for afternoon naps, a new undiscovered thing for me. We are doing days of 100 to 120 km with around 1000 meters of climbing each day, but it feels so easy after last week.Riding on tar is really so much easier than on corrugated dirt.
Last night at camp I managed to injure myself in the most stupid way. One thing about riding through these regions of Africa is that if you hurt yourself, even a small cut, it takes weeks to heal. Some riders are still wearing plasters from injuries they got over a month ago. So you don't want to have any bruises or skin cuts. That is why I have Ben so careful while riding my bike and have been fortunate not to have any falls so far. Well, last night while we were have our locker 9 meeting, I was using my toilet seat as a chair since the TDA is short of them, especially with the new enlarged group and as I bended forward to get a whisky shot from Tony, my seat collapsed. I managed to save the whiskey, but not my right achille on which the plastic toilet seat top fell with me on it. As I stood up, I saw blood spilling out of the achille and a large piece of skin hanging out of it... What a stupid way to injure myself.... Anyway, I got the TDA nurse to patch it with an antibiotic cream and a large piece of plaster. My problem over the next few days will be to prevent any infection, and it is not really nice as the missing piece of skin is exactly where the back of my cycling shoe comes in contact with the foot.
Tonight was great, we are in Mbewa, the last city before the Malawian border and because we arrived early, it has almost been like a rest day. Ruben, a young and sympathetic German rider had his first race day victory yesterday and celebrated in style tonight by inviting everybody for free beers. Needless to say that we all accepted his offer...
The kids along the road are funny in this region, like everywhere, they all scream "Mzungu, Mzungu" when they see us, but they also try a few words of English they have learn at school. You can see that the paved road immediately has an influence on people. As we rode over 700 km on dirt roads, the kids we met along were shy and rarely engaged verbally with us whilst here along this main road they are totally different. They scream at us and are so much more extroverts. You can see what they are been taught at school as entire villages say "good morning teacher" as we pass, whilst others say "hello madame" or "hello daddy" (he, he... I can explain that one...)
The Muslim influence is also being felt here in the south, many adults answer "Salam" instead of "jumbo"
OK, bedtime for me now, more from Malawi next.... Tomorrow we are descending back to almost sea level... First time since we left Cairo... We are probably going to feel supercharged with so much oxygen in our lungs...

                                             This region of southern Tanzania is producing rice

                               Beautiful pyramide shaped hills are commun in this part of Tanzania

                              Kids fishing in a small stream.. They actualy caugtht a catfish in front
                              of me with this small net

                              This is Wilson, he is one of the hundreds of workers hand digging this
                              1000 km long chanel which will host a fibre optic cable for high speed
                              internet.Wilson gets paid 2000 shillings a day for this job, which is the
                              equivalent of 1 euro...

                                                             Small shops along the road

                                        Today we are climbing back to these highlands plateaux

                                                Gabriele at a coke stop entertaining the local kids

                                   Me and the local kids at one of the many coke stops of the day

                                                                  Hardy smiling as always

                                   As you can see on this photo, it not just coke stops any more,
                                   as we are getting closer to South Africa, things are slowly
                                   improving... Here we even got cold beers, so we were not
                                  shy despite the last 20 km to go and a few hills before camp...

                               The brotherhood of locker 9 in full action at camp celebrating
                               Marcel's birthday....

                                                      Gabriele arriving at todays forest camp