The Heart of Darkness

We had decided that tackling Lusaka as early as possible on a Saturday morning was a better plan than trying to navigate it late on a Friday afternoon, during peak hour traffic ahead of a 4-day weekend.  It was probably the right decision, but it was still a culture shock.  After weeks of motorcycle heaven on the empty pristine roads of the Northern Cape, Southern Namibia and Botswana, the insanity of the Tenors meeting the oily, potholed, twisted, truck-infested, diesel smoke belching and rutted roads leading into Lusaka is difficult to describe.  We stopped for a breather and a 10am Nandos chicken and chips and pressed on through, filtering between trucks, busses and matatus, we were eventually on the other side, shaken but not stirred.

The Pathfinder

Just which one of us is abnormal?

For those of you who know me, you will have heard this before:  Africa is being destroyed by charcoal production.  Last year when Pete and I rode our bikes from Nairobi to Diani we went through vast tracts of land that had previously been covered by canopies of trees, but are now barren landscapes. 100-year old Acacias are chopped down and sold for $20 worth of charcoal. Zambia needs to take note – the drive from Lusaka to Ndola was in a haze of charcoal smoke, with charcoal trading posts pock-marking the landscape and selling tons and tons of cheap charcoal.  It is amazing to see, and if left unchecked it will lead to deforestation, upset the rainfall, and destroy the countries agricultural potential.

Charcoal destruction

The road took us north to Ndola, the capital of the Copper Belt, the heart of Zambia’s economy.  We had been warned that the traffic would be heavy, and that our trip coincided with the annual agricultural fair, but our trip up passed relatively smoothly, with just a few terrifying moments to add some spice.  We arrived in Ndola in the late afternoon and navigated our way through the roundabouts to Alistair and Gail’s house, a rambling cavernous structure which Gail was quick to point out had stairs in the wrong places, bedrooms that were too big and bathrooms that were too small.  Alistair and Gail were excellent hosts, friends of Gary and Debbie, they moved to Ndola about a year back and we were their first visitors.  We were wined, dined and entertained, ribs, a rack of chops, beef filet, beer, wine, whiskey!  Alistair helped us with our route planning for the next few days, he’s driven most of this part of the world, and if he hasn’t, he knows someone who has.  Local knowledge is golden. A big Thank You to Gail and Alistair!

Spot the sofa accessory

Bringing Bains to Africa!

The next morning the Three Tenors carried the Telly Tubbies north, we had decided that we would brave the Congo, the shortest journey across to the northern part of Zambia.  We were all a bit apprehensive, Pete had spoken to a German who told us it was impossible and we were stupid to even try it.  But Alistair assured us that it would be a relatively painless road.  What he hadn’t mentioned was the border officials!  We slipped out of Zambia as easily as my feet slip out of my boots after a long day’s ride.  Our entry into the Congo was immediately greeted by an official in an official’s hat.  He blabbered away in French – sure that he would confuse and disarm us – but our secret weapon, Peter P, put his best Québécoise to use, and blabbered back at our Congolese official.  We had been told that the transit visa would cost us $40, but at the border we were informed that the price was $50 per person, plus they needed a facilitation fee of 50 kwacha each.  I immediately demanded receipts, and so our progress ground to a halt.  Gary was called into the chief’s office and the door behind him was locked.  We had to produce yellow fever certificates, and pay 20 kwacha for another little Francophile to certify them.  Gary was eventually released, we were down on our dollars, but we were in the Congo. 

It is amazing how an arbitrary border can define a country.  The same red dirt, the same trees, but within 400m the whole world changed.  We were driving on the other side of a red dirt road that was ‘under construction’ with countless deviations.  It hammered our bikes, and rattled our kidneys, fesh-fesh flew, the bikes bottomed out, Debby and Gary were forced to ride standing two-up – an enviable skill.  The transit road across the DRC was only 85km long, but we got a real taste of the Congo, the sites, the smells, the dust, the hard knocks.  Our exit was proving to be as expensive as the entry and so I stood my ground and refused to pay anything.  This genuinely rattled them, I don’t think anyone has ever said “no” to them before!  It was a classic exchange in broken Frenglish:

Official:  “$30 for passport certification”

Me:  “No!”

