Part Six - Back To Civilisation
We left Lilongwe in between rain showers after first trying to find somewhere to change money. We couldnt find anywhere, but thought we had enough to get to Blantyre. On the way south we passed a border post to Mozambique. We'd been going fairly quickly, so decided to risk it and head to Tete over the border instead of going to Blantyre. Our guide book didn't say anything about changing money, but we were hopeful.
At first glances Mozambique was excellent. The guard at the border post gave us a seven day transit visa. Actually she gave us a three day visa, and then upon our asking she wrote us a note extending it for seven days. The lingua franca of Mozambique is portuguese Luckily its similar to spanish which Danny can speak, so we didn't have to many language difficulties - apart from the odd strange look.
Our first night we arrived at a small town around dusk. We'd just been caught out in the rain and must have looked suitably dejected because the local missionaries took pity on us and gave us a place to stay (along with coffee and chocolate biscuits!). We went out for dinner and were treated to some fantastic portuguese style cuisine. A few beers later and we were vowing to extend our stay in this wonderful country.
The next couple of days were spent going down into the Zambezi valley to the town of Tete. Coming into the town we had to cross the Zambezi river. An impressive sight, it marked our departure from east africa, and our arrival in southern africa. Tete is an old colonial town that in days past must have been quite something. Theres still an air of faded glory about the place if you can ignore the bullet holes and ruined buildings - reminders of the civil war which finshed in the early nineties.
We tried to extend our visas so we could follow the main highway south to Maputo. At the immigration office the guy was not impressed with our piece of paper granting us seven days. He said the border guards didnt have the right to do that and we were only allowed three days. Seeing as how this was day four in Mozambique he told us that we'd overstayed our visas, there was no way he would change them to tourist visas, and that we were going to have to pay a fine at the border (100 quid for each day overstayed). Needless to say there was a bit of panic in the kiwi camp. We would have bailed for the border straight away but needed to replace our tyres. Just as an aside issue, if your ever thinking of cycling through africa then bring a spare set of tyres. That's because the only ones you can buy here (South Africa excluded) are these dodgy indian jobs. If the walls hold on them then you'll get maybe 800ks, if not then the shortest we got was 130ks before the tyre was destroyed!
After a hard ride we got to the border. We'd thought up all sorts of excuses to get around the fine, but luckily and to our relief the border guards were cool and didnt charge us a cent. Entering Zimbabwe was an experience. The border guards were friendly, but made us fill out forms detailing everything we had - down to our toothrushes, and spare buttons. They're trying to stop smuggling - for our stay in Zim we lived in fear of losing a button and being charged when we left.
Zim was great. The land of plenty. Just past the border there was a supermarket with everything we'd dreamed of. We wandered around the aisles in awe for a bit. We'd been worried about coming to Zim because of the dodgy politics wed been hearing about on the beeb (bbc) for the last few months. As often happens though, the media made it sound a lot worse than it is. People, both black and white, were very freindly (ecxept for the odd war vet), although the talk on everyones lips was of the way the country was going to the dogs.
We stayed in Mutare (in the eastern highlands) for a few days chilling out at Anne Bruces backpackers. Anne is a groovy lady. While we were there, she made sure we had bottomless breakfasts and plenty of videos to watch. Saw Casablanca and The Godfather for the first time fantastic. Also it was at about this time that the first stories of flooding Mozambique started to appear in the news. In the end it was lucky visas weren't extended.
We left Mutare feeling charged and heading down through the Lowveld to Masvingo. Just before the town we spent an afternoon checking out the ruins of Greater Zimbabwe. The greatest sub-saharan stone structures in africa. Built between twelve hundered and fourteen hundred AD - pretty impressive.
From Masvingo we headed south to Beitbridge on the border with South Africa. The road was fantastic. A bridge had been washed out about halfway down so there was hardly any traffic - almost like a dedicated cycle lane. In the evenings we could see herds of Eland in the bush beside the road.
We stashed the bikes for a couple of days and caught the train to Victoria Falls. The weather was bad the whole time we were there so we never got to do any of the touristy things on offer. Too much water for rafting, too much rain for flying, and what kiwi's going to want to do a bungy jump outside NZ anyway. While testing out the rain in the forest next to the falls we bumped into elephant though. It got quite excited, but not as excited as us. You could practically see flames behind us as we backtracked.
Got back to Beitbridge and crossed over into South Africa. You could notice a definite change for the worse in the racial attitudes of people here - both black and white. The countryside is awesome though and in white areas it's like being back in the west. You can get everything. We finally managed to get a decent set of tyres.
Cycling south we passed through the Blyde River Canyon. Incredible scenery but some tough riding to get up on the escarpment. From the town of Nelspruit we temporarily traded in the bikes for a hire car and went to visit Kruger National Park. It was great checking out the animals from the safety of a car for a change. Kruger is really well set up for tourists. Each evening we'd check into a camping ground, set up the tent next to the fence, cook up a braai (barbie), crack open a cold tinnie and check out the hyenas cruising past on the other side of the fence.
We saw heaps of animals in Kruger. The standard lions, elephants, giraffe, zebra, rhino, etc. and also lots of birds and smaller creatures. Almost forgot to mention the monkeys and Baboons. The younger ones liked playing chicken with the car. They seemed to know you wouldnt run them over so wouldn't budge until a bigger one came along and clipped them around the ears!
We've now come down into Kwazulu-Natal. On our way into Piet Retief we met another white guy cycling along and got chatting. He offered to put us up for the night. We ended up having a few to many beers with him and his mates. A great time - thanks Stan and freinds.
Were in Pietermaritzburg now waiting for the bikes to be fixed before heading south to East London through the Transkei. Arriving late last night, we asked a fella if he knew a hotel nearby. He gave us directions and off we set. After checking in we headed out for a meal. While we were walking around looking for a restaurant we noticed a lot of locals giving us some pretty dodgy looks - almost like they were sizing us up. As it turned out we were stayig in the most dodgy part of town at the most dodgy hotel in that part of town. It was great watching the cars that stopped at lights giving each other a cars length of space so they could get away quickly in the case of carjacking!
Anyway, we survived and moved in the morning. Only two weeks to Capetown and the end of our little journey.
All the best
Cheers
Danny and Jonny