Official:  “OK 30 Kwacha”

Me: “No! I will not pay you a cent”

Official: “But you must”

Me: “Give me an official receipt and I will pay it”

Official:  “There is no receipt, I just stamp”

Me: “I will not pay, I may not pay, you will not get your tea today”

Official, stamping the passports and shaking his head: “OK, then you must buy me Simba”

Me:  “What is Simba?”

Official:  “Beer, I am thirsty”

Me:  “Hahahahahaha, I’ve just inhaled half the dust in the Congo, I’m the one who is thirsty, how about you give me a beer?”

Amazingly enough we got our passports stamped, our bikes cleared, and didn’t part with a single extra dollar or kwacha, and everyone was in a good mood!  We ended up taking photos with the chief of immigration, and Pete has since been receiving twice daily text messages from the chief offering him special business deals, particularly in Uranium dealing.  I think Pete may be thinking about it…

In all my years of travelling around Africa and being in and out of police stations and border posts (for professional reasons only of course!!!) I have never seen such blatant corruption as those border posts in the DRC – the Dirty Rotten to the Core!  By contrast, the Zambians have been exemplary, we passed through countless police checkpoints and at every one the officials were polite and professional, and our biggest complaint is that they wanted to talk too much and ask about our journey.

The boys in Khaki

Its not all Makaa

We slipped back into Zambia far easier than my feet slip back into my boots to face a new day’s riding and headed up the road to Mansa where we arrived covered in Congo’s finest red dust.  A quick refuel and recce and we ascertained that we should move on as there was no where to stay.  We looked at the map, the time Gary and Debbie had left, and decided that we needed to head East towards Malawi rather than North to Lake Tanganyika and too many unknowns.  A good overnight stop looked to be Samfya – on Lake Benweulu that purportedly had a lovely camp site on its banks.  We plugged on the 100kms to get to the camp, and pulled into a sandy beach resort full of beer and brandy swilling, Toyota Vitz driving, boom-box thumping local yocals, throwing empty bottles of Mosi into the lake.  Just what we wanted for our chilled evening!!!! NOT…  So we went in search of something else and found the Kwacha Waterfront, a not-too-shabby little resort with reasonably clean beds. 

Room Party at the Kwacha Waterfront

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Yeah right!

The next day we opted for tarmac rather than more unknown dirt roads.  We gunned it and covered over 600km to end up in Matumbo, a dusty little town on the edge of nowhere.  We found some boys selling fuel out of jerry-cans and filled the bikes, and headed down a dirt-track towards the Luangwa Valley.  We were following the advice of Emmanuel – a local guy we met in Mpika – who advised us that our plans to ride the Munyamadzi Corridor between North and South Luangwa Parks would not work yet – as the water levels were still too high.  He had advised our route, and he clearly knew what he was talking about.  About 20km out of Matumbo as the sun was setting we came across a Catholic Mission, and they allowed us to set up camp there for the night.  Army ration packs, and a miraculous bottle of whiskey conjured up by Debbie meant our evening was fun filled and spirited.  But the night was far from tranquil, with a cacophony of crazy cockerels piercing our sleep from about 2am. 

At dawn we were packed and headed into the great unknown.  We had this crazy idea to cross the Luangwa Valley from West to East, with the Luangwa River in the middle.  Following Emmanuel’s advice we headed out along a near-perfect road surface, which will link Matumbo with Lunda and eventually with Chama in Eastern Zambia.  The road quickly petered out after Lundu and we started to descend into the Luangwa valley, over baby-head boulders, then ball bearings, as we descended the temperature rose, until we hit the sand…  The dreaded sand…  We’ve all fallen in sand so far this trip, with Gary doing himself a nasty about a week ago in deep sand in Botswana.  We hit the first section, Gary and Debbie were in the lead, and Debbie had opted to walk the section, and was filming us from the sidelines.  I came through at a pace, standing on the pegs and following Gun-It-Gary’s advice:  Stand up, Eyes up, Throttle up!  I nailed it, the bike was going sideways, but I controlled it and aced that section!!!!  Pete was behind me and came down in a tumble of sand and giggles.  Did Debbie capture my heroics on film???  NO!  She was way too busy filming Pleitz’s tumbles.  That set the scene for the day, Debbie filming us falling.  I came down twice in rapid succession, the first was at some speed, caught me unaware, but I tucked and rolled with perfection, doing a perfect somersault and landing on my feet.  The second was silly, and I hit the ground hard, breaking my hand-guard and denting my confidence. 

As we were getting our breath back we heard a car approaching, a Toyota Hilux with 500 litres of diesel in barrels on the back – we offloaded the Debster and figured that it would be better to get through the thick sand using the democratic standard of one-man-one-bike. Gary quickly disappeared over the horizon having been liberated of his passenger.  The pickup hadn’t gone 100m and it was stuck up to its diff in the deep sand.  We then spent an hour trying to dig it out, Debbie wandered off to look for Gary, and we all went nowhere slowly.  After a few failed attempts to get the pickup free, Pete and I headed on, picking Debbie up about 4km further down the road.  We eventually met up with Gary and finally found the river at the end of a narrow dusty track.  The journey to the river had taken us through territory that is not on any map, and the villagers that we saw down there had never seen anything like us before.

Section!!!!

Innocence

Did I mention the Tsetse flies?  Oscar Mike Golf!  They could bite right through a

Cordura motorcycle jacket.  In fact – one bit Pete right through the carbon fiber protection on his enduro gloves.  Incredible!

Pete was the first to survey the river crossing and came back shaking his head…  no way!  There is a steep bank down to the river and the boat is like a canoe!  Sure enough the steep sandy slope looked completely unmanageable for our large beasts.  But riding back along that road again was not option either…  What to do?  Just then another bike pulls up – a 125cc with a man called Rasta at the helm, he simply rides straight down the slope and two guys help him pick the bike up and put it in the boat.  Simple!  Hahahaha…  this gets our confidence up – we can do that too!!!!  So with the help of about 10 men from the local village we gingerly guided Pete’s bike down the bank, and lifted it rear wheel first into the boat.  Imagine the scene – 10 guys all trying to do it their way, a steep sandy bank, a fast flowing river, a boat that has almost no stability and a bike that weighs almost 200kg!  On it went, the boat wobbled, Pete went a bit green, but then they were off, the captain paddling his vessel across the might Luangwa, Pete astride his Tenere, and half the village crammed into the boat just for fun.  They made it across, off loaded, and the boat returned to repeat the action with the next bike.  Gary and I had been concentrating so much on Pete’s bike that we hadn’t noticed that another group of eager young men had already started manouvering Pavarrrrrotttti towards the river – clueless about where the brakes were, and ignorant of the weight of that beast, we only just managed to rescue it from a certain drowning in the nick of time!

Change you can believe in!

Eventually we had all the bikes and gear across, and were putting everything back on the bikes, the heat was unbearable, we all dipped our heads in the water, put our helmets back on and zoomed off to Chama – another village of nothing in the middle of nowhere – but they had cold coke – the nectar of the gods after a crossing like that!

Steady.....

Bikes on boats!

Chain wash

And then...

All across

We could find nowhere to stay in Chama, and so headed off to Lundazi – only 175km away – but the GPS said it would take us 4 hours…  The road to hell began, the sun quickly disappeared but we plodded on down a heavily corrugated and sandy road, with trucks storming towards you with only 1 headlight, and refusing to give any space on the road.  Incredible!!!  We had to make regular stops to get our breath, and during these cyclist would pass by – silent in the night.  We tried to talk to them but realized that they were Zambian Zombie cyclists, and without any sign of us being there, they pedalled on.

Eventually we arrived in Lundazi and the GPS guided us to the Castle Hotel – we drove up to the tune of the Rocky Horror Picture Show:  Its just a jump to the left…  Count Drapirre met us at the reception and informed us that there were no rooms for the night and directed us off to a grubby guest house across the road – no problems – it had hot water and a bed.  After 13 hours on a motorcycle through deepest, darkest Africa we didn’t care.  But they didn’t have food – and so we headed back to the Castle to find a bite.  On our walk over we discussed the strange place and figured it must be a brothel – what else could explain the strange ambiance? 

The beef stew and nshima was mediocre, but filling, and as we were wrapping up the football started – Gary and Debbie disappeared off to bed, leaving Pete and I to watch the Germans give the Brazillians a waxing!  The waiter informed us that we didn’t need to watch on the 12” screen in the restaurant, they had a big screen on the other side of the castle, and so he lead us through vast cavernous spaces and past genuine elephant tusks mounted in the archways and into a lounge filled with locals watching on a giant screen.  We joined them, drank Mosi and watched in astonishment as the Germans destroyed the host nation.   At 1am we stumbled to bed, wondering where we would be watching the finals.